Video Explains Open Source Using LEGO Blocks

Open Source Explained By LEGO
WordPress has benefited greatly from being Open Source software licensed under the GPL. But what does Open Source actually mean? The folks over at Bit Blueprint in partnership with Moving Monday released a video using LEGO bricks and toys to explain the subject.

Open Source Explained By LEGOs

While the video is not 100% accurate since Free Software and Open Source are two different movements with different ideological motives, it does a great job of introducing people to the subject.

We are aware of the fact that the Free Software and Open Source movements have both similarities and differences.

Akismet Update Adds Security and Anti-Spam Improvements

Last week, we wrote about a report published by Sucuri that explained how 162,000 clean WordPress sites were used in a DDoS attack through the pingback functionality of XML-RPC. Alex Shiels who works on Akismet mentioned on Twitter the security team was working on a solution.

An update to Akismet is now available containing bug fixes, security, and anti-spam improvements. Notably:

Include X-Pingback-Forwarded-For header in outbound WordPress pingback verifications.
Add a pre-check for pingbacks, to stop spam before an outbound verification request is made.
According to Shiels, anti-spam checks were performed after a pingback was verified and WordPress didn’t pass

Better WP Security To Be Renamed, Undergoes Major Changes

Just Re-activate The Plugin To Fix This Error
If you use the Better WP Security plugin, keep an eye out for an important update next week. According to iThemes, the plugin will be renamed to iThemes Security to be more in line with the other products in the iThemes family. Because of the name change, users will need to re-activate the plugin after upgrading or else you’ll see the following error.

Just Re-activate The Plugin To Fix This Error

Besides the name change, a number of features will be added such as:

The ability to add multiple reporting email addresses for backups and notifications
Streamlined settings for easier