wright_is

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Gericht-stoppt-bundesweit-erstes-Streckenradar-4333809.html (German language)

I haven't found an English report so far.

The German courts have decided that the first average speed camera system that went online 2 months ago is actually illegal under data protection rules (GDPR).

The problem is, a normal speed camera takes a picture of somebody breaking the speed limit and this is allowed.

The average speed cameras photograph every car / its numberplate as it enters and leaves the section under observation. The problem is, it takes images of cars/drivers that have not committed a crime and stores said image. In order to do that, the camera operator has to get the assent of every driver not breaking the speed limit to be photographed, before the image is taken. It is also illegal to store the information once the driver has left the control area, unless they are guilty of excessive speed.

The police got their knuckles rapped last month for using the cameras to trace/catch criminals of other crimes who happened to pass in front of these cameras. Now the State of Lower Saxony has to immediately disable the camera system, while they wait for their appeal to be heard.

... we just forgot to mention that the Nest Guard has a microphone.

https://www.businessinsider.de/nest-microphone-was-never-supposed-to-be-a-secret-2019-2?op=1&r=US&IR=T

After releasing information about the Nest Guard now being voice activated, without a hardware upgrade, many users were surprised. How can a software update suddenly make a device without a microphone voice activated?

Erm, yes, well, about that, we just forgot to inform the press or users that the device had a microphone when it was launched, you know, for extending future capabilities of the device. Totally not for spying, no, no siree, no way.

I received the Hauwei Watch GT-843 on Saturday. Very nice.

I had been using a FitBit Charge 2, but its lack of waterproofing, the small display and the fact you can cheat by just rubbing your stomach had me looking for a replacement.

The small display is also difficult to read without my glasses.

I looked at The Garmin Vívosmart and Fenix watches, Polar and a few Android and Tizen watches. I really like the Fenxi 5, but it is just too expensive - 400€ - 700€ depending on which one you choose. The problem with the "smart" watches is the lack of battery life. About the one thing FitBit did get right. I did look at the FitBit smart watches, but they were expensive and I didn't feel comfortable with them, having looked at a couple in an electronics shop.

The Watch GT is a fitness watch first and foremost. It comes in a typical round smart-watch housing, is marginally wider than my Casio G-Shock, but much thinner. It is light and sits comfortably on my wrist.

The big display is bright and the selection of watch faces are interesting, although the "classic" watch faces fine, but can appear a bit busy. There are also "modern", digital displays which provide easier access to the tracking information.

One big advantage over the Charge 2 is that it can display messages from the phone, calendar and nearly any messaging app - it allowed me to set up email from Outlook, calendar from Outlook, Telegram, Threema and Signal; and all at the same time, with the FitBit, I could only choose 1 source of messages. Having a "proper" display, it also displays more of each message and you can scroll through the message history; the Charge 2 only displayed the first message, and if you got more messages, just the total number of messages. Being a tracker, you can't respond to the messages, but that is to be expected.

So far I am very pleased with it, with one little exception.

In watch mode, it should last 2 weeks, with messaging turned on, I'm guessing 8 - 10 days (it is currently draining about 10% per day, with everything turned on).

On the plus side, it seems less susceptible to "cheating" or random arm movements being registered as steps. Annoying, because I actually have to walk further than with the FitBit to reach the daily target, but good, because I know I'm much closer to my target - with the FitBit, I could rub my stomach for a few hundred extra steps, preparing a salad was good for anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 "steps".

The Hauwei Fit hat is good and nearly on a par with FitBit. The plus is that the data can be passed along to Google Fit, for example, if you are in the Google world.

The heart rate seems to be pretty close to the FitBit, which was generally accurate when I was measured at the doctors, the FitBit was always +/- 2-3 heart beats.

A big plus, the Watch GT is water resistant to 5 atmospheres, so I can use it when I go swimming.

The one thing I could criticize is the calorie meter. The FitBit calculated your base calorie usage, plus the additional calories burnt through excercise. The Watch GT seems to only register calories burnt through excercise - for example, I walked 7,500 steps yesterday, no training and my total burnt calories for the day were 181 kcal. Realistically, that would be around 2,800.

All in all, it seems to be a very well thought out tracker, with teh exception of the calories and for 169€, it compares well to the "professional" trackers, at least on paper, from Garmin, Polar and TomTom - they might offer GPS and other accessories, like HR chest-belts for the more serious fitness enthusiast. But for the price, I think it offers a genuine advantage over the Charge, whilst the professional trackers offer more high end training-route features, but start at about twice the price.

For me, it offers what I was looking for at a reasonable price.

I have this problem with all PCs. If you start the modern control panel app and go into apps and tell it to delete a Win32 app, it says that the user does not have the privileges to deinstall the app.

Open the old style "Add/Remove Programs" in the old control panel and it is quickly removed from the PC.

What is wrong with the configuration or why does it show applications in the modern view that it cannot deinstall?

I had an interesting experience this morning.

A user of a Windows 7 PC wanted a browser other than IE, because it was dog slow on the websites they need (E.g. weather.com - he works in a chemical park and some storage products are temperature sensitive and have to be held within a certain range, so can't be stored outside or transported if it is too hot or too cold).

He wanted Chrome, so I downloaded it from Google, but it failed to isntall - bother with his user account UACed to administrator for the install and as administrator on the PC. It failed each time after downloading and going through 60% of the install with a "couldn't extract file" error.

I put Firefox on the PC, that installed without any problems.

Has anyone else had problems installing Chrome?

I was setting up a new machine on Friday and I started Edge to download some applications that were needed.

It showed the MSN start page, as usual. I accidentally clicked on one of the stories on the MSN page (remote control with Teamviewer lagged) and it opened up the story, which was dominated with an "ad" showing a Windows 10 dialogbox style image, saying that Windows 10 was damaged and needed resetting and an OK button.

I quickly pressed Ctrl+W until all browser windows were closed and the AV scan afterwards showed now infection.

But WTF? Why is Microsoft's default homepage pushing malware at its users?

Holder - the full text was blocked, I'm trying to post this a bit at a time to find the culprit...

Disable Windows 10 Telemetary

Background

The German BSI (Federal Department for Information and IT Security) made a study of the telemetry data system for Windows 10.

https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Themen/Cyber-Sicherheit/Empfehlungen/SiSyPHuS_Win10/SiSyPHuS_node.html (German language)

The project (SiSyPHuS Win10), named after the King of Ephyra (or Corinth)*, set about to investigate what telemetry data was being sent back to Microsoft by Windows 10 and how you can disable it, as required by law (in fact, in Germany it must be opt-in). The information must also be transparent (i.e. the user must be able to see what is being sent and, if it isn’t in plain language, it must be fully documented.

The aim of the study was to see if Windows 10 habit of blabbering back to HQ could be silenced, and to find out exactly what information was being sent.

I got an update at home this morning for Office 365 Home with the new reduced Ribbon. It can be turned on using a slider top right of the window saying "preview new features" or something similar (I use the German version, so that is just an approximation.

There was also an update for Office 365 Pro Plus on my work machine, but that didn't get the preview.

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Amazon-Mitarbeiter-sollen-Kundendaten-verkauft-haben-4166361.html (German website)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-investigates-employees-leaking-data-for-bribes-1537106401 (paywall)

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Amazon is currently investigating allegations that Amazon employees have been selling customer data.

Affected are allegedly customers who have written reviews, the datasets were allegedly offered at between $80 and $2000. They also offered prospective purchasers the removal of negative reviews.

Amazon said that it will deal with employees who broke its rules with internal disciplinary procedures, through to dismissal. It will also deal with sellers that broke its rules.

Unknown is how many customers' data is involved, how many employees were in on the scheme.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/12/apple_film_rights/

Interesting, if you buy movies from Apple (and I assume from other online sources), you don't actually buy the movies, just the right at the time of purchase to download a copy of the movie.

If Apple (or any other online store) don't renew the rights to the films you have purchased, the films you thought you had purchased, will be removed from your library...

To apease the customer for removing his movies without refunding, they offered him 2 movie rentals to compensate for the lost films. No refund is possible.

Apple notes – again, buried in its terms and conditions: "It is your responsibility not to lose, destroy, or damage Content once downloaded. We encourage you to back up your Content regularly."

I hope that Paul and his family aren't too affected by the large forest fires sweeping through the country!

My thoughts also go out to those who live in Sweden and are affected by the fires.

Jaron Lanier held an opening keynote at CeBIT in Hannover today.

He was supposed to talk about VR, but instead he mainly spoke about the "free" business model used by Google, Facebook and other social media platforms.

He said that the business model is sick, it is stupid, dangerous and undignified. On the other hand, he praised businesses like Netflix, which for a monthly fee is creating some of the best content for years.

He was at pains to repeatedly point out that he was an enemy of technology, and he saw it as a great way for improving communications between people and that technology is "magical". But the free business model, subverted by advertising is a "fake" business model.

He went on to say, that the whole idea of big businesses having no real relationship with their customers (their users), but only with advertisers.

How stupid is it, that two people communicating with each other do it on a platform that hands over their information to a third party to allow them to tailored advertising, or as he called it, "behaviour modification loops".

He also went on to say that adertising in-and-of itself is not bad, but the tailored advertisments are the bad player here.

He also said the hacker culture, free information and open software (i.e. the original definition of a hacker, not the one corrupted by the press in recent years) is partly to blame.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any English language articles on his talk yet, there are a dozen or so German ones so far...

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Kranke-Geschaeftsmodelle-Cebit-beginnt-mit-Abreibung-fuer-die-Tech-Branche-4075894.html

I’ve been thinking, recently.

I wouldn’t have replaced my last smartphone, if it wasn’t for a long commute and Audible.

I currently have a fairly good phone, but I talk maybe 5 minutes a month on it. I never send or receive SMS. Data is used, mainly, for downloading new audio books on the move.

In essence, I just need an MP3 player that can play Audible books and podcasts. I could, theoretically, download these at home, before I go to work.

The phone sits on the table at home, until I leave. I then connect the headphones, listen to books/podcasts on the way to work / walking the dog etc. and then, at work, it sits on a corner of my desk, until I go back home.

That would save me 30€ a month on my contract (10GB data, unlimited calls and SMS). An MP3 player would also be a lot cheaper to replace than a smartphone.

Possibly the only thing I would miss is the odd message (Signal) from my other half, when she wants to pick me up from the office or I need to pick something up on the way home…

This is an interesting one, I have the same phenomenon with both PowerShell and bash (Linux under WSL) on Windows 10 Pro.

If I start a shell (either) and run commands that update the screen, E.g.

While(1) {ps | sort -des cpu | select -f 15 | ft -a; sleep 1; cls}

or a bash script that uses tput and echo to redraw the screen, if it runs on the local machine, it flashes and blanks and looks horrible.

If I remote onto another Windows machine or ssh onto a remote Linux host, the same scripts run a lot smoother, there is little or no flashing, the response to key presses is faster and it is generally a better experience...

The above example, run locally blanks the window (cls at the end), pauses, then redraws the window. On the remote host, the blanked window is not shown, the list of processes is simply overwritten, which looks a lot better. It is as if there is a slight pause, locally, before the window is redrawn, whereas remotely it is redrawn so fast, that the cls is never seen.

Surely, if the commands are running locally, it should provide a more smooth experience than running them remotely?

(the above command is similar to Linux top, it displays the top 15 processes, by CPU usage, every second)

Just a quick heads up, I noticed this today...

Serif are having a sale in the Windows Store (Windows 10), Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer are 25% off its regular price (41.24€ instead of 54.99€), according to the store this runs another 6 days.