25 unusual things you can clean in the dishwasher – CNET

If your dishwasher is just cleaning dishes, then it isn’t living up to its potential. There are many things you can safely wash in a dishwasher.

Any of these listed items can go through a “normal” wash cycle, unless otherwise noted.

And, of course, use common sense when cleaning nonconventional items in the dishwasher — if you plan to clean an item on this list, inspect it for any plastic components that might not withstand the heat of a normal wash cycle.

Silicone oven mitts and trivets: Stick them in every time you do a load to keep them germ-free.

Hubcaps: Yep, that’s right. Just add a cup of white vinegar to the detergent you normally use.

Figurines: Get the dust off of figurines by putting them on the top shelf of the dishwasher on a gentle cycle. Don’t put delicate or gilded figurines in the dishwasher, though.

Tools: Wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers tend to get a sticky, greasy feel to them. Put them in the dishwasher on the hottest cycle with your normal detergent.

Toys: Putting toys in the dishwasher will not only de-goo them, it will also sanitize them.

Flip-flops: Put them on the top shelf for the best results.

Rubber boots: Put them upside down on the bottom rack to remove grime. Just make sure to wipe off any large areas of mud first.

Hairbrushes: Remove the hair from the brush by running a wide-tooth comb through it and put the hairbrush in the silverware cup.

Combs: Throw your heat-safe combs in the silverware cup, too.

Makeupbrushes: Clean these on a low setting, so as not to melt the glue that holds the brush hairs together.

Ball caps: To help keep the cap’s shape, put it on a coffee can before sticking it in the dishwasher. Also, make sure your dishwashing detergent doesn’t have bleach in it before you start the load.

Kitchen brushes and sponges: Pop these in the silverware cup for a like-new clean.

Light fixture covers: There’s no reason why you need to dust. Just pop them off and put them in the dishwasher on a gentle cycle.

Coffee maker: Turn the coffee maker upside down and use a gentle cycle. Make sure it dries completely before you plug it back in.

Golf balls: Put your golf balls in a mesh sack and put them on the bottom shelf.

Contact lens cases: Put them in the silverware bin to sanitize them at least every month or so.

Dog toys: Most dog toys are top-rack only.

Mouth guards: Keep your athlete healthy by sanitizing his mouth guard every day on the top shelf of the dishwasher.

Grill rack: Make sure you use your hottest setting to get off the grime.

Dog collar: Put it on the top shelf to get it looking like new.

Keys: If your baby likes to stick your keys in her mouth, slide the keyring around one of the pegs in the top rack and run a load to kill germs before they make their way into baby’s mouth. Just make sure to take the electronic keys off the ring first.

Shower puff: Your shower puff can get gross if it isn’t cleaned regularly. Put it on the top rack during a gentle cycle.

Hair ties: If your elastics are getting a little grungy, pop them in the bottom of your silverware cup and hold them down with a spoon so they don’t fly out during the wash cycle.

Fingernail clippers: Fingernail clippers can be washed in the silverware cup. Just make get them good and dry to prevent rust.

Hair trimmer guards: The plastic guards for your electric hair trimmer can be put in a mesh bag and thrown in the top rack to remove bits of hair and oils for the scalp.

That massive internet outage, explained – CNET

A map of the internet outage as it affected website access in the US at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday.

Screenshot by Laura Hautala/CNET

If you’ve never heard of a DDoS attack before, you could be forgiven for wondering what the frak was going on Friday as half your favorite websites stopped working.

The acronym stands for “distributed denial of service attack,” which is technical speak for a simple but increasingly powerful tool for knocking websites offline. Until recently, DDoS attacks were used to take down smaller targets and were often seen as the tools of activists and pranksters with a point to make.

But an attack that takes down multiple major websites for hours? That’s no joke.

So what makes this kind of attack work, and how did it target all these sites at once? Here are the answers to your DDoS questions:

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack uses a variety of techniques to send countless junk requests to a website. This boosts traffic to the website so much that it gets overwhelmed, making it nearly impossible for anyone to load the page.

Websites have to filter out good traffic from bad, kind of like a dam that lets only so much water through. But if someone upstream can send an unexpected torrent down, the dam will overflow and maybe even crack, letting all the water through. That floods the area below — and in our analogy, it drowns the website you’re trying to reach. Now no one can go there.

Why are some sites (like Twitter and Spotify) affected, but not others?

Friday’s attack targeted one company: Dyn Inc. That company manages web traffic for its customers, which include Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Reddit, Etsy, Github and other favorites. Dyn is the dam for all these websites. So if a company uses Dyn to manage its web traffic, that firm could have been affected by the attack.

But if a company uses another service in addition to Dyn to manage its web traffic, it was likely spared the worst of outages.

Who is behind the DDoS attack?

We don’t know who’s responsible. The US Department of Homeland Security is investigating.

We do know that the attackers were using a hacked network of internet-connected devices to send all the requests. That network might have included devices like routers, security cameras or anything else the hackers found convenient to take over.

The hackers used malicious software called Mirai to infiltrate the devices, according to cybersecurity researchers at Flashpoint. That’s the same software hackers used to create a massive botnet that sent the largest documented DDoS attacks ever and took down two different websites in September.

Is there any way to access sites under attack?

Yes. Here’s a handy guide on how to reroute to the websites and dodge all this nonsense.

What have been the biggest DDoS attacks?

In September, attackers took down the website of cybersecurity writer Brian Krebs with the largest DDoS attack on record. The attack sent 620 gigabytes of data per second to his website. That was more than twice as big as the largest DDoS attack that occurred in the three months prior to the attack, according to a report from networking company Verisign.

But that incident was quickly surpassed later in September by a DDoS attack on French web-hosting company OVH, which got slammed with multiple attacks at once, the largest of which sent 799 gigabytes of data per second to the site.

The hacker collective Anonymous is also known for using DDoS attacks against people and companies it deems worthy of scorn. That has ranged from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to banks in Greece.

Can companies adapt to protect themselves from future attacks like this?

Companies are already rethinking how to deal with DDoS attacks. Though tons of tools for dealing with DDoS attacks already exist, there have been signs all year that the strength of the attacks has been increasing.

The solution isn’t obvious, because hackers will likely continue to build bigger and stronger botnets that can send more and more junk traffic. But now that it’s gotten to a point where lots of sites can be taken down if they all use a service like Dyn, companies will have to rethink whether they use one major site management service. What’s more, Google’s Project Shield is specifically working to protect journalists like Krebs from DDoS attacks to prevent censorship.

“Companies should move immediately to get control of this situation,” said Chris Sullivan, a researcher at cybersecurity firm Core Security. “In the wake of these new high-profile events, it’s likely to be mandated by new law.”

One other possible outcome of Friday’s attacks could be that device manufacturers improve products that form the so-called “Internet of Things.” If the devices weren’t so easy to hack, it’s likely Friday’s attack wouldn’t have been so powerful.