10 simple tips for making your home wifi network faster

Updated by Joseph Stromberg on December 31, 2014, 10:30 a.m. ET @josephstromberg joseph@vox.com

(Shutterstock.com)

  There's a good chance that you're reading this article over a wifi connection. And if you are, it's quite likely that from time to time, your wifi network doesn't perform as well as you'd like.

But there are some very simple steps you can take to make it better.

We often think of wifi networks as virtual, uniform fields that fill our living spaces. In fact, they're very physical signals that can be blocked or scattered by walls, other electronics, and even people.

For evidence of that fact, take a look at this wifi map that physics grad student Jason Cole made of his apartment:

(Jason Cole)

Clearly, where you put your router — and what's around it — make a big difference in the strength of your network. Here's how to set up your network most efficiently.

1) Put your router near the center of your house

 

A router sends out signals in all directions, so putting it in a corner of your house or apartment — or near a window — means that a significant amount of its signal is wasted.

You might only have a network connection in one spot, but long network cables can be pretty cheap, and moving your router can dramatically improve performance.

2) Lift your router up off the ground

 

 

(Scott Beale)

There are two reasons why it's not a ideal to have your router directly on the floor.

One is that the signals it broadcasts tend to fall slightly downward as they travel from its antenna.

Additionally, they can't easily penetrate some solid materials — metal, concrete, and cement — which may be present in your floors.

As a result, experts recommend having your router at least a few feet off the ground — perhaps on a table or bookshelf. This is also why you shouldn't put it in the basement, especially if you have a multi-story house and a concrete foundation.

3) Try to put your router in a room where you often use the internet

Regardless of where you put your router, the signal will be strongest in the room it's in. So ideally, you can put it in a spot that's relatively near the center of your house and a room in which you actually use wifi-connected devices.


 4) Keep your router out in the open
(Shutterstock.com)

Because the router's signal can be absorbed by many materials, you want to have it out in the open as much as possible. In other words, don't hide it away in a closet, or stick it in between a big piece of furniture and a wall.

Radio waves travel best through open air, so sight lines are a good clue here: if you can see the router from far away, and from many different angles, you're using it efficiently.

5) Keep the router away from other electronics

 

All sorts of electronic devices can interfere with your router's signal: microwaves, TVs, cordless phones — essentially, anything that generates an electromagnetic signal or has a motor. This is why sandwiching it between home entertainment components, beneath your TV, is not a good idea. In general, keep it away from other electronics.


Large metal objects (like mirrors or filing cabinets) and water (like, say, a fish tank) can also block the signal, and should be avoided.

6) Position the antennas vertically

 

(Shutterstock.com)

The router's signal spreads out in the direction perpendicular to that of the antennas. In other words, vertically-oriented antennas will broadcast the signal horizontally, covering more of your house. (On the other hand, if you were more concerned about broadcasting the signal to multiple floors, but a smaller area of each one, you could turn the antennas horizontally.)

7) Measure your signal strength

 

There are a number of apps — like Cloudcheck or Amped's Wi-Fi Analytics — that allow you to map your wifi signal throughout your house, and figure out where it's weak. This can give you some clues on how to better position your router.

8) Configure the router's software

 

In some cases, there are software tweaks you make to improve your wifi network.

To configure the software, you usually need to enter a specific IP address in your web browser (look on the bottom of the router or just search for your router's brand name to figure out what that is). Once you're in the settings, there are two useful things you can try.

One is changing the channel that the router operates on. This is less of an issue for newer routers, but older ones can often cause interference with each other (especially in crowded urban areas with lots of networks), and changing the frequency channel is a way to solve it. These older routers operate at 14 different frequencies — numbered 1 through 14 — and channels 1, 6, and 11 are generally best, because they overlap the least with other channels, causing less interference. The default is usually channel 6, and if you're having signal problems, try each of them.

Another option is upgrading the router's software (which is actually called firmware). This won't be possible for all routers, but for some older ones, manufacturers put out free firmware upgrades from time to time, and these can improve performance. Search for your router model to see if there's one out there for you.

9) Check to see if your internet service provider is the problem

 

A simple way of confirming that your router is the problem — and not your actual internet provider — is running a speed test under two conditions: over the wifi, and with your computer plugged directly into the router via an ethernet cord.


If they're both slow, then talking to your ISP or upgrading your plan might help. If the wifi speed test is much slower, then your router itself is likely the problem.

10) If all else fails, buy new equipment

 

If you're still experiencing network problems that weren't solved by any of these free fixes, upgrading to a new router can make a huge difference, as the technology used to broadcast signals has changed a lot over the years. The Wirecutter has a great buying guide for routers.


You might also try upgrading your current router with a more powerful antenna, though only some routers will let you do this. Finally, to extend your router's range, you can buy a repeater — a device that picks up your current network and broadcasts it again. It won't increase your total bandwidth at all, but will spread your network more widely.

Bad, bad Internet news: Internet Systems Consortium site hacked

Summary:The ISC site, home to the world's most popular Domain Name System program BIND, appears to have been infected with malware.

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Networking | December 28, 2014 -- 03:29 GMT (19:29 PST)

Remember how just last week I told all you dedicated system and network administrators that you weren't going to be starting your holiday weekend early because of a serious NTP security hole? Well, turn your car around and head back to the server room. The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has taken the site down for maintenance because they "believe we may be infected with malware."

ISC, the home for the BIND DNS program, was infected with malware. Time to take a long, hard look at your BIND-based DNS servers. O'Reilly Media

Oh boy.

 

OK, so those of you are battle-hardened network and sysadmins already know why this is bad news and you're already logging in via ssh to your Domain Name System (DNS) servers. For the rest of you, here is why this could be really, really bad news.

ISC is the group behind the open-source Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) program. BIND is arguably the most popular DNS software on the planet. It is certainly the most used DNS program on the Unix and Linux systems that make up most of the Internet's fundamental infrastructure.

DNS is the master address list of the Internet. It's what translates every human-readable Internet address in the world, say http://www.google.com, into its IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. These numeric addresses are then used by routers and switches to move data from your computer, smartphone, tablet, whatever, to your Web sites, your e-mail server, and back again.

In other words, it's really important. Without DNS, there is no functional Internet.

If the BIND code itself has been corrupted, and you've updated your DNS BIND server with the code, you could be in for a world of hurt. Your site might now have a security hole on it. It's also all too possible that it could be used for a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
 
Adding insult to injury, ISC runs the F DNS root server. This is one of the 13 root servers that the Internet relies upon for global DNS services.

Before you start hyperventilating, it may not be that bad.

Cyphort, an Internet security company, reported that they'd told ISC that their site had malware on it on December 22. ISC's main site, which used an out of date version of WordPress, had, according to Cyphort had been compromised to point visitors to the sites infected with Angler Exploit Kit. Fortunately, for the Internet, if not Windows users, Angler is a Windows specific malware package.

On the other hand, while ISC's DNS code and DNS servers are on separate servers from the front-end WordPress driven site, where there's' been one security compromise there might have been have been other, more critical ones.

For now, there are no such reports on the BIND announcement or BIND-user mailing lists. On the static page that now greets you on the ISC site, ISC recommends that anyone who's visited the site recently "scan any machine that has accessed this site recently for malware."

In a separate issue, on December 9th, Carnegie Mellon University's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) has reported that there is a new DNS exploit by which recursive DNS resolvers can be knocked out of service by an infinite chain of referrals if provoked a malicious DNS authoritative server. At this time, December 26, ISC hasn't fixed BIND for this potential problem. Other major DNS software providers, including Microsoft, NLnet, and PowerDNS haven't fixed this bug either. There have been no reports to date of this hole being exploited.

So, it looks like the chances are that ISC's problem is limited to Windows PC malware and it hasn't effected BIND or ISC's DNS site. But, do you really want to take that chance?

I didn't think so. Start checking your sites for malware now and looking at your DNS logs for suspicious activity. That's what I'm doing now. Lucky us.

Topics: Security, Networking

About Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system; 300bps was a fast Internet connection; WordStar was the state of the art word processor; and we liked it.His work has been published in everything from highly technical publications...

Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 4:10pm EST

We Spoke To A North Korean Defector Who Trained With Its Hackers — What He Said Is Pretty Scary

By Eugene Kim  12/24/2014

REUTERS/Adam Dean A North Korean soldier looks out from a boat at the bank of the Yalu River at the North Korean town of Sinuiju, October 13, 2006.

Whether North Korea was responsible for the Sony hack or not, the consensus is that North Korea has some of the best hackers in the world.

There have been some reports recently about North Korea’s special cyber warfare unit, known as Bureau 121. The North Korean government has made grooming its “cyber warriors” a top priority for decades, and has given first class treatment to its hackers.

Jang Se-yul, a North Korean defector who now leads an organization called North Korea People’s Liberation Front in Seoul, could have been one of them. 

Before defecting to South Korea in 2007, Jang went to Mirim University, the country’s top engineering college, which is now called the University of Automation. Although he wasn’t a hacker — his major was War Game Strategy, focused on cyber warfare simulations — Jang took classes with the hackers that are now in Bureau 121. After graduation, Jang worked at North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance, the intelligence agency that Bureau 121 is a part of. He says he still keeps in touch with some of those hackers.

Business Insider had a chance to speak with Jang and hear more about the inner workings of North Korea’s elite hacking force. Here’s what he told us:

How they’re trained: Mirim University produces most of the hackers that get placed in Bureau 121. It’s a highly competitive program, with each class accepting only about 100 students out of 5,000 applicants. They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. Jang says a lot of time was spent dissecting Microsoft programs, like the Windows operating system, and how to attack the overall computer IT systems of enemy countries like the US or South Korea. 

But the core principle is to develop its own hacking programs and computer viruses without having to rely on programs already built in the outside world. Jang says he believes North Korean hackers are as good as the top programmers at Google or CIA, if not already better. “Especially in terms of coding, I’m confident they’re better because they’ve invested in it for so long,” he says.

What it’s like to work for Bureau 121: They’re all very sophisticated professional hackers, with almost nine years of intense training by the time they get hired. They’re split into different focus groups based on countries to attack, like the US, South Korea, and Japan. Once they’re placed in their respective groups, they spend nearly two years traveling to their assigned country, learning the language and culture. The ability to travel outside of North Korea and make US dollars is part of the reason so many North Koreans want this job. Jang estimates there are about 1,800 cyber warriors in Bureau 121.

Their living conditions are much better than most North Koreans': they receive high salaries, a free apartment over 2,000 sq ft in downtown Pyongyang, and their family can move to Pyongyang as well, which is a big privilege. They’re among the top 1% who are happy with their lives in North Korea. In fact, with free access to the internet, these hackers are all aware of what’s going on in the outside world and how reclusive their country is — but they still won’t leave their country. “No matter how hard you try to convince them, they won’t leave — even if you offered them a job at the Blue House (the official residence of the South Korean president),” Jang says.

KCNA

The ultimate goal: North Korea realizes they have no chance fighting their enemies in conventional warfare. But in cyber space, they can create chaos with relatively few resources. It’s why the North Korean government has spent so much effort in this area since the 1980s. They call it the “Secret War.” Jang says the ultimate goal is to attack the central IT infrastructure of enemy countries, primarily the government, and steal as much information as possible while also causing social pandemonium. 

According to Jang, the North Korean hackers say attacking South Korean government servers is like “swimming while touching the ground.” Although he wouldn’t be able to say for sure how advanced their skills are, Jang says the hackers could probably “easily” crack into company servers, too. 

He also said he’s “absolutely sure” North Korea is behind the Sony hacks. The fact that people are still skeptical of North Korea’s involvement is the very reason North Korea is so focused on cyber attacks: they can cause massive confusion without being definitively fingered. 

The bigger problem is this is only going to get worse. “The US is definitely not in a safety zone. North Korea’s prepared for this for over 20 years. The U.S. shouldn’t take them lightly,” he said.

Secret Service needs to beef up IT security: report

 12/22/2014

The service, which has faced withering criticism after several security lapses including a White House breach in September, "refused to comply with mandated computer security policies," according to the report by the DHS inspector general.

The review also said DHS agencies were not doing enough to protect computer systems from such high-risk bugs as Heartbleed, which allowed hackers to spy on computers but not take control of them.

The report said FEMA and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service still use the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, which may be vulnerable to hackers and that Microsoft stopped providing software updates for in April.

"DHS has worked to improve and secure its vast IT resources," said Inspector General John Roth. "But those improvements can only be effective if component agencies fully adhere to the rules and DHS management vigorously enforces compliance.

"Failure to do so will pose a serious threat to DHS and its Homeland Security missions.”

The inspector general's office said the Secret Service has agreed to begin providing the required data to the DHS chief information officer. It made six recommendations to improve security, which the department accepted.

Homeland Security combined 22 different federal departments and agencies into one when it was established in 2002.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Hay)

‘Today’ Show Boots Amy Adams – Just Because She Didn’t Want To Discuss Sony Hacking

By Mike Fleming Jr 12/22/2014

UPDATE: Still awaiting word from NBC, but I got a statement on this matter from The Weinstein Company. Here goes: “We firmly stand behind Amy Adams. We’ve been lucky enough to have had her talents grace several of our films. We are certain her fellow actors and directors would all agree, she is nothing but the consummate professional both on and off set. Amy decided to speak up for herself and express her disappointment that Today would feel the need to ask her a question she did not feel comfortable , and rather than respect her opinion or continue the discussion, the reaction was to pull her appearance from the show.”

EXCLUSIVE: The Sony Pictures cyber terror attack has made everybody punchy. Amy Adams is in New York to promote the Tim Burton-directed Big Eyes, and after hosting Saturday Night Live, she stayed to do an interview segment on Today. I’m told that the attempt ended with the show pulling the segment, and left the Big Eyes star feeling sad-eyed by the way she was manhandled. All because she wasn’t comfortable answering questions about a Sony Pictures hack attack that had nothing to do with her.

I’m told that Adams stayed in New York an extra day to do the Today booking, but just before, her team was told she would be asked about the Sony attack. She came to the set, and again a producer told her she would be asked. She replied that she would prefer to avoid the subject, given this was a four-minute interview. But she was told that Today is a news organization — something that was said as they engaged in a segment about dog grooming in which a hound was having its teeth brushed — and she was told no one dictates their interviews. Meanwhile, Today had done a previously taped segment with American Sniper‘s Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood, and didn’t ask them — even though Cooper starred with Adams (both got Oscar noms) in the Sony-distributed American Hustle.

Adams didn’t refuse to answer the question and she didn’t balk, I’m told. Prepared to explain away a scandal she played no role in, Adam was seen live in the orange room, just before she was to be interviewed. But the show bounced her, pulling her segment and completely wasting her time.

Adams doesn’t have a diva rep, but it sounds like the show treated her much the way that Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz) did her character Margaret Keane in Big Eyes. Which, she might have gotten to mention had the Today crew been a little nicer, opens Christmas Day through The Weinstein Company. Now they are spinning it to the Daily News that Adams was at fault and behaved like some kind of hellcat, but it sounds to me like it was the Today gang that behaved boorishly. Hard to imagine they would have treated Angelina Jolie that way, but then again her film that goes up against Big Eyes, Unbroken, is backed by Today‘s sister movie company at NBCUniversal.

Awaiting comment from both NBC and the Weinstein Co.

20 December 2014 Last updated at 19:22 ET

Why do mornings still get darker after the winter solstice?

Today is the shortest day of the year, so it should follow that mornings will start getting brighter from now on, shouldn't it? Not necessarily, writes Kris Griffiths.

This Sunday, 21 December, the northern hemisphere will experience the shortest day of its year, marked at 23:03 GMT by an astronomical phenomenon known as the winter solstice - the moment the North Pole is tilted furthest from the sun as the Earth continues on its orbit.

The solstice doesn't always occur on 21 December. Sometimes it nudges into the early hours of 22 December, which will happen again next year. The hour of day also varies. Last year's arrived at 17:11. Next year's will at 04:38.

Whatever day or time it happens, for many commuters it means leaving the house and returning from work in darkness, in the knowledge that from here on in the long nights will get shorter, with the sun rising earlier and setting later as we journey again towards the spring equinox.

However, the more astute of these early risers might have perceived a curious development, which may have passed by the more bleary-eyed unnoticed.

It would seem logical that after the shortest day has elapsed the mornings would start getting lighter earlier, but this isn't what happens - the mornings continue darkening until early in the new year.
Sunrise and sunset in London
 

Day	Sunrise	Sunset	Day length
(All times GMT)
11 December 2014	07:56	15:51	7:55:37
21 December 2014	08:04	15:53	7:49:45
31 December 2014	08:06	16:01	7:54:39
31 January 2015	07:41	16:48	9:06:42

Meanwhile, those who thought that the winter solstice would mark the earliest sunset would also be wrong as the earliest sunset arrives a couple of weeks earlier.

In the southern hemisphere, it's exactly the opposite story. In Sydney, Australia, for example, mornings will start getting darker from the middle of December, while the evenings will continue to get lighter until early January.

So what is behind this peculiarity, which appears to fly in the face of received wisdom about the solstice - surely the shortest day should experience the latest sunrise and earliest sunset?

Well, the primary reason behind it all is that a day - a solar day to be precise - is not always exactly 24 hours.

"In fact, it is 24 hours only four times a year, and never in December," explains astronomer Stephen Hurley, who runs a popular science blog called The Science Geek. "It is at its shortest around 23 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds, in early September, and at its longest around 24 hours 30 seconds in December."

There are two reasons why the length of the solar day varies, the first being the fact that the axis of the Earth's rotation is tilted - 23.5 degrees from vertical - and second, the Earth's speed varies because it moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun, accelerating when it is closer to the star's gravitational pull and decelerating when it is further away.

The sun therefore in effect lags behind the clock for part of the year, then speeds ahead of it for another.
"As you can imagine, it would be complete chaos if our clocks and watches had to cope with days of different lengths," continues Hurley. "So we use 24 hours, the average over the whole year, for all timekeeping purposes.

"So, as the solar days in December are on average 24 hours and 30 seconds, while our clocks and watches are still assuming that each day is exactly 24 hours, this causes the day to shift about 30 seconds later each day."

This cumulative shifting explains why the evenings draw in towards their earliest sunset a couple of weeks before the shortest day, and why the mornings continue to get darker until a couple of weeks after.

Druids mark winter solstice at Stonehenge

 

For those still unclear, it might help to immerse deeper into the history of timekeeping a lot closer to home, with the help of Professor Ian Morison of Gresham College, author of the recently published A Journey through the Universe.

He explains in his work how for centuries the time was linked directly to the sun's passage across the sky, the time standard being called "local solar time", as indicated on a sundial. The time would thus vary across the UK, as noon is later in the west.

"It's surprising the difference this makes," comments Morison. "In total, the UK stretches 9.55 degrees in longitude from Lowestoft in the east to Magheraboy in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, in the west. As 15 degrees is equivalent to one hour, this is a time difference of just over 38 minutes."

As railways progressed across Britain in the 19th Century, this difference became impractical and so London time was applied across the whole of the country. As mechanical clocks also evolved to become highly accurate, 24 hours - as measured by the most accurate - was defined to be the average length of the day over one year. This standard became known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Timepieces in the Magazine

 

The adoption of GMT has the consequence, however, that throughout the year our clocks fall in and out of synch with the sun, thanks to Earth's elliptical orbit. This difference between GMT and solar time is called "the equation of time" by astronomers. It was first calculated in 1673 by British astronomer John Flamsteed, founder of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

"The result is that no matter what people think, the sun is not always due south at noon - even in London," continues Morison. "It can be up to around 15 minutes ahead or behind, as measured by a clock giving GMT.

"This has an interesting effect around the winter solstice. Though the shortest day is on or close to 21 December, the earliest sunset is around 10 December and the latest sunrise does not occur until 2 January, so at Christmas the mornings are still getting darker whilst the evenings are getting appreciably lighter - an effect noted by many people, but maybe not really understood."

Winter sunset at Glen Shee

 

So there you have it, hopefully. December's days are never 24 hours, with the snowballing effect that - if you're working over the festive period - your morning commute isn't going to brighten up until after New Year's Day, which - if you haven't noticed previously - you probably will now.

And if that doesn't fill you with much cheer, just remember that as of Monday morning summer will officially be on the way.

5 Aluminum Foil Uses You Never Thought Of

Bob VilaDecember 15, 2014

—Jennifer Noonan

Cooks know the value of aluminum foil, particularly around the holidays, when it plays a role in everything from roasting vegetables to storing leftovers. For something so unabashedly simple, aluminum foil has a surprising number of uses—not only in the kitchen, but in other rooms as well (and even outdoors). Scroll down to see five ways this versatile pantry staple can help you take on the household challenges faced not only this time of year, but in all seasons.

1. SCRUB POTS

Cooking is fun; cleaning isn’t. If your meal preparation has left a pot, pan, or casserole dish with a layer of stubborn gunk along its bottom, try this time- and sanity-saving trick: Crumple a sheet of aluminum foil into a crunchy ball, then use it as you would a piece of steel wool. The final step? Do a happy dance.

  

2. PROTECT TREES

Many tree species, fruit trees most of all, are subject to a particular nuisance: mice, rabbits, and other creatures eating the tree trunks’ lower bark. If unchecked, those hungry garden pests can seriously compromise a tree’s overall health. Put an end to the problem by wrapping the trunk with a double layer of aluminum foil.

3. MAKE A FUNNEL 

There aren’t many times when I think, “Gosh, I wish I had a funnel!” But on those rare occasions when I realize that what I’m doing would be so much easier with a funnel, I chastise myself for not owning one. Then I remember that you can always make your own, quickly and easily, using a sheet of aluminum foil.

4. CLEAN IRON 

Your clothing iron doesn’t need to be cleaned with the consistency of, say, the bathroom sink. But there are times when starchy buildup can actually subvert the appliance’s proper operation. When that happens, run the hot iron over a piece of aluminum foil. The starch transfers to the foil, and the iron comes out clean.

5. POLISH SILVER 

To polish silver using items you have on hand, follow these steps. First, line a pan with aluminum foil. Next, add one tablespoon of baking soda and one tablespoon of salt. Slowly pour in a half-cup of vinegar, then add one cup of boiling water. Finally, put your tarnished silver into the mixture, letting it sit for just 30 seconds. Pull the silver out with tongs (remember, it’s hot), buff it to a shine using a soft cloth, and suddenly—presto, you’re ready for dinner!

Now There's A Torrent Network That Could Be Impossible For Police To Shut Down

By James Cook December 19, 2014 1:44 PM

The Walt Disney Company

Researchers from Delft University of Technology have unveiled a new torrent client that they claim is "impossible to shut down," TorrentFreak reports.

BitTorrent is the internet file-sharing technology that virtually all illegal file-sharing sites use to let people download stolen movies and music. It works by distributing the download of a file between lots of computers, meaning that no single server hosts all of the content.

The way BitTorrent works at the moment might sound like the perfect way to shares files online, but it's actually vulnerable to police raids and and websites being seized. There are two parts to downloading a torrent file: Browsing a torrent site to find what you want, and then using a torrent client to download the file. If a torrent site goes down, then no matter how distributed the download network is, people are still going to have problems downloading content.

On December 9, The Pirate Bay was taken offline after a police raid in Stockholm. Despite being one of the biggest file-sharing sites on the internet, it was still vulnerable to something as simple as a police raid on the location where it hosts part of its servers.

As TorrentFreak reports, university researchers have developed a new kind of torrent client that is, in theory, impossible to take offline. Tribler, as it's called, is a torrent client, a program used to download files. But what's different about it is that it doesn't need to connect to a website to search for files: It all takes place within the program.

Tribler

Another reason why Tribler is more secure than normal torrent sites is that it uses an anonymous network, similar to Tor, to mask its users' real identities. When you use a standard torrent client, your IP address (the number tied to your real-life location) is shown publicly. But Tribler uses onion routing, meaning it wraps data with multiple layers of encryption.

Dr. Pouwelse, one of the researchers who developed the program, praised Tribler as "an attack-resilient and censorship-resilient infrastructure for publishing." Interestingly, he also claimed that Tribler saw a 30% increase in users after the Pirate Bay was shut down.

40 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Dumb

By Jeff Haden | Entrepreneur – Wed, Dec 17, 2014 2:59 PM EST

LinkedIn Influencer, Jeff Haden, published this post originally  on LinkedIn. 

While I like to think I know a little about business writing, I still fall into a few word traps. (Not to mention a few cliché traps.)

Take the words "who" and "whom." I rarely use "whom" when I should -- even when spell check suggests "whom" I think it sounds pretentious. So I use "who."
And then I sound dumb.

Just like one misspelled word can get your resume tossed onto the "nope" pile, one incorrectly used word can negatively impact your entire message. Fairly or unfairly, it happens -- so let's make sure it doesn't happen to you.

Adverse and averse

Adverse means harmful or unfavorable: "Adverse market conditions caused the IPO to be poorly subscribed." Averse refers to feelings of dislike or opposition: "I was averse to paying $18 a share for a company that generates no revenue."
But hey, feel free to have an aversion to adverse conditions.

Affect and effect

Verbs first. Affect means to influence: "Impatient investors affected our roll-out date." Effect means to accomplish something: "The board effected a sweeping policy change."

How you use effect or affect can be tricky. For example, a board can affect changes by influencing them and can effect changes by directly implementing them. Bottom line, use effect if you're making it happen, and affect if you're having an impact on something that someone else is trying to make happen.

As for nouns, effect is almost always correct: "Once he was fired he was given 20 minutes to gather his personal effects." Affect refers to an emotional state, so unless you're a psychologist you probably have little reason to use it.

 Bring and take

Both have to do with objects you move or carry. The difference is in the point of reference: you bring things here and you take them there. You ask people to bring something to you, and you ask people to take something to someone or somewhere else.

“Can you bring an appetizer to John's party”? Nope.

 Compliment and complement

Compliment means to say something nice. Complement means to add to, enhance, improve, complete, or bring close to perfection.

I can compliment your staff and their service, but if you have no current openings you have a full complement of staff. Or your new app may complement your website.
For which I may decide to compliment you.

Criteria and criterion

"We made the decision based on one overriding criteria," sounds fairly impressive but is also wrong.
Remember: one criterion, two or more criteria. Or just use "reason" or "factors" and you won’t have to worry about getting it wrong.

Discreet and discrete

Discreet means careful, cautious, showing good judgment: "We made discreet inquiries to determine whether the founder was interested in selling her company."

Discrete means individual, separate, or distinct: "We analyzed data from a number of discrete market segments to determine overall pricing levels." And if you get confused, remember you don't use “discretion” to work through sensitive issues; you exercise discretion.

Elicit and illicit

Elicit means to draw out or coax. Think of elicit as the mildest form of extract. If one lucky survey respondent will win a trip to the Bahamas, the prize is designed to elicit responses.

Illicit means illegal or unlawful, and while I suppose you could elicit a response at gunpoint ... you probably shouldn't.

Farther and further

Farther involves a physical distance: "Florida is farther from New York than Tennessee." Further involves a figurative distance: "We can take our business plan no further."

So, as we say in the South (and that "we" has included me), "I don't trust you any farther than I can throw you," or, "I ain't gonna trust you no further."

Fewer and less

Use fewer when referring to items you can count, like “fewer hours” or “fewer dollars.”

Use “less” when referring to items you can’t (or haven’t tried to) count, like “less time” or “less money.”

 Imply and infer

The speaker or writer implies, which means to suggest. The listener or reader infers, which means to deduce, whether correctly or not.

So I might imply you're going to receive a raise. And you might infer that a pay increase is imminent. (But not eminent, unless the raise will somehow be prominent and distinguished.)

Insure and ensure

This one's easy. Insure refers to insurance. Ensure means to make sure.

So if you promise an order will ship on time, ensure that it actually happens. Unless, of course, you plan to arrange for compensation if the package is damaged or lost -- then feel free to insure away.

(While there are exceptions where insure is used, the safe move is to use ensure when you will do everything possible to make sure something happens.)

Irregardless and regardless

Irregardless appears in some dictionaries because it's widely used to mean “without regard to” or “without respect to”... which is also what regardless means.


In theory the ir-, which typically means "not," joined up with regardless, which means "without regard to," makes irregardless mean "not without regard to," or more simply, "with regard to."

Which probably makes it a word that does not mean what you think it means.

So save yourself a syllable and just say regardless.

Number and amount

I goof these up all the time. Use number when you can count what you refer to: "The number of subscribers who opted out increased last month." Amount refers to a quantity of something that can't be counted: "The amount of alcohol consumed at our last company picnic was staggering."

Of course it can still be confusing: "I can't believe the number of beers I drank," is correct, but so is, "I can't believe the amount of beer I drank." The difference is you can count beers, but beer, especially if you were way too drunk to keep track, is an uncountable total and makes amount the correct usage.

Precede and proceed

Precede means to come before. Proceed means to begin or continue. Where it gets confusing is when an -ing comes into play. "The proceeding announcement was brought to you by..." sounds fine, but preceding is correct since the announcement came before.

If it helps, think precedence: anything that takes precedence is more important and therefore comes first.

Principal and principle

A principle is a fundamental: "Our culture is based on a set of shared principles." Principal means primary or of first importance: "Our startup's principal is located in NYC." (Sometimes you'll also see the plural, principals, used to refer to executives or relatively co-equals at the top of a particular food chain.)

Principal can also refer to the most important item in a particular set: "Our principal account makes up 60% of our gross revenues."

Principal can also refer to money, normally a sum that was borrowed, but can be extended to refer to the amount you owe -- hence principal and interest.

If you're referring to laws, rules, guidelines, ethics, etc., use principle. If you're referring to the CEO or the president (or an individual in charge of a high school), use principal.

Slander and libel

Don't like what people say about you? Like slander, libel refers to making a false statement that is harmful to a person's reputation.

The difference lies in how that statement is expressed. Slanderous remarks are spoken while libelous remarks are written and published (which means defamatory tweets could be considered libelous, not slanderous).

Keep in mind what makes a statement libelous or slanderous is its inaccuracy, not its harshness. No matter how nasty a tweet, as long as it's factually correct it cannot be libelous. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation; you might wish a customer hadn't said something derogatory about your business... but if what that customer said is true then you have no legal recourse.

And now for those dreaded apostrophes:

It's and its

It's is the contraction of it is. That means it's doesn't own anything. If your dog is neutered (the way we make a dog, however much against his or her will, gender neutral), you don't say, "It's collar is blue." You say, "Its collar is blue."

Here's an easy test to apply. Whenever you use an apostrophe, un-contract the word to see how it sounds. Turn it's into it is: "It's sunny," becomes, "It is sunny."
Sounds good to me.

They're and their

Same with these: They're is the contraction for they are. Again, the apostrophe doesn't own anything. We're going to their house, and I sure hope they're home.

Who's and whose

"Whose password hasn't been changed in six months?" is correct. Use the non-contracted version of who’s, like, "Who is (the non-contracted version of who's) password hasn't been changed in six months?" and you sound a little silly.

You're and your

One more. You're is the contraction of you are. Your means you own it; the apostrophe in you're doesn't own anything.

For a long time a local nonprofit displayed a huge sign that said, "You're Community Place."
Hmm. "You Are Community Place"? No, probably not.

4 Starbucks Policies That Drive Customers Crazy

By Hayley Peterson December 19, 2014 

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Flickr/Ally Mauro

Starbucks has several policies that both baristas and customers consistently misunderstand, which almost always ends with an unhappy patron. 

Seattle attorney Melody Overton identifies the four most confusing policies on her blog, StarbucksMelody.com.

1. The refill policy. Starbucks offers unlimited free refills — no matter what your original drink order was — as long as you're inside the store and you're a Starbucks Rewards member at the Green and Gold levels.

"Once you leave the store, it is NOT a refill," Overton explains. " However, the only items that can be offered to you at the refill price [ie. free] are as follows: Iced Coffee, Brewed Coffee (such as the coffee of the day, such as Pike Place Roast – not a Clover-brewed coffee), Iced Tea, and hot tea."  The hot tea refill comes with an extra tea bag. 

2. Charges for soy milk: Starbucks caused an uproar a couple years ago when it began charging customers extra for soy milk.

Despite the rule change, Overton says, "If you are adding soy milk to your coffee as a creamer, and using less than four ounces, the customer should not be charged. Yet somehow that does cause confusion at the registers too."

3. The camera policy: Starbucks customers are free to snap as many photos as they want inside stores. But they should ask for permission before featuring baristas in their photos. This policy has not always been understood by Starbucks workers, or "partners," as they are called within the company. 

4. The personal cup discount. Starbucks offers a 10-cent discount to customers who bring their own mug or tumbler to the store. 

"Sometimes customers get mad when they don’t get it for using a for-here Starbucks store mug," Overton writes. "Sorry, the policy doesn’t allow for a discount for using the Starbucks store for-here ware."

The Feds Want to Replace Your Driver’s License with a National ID Card

December 15, 2014 at 10:20 am by Benjamin Preston | Illustration by Darcy Muenchrath

From the January 2015 issue of Car and Driver

If you live in Arizona, Louisiana, New York, or one of more than a dozen other states, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has bad news for you. Come January 19, your driver’s license will no longer allow you access to certain federal facilities. Unless DHS changes its mind. Again.


In 2005, Congress passed a bill called the Real ID Act, based upon recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. Whether or not you’ve heard of the law depends largely upon how in tune you are with conspiracy theories. Where you live matters, too, because nearly a decade after the law’s passage, only 19 states actually comply with its standards.

Real ID’s stated intent is to ensure that all jurisdictions issuing driver’s licenses and other identification meet federal stand­ards, “which should inhibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.” Basically, the government is upping the ante on what it will accept as valid forms of ID at federal facilities, nuclear power plants, and—here’s the biggie—federally regulated airline flights (i.e., most of them).

Opponents fear that Real ID will lead to a national identity card like those issued by “totalitarian” governments and that its requirement that states share data from their department of motor vehicle databases is an invasion of privacy. Others object because Congress didn’t offer financial backing to help states implement Real ID. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contends that the program wastes state resources while doing little to combat terrorism, calling it a “bureaucratic nightmare.”

For its part, Homeland Security promises that Real ID will leave states with control over the look and administration of driver’s licenses, and, more important, over the information they collect to issue them. “There is no federal database of driver information,” the agency says on its website, although the ACLU contends that the law says otherwise. What does non-compliance mean for residents of those states? Most states have been granted extensions, although many have passed legislation that amounts to a promise not to comply.

For most Americans, that flight restriction is the big worry. But DHS says that any state driver’s license will be accepted as a valid ID at airports until at least 2016. And after that, passports and other federal IDs will work. The ACLU doesn’t put much stock in DHS deadlines either way, including the latest one. “We know how it’s going to play out because it’s played out three times already,” says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU. “They give a deadline, the deadline goes, and then they give an extension. The states know that DHS isn’t going to keep all the residents from non–Real ID states from boarding airplanes.” Which means that those refusing to play along might just achieve the goal of dooming Real ID to failure.