tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20588347095161105462024-03-14T01:00:37.284-07:00Gadgetz 4 UGadgets, Toys, Games,...GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-84051215779481313342013-09-22T03:58:00.001-07:002013-09-22T03:58:37.487-07:00Apple's Touch ID is Vulnerable to "Sleephacking"<p>Apple worked hard to make the the <a href="http://justpaste.it/iphone5sprivacy">Touch ID security system</a> easy to use. So easy a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/17/iphone-5s-review-apple/">5s</a> can be <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/19/watch-a-cat-unlock-the-iphone-5s-using-touch-id-and-the-fingerprint-sensor/">unlocked by a cat</a>, your toe, or even your... member, if it's registered with your phone. The real issue, though, is that Touch ID has no way of telling if someone is passed out.</p> <p>Frat dudes, heads up. You could wake up from a night of drinking to find your bros messaged all your exes and creatively re-wrote your Facebook profile. Yet the biggest threat is likely that of misuse by significant others.</p> <p>It's common to hear the story of a suspicious girlfriend or boyfriend who went through their guy/girl's unlocked phone while he was asleep, found them flirting with someone else, and dumped them. Numeric passcodes would prevent this.</p> <p>But Touch ID is vulnerable to "sleephacking".</p> <p>As long as someone knows what finger[s] you've registered with <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/iphone-5s-touch-id-prompts-us-senator-security-211223316.html">Touch ID</a>, they can pick your phone up off the nightstand, press it against your sleeping finger, and voilà, the phone unlocks.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-60239497331846111722013-09-19T18:39:00.001-07:002013-09-19T18:39:18.165-07:00Syrian Rebels Use iPads and Smartphones to Aid Weaponry<p>In the absence of a military infrastructure, Syrian rebels have turned to smartphones, tablets and Google Earth to track, aim mortars at, and plot attacks against government troops loyal to President Assad, according to <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/09/18/syrian-rebels-ipad/">U.S. arms and defense experts</a>.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-73216144708543060732013-09-17T20:28:00.001-07:002013-09-17T20:28:10.714-07:00Bitcoin license plate<a href="http://imgur.com/OQW2ipi"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/OQW2ipi.jpg" title="Bitcoin plate" style="max-width:420px" /></a> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-16070334956287926372013-09-05T14:23:00.001-07:002013-09-05T14:23:27.283-07:00Wikileaks exposes surveillance industry trackers<p>Wikileaks exposes the companies that produce and sell the software governments use to violate your privacy.</p> <object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/MlbMyRQeWD4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/MlbMyRQeWD4?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-14145230508036149172013-09-03T19:59:00.001-07:002013-09-03T19:59:30.225-07:00What is the Microsoft Kinect?<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/11/playstation-4s-price-and-policies-humiliate-microsofts-xbox-one-at-e3/">Forbes</a>:</p> <blockquote>"some sort of Orwellian, always listening surveillance device."</blockquote> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-19781830809118827072013-07-31T16:21:00.001-07:002013-07-31T16:21:34.052-07:00Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'<p>When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "<em>I've got nothing to hide,</em>" they declare. "<em>Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private.</em>"</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/why-nothing-to-hide-misrepresents-online-privacy/">nothing-to-hide argument</a> pervades discussions about privacy. The data-security expert <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/privacy_and_the.html">Bruce Schneier</a> calls it the "<em>most common retort against privacy advocates.</em>" The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an "all-too-common refrain." In its most compelling form, it is an argument that the <a href="https://en.gravatar.com/totalprivacytools">privacy</a> interest is generally minimal, thus making the <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/trading_privacy_1.html">contest with security concerns</a> a foreordained victory for security.</p> <p>As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared, "Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is." Likewise, in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella "Traps," which involves a seemingly innocent man put on trial by a group of retired lawyers in a mock-trial game, the man inquires what his crime shall be. "An altogether minor matter," replies the prosecutor. "A crime can always be found."</p> <p>One can usually think of something that even the most open person would want to hide. As a commenter to my blog post noted, "If you have nothing to hide, then that quite literally means you are willing to let me photograph you naked? And I get full rights to that photographso I can show it to your neighbors?" The Canadian privacy expert David Flaherty expresses a similar idea when he argues: "There is no sentient human being in the Western world who has little or no regard for his or her <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html">personal privacy</a>; those who would attempt such claims cannot withstand even a few minutes' questioning about intimate aspects of their lives without capitulating to the intrusiveness of certain subject matters."</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-48181194387255124702013-07-27T18:45:00.001-07:002013-07-27T18:45:29.657-07:00Exellent Android App For Audio Recording<p>Check out <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ikmultimediaus.android.irigrecorder">iRig Recorder</a>. It is a powerful and yet very flexible free audio recording app for Android. It is a professional recording tool with intuitive and practical editing functions and lets you export your recordings according to your need.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-38319096838140158962013-07-26T06:29:00.001-07:002013-07-26T06:29:46.565-07:00How to Open Samsung Galaxy S4 Back Cover<p>A video demonstrating how you can easily remove the back cover from the <a href="http://justpaste.it/galaxys4">Samsung Galaxy S4</a>.</p> <object width="419" height="236"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/asVmUzsdJD8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/asVmUzsdJD8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="419" height="236" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-62057027508740985722013-07-09T13:25:00.001-07:002013-07-09T13:25:13.054-07:00Privacy and facial recognition As photos flood the Web and <a href="https://medium.com/editors-picks/e8999f930fc6">photo recognition</a> technology becomes more widespread and precise, are we approaching an unsettling tipping point? GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-22609567764648006852013-07-03T07:20:00.001-07:002013-07-03T07:20:18.984-07:00How much data is there in the world today?Answer: Data is exploding, growing 10X every five years. In 2008, IDC projected that over 800 Exabytes (one million terabytes) of digital content existed in the world and that by 2020 that number is projected to grow over 35,000 Exabytes. GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-69268066285242021642013-05-12T18:15:00.001-07:002013-05-12T18:15:32.405-07:00Samsung Galaxy S4<p>This sums it up nicely:</p> <blockquote>Adding features to a smartphone is obviously not a bad thing. Trying to innovate is not a bad thing. Adding features that serve no real other purpose other than to allow you to say "look at this other thing our phone can do" is a bad thing.</blockquote> <p><a href="http://bgr.com/2013/05/08/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-redux-software-services/">http://bgr.com/2013/05/08/samsung-galaxy-s4-review-redux-software-services/</a></p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-21925529364835627662013-03-14T07:11:00.001-07:002013-03-14T07:11:49.426-07:00Samsung's Galaxy S4<object width="422" height="237"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/gfzom-RdrwI?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/gfzom-RdrwI?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="422" height="237" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> <p>Three years after mocking the 5-inch screen of the Dell Streak, Samsung's <strong>Galaxy S4</strong> may make that display size commonplace everywhere. </p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-35492534209261190692013-03-12T22:39:00.001-07:002013-03-12T22:39:18.536-07:00iOS 6.0 - 6.1 Jailbreak<p><a href="http://evasi0n.com/">evasi0n</a>: Compatible with all iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini models running iOS 6.0 through 6.1.</p> <p>Important: Always remember to <strong>backup your device</strong> using iTunes (or iCloud) before trying to jailbreak your device.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-45634878454973630562013-03-11T17:58:00.001-07:002013-03-11T17:58:55.930-07:00Danish Government postpones the data retention law evaluation<p>In the coming months, the Danish Parliament will conduct an evaluation and revision of the Danish data retention law which implements directive 2006/24/EC. The review process has been postponed twice on earlier occasions (2010 and 2012) and now the Danish government wants <a href="http://www.itpol.dk/notater/Danish-data-retention-evaluation-Feb13">another postponement</a>, officially in order to coordinate with any changes in the directive at the <a href="http://gadgetz4u.blogspot.com/2012/09/eu-continues-to-try-and-sneak-acta-back.html">EU</a> level.</p> <p>The Danish law exceeds the requirements of the EU's <a href="http://gadgetz4u.blogspot.com/2012/07/uk-snooping-law-plans-may-come-into.html">data retention</a> directive in several respects, especially as far as Internet logging is concerned. The Danish law contains a requirement for <a href="http://bittorrentprivacy.com">session logging</a> which includes data about every Internet packet being transmitted.</p> <p>Specifically, the following information must be retained:</p> <ul> <li>source and destination IP address</li> <li>source and destination port number</li> <li>transmission protocol (like TCP and UDP)</li> <li>timestamps</li> </ul> <p>The contents of the Internet packets are not being logged, but the IP addresses will contain information about visits to websites of political parties (that is, in effect, registration of political preferences) and the online news services that the citizen reads. Last year in the Danish Parliament, there was <a href="http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.2/privacy-denmark-2007">considerable debate</a> about the Danish over-implementation of the data retention directive, in particular Internet session logging.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-43977496358042597432013-02-17T06:05:00.001-08:002013-02-17T06:05:43.398-08:00US Has Secret Tools to Force Internet on Dictators<p>The U.S. military has no shortage of devices that could <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/secret-tools-force-net/">restore connectivity</a> to a restive populace cut off from the outside world by its rulers.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-86420237877932227372013-02-13T20:04:00.001-08:002013-02-13T20:04:14.252-08:00Silent Circle: Easy encryption for mobile devices<p>Back in October, the startup tech firm <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/02/silent_circle_s_latest_app_democratizes_encryption_governments_won_t_be.single.html">Silent Circle</a> <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/02/06/pressure-increases-on-silent-circle-to-release-application-source-code/">ruffled governments' feathers</a> with a <em>surveillance-proof</em> smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even furtherwith a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it's just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name itsent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-42532053120187293192013-02-12T18:59:00.001-08:002013-02-12T18:59:19.784-08:00How to share files between mobile devices<p>Here's a video tutorial on how to share files from Android Phones or Tablets over a WiFi network using <a href="http://frostwire.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/how-to-share-files-from-android-phones-or-tablets-on-wi-fi-with-frostwire/">FrostWire</a>:</p> <iframe width="425" height="239" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/5xBNHAMwZzM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-89837811127399869212013-01-23T08:57:00.001-08:002013-01-23T08:57:51.185-08:00Has Apple caused trouble for Microsoft with the mini?<p>Steve Jobs was not a fan of smaller-sized tablets, but it appears that his judgement was off in this regard. In domestic settings, the mini seems to work better.</p> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/mbrit">Matt Baxter-Reynolds</a> writes:</p> <blockquote>I had planned to keep both the iPad mini and my normal, full-sized iPad. In fact, I sold my full-sized iPad within a day of taking delivery of the mini. The mini just seemed to fit what I needed it for perfectly, whereas the full-sized iPad in comparison immediately felt faintly ridiculous.</blockquote> <p>It's telling that on the one hand a lot of products that seem to sell well in competition with the iPad are already on a "mini" scale:</p> <ul> <li>Nexus 7 is a popular Android tablet with 7" screen.</li> <li>The Kindle Fire tablets are each about that size.</li> <li>Samsung has pre-announced an 8" Galaxy Note.</li> </ul> <p>At the same time, it's also telling that smartphones not made by Apple tend to be getting bigger:</p> <ul> <li>The Lumia 920, is a huge smartphone with a 4.5" screen.</li> <li>The Galaxy S III has a 4.8" screen.</li> <li>The Galaxy Note II has a 5.6" screen.</li> </ul> <p>As ZDNet<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/has-apple-redefined-the-tablet-as-an-8-device-7000010179/"> points out</a>, there seems to be drift in screen sizes towards devices with screens that are -- for the sake of argument -- around 6" for a smartphone and around 8" for a tablet:</p> <blockquote><strong>If the iPad mini is selling really well, it may have redefined the "natural" size of a domestic-use tablet as being a smaller device.</strong> Apple might have validated the previous decisions by Google to make the Nexus 7 small, and Amazon in making the Kindle Fire tablets small, even though I suspect those previous decisions had more to with the bill of materials than any sense as to the desires of the customer.<br> <br> Microsoft may have a problem here. The smallest Windows 8 or Windows RT tablet that you can buy is "big tablet" sized and no one is making a small Windows 8 tablet. The problem with Microsoft's positioning of Windows in a post-PC world is its (understandable) obsession with Office and with keyboards. This makes life really difficult for an OEM trying to make a small tablet as you'd need to make a very small keyboard to go with it. You're then looking at something more like the now relatively ancient Toshiba Libretto, which might be a tough sell as today that looks an awful lot like a netbook.<br> <br> Unless one of the OEMs does something amazingly bold, Windows tablets look like they're stuck in a 10" or greater world. <strong>That would mean that Microsoft has managed to accidentally entirely miss what seems like an obvious and logically-defensible market shift to smaller tablets in the domestic-use space</strong>.</blockquote> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-71001570250585292982012-12-30T08:21:00.001-08:002012-12-30T08:21:09.949-08:00China requires Internet users to register their names<p>China's government tightened Internet controls with the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/china-requires-internet-users-register-names-141101231--finance.html">approval of a law</a> that requires users to register their names after a flood of online complaints about official abuses rattled Communist Party leaders.</p> <p>Chinese authorities pretend the law will strengthen protections for personal information. But it is more likely to curtail the Internet's status as a forum to complain about the government or publicize corruption.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-83745415683892361802012-12-26T13:11:00.001-08:002012-12-26T13:11:01.867-08:00The entertainment industry's release strategy creates piracy<p>From <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/20/entertainment-industry-creating-piracy">The Guardian</a>:</p> <p><strong>If you want people to buy media, you have to offer it for sale. If it's not for sale, they won't buy it, but many of them will still want to watch or hear or play it, and will turn to the <a href="http://bittorrentclients.net/">darknet</a> to get for free the media that no one will sell to them.</strong></p> <p>This isn't a surprising research finding. Everyone who's ever run a business or worked in any kind of sales job knows that rule one is to make a product that people want and then offer it at a price they're willing to pay. Doing this won't always make you rich, but no one ever got rich without starting from there.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-14793699061972130742012-12-11T18:58:00.001-08:002012-12-11T18:58:34.166-08:0025-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in <6 hours<p>Via <a href="http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/25-gpu-cluster-cracks-every-standard-windows-password-in-6-hours/">ArsTechnica</a>:</p> <p>A password-cracking expert has unveiled a computer cluster that can cycle through as many as 350 billion guesses per second. It's an almost unprecedented speed that can try every possible Windows passcode in the typical enterprise in less than six hours.</p> <p>The five-server system uses a relatively new package of virtualization software that harnesses the power of 25 AMD Radeon graphics cards. It achieves the 350 billion-guess-per-second speed when cracking password hashes generated by the NTLM cryptographic algorithm that Microsoft has included in every version of Windows since Server 2003. As a result, it can try an astounding 958 combinations in just 5.5 hours, enough to brute force every possible eight-character password containing upper- and lower-case letters, digits, and symbols. Such password policies are common in many enterprise settings. The same passwords protected by Microsoft's LM algorithmwhich many organizations enable for compatibility with older Windows versionswill fall in just six minutes.</p> <p>The Linux-based GPU cluster runs the Virtual OpenCL cluster platform, which allows the graphics cards to function as if they were running on a single desktop computer. ocl-Hashcat Plus, a freely available password-cracking suite optimized for GPU computing, runs on top, allowing the machine to tackle at least 44 other algorithms at near-unprecedented speeds. In addition to brute-force attacks, the cluster can bring that speed to cracks that use a variety of other techniques, including dictionary attacks containing millions of words.</p> <blockquote>...the machine is able to make about 63 billion guesses against SHA1, the algorithm used to hash the LinkedIn passwords, versus the 15.5 billion guesses his previous hardware was capable of. The cluster can try 180 billion combinations per second against the widely used MD5 algorithm, which is also about a four-fold improvement over his older system.</blockquote> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-31991520014161963612012-11-07T16:34:00.001-08:002012-11-07T16:34:55.906-08:00Skype hands 16-year-old's personal information to IT company<p>A police file has recently revealed that, during a police investigation into the Anonymous-sanctioned cyberattacks on PayPal, the Dutch police has received personal data on a young Dutchman through an IT firm which, in its turn, received the data from Skype apparently in an illegal way.</p> <p>In the file called <em>Operation Talang</em>, the Dutch police had information on two people that allegedly played a part in the attacks on websites belonging to Mastercard, VISA and Paypal by hacker collective Anonymous, following the blocking of donations to Wikileaks in 2011.</p> <p>Joep Gommers, senior director of global research at the Dutch IT security firm iSIGHT Partners, who was hired by PayPal to investigate the attacks, found out the pseudonym of a 16-year-old boy who apparently was involved in the attacks and contacted Skype to ask for the suspect's account data. According to the police file, Skype handed over, voluntarily and without any court order, the suspect's personal information, such as his user name, real name, e-mail addresses and home address.</p> <p>"You would imagine that subscriber data aren't simply handed over. They have to be provided when the police has a valid demand or court order, but not in any other case. (...) You can also wonder whether police can use that information if it was acquired this way," said Gerrit-Jan Zwenne, a professor of Law and Information Society in Leiden and a lawyer at Bird & Bird in The Hague.</p> <p>Skype spokesman reaffirmed that the company was taking privacy very seriously and there would be an investigation in the matter. "It is our policy not to provide customer data unless we are served with valid request from legal authorities, or when legally required to do so, or in the event of a threat to physical safety." </p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-19646756161732814982012-10-20T11:33:00.001-07:002012-10-20T11:33:31.534-07:00Truth about Green Harddrives<p>Good advice from an Anandtech poster:</p> <blockquote>Western Digital BLACK or RED is a minimal consumer drive quality level to be used in any application, and anything less reliable should never be graced with your dollars. Less reliable drives lasting for years in some particular situations is largely a myth - it happens only if certain criteria are meet, namely, low loads and small temp cycling, which rarely occurs in the real world of consumer computing. <strong>When looking at Western Digital drives, always stay away from GREEN and BLUE drives, simply because components are designed to last only under certain special conditions, and I believe these special operating conditions in practical terms are just a myth.</strong> In essence these manufacturers (marketing honchos) give credence to conditions of "LOW THERMAL CYCLING", which they then decree is a significant portion of the market place, when in reality it really does not exist, and only gives them an excuse to design "only as good as needed" devices. The existence of the low quality drives permits them to charge more than they normally could for the better drives. Don't believe the hype, the more expensive drives are required for good reliability and performance.</blockquote> <blockquote><strong>Don't ever buy too cheap, if you want to avoid repeated disk crashes, and there is nothing wrong with periodically replacing working drives with new ones periodically to avoid the inevitable disk crashes.</strong> Even good drives eventually fail. If the manufacturer specifies a 3y warranty, then replace the drives every 2 years.</blockquote> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-6219333300475239392012-09-27T18:08:00.001-07:002012-09-27T18:08:20.261-07:00The Netherlands against ACTA in all its forms<p>In response to an open letter sent by Bits of Freedom (BoF), the Dutch government has confirmed that it opposes any controversial ACTA-provisions in whatever form.</p> <p>This confirmation was provoked by the news, only six days after ACTA was rejected by the European Parliament, that a draft text of the Canada EU Trade Agreement contained provisions that were <a href="http://gadgetz4u.blogspot.com/2012/09/eu-continues-to-try-and-sneak-acta-back.html">virtually identical to provisions from ACTA</a>. As the Netherlands set an important example by rejecting ACTA long before the vote in the European Parliament, Bits of Freedom requested the government to do the same with CETA or any agreement alike. And it did.</p> <p>More specifically in its letter of 17 September 2012, the government upon BoF request confirmed that it would not agree to the ACTA-provisions in CETA or any other treaty in which such provisions may appear. It stated:</p> <blockquote>The European Commission rightly agreed to respect the vote of the European Parliament against ACTA and to observe this vote concerning CETA. ACTA-provisions 27(3) and 27(4) regarding the liability of Internet Service Providers are no longer part of the current draft of CETA. Other provisions relating to the enforcement of intellectual property rights are currently being studied with the aforementioned vote in mind. If provisions do not correspond thereto, they will be changed or deleted.</blockquote> <p>and:</p> <blockquote>In light of resolution 288 of the House of Representatives [2], this government will not agree in whatever agreement this may be to any ACTA-provisions it voted against. Examples are provisions on the strict enforcement of intellectual property on the internet and provisions that stand in the way of future intellectual property reforms.</blockquote> <p>The Dutch government further noted that currently there were no other treaties similar to ACTA being negotiated.</p> <p>This confirmation by the Dutch government is of course very good news. <strong>However, due to recent elections, a note of caution is in place: the new government that is currently being formed may decide differently.</strong> Seeing the latest positions of the two major parties there is not too much reason for concern: in their election campaign, the liberal party (VVD) took a position against ACTA and similar treaties; the labour party (PvdA) took position only against ACTA but did support resolution 288 (also mentioned above) by which the government was requested to vote against treaties similar to ACTA.</p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2058834709516110546.post-80707966040541928852012-09-26T14:45:00.001-07:002012-09-26T14:45:45.012-07:00Facebook gives up its face recognition feature in EU<p>Facebook has decided to give up the controversial face recognition feature in EU. The feature used by Facebook was taking information given by users when tagging friends' faces in photos.</p> <p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/21/irish_data_protection_commissioner_facebook_review_following_2011_audit/">www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/21/irish_d...</a></p> GoGoGadgethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10185830377795564341noreply@blogger.com