#someone out there had to have the infrastructure and trust and bank contacts and SO MUCH SECURITY which all

[shinkei-shinto]

I'm so tired of sellers requiring that I break P*Pal ToS because they don't want to pay fees.

Like, I'm sorry the service you are using to accept payments because you are literally incapable of doing it all by yourself requires that you pay them for using their service it's almost like that's how the whole entire world works & it's almost like you? are being paid? for doing a service? as well????? gosh.

it's also illegal - against their terms - to demand that the client pays the fee that the seller pays for USING THEIR SERVICES. so much so that the site HIDES THE FEE FROM THE PAYER. it's almost like you, the USER OF THEIR SERVICES, should know how much their fees are and WORK THAT INTO YOUR PRICES, just like THE SERVICE ITSELF TELLS YOU TO DO.

:ugh:

[jbbuckybarnes]

Zerfall - 12/14

Pairing: Bucky x named!Reader (Agent Andromeda) Summary: After Hydra drops virus bombs in 7 major American cities in the height of summer, the team is locked in their emergency bunker for weeks. The virus commonly called the Summer Poison successfully brought the infrastructure to a halt in all big cities. When the virus slowly starts burning itself out SHIELD Agents and Avengers are sent out to bring back order into the cities and the international relationships. Not without hurdles. Warnings for this chapter: Pandemic, crime, canon typical violence, flirting, kidnapping, weird grammar. Not beta read.

Zerfall Masterlist || M a s t e r l i s t

“Does that mean we finally have an off day?” He asked the next day at noon with his morning hair in his grey sweatpants. “Yep, but also that we need to help in Brooklyn a bit so we have both in check. The Bronx is also at 90% back. Queens might be the only problem but with all the people we already have? Might even solve itself,” you said in your thoughts. “You really had to make it about work, huh?” He grinned and got up from the couch. “Hell yes! It’s my job to save the city, Barnes!” You called out. “Gosh, please, for heaven's sake, stop calling me by my last name. We’re partners, not working at a bank.” He chuckled coming to a hold in front of you with his hands in his pockets. “Thanks for saving my ass, Bucky.” You smiled up at him. “It’s what I’m here for.” He grinned back down. “Always watching my 6, I know.” An eye roll was inevitable from your side. “Celebratory pizza?” He asked grabbing your waist. “Oh hell yes. I’m so glad this damn tower has electricity.” You got excited. “And hot showers,” he added. “And soft beds,” you sighed. “Privacy and dental care.” “Music,” you whispered. “Why? Wanna dance?” He grinned. “I’ve never been asked for it before, so I’d say yes.” You flirted back. “What a shame,” he said pulling you closer. “Friday? Can you put on slow music?” You asked the AI. Calm music started playing and he started swaying you around in a slow dance. The softness his eyes carried was incredible, nowhere near what it was in the beginning of you two working together. You started smiling and got a smile back. His left hand squeezed your waist and he eyed you for a little longer, now having the permission to. You let your hands wander to his neck, letting him lead you a little more. The small movements of his lips and the sparkles in his eyes were so apparent all of a sudden.

Before there can be anything more than a dance you get interrupted by a loud boom sound in the distance. You both turned towards the windows and saw a dust cloud coming up from lower Manhattan. You got your comm earpiece, “Please tell me that explosion near Brooklyn Bridge was one of you.” “Nope.” “Nope.” “No.” “Fuck.” you muttered, “Can you get there with us Agent Bee?” “Already on my way,” he answered. “Grab food from the pantry, we’ll eat on the way.” you said while grabbing your equipment. As soon as you both were on the ground Bee contacts you again, “The civilians say they might’ve blown up New York City Hall.” “Shit! The only freaking area we didn’t check down there.” you hissed. “You get onto my back, eat, I run faster than you.” Bucky nudged you. “Oh, we’re pulling a Twilight in the middle of the apocalypse? Nice.” There was no other way to lighten the mood and he really WAS fast. 15 km/h was no joke and he probably was even faster without someone on his shoulders. “If this wasn’t for a mission I’d have a few comments.” you called out, grabbing onto him tighter. “Get your gun ready.” he said already in full mission mode. “Alright, Sergeant.” You did as you were told. He must’ve known there were people already around the entire explosion zone and you had the perfect line to kill all of them with perfect shots in the torso and head. “I’ll never get tired of how good you shoot.” he chuckled while aiming at the people charging at you. “I’m coming from the bridge.” Bee alerted you. “It’s a lot. I don’t have a line of sight on your side, but I assume it’s at least 20 on each side. Stay safe.” you answered after finally getting the last guard from your side. “Will do.” came back. “Buck, I could really use one of your knives,” you called over and got it thrown into your hand. While he continued shooting whatever came near you from anywhere but your 12, you were charging at guards on the south side of the building in a beautiful dance of momentum moves and knives in throats. “Behind you,” you yelled over and saw him kick a guard 15 feet far against the remaining wall of the City Hall. “I could use some help over here on the east side,” Bee yelled into his comm. “Coming,” you yelled back and made a run for it, trusting Bucky to have your back. You got through the guards in almost perfect symmetry. Your training was specific for the smallest of attack strategies. Agent Bee had a few advantages to you but your talent with a pistol and a knife was balancing that out. “Davis? If you can hear me, we need some help at the City Hall. I don’t know if we can handle this without your help.” you screamed into your wrist while seeing more people coming at you. “Fucking hell, where do all of these bastards come from all of a sudden?” Bee grumbled. What you didn’t see were the people coming from behind until it was too late. “Fuck you!” You groaned, defending yourself and kicking shins where you could. “Not so good anymore, Agent. Are you?” A big, crazy looking guy grinned. He wore a trench coat, had a deep voice, had a look of absolute insanity on his face. Next to him two buff guys that looked like they were high ranking military men before this apocalypse. “What do you want from me?” You hissed at them. “We want our beautiful city back. You did a great job getting rid of all the Eagles, Outcasts and Vultures. But why take Randalls Island from us, dear?” He asked. You heard gunshots outside, death, the place inside smelled like gunpowder, was full of dust and had a big open roof from the explosion. “Well, you never tried to communicate.” You squinted at them. “You never gave us the chance.” A door was kicked in and you saw Agent Bee and Bucky standing there. “Cause you don’t deserve one!” He yelled. All weapons in the room showed either at you or them. “Make one wrong move and your pretty partner here is dead.” The insane dude spoke to them. “What do you want?” He groaned annoyed, taking down the weapon enough to not seem dangerous. “You. We thought you’d come.” The man grinned all of a sudden. It dawned on both of you and you shook your head when his eyes flashed to you before going back to the leader. “For what?” He asked. “You’re still a wanted person in the underground. You know that as well as I do.” “That wasn’t the question.” “Well, but that was my answer. You’re smart enough to put the pieces together, aren’t you?” He chuckled eerily. You saw Bee click the side of his watch in the subtlest of movements, a distress signal. To whom? You didn’t quite know. “You come with us and she is free. Or you’re all dead.” The nameless man repeated.

You whispered almost soundless, “Buy time.” “Who wants me?” He asked with his eyes flickering between you and the leader with more distress reflecting in them than you were okay with. “Take a wild guess. Hydra!” The man got impatient. “You know he needs to come voluntarily.” Bee realized in the face of the nameless man that was looking away from you. “No shit, bringing them a dead soldier won’t bring them anything.” “Too bad.” You grinned hearing what was coming and the man turned to you. The perfect moment for Wanda to come in through the hole in the roof and fuck them up good. “Hold those three down for interrogation. We kill the rest.” you yelled over after kicking the guards left and right to you away and got a pistol thrown towards you by Bucky.

[ryanssecurityengineering]

Week 5 Notes and Reflection

REFLECTION

Interesting lecture. Richard really likes to talk about WEP!! Perhaps its in the exam?

I find the idea of hashing really interesting. I was always wondering what a digital signature was and how it works when you sign something in Adobe Acrobat - and why you can’t change the document after you sign it! Now I understand why, so that’s pretty cool!

Don’t fully understand why MD5 is bad for password storage - does it matter if someone figures out a collision for a password attack?

NOTES

Motto: “Don’t roll your own”

Last weeks motto: “Every contact leaves a trace”

Binary Search - Apparently someone published an implementation of binary search and they guy was certain it was right, but years later discovered an integer overflow bug. If binary search is so hard to implement, gg security. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. A lot of time has gone into developing things,you probably can’t do it better than history.

Phone Phreaking - Playing around the tones in the telephone line, reversing engineering. Get free phone call.

CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROTOCOLS

WEP Wireless Security

With WiFi, someone who is a KM away could tap into your network. This is unlike Ethernet network, where the attacker needs physical access. WEP had so many vulnerabilities it was really funny. Once people discovered it was flawed, people still kept using it!!! 

How it works - We are streaming the bits serially between the devices. The bits are broadcast everywhere. Laptops need to know which bits are there bits. Communication is done through frames, with the MAC address appended to the beginning. We need to encrypt this. 

Both sender and receive have a random number generator. The number is XOR with the data. The property of XOR is associative - can be done in any order. XOR also gives nice psuedo-randomness. The encrypted data is sent to the receiver, he XOR it, then he gets the plain bit string back. 

The hack was done using TCP/IP packets. TCP/IP has header etc. The IP packet wrapped around the TCP packet has the source/destination IP address. Hence we know which part of the encrypted string is the header etc. What is interesting is that there is nothing stopping you intercepting the packet and sending your own packet - the machines are responsible for checking this. 

How to hack - I take the packet, retransmit by sending the packet to the router but with the destination address to my computer. Then the router will decrypt it, and send it to you!!

The problem is that the data and control are mixed together. Mixing data and control might enable hackers to control the system.

Hack a phone - phones send tones around the PSTN to control things. You can just do a replay attack. E.g. get free phone call.

Hashing

Hashing is good for integrity. 

History of hashing - MD5 is “broken” - someone has worked out a way to get an undesirable property from the protocol faster than brute force. E.g. for MD5 if it is 56 bits, to find a preimage it should take 55 bits of security on average. For MD5, and many other protocols, find a small break in the protocol, and over the time like a volcano it goes bang bang bang and breaks. As each year went by, it turns out the time to break it become smaller and smaller. 

SHA-0 - NSA came up with a better hashing algorithm. However it was bad so they came up with SHA-1. Just recently SHA-3 has been recently approved. 

Data breaches - Few data breaches last year where hackers got the password file with the hashes. A ridiculous number were in MD5! 

In early 2000s there was a bit of theory about hacking SHA-1. Recently found a collision. 

Broken hash - A way of getting info out of the hash without pure brute-forcing. If a hash can be broken in time less than the brute-forcing time, then it is considered broken.

Merkle-Damgard Construction

MAC - Gives us Authentication and Integrity. MAC is basically a hash of the key and the data. h(key|data). E.g. append shared secret “sausageP” to your strings then hash.

Length extension attack - Take the existing message, with the hash. Add stuff the end of the message, continue the hashing process for the next block, since hashing is done on a block by block basis like a state machine. The solution is to add the password to the end, but still breakable.

Digital Signatures - Need a signature on a document to ensure the document is not tampered with. 

Take the original document, encrypt with your private key.

If people can decrypt the doc with your public key, must have been from you!

However instead of encrypting the document itself, we encrypt the hash of the original document, it is shorter. 

Collision Attacks with Signed Documents - If we can figure out two documents with the same hash, then on the fake document we can use your original signature and forge the fake document.

Make fake document and original document. 

Keep trying to modify the original document until its hash matches the fake document. E.g. add whitespaces

Give the original document to the person and they sign it.

By doing this, they are also accidentally signing the fake document at the same time!!

Data Breaches - Ashley Madison data breach, LinkedIN MD5 Breach

Salted Hashed Passwords

A table makes it easy to crack passwords, as commonly used passwords would hash to the same password. So if a common password is sausage and 1000 people used it, by cracking sausage once you crack all the 1000 passwords.

If we add a salt (a phrase) to each password, and each person has a different salt, then even if two people use the same password, the combination of “sausage” + salt1 and “sausage” + salt2 would result in different hash value for each. We can store the salt in plaintext in the password file.

So in this case if they want to crack some passwords they have to go through each person, and append the salt and then attempt their brute force or dictionary attack. 

Doesn’t stop the use of rainbow table, but increases the complexity. Rainbow tables make unsalted MD5 or SHA0 passwords easy to break.

Key Stretching Hashes

Services like Bcrypt are slow algorithms. Although you might have a 1 second slowdown for the user, the amount of time for a hacker to try to crack lots of passwords increases.

Online & Offline attack - Online attack is trying to login to the website, offline attack is when you have the hashed passwords and can easily try crack them offline.

NIST Password Guidelines - read them!

Moore's Law. (n.) Moore's Law is the observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future.

An initialization vector (IV) is an arbitrary number that can be used along with a secret key for data encryption. This number, also called a nonce, is employed only one time in any session.

Attacks on MD5

A. Sotirov M. Stevens J. Appelbaum Arjen K. Lenstra

Flame malware in 2012

AbstractPresented at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin on December 30, 2008. We have identified a vulnerability in the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used to issue digital certificates for secure websites. As a proof of concept we executed a practical attack scenario and successfully created a rogue Certification Authority (CA) certificate trusted by all common web browsers. This certificate allows us to impersonate any website on the Internet, including banking and e-commerce sites secured using the HTTPS protocol. Our attack takes advantage of a weakness in the MD5 cryptographic hash function that allows the construction of different messages with the same MD5 hash. This is known as an MD5 "collision". Previous work on MD5 collisions between 2004 and 2007 showed that the use of this hash function in digital signatures can lead to theoretical attack scenarios. Our current work proves that at least one attack scenario can be exploited in practice, thus exposing the security infrastructure of the web to realistic threats. This successful proof of concept shows that the certificate validation performed by browsers can be subverted and malicious attackers might be able to monitor or tamper with data sent to secure websites. Banking and e-commerce sites are particularly at risk because of the high value of the information secured with HTTPS on those sites. With a rogue CA certificate, attackers would be able to execute practically undetectable phishing attacks against such sites. The infrastructure of Certification Authorities is meant to prevent exactly this type of attack. Our work shows that known weaknesses in the MD5 hash function can be exploited in realistic attack, due to the fact that even after years of warnings about the lack of security of MD5, some root CAs are still using this broken hash function.

The program is being used for targeted cyber espionage in Middle Eastern countries.

Flame was signed with a fraudulent certificate purportedly from the Microsoft Enforced Licensing Intermediate PCA certificate authority.[15] The malware authors identified a Microsoft Terminal Server Licensing Service certificate that inadvertently was enabled for code signing and that still used the weak MD5 hashing algorithm, then produced a counterfeit copy of the certificate that they used to sign some components of the malware to make them appear to have originated from Microsoft. - wikipedia

OPERATIONAL SECURITY EXTENDED LECTURE

Military definition: How they protect info that could be used by the enemy against them, in order to create a safe environment.

Origins - US military tradition of communicating in plain language, field commanders ignored encryption instructions or used bad encryptions.

When to OPSEC - 24/7. 

Snowden on Opsec - If the impact of your threat model is too high, consider alternatives. Because sometimes you can’t always keep something secret, but you can plan your response.

The extends to which you you go protect your information and the tools you use will be different depending on the situation.

There’s a counter to every attack, so instead of taking every possible measure to mitigate risk, just think about simple.

How to OPSEC? - If you don’t need to share info, don’t. If you do something you don’t want people to know about, ensure it can’t be traced back to you. Avoid bringing attention to yourself. Very hard to pull off, and tradeoffs must be made.

Avoid sharing info - Only share info on a need-to-know basis. Beware social media, metadata. Minimise indicators - expensive clothes, carrying tools. No info is still information! Hard to strike the right balance. 

Keep your identity secret - Remain anonymous or set up a false identity to hide your tracks e.g. VPN. False identities are difficult to create and maintain, but are often useful. Never contaminate, leaking info from one identity to another. 

Be forgettable - Blend in with everyone else. If you stand out, you will be remembered and monitored. 

Case Studies

Promotion - Wife left facebook post of MI6 chief-to-be public.

Harvard Bomb threat - Bomb hoax, but person failed as he was traceable - IP header, campus wifi.

Good OPSEC - Good OPSEC by NSA. Assange and Snowden.

PASSWORDS EXTENDED LECTURE

Passwords are WEAK

Some statistics:

Full of meaning - 47% of passwords based on a name, 42% based on significant dates or numbers, such as birthdays, 26% based on pets.

Personal Info Attack - Sally Smith Facebook. Kali Linux, make a password dictionary, Hashcat, rainbow tables.

Why are passwords bad? - Hard to remember good passwords, hard to type good passwords, complicated rules for generation, regular password renewal creates user generated patterns, little incentive to create unique passwords (low probability, high impact)

How to not store passwords - Hash them, not plain text!

Bad hashing - Rainbow tables are designed to match with passwords. project-rainbowcrack.com/table.htm Encoding the same string using the MD5 algorithm will always result in the same 128-bbit hash output. 

This also applies to SHA128, etc.

Add Salt to Passwords - so hash for same password not always the same

Best Practices - use sCrypt/bCrypt, use salted hash, salts should be long, keep on updating and improving, don’t store password hints. 

Password Generation - 4 unrelated words concatenate together creates enough entropy so it is difficult to hack. Long and wacky lexicon but good syntax to make it hard for an Ai to generate.

New policy - Allow long passwords, use multi-factor, don’t force regular password changes, limit failed the number of login attempts.

[csrgood]

Wells Fargo Invests $1M in SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners to Disperse Financial Aid to Small Businesses Affected by COVID-19

 SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners today announced they have teamed up with the Wells Fargo Foundation to help disperse $1M in financial aid to vulnerable entrepreneurs and their employees who have been financially affected by the impact of COVID-19. The Wells Fargo grant will provide for $500 cash boosts coupled with the financial guidance needed to navigate tough financial choices. The financial aid will be available to 1,000 small business owners and their employees identified in partnership with nonprofit small business lender Opportunity Fund.

How it Will Work

The program will leverage SaverLife technology and TrustPlus financial coaching (via phone and text chat) to connect to small/micro business owners and their employees who are experiencing loss of income. SaverLife will provide a $500 emergency savings fund boost directly to the client through digital channels. All clients will have access to financial crisis coaching and a post-crisis savings fund to help rebuild depleted accounts.

An Unprecedented Crisis Hits Hard

A recent poll revealed that 18% of adults have lost their jobs or had hours cut, and that number jumps to 25% for people making less than $50,000. Hourly-wage workers, especially employees and owners of small/micro businesses, face ongoing significant hardship from the loss of earnings due to COVID-19.

“The goal of this disbursement is to provide effective and rapid economic support to small business owners and hourly-wage workers,” said Jenny Flores, head of small business growth philanthropy at Wells Fargo. “We are looking at this effort as a pilot that we believe can be impactful in delivering much-needed relief and will continue to look at longer-term recovery aid. SaverLife has the expertise to boost entrepreneurs in a time when they need it most.”

The harsh impact of COVID-19 is hitting working families hard. In addition to the catastrophic loss of income, expenses are rising as families find themselves caring for children out of school and stocking up on essentials as they prepare for the worst.

“The priority is to get cash quickly to those who need it to replenish depleted savings accounts,” said Leigh Phillips, CEO of SaverLife. “Once the crisis abates, SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust will offer follow-up services to assist participants in getting back on their feet including dollar-for-dollar savings matches up to $250 over six months to rebuild emergency funds and follow-up coaching sessions that are focused on debt reduction and savings. We thank Wells Fargo for recognizing the urgent and critical need for cash infusion for small business owners and their employees as COVID-19 continues to disrupt American lives.”

The choices people make when facing an unexpected loss in income can determine whether someone can bounce back quickly or suffer long-term economic hardship.

“By teaming with SaverLife, we’re able to link our expert financial coaching and vetted financial tools and products to empower small business owners and workers to make actionable steps that will help them through this crisis and put them on a path toward positive financial health,” said Justine Zinkin, CEO of Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners.

The pilot will launch on April 1st to 1,000 impacted families, primarily those who work for small businesses forced to close their doors due to coronavirus.

“So many small business owners are feeling the immediate impact of COVID-19 on their businesses. Revenue dried up overnight, and many have only two or three weeks of cash reserves to keep their business afloat and the 60 million American workers employed by small businesses on payroll,” said Luz Urrutia, CEO of Opportunity Fund. “Partnering with SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust to provide financial coaching and quick dispersal of cash to vulnerable workers at affected businesses will be essential to the long-term resilience of our Main Street entrepreneurs and their dedicated employees.”

For more on SaverLife, please visit: saverlife.org/

Visit the SaverLife blogs: saverlife.org/money-101

Follow SaverLife on Twitter: @wearesaverlife

Visit SaverLife on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/saverlife/

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,400 locations, more than 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 32 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 260,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 29 on Fortune’s 2019 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.

About Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners

Neighborhood Trust is a 501(c)3 nonprofit empowering workers to take control of their finances and achieve financial health. TrustPlus is our social enterprise delivering phone-based financial coaching to workers across the country, as a feature of worker benefits and financial services. With nearly 25 years of financial coaching experience, we blend our trusted financial guidance with innovative technology solutions and actionable financial products to help workers’ paychecks go further. Annually we reach more than 10,000 workers across the country. For more information, visit www.neighborhoodtrust.org and www.mytrustplus.org.

About SaverLife

SaverLife (formerly EARN) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit on a mission—to inspire, inform, and reward the millions of Americans who need help saving money. Through engaging technologies and strategic partnerships, we give working people the methods and motivation to take control of their financial future. SaverLife has a number of esteemed investor partners including Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Prudential, JPMorgan Chase & Co., MasterCard and Capital One. For more information or to join the SaverLife Movement, please visit www.saverlife.org.

About Opportunity Fund

Opportunity Fund, the nation’s leading nonprofit small business lender, believes small dollar loans help hard-working entrepreneurs make lasting change in their own lives and build stronger communities by growing businesses and creating jobs. Opportunity Fund’s community of donors and investors is creating an inclusive financial system that empowers women, immigrant, and minority small business owners. Our strategy combines microloans for small business owners and New Markets Tax Credit investments in high-impact community infrastructure projects. Since 1994, Opportunity Fund has deployed more than $900 million and helped thousands of entrepreneurs invest in their families’ futures. The organization has committed to lending an additional $1.2 billion to small business owners across the country and investing $174 million in community real estate projects by 2023. www.opportunityfund.org

##

Media Contact:

Liam Collopy

Harden Communications Partners, LLC

lcollopy@hardenpartners.com

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/44229-Wells-Fargo-Invests-1M-in-SaverLife-and-Neighborhood-Trust-Financial-Partners-to-Disperse-Financial-Aid-to-Small-Businesses-Affected-by-COVID-19?tracking_source=rss

[breezybnb]

Tips For First-time Airbnb Hosts

The advent of the internet came with its fair share of benefits and as we all know, millenials are striving for quick and easy ways to make money. Among the many ways through which you can make some extra cash is Airbnb; an online marketplace that allows the ordinary people to put up their spaces, places or other rooms for other users to stay in. In this kind of arrangement, the guests are required to make some advance bookings and then once everything is set up, the Airbnb host receives nightly fee as is set up in the arrangement

According to a recent research, I have discovered that an average Airbnb guest spends $2684 per trip in Sydney, AU and considering the ever-changing dynamics of travel and tourism, this could just be the next frontier as far as accommodation booking and rentals is concerned. In this article, we shall narrow down our focus by discussing how a first-time Airbnb host can make the most of their experience with the sharing economy.

Be Responsive

In order to excel in this marketplace, communication is paramount. The marketplace is run by search engines that work on the basis of real-time reply so the faster you reply to your potential guests, the better your chances of landing the deal.

Ideally, replies should be made within an hour of your potential guest contacting you. This responsiveness will go a long way, not only in portraying you as a reliable host but also in ensuring Airbnb does not take action against your listing, thereby costing you time and money.

Be As Detailed As Possible

It is only natural that a guest will choose to be hosted by you once they have a full outlook of what to expect. Just like is the case with mainstream accommodation, you need to be as detailed as possible. A good advice, therefore, is to ensure that while setting up your profile, you supply as much details as possible.

Additionally, you should try to keep a friendly and conversational tone so your potential guests are more drawn to your place than put off by it. In addition to increasing your potential guests, being detailed also ensure Airbnb can do a reasonable reckon of your nightly fee, not to mention it could push you higher among the site’s most recommended listings.

Be Shrewd In Pricing

Setting up the price for your Airbnb space may prove quite a challenge. However, there are a few tips to follow and the first is to consider the neighborhood your property is situated in. Is it an affluent neighborhood, is it an upmarket one, is it a suburb etc? By determining the economic standards of your neighborhood, it will be easier to set up the price for your space.

You may also have to get a little personal and compare your room with those of local hotels and other accommodation facilities. Naturally, if your room is bigger, more modern, more furnished or contains extra conveniences such as a Wi-Fi, Jacuzzi etc, you may want to charge more. Airbnb also does recommend price but it will come down to what you truly feel your space is worth. Again, do not charge too low as it will create an impression of low-quality services, or charge too high as you will scare away potential guests

Let The Pictures Do The Talking

No matter how much you chomp at the bit to try and explain how luxurious your accommodation space is, you will notice that you may never win any guests because people are more enticed by photos as opposed to simply texts. For this reason, you need o ensure you take skillful photos of your facility.

This calls for creativity so instead of just taking one-dimensional photos of the living room, try to get more angles of the room and employ professional photography skills such as using portrait and landscape techniques to clearly get the message out. Once you are done with the inside, venture outside and take a photo against a pleasant landmark such as a beach. Also, ensure the photo captures the status of the road infrastructure as guests will be more drawn to your place when they know there is a reliable road network in and out.

Other details you may want to include in your photo is your carefully painted façade, your patio, lawn , Wi-Fi router etc. In case you are not so an excellent photographer, do not fret as Airbnb has professional photographers that will help you with this.

Stay Safe

Being an online marketplace, there are definitely those who would be willing to take advantage of the site to propagate unscrupulous practices. However, Airbnb does all it can to ensure these activities do not take place on the site. The site verifies IDs offline and ensures that profiles are clearly laid out. Airbnb encourages Facebook integration so that you can be assured your potential guest is a real person.

Therefore, you are encouraged to use some of these recommendations from the site to ensure you stay away from potentially dangerous guests. Also, Airbnb holds on to your money as a host for a period of 24 hours after the guest has checked in, after which the money is released to you through PayPal or bank accounts. This ensures that there is trust and openness both on your part as well as the part of the host. Even better, a host is covered by the $900,000 AUD. Though this insurance only covers damage to your property and not collectibles, lost cash or rare artwork and jewelry, it is indeed a good place to begin.

Invest in Online Forums

Online forums are not only helpful to the guests but as a host, you also need them. One way to benefit from these forums is that you will meet with fellow Airbnb guests who will offer more tips on how their first-time experience as an Airbnb host was. You can then harness these tips o ensure you have a wonderful experience as a guest.

Another advantage of these forums is that they may help you discover some of the red flags when it comes to identifying dangerous hosts. You may come across fellow Airbnb hosts who may have had pretty bad experiences with guests and using their ordeal, you can clearly identify the hallmarks of a potentially dangerous guest even before sealing the deal with them.

Study Common Tourism Trends

Well, let’s face it. Technically, being an Airbnb host makes you a stakeholder in the travel and tourism industry and given the ever-changing dynamics of this industry, it goes without saying that you should study a few trends, especially with regards to your neighborhood.

Consider what months are considered high-seasons in your neighborhood as well as other variables such as offers in air tickets so you can tap into these openings and ensure you secure as many guests as possible.

If It Isn’t Tidy, Then It Won’t Sell

We all associate hotel rooms with impeccable cleanliness standards and your space shouldn’t be an exception either. Once you have secured a guest, it is paramount that you keep the guestrooms as clean and tidy as possible.

A tidy room does not only offer immediate satisfaction to the in-house guest but will also go a long way in ensuring you have repeat guests. In addition, these guests will go on the online forums where they would post favorable reviews of your facilities, thereby ensuring you even win more guests. Breezybnb has been dedicated to developing useful relationships in such areas, and listing your Airbnb property with us takes a lot of the legwork out of running the listing yourself

Personalize Further

Chances are, you will be entertaining a guest who has probably visited numerous hotels so they would be looking for nothing but the best experience from your facility. Therefore, you need to add some personal touch to your facility to make it more admirable.

Ask them what they want and ensure you supply it to them just the way they want it. Do they want the lighting conditions adjusted in a certain way? Do they have a preference for a particular wine? What’s their meal routine? These are the questions you need to ask and ensure you deliver just as they desire.

Write a Welcome Guide

A welcome guide is necessary and this can either be emailed to your guests or printed out and kept in your facility. A welcome guide is essential as it will help to introduce the guest to some common rules you want followed in your facility as well as possible consequences in the event these rules are violated.

More importantly, it serves to introduce the guest to the neighborhood. Clearly, you are not hosting someone who will be in your house 24 hours a day and not venture outside. Try to give suggestions for some cafes in your neighborhood as well as nearby parks and what the nightlife looks like.

Follow Up With Communication

Your relationship with the guest needs not end the moment they hand over the keys to you. You need to ensure you stay in touch as often as possible. This makes the guest feel appreciated and in the event they need to visit your neighborhood again, they will definitely choose your facility.

Ask them what the experience was and what they think you could do better to make the place more comfortable.

Remember To Review

Reviews are too-way traffic – the guest will have to review you and your place while you also will have to post anonymous reviews of them on Airbnb.

Even though reviews are posted under anonymity status, one way or the other, Airbnb will ensure the reviews get onto the forums where potential guests can read them. This explains why you need to ensure you keep the guest as satisfied as possible.

The post Tips For First-time Airbnb Hosts appeared first on Breezybnb.

from Breezybnb https://breezybnb.com/tips-first-time-airbnb-hosts/

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New Post has been published on https://alienation.biz/maharashtra-announces-new-real-estate-norms/

Maharashtra announces new real estate norms

India will quickly be getting its first actual estate regulator and builders will need to toe the road or face extreme consequences.

India will quickly be getting its first real property regulator and developers will toe the line or face intense penalties. The Maharashtra authorities on Thursday introduced the policies for its regulator, ahead of the diverse state regulators entering impact.collector single

Maharashtra’s actual estate regulator will come into force on May also 1.sangli city map

The guidelines are as follows:

The kingdom will impose a 5-10 percentage first-class on the anticipated price of the total task on 3 conditions:

If the assignment isn’t registered however marketed

If the builder ignores an actual property Tribunal order

If agents violate orders of the real estate Tribunal

Also, if a developer, agent or flat owner pays the quality then no other felony motion can be taken against them for the same case.

In case the accused is in custody and makes a decision to pay the exceptional, then on the way to bring about his/her launch on the fee of the first-class.

If someone desires to appeal to the tribunal the fee charged will be Rs five,000.

When the center had notified the actual estate Regulatory Authority Act (RERA) Act, it had said that each a high-quality and a jail time period could be levied on a developer. However, the nation authorities of Maharashtra is being a piece lenient by means of removing prison term if the excellent is paid.sangli a Maharashtra indie

Maharashtra – Favorable Investment Destination of India

Maharashtra, that is located in the western a part of India, is a truly massive part of India. It’s miles more superior than most states in India and contributes to a large volume of the USA’s industrial output. It boasts of cities, which includes Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, which play a massive role in strengthening the Indian economic system.

In fact, Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, is the principal financial hub of India and an exceptional vacation spot for investments in India. maximum banks, monetary establishments, and coverage institutions have headquarters in Mumbai. Bombay Stock Trade is considered to be the oldest in Asia and the largest within the USA.

Maharashtra is extra advanced in comparison to other states in terms of infrastructure

It is properly linked in the nation itself and additionally with the other states in the USA thru a combination of rail, avenue, and air hyperlinks. It has an outstanding intra-town link of railways, and the majority of Maharashtrians use this mode of delivery to journey.

The kingdom has reputed institutions, which include Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, IIT, Centre for Development of superior Computing (C-DAC), National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, and Countrywide Chemical Lab for superior Research.

The key areas in Maharashtra are Navi Mumbai, Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, and Nagpur. Those areas are developed and assist many industries. Motors, software, engineering, and biotechnology are some of the industries that These regions offer. Every of these areas in Maharashtra, similarly to different regions in this kingdom, offers something specific and unique. Whilst Nagpur is well-known for its oranges and Nashik for its spiritual locations, Mumbai gives one the undying spirit and generosity.

Maharashtra offers the remarkable ability for growth. It’s miles constantly growing and is definitely instrumental in the progress of us of a.maharashtra India Mumbai

Essential Industries in Maharashtra:

Infrastructure: To maintain pace with the boom price at which Maharashtra is growing, infrastructure wishes are going to stand up and need to be met. This offers wonderful capability. Better roadways and stepped forward rail networks are important to project Maharashtra as a nation for the future and awesome funding vacation spot in India.sangli

Health Enterprise: This is yet every other arena that is developing in a call for. Human beings are seeking out Better facilities and offerings in this Enterprise.

Schooling Industry: Education is also a chief place for the boom. The want for number one and higher Schooling is growing, and this gives appropriate potentialities.

Transport Industry: any other Industry familiar for a long time in Maharashtra is the Shipping Enterprise. It serves as a ship manufacturing middle and has many organizations operating shipyards. The country has Most important ports, Mumbai Port and Nhava Sheva Port, which provide terrific capacity and boom.

Agriculture: Agriculture is also one of the Foremost industries in Maharashtra. Approximately sixty-four% of the population is engaged in agriculture. With more recent irrigation centers and hybrid kinds of seeds, this field has awesome prospects.

When Your Husband Announces He Wants A Divorce, How Are You Supposed To Respond?

There are sure sets of words which you in no way need to hear from your spouse when you are married. “I don’t love you anymore” is one. “It’s over” is another. Many human beings don’t have any concept how they’re imagined to react when they hear these words, especially if they don’t believe them.

A wife might provide an explanation for

Remaining weekend, my husband and that I got into a big fight. For the duration of it, my husband instructed me that he failed to want to be married to me anymore. I did not panic approximately this pretty frankly due to the fact I thought he became just announcing this inside the heat of the instant. And simply, while we have been combating and saying lousy matters to each other, I failed to want to be married to him all that tons both. However then more than one days passed and that I noticed my husband creating a list of residences at the kitchen desk. I asked him what he turned into doing and he looked at me very extreme and said ‘I already told you that it turned into over. What do you believe you studied I am doing?’ I used to be greatly surprised and I failed to say something. So he asked me what my reaction was and he stated that it made him irritated that I simply stared at him blankly. Are there any phrases to apply in response to this? I don’t know what to say and admittedly, I don’t want to mention anything due to the fact I don’t agree that It’s over. However if I tell him this, then we’re going to get in a large combat.”

I absolutely apprehend this.

I found it very hard to have interaction with my husband when discussing our separation due to the fact I did not believe his idea method or his moves. And while he alluded to the truth that it turned into over, I was in no way going to trust this because it became now not over for me.

Seems, we did eventually reconcile, so my agreeing that it changed into over could have been a lie. I am happy I did not say it. However, over the route of our marriage falling aside and our subsequent separation, I regularly had to fashion a few form of response.

Every now and then, my feelings got the higher of me and that I spewed something that I later regretted. But the responses which clearly made things higher were very planned and really measured.

One Must Begin, But Real Leaders FINISH

Almost anybody, have come into contact, or understand a person, who’s properly – which means, has a few outstanding thoughts and/ or mind, and consistently starts off evolved essential, best tasks, however almost in no way, brings them to fruition! Whilst this is often a problem in a single’s regular life, it often becomes each a fault, and a weak point, when exhibited by way of a person in a role of management! After 4 a long time of figuring out, qualifying, education, developing and consulting, to heaps of real and/ or capacity leaders, I’ve learned, one of the first, simplest become aware of differences between powerful, significant leaders, and the rest of the %, is, the first-class leaders are usually those that Finish what they start! While it’s essential to begin, it has to go somewhere, or it becomes inappropriate!

1. Face facts; locate: Do not emerge as a misplaced chief, however

Are seeking to locate your manner, from the looking and/ or discovering degrees, to bringing something to fruition! To do so, you have to openly and carefully study and face records, and proceed to cope with the needs and many others. The distinction, regularly, between those who efficaciously obtain, and others, is the primary institution, finds a manner, to get matters done, no matter barriers and/ or challenges, which can also fall of their path!

2. thoughts; ideology; improve: If one in a leadership function has properly thoughts, but if those aren’t in sync with the ideology and/ or project of the agency, they possibly will now not produce acceptable results! Extraordinary leaders awareness on ways to enhance their organization, and prioritize wishes, concerns, and so on, While maintaining a big – picture, mentality!

three. desires; nuances: Nearly each institution has some precise characteristics

History, club, project, and so on. Consequently, cope with the first-rate manner to serve these, While enhancing the organization, through successfully making use of the relevant nuances! True management is ready specializing in desires!

4. Institute; integrity: Are the plans and/ or ideas, you are looking for to institute, inside the exceptional long – term pastimes, of the organization, you serve? Are you someone who will preserve the absolute integrity, in place of taking shortcuts, or looking for additional popularity?