C-Sides - one layer deeper than the B-Sides security conferences. I personally really find it funny and like it!
It's definitely going to be more low-key than what I've seen from the BSides Winnipeg crew (now The Long Con https://thelongcon.ca ) but I still expect it to be also a lot of fun, especially with the existing talks we've got lined up.
This is a very important aspect of the study. They did not do a true randomized survey as participants were self-selecting (online surveys have this inherently -- well, mostly).
It's not clear that this was or wasn't a self-selecting sample. The article does state that the surveying was conducted online:
In the research, more than 6,000 U.S. working adults over the age of 18 were surveyed online by independent research firm Edelman Intelligence between July 29 — August 24, 2016. Among them, 2,049 were freelancers and 3,953 were non-freelancers. The survey defined freelancers as individuals who have engaged in supplemental, temporary, project- or contract-based work within the past 12 months.
He/she would only have to pay 3.28 times his normal payment in order to pay it off in 1/5th of the time. It's paid off more quickly because by paying more, you reduce the amount of interest that accumulates.
On a $100k 20 year loan at at 5.7% (I know, example), interest paid would be around $67k (so total $167k). By paying 3.28 times more per month ($2300 per month versus the $700 normal rate), the interest paid ends up being only around $12k.
Manitoba Pharmacare exists for prescription plans and is income adjusted. Similar story in Ontario with the Trillium drug plan. I'm certain other provinces are similar.
People with true emergent cases are seen quickly. You may not, but it's probably because it's not an emergency.
This example is flawed. What is the max take home pay of someone on unemployment benefits in Belgium? In Canada under EI (employment insurance) it's about $500 per week (~$2000 CAD per month).
3-6 months of salary is not the measurement. You need an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses. That amount is easily achievable for someone who is a few years out of college which is generally someone who is young, no mortgage, and no dependents.
If someone wants to make the commitments of mortgages or dependents, then that's on them and they still need to have that 3-6 month emergency fund, except the amount will be higher because of the added responsibilities.
I've left some comments on the Disqus thread on the blog, but I'll reiterate my concern about the security of the cookie being set.
The cookie being set is unsigned according to the documentation[0] on rails, so a user could modify it and send it back to get a different cached response. Say that they saw that the user level was being set in there (like in the blog post) and they change the value to the 'staff' value to get the staff cached response. Probably not a good idea!
With that said, I don't think that this technique is adequate right now when you have user access level concerns and you're relying on that piece of unsigned information to not be tampered with.
It's definitely going to be more low-key than what I've seen from the BSides Winnipeg crew (now The Long Con https://thelongcon.ca ) but I still expect it to be also a lot of fun, especially with the existing talks we've got lined up.