Items tagged with Germany
Yesterday, Qualcomm put up €1.34 billion in security bonds in order to enforce a German court ruling in its favor made in late December regarding a bitter patent dispute with Apple. The patents pertained to "power savings technology" used in modern smartphones call envelope tracking. Today, Apple has been forced to pull its iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 from its own stores in Germany. Apple's German website was the first to boot the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8, but it remains to be seen if/when other retailers will follow suit. For its part, Qualcomm claims that the court order also covers third-party retailers: Apple was ordered to cease the sale, offer for sale and importation for sale of...
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Germany's regulatory arm for electricity, gas, telecommunications, post, and railway markets, has issued a ban on smartwatches designed for children over concerns that they can be used by parents to spy on their kids and teachers. Furthermore, the regulatory office is urging parents to go a step further and physically destroy these smartwatches, should their children own one. The agency has also taken action against several firms that offer smartwatches designed for children. "Via an app, parents can use such children's watches to listen unnoticed to the child's environment and they are to be regarded as an authorized transmitting system," said Jochen Homann, president of the Federal Network...
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900,000 Deutsche Telekom customers in Germany were hit with an internet outage beginning on Sunday, and IT analysts have concluded that the company was the victim of a hacker attack. The 900,000 affected customers make up roughly 4.5 percent of Deutsche Telekom’s 20 million fixed-line customers.It is believed that the hackers used malicious software known as Mirai. Mirai turns network devices into remotely-controlled “bots” that can be used to launch attacks and target other victims. Remote interfaces allow network technicians to fix customers' routers from far away, but are also susceptible to outside attacks such as Mirai. The attack targeted the remote routers in homes and offices that not...
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France and Germany are just two of the countries that are pressing mobile messaging companies to provide access to encrypted content during terrorist investigations. Both countries have experienced a series of deadly attacks and have been struggling to intercept messages from the Islamic State. France and Germany have turned to the European Commission to help push through favorable legislation. Terrorists are increasingly using encrypted messaging services instead of social media. ISIS is a major user of such apps. Russian app Telegram has been particularly reluctant to cooperate with European governments and is one of the targets of the proposed legislation. France and Germany are also looking...
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A city in Germany has embedded LED traffic lights into sidewalks so that pedestrians who are too busy looking at their smartphone won't accidentally walk out into oncoming traffic. Sadly, this isn't a belated April Fool's story, and it begs the question, has it really come to this? And at the risk of sounding crass, isn't there a cutoff point where we stop interfering with natural selection? The city of Augsburg came up the idea after noticing that walkers were so engrossed with their smartphones that they weren't paying attention to traffic signals. By installing LED traffic lights right into the pavement, pedestrians can continue looking down at their handsets while being made aware of when...
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Amazon was unable to live up to analysts’ expectations when it was revealed in its report, for the third quarter of 2014, that there was a net loss of $437 million. Now, it appears that the online retailer is not living up to its workers’ expectations in Germany who could be going on strike. The labor union Verdi has asked that Amazon workers go on strike at five locations, in Germany, over the issue of pay and conditions. The union asked workers in Bad Hersfield, Leipzig, Graben, and Rheinberg to go on strike Monday through Wednesday while workers at Werne are to go on strike Monday and Tuesday. Verdi argues that Amazon is not paying its 9,000 German employees, who should be considered...
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HTC is not starting out the new year on a strong note; the company lost a patent case to Nokia in a Munich court that affects all HTC Android devices in Germany. At issue is a technology for a "method for transferring resource information" (such a URL) between two devices via Bluetooth or NFC technology. This gives Nokia the right to recall all HTC devices that violate the patent in the country, and the company indicated in a statement that it would pursue banning imports and sales “of all infringing HTC products in Germany, as well as to obtain damages for past infringement”. HTC One could be banned in Germany over patent infringement The extent of Nokia’s litigation doesn’t...
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Bah, humbug. Just as the holidays approach, Amazon.com has an issue on its hands over in Germany. The company, which prides itself on tremendously quick turnarounds and lightning-fast shipping, is now dealing with hundreds of employees who began striking on Monday. The strike was no doubt timed to coincide with the annual holiday rush of orders, as consumers flock to the site and attempt to snap up gifts for those that they haven't addressed yet. The issue at hand? Pay and conditions, as these usually go. For Amazon, Germany is a region worth paying attention to. It's actually the company's second-largest market behind its homeland (U.S.), with sales growing over 20% there in 2012 to nearly $9...
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A well-known German hacker group has accused the German government of releasing a Trojan horse program into the wild. According to the Chaos Computer Club, the program is the stuff of political fiction: it was designed to allow the government to spy on its citizens. The CCC released its findings on its website, in the form of a 20-page PDF file (in German), along with an accompanying post in English. In part, the CCC said the following, "The malware can not only siphon away intimate data but also offers a remote control or backdoor functionality for uploading and executing arbitrary other programs. Significant design and implementation flaws make all of the functionality available to anyone...
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Here's a weird one. Doom, the first-person shooter we all grew up playing, hasn't been on sale in Germany –– ever! A rather strange report has surfaced over the weekend, showing that the classic will finally be on sale after 17 years of being on a ban list. Yeah, 17 whole years! As it was, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprufstelle) had sentenced the title in the same restrictive category as pornography, which had kept it off of store shelves for nearly two whole decades. Of course, there were other means of acquiring it, but not on the straight-and-narrow. Now, however, that's all changed. A recent meeting of the entity pulled it out said category....
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In the quest to keep bicycles safe, here's a new idea. Instead of trying to create the invulnerable bicycle lock, how about having it shinny up whatever pole you attach it to instead, and out of harm's way? A German company called Conrad had developed the ultimate bike lock. The making of video (below) shows how it works. There are a few problems with the idea. For one, it certainly isn't the most portable of security devices. For another, we only hope no one, either because they don't notice your bike, or because they are complete a-holes, decides to hoist their bike up the pole beneath yours....
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Google Street View just recently launched in Germany. It's possible to opt out of Street View, and in Germany, 244,000 did, asking Google to remove their residences from the service. Not, however, this naked guy in a car trunk. This image appeared shortly after the service launched, in 20 German cities. Although being posted around the Web as "Naked German Guy in trunk," it's possible it was just a hot day and he got on skimpy shorts or swim trunks. Later, Google blurred the image out. The dog in the picture probably was happy, as his owner was embarrassing him....
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With the World Cup over and the sound of vuvuzelas thankfully fading away, you might think it's time for business as usual to begin again. Toshiba, however, appears hooked on the excitement, fun, and motonous buzzing a PR crisis can deliver. Back in early June, the company ran a series of ads in Germany, England, Portugal, Italy, and Spain. The terms were (seemingly) simple: Buy a Toshiba product prior to the end of the world cup, and if your team won it all, Toshiba would refund your purchase. According to our crack team of translators, if Team Red wins, you win. Provided you used your Toshiba decoder ring to find the hidden information underneath the bathmat in your mother's apartment....
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Ah yes, as technology advances, so do surveillance techniques. So this should surprise no one - should it?Classified documents from September 2007, leaked last week by the German political "Pirate Party," show one particular system that Bavarian police could have in place by February, and its high operating cost.The system, provided by a company known as Digitask, is called a "Skype Capture Unit," and is essentially a malware client installed onto the surveillance target. It intercepts Skype voice and chat data, purportedly offering real-time streaming of hijacked content. Digitask also offered the police the ability to intercept and decrypt SSL-based communication with a "man-in-the-middle"...
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