August 2014 Summaries

In a piece of software designed for image compression, John Graham-Cumming discovered an effective use of interfaces in Go programming language. The Worker package runs jobs in goroutines and expects them to have a "Do" method. By defining a Job interface with the required methods, he was able to create a DummyJob that could be used for testing without needing to configure complex job types. This approach greatly simplified the unit test suite and demonstrated the power of interfaces in Go programming.

The text discusses how networks operate and the relative costs of internet connectivity in different parts of the world. It explains that the internet is a vast network made up of smaller networks, which can be connected directly or via an intermediary network known as a "transit provider". At the core of the internet are Tier 1 network providers, who all peer with one another and provide connectivity to every ISP around the world. The text also delves into how CloudFlare buys bandwidth from various transit providers and peering directly with other networks is typically free. It further compares regional differences in transit pricing and peering rates, concluding that Europe has the lowest effective price of bandwidth due to its high rate of peering and low transit costs.

The Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive credit card-sized computer, was designed with the aim of changing how people interact with computers and encouraging them to start playing with computers rather than just using them. It has sparked a renewed interest in computing fundamentals among hobbyists worldwide, leading to various innovative projects such as robots, sensors, and home security systems. One practical application is hosting websites on Raspberry Pi devices, which can be made secure and fast through the use of CloudFlare services. The Raspberry Pi community continues to grow and share resources, staying true to its mission of making computing more accessible and understandable for everyone.

The text announces that CloudFlare is seeking experienced Go programmers in San Francisco and London to join their team. They extensively use the Go programming language to build their services, including a complete DNS server and Railgun service. CloudFlare has also open-sourced some of its Go projects like Red October for securing secrets and CFSSL for PKI package. The company is moving more systems to Go programs and even has a dedicated section on GitHub for Go-specific projects. If interested in working with Go at CloudFlare, one can send an email; they are also hiring for other positions and technologies.

On August 18, 2014, Cloudflare introduced a new app called Tinfoil Security, which aims to identify web application vulnerabilities. While Cloudflare's security features focus on network-level protection, Tinfoil Security complements this by scanning for vulnerabilities at the application layer and providing detailed reports with step-by-step instructions on how to eliminate threats. The app offers various pricing plans, including a free option that checks for Cross-Site Scripting issues.

As of August 6th, 2014, only about 2 million websites supported HTTPS connections. Google announced that they would consider whether a site supports HTTPS in their ranking algorithm, incentivizing webmasters to add SSL to their sites. CloudFlare has made SSL available for all its customers, including free ones, by redesigning how certificates are loaded into memory and implementing "lazy loading" of SSL certificates on demand. This change is expected to more than double the number of websites supporting HTTPS on the internet.

Cloudflare now supports WebSockets, a protocol that enables real-time communication between web servers and clients. This feature was requested by many users and is initially being rolled out to Enterprise customers, with plans to extend support to all Business and Pro customers in the coming months. The adoption of WebSockets presents new challenges for Cloudflare's network stack due to its long-lived connections compared to traditional HTTP requests. To overcome these challenges, Cloudflare has made changes to its connection counts and port reuse settings, allowing more concurrent connections per server.