The time zone is very important for our platform- [Platform: the set of the main domain and all the subdomain of a particular website; also the computer architecture and equipment using a particular operating system] - both in terms of usefulness and in terms of security; this is why we have decided to make a major update on how dates and time are saved or displayed on MYETV. All dates have been converted to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), also counting the earth’s rotation which changes from time to time, and are then converted “on the fly” to the time zone chosen by the user; if previously the time zone was set by the system (via nationality and language), from today the time zone can also be set and changed by registered users through the edit page of their account- [Account: an Account contains the personal information that is assigned to those who register and access with email and password] - , if you are not registered the time zone is calculated based on browser settings or the nationality perceived by the internet connection. For those who have an account, they can change the time zone by specifying it from a pre-populated list with options such as Europe/Rome or Europe/London or America/Chicago or Asia/Hong_Kong and so on… The times relating to the publication of contents- [Contents: every content intended as text, images, audio or video] - will change, they will also change the times relating to the calendars, the programming of the new contents will follow the selected time zone, and the time of the clock shown on the screen will also change. A translation system has also been inserted that allows us to show any date and time even in text format in any language.
The time zone is automatically assigned during registration, based on your browser settings, but can be changed later on this page: “Edit Account – Private Information (section) – Timezone“; the time zone chosen will also be the one used by default for the calendar and for content- [Contents: every content intended as text, images, audio or video] - scheduling.
The time zone specified in UTC and unified for all applications also means greater security as it is much more difficult to launch attacks involving authentication tokens that work via deactivation after a certain time; an attacker cannot manipulate the time at will (for example via the client) since the server only ever expects a time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Starting today this news is already active for everyone and actively protects all accounts.
In addition to security there is also the convenience of having all dates and times automatically converted into your local format without having to do too many steps; in fact all the dates relating to the contents, publications, and any date are converted on the fly into the time zone preferred by the reader. This means that a comment posted via the Europe/Berlin time zone at 8.30pm in the Mumbai time zone in India will always be displayed as 00.00 and therefore local time; the infrastructure, however, will always start from UTC time to calculate the two different dates.
This time zone update has been made for all applications that require it, working behind the scenes, and becomes effective today. It may take a few days for all codes to be updated with the new structure, even if most of them have already been updated.
