Thought out loud

Soeben bin ich über eine neue Art der Geiselnahme gestolpert.

Zu dem Ausdruck sagt die deutsche Wikipedia folgendes:

“Die Geiselnahme ist eine Straftat gegen die persönliche Freiheit und vor allem gegen die körperliche Integrität des Einzelnen.”

Die “klassischen” Varianten kennt wohl jeder, zb. bei…

… Banküberfällen
… Flugzeugentführungen
… Raub bei dem die Flucht vergeigt wurde
… etc…

In der Regel wird eine Forderung, meistens in der Form von Geld oder Fluchtmöglichkeit gestellt. Im Gegenzug dazu werden dann Geiseln freigelassen.

Nun hat sich ein findiger Hacker das Konzept Geiselnahme in die digitale Welt übertragen. Gemäss einem Artikel auf Inside-IT.ch hat besagter Hacker über die Website einer Gesundheitsbehörde in den USA etwa 8 Millionen Patientendaten als Geisel genommen. Diese Website wird von Gesundheits-Dienstleistern zur Verifikation von Medikament-Rezepten genutzt um Rezeptfälschungen zu erschweren.

Gemäss dem Artikel erlangte der Hacker Zugriff auf die Datenbank, verschlüsselte diese und löschte alle anderen Online-Backups. Gemäss WikiLeaks sind die Offline-Backups Dummerweise unauffindbar. Oh noes!

Bei einer Zahlung von 10 Millionen US-Dollar würde der Hacker das Passwort herausgeben. Vermutlich würden die IT-Leute besagter Behörde dann nur noch Müll in der entschlüsselten Datenbank finden.

In der aktuellen Diskussion um das anlegen grosser Datensammlungen wie zb der Datenbank des Bundes für die Biometrie-Pässe stimmen mich solche Nachrichten nachdenklich. Ist es wirklich nötig, dass so umfassende Datensätze über jeden einzelnen im Internet verfügbar sind? Meiner Meinung nach NEIN. Solche Daten gebührt der höchste mögliche Schutz. Wenn über weite Strecken solche Daten ausgetauscht werden müssten, dann brauchts schon etwas mehr als ein JavaScript-Login auf einer öffentlichen Website.

Einige werden nun argumentieren, dass viele Bürger sowieso ihr ganzes Leben in Facebook, Xing, StudiVZ und Konsorten der ganzen Welt zur Verfügung stellen. Klar, es gibt tausende von Menschen, die nicht wissen, was sie da eigentlich tun, jede Freundeseinladung akzeptieren und es zu solch unschönen Sachen kommt. Jedoch haben diese Menschen diese Informationen auf die eine oder andere Weise selbst ins Internet gebracht und sind auch selbst schuld. Wer würde schon ein Plakat mit “Bin im Urlaub”, an seine Haustüre heften und damit sämtliche Einbrecher auf leichte Beute aufmerksam zu machen?

Anders sieht das zB. mit medizinischen informationen aus, welche Krankenkasse über Ihre Kunden hat. Ich erwarte, dass diese bestmöglich vor unbefugtem Zugriff geschützt werden. Wenn dies nicht der Fall ist und diese Daten dann zB beim Arbeitgeber auftauchen, kann der Betroffene nun wirklich nichts dafür. Das Datenschutzgesetz regelt zwar solche Sachen, bringt einem aber, wenn das Kind schon im Brunnen liegt, herzlich wenig.

Deswegen bin ich der Meinung, dass Datensätze nur dort angelegt werden, wo sie zwingend notwendig sind. Nur so kann man einem Missbrauch vorbeugen

Thanks, 3dSupply. Although they stated that the feedme-campaign wasn’t targeted at Switzerland and Austria, they still sent out the T-Shirts to the swiss and austrian bloggers. This week mine arrived.

There have been numerous discussions if  this is objectionable to push one’s PageRank up by such means. There was no requrement from 3dSupply on what you write. It just had to contain a Link to their website. Probably one could have written a factual and well-researched negative post about them, and would still have gotten a T-Shirt (would have been nothing than decent).

Another effect of this campain was a mere pingback-storm. Some bloggers thought it cool to list all blogs which participated in this campaign, 504 in total. As I don’t have the reader-base like the big blogs, I was a bit surprised by so many pingbacks in my Moderation queue. Hey, maybe this even improves my PageRank a bit as well.

I’ll refrain from listing all the participating blogs for above reasons. You can get a complete list at the campaign website.

My mobile Phone is starting do die. I’ve got a SE K800i and it suffers from a typical SonyEricsson illness, the Joystick starts to bitch around.

I looked at the iPhone, but in the end I decided against it, for three reasons.

1. I don’t like anything that is being hyped like the iPhone was
2. I have a very strong antipathy against iTunes
3. I don’t like the feel of the “virtual” keyboard

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is a very Innovative product and Apple is always forcing the other manufacturers to bring innovations.And I have to admit, the iPhone is just plain cool.

Now I wonder when the first Android phone will hit the swiss market. T-Mobile announced the G1 for the US-Market. Now what about Europe?

Has anyone heard anything? Maybe someone has a chatty crystal orb…

I’ve noticed, that the news about car accidents involving novice drivers (usually teens) tend to increase again. It’s always sad to see, that a young life is brutally changed forever or even extinguished, just because one moron thinks he’s the hero and wants to show off to his girlfriend/beer-pals/*insertrandomfriend*. Often enough, the one that causes the accident survives relatively unharmed, whilst uninvolved people get heavily injured, are left disabled or even die. And almost always, speeding and/or alcohol are also involved.

I understand, that in autumn, the road conditions aren’t perfect. The sun is low, its foggy at night and in the early morning, and often there is damp foliage from trees on the road. Perfect conditions to overlook something or losing control of your car, even when driving carefully. I also understand that when you get your driving license, you don’t have the driving experience nor the routine. I’ve made my License about 6 years ago. I’m still gaining routine and sometimes get in tight situations.

In Switzerland, people who want to get a driving license, have to take various courses before taking the final exam. This includes a First aid course and a 6 lessons course on Traffic and Vehicles (Verkehrskundeunterricht). After that, you can take the written exam consisting of 50 multiple choice questions, where you need to get 36 questions right. The tricky thing is, that there can be multiple answers correct. If you think answer A is correct, but in reality B and C are correct, you have 3 negative points. This can add up very quickly.

After passing the written exam, you can finally take the practical exam. That is 45 minutes of driving with an instructor next to you. Usually you will have some city-traffic, Parking sideways (on a busy road of course) driving backwards, maneuvering and some Motorway driving. In addition to that, they ask you about what you see on the dashboard and what the different lights mean.

When I took the test, you got the driving license once you pass the practical exam. Nowadays, the freshly-baked drivers are obliged to take a second driving-safety course within one year of passing the final exam. And they are on probation for 3 years i believe. That means, NO speeding, a 0.0 policy on alcohol etc. Getting caught not following these rules ends in revocation of your license. Makes sense to me as the driving license is a status symbol for youngsters, and losing it seriously damages your reputation.

To enforce adhering to the speeding rule and driving reasonably, Ford has introduced MyKey, a system where parents can control the way their kids drive with dad’s car. The system uses information like max-speed or max-volume of the audio system saved on the ignition key.

Storing driver-specific Information on the ignition key is not new, but its the first time that this is used from a security point of view. I hope, that system works and that other car manufacturers will incorporate this into their cars.

If only one life could be saved with this, it was worth it, not?

… here you can check if the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth.

And for all of you out there who want to get the news first, here’s the RSS-Feed.

Hint: check the source

Here is my conclusion about the TomTom GO 930 T as far as I can judge now.

In-Car performance

I’m still very impressed on how fast the nav gets a loc. Entering a destination address is easy as always. you can choose from the following destination types:

• Home
• Favourite
• Address
• Last destination
• Point of Interest (from the internal POI-Database)
• My Location (navigate to my current position? me is confused)
• Location on map (point where you want to go)
• Latitude / Longitude
• TomTom Buddy
• Last stop (cool to find your car again )

When you approach an intersection or exit on the motorway, the nav shows you a schematic drawing of the road(s) ahead and which exit to use, if data is available.

the TMC Feature is veeery nice. You just have to interpret correctly what the nav is telling you. Short example to show you what i mean:

Few days ago, the nav told me that there was a traffic jam before the Gubrist Tunnel and a wait of about 15 mins. In its generosity it asked me if it should re-calculate the route to minimise wait times. Of course I accepted the offer thankfully and followed the directions blindly. It lead my straight trhough Zurich City at 7:30 on a work-day. In the end i’ve lost more time than I whould have through the jam before the Gubrist.

You see, you have to see the information of the nav in context. Motor-way jams are either there or they arent. The usual downtown-Traffic-light-mayhem is usually not reflected in TMC. For more details on how it works, check the Wikipedia-article.

Bluetooth headset

Another very nice feature is the bluetooth headset functionality. After pairing your phone using the wizard on the nav, you can make and receive calls direcly from the nav. You can pair multiple phones, which is very useful if you have one for business and a private one, like me.

If you like, you can even copy your phonebook to the nav. This happens in the background and doesn’t disturb you while using it otherwise. downside to that is, that you don’t see when its finished. However, you can only have one phonebook on the nav, so if you have different directories on your phones, you will have to copy it every time you switch phones. For my 400-something contacts it takes about 3-5 minutes to copy.

The nav even tells you when you received a new SMS text message. If you install the appropriate Language-pack, it even reads the SMS aloud. It’s not so comfortable with foreign languages, but thats usually good for a laugh

Writing SMS or dialling numbers over the nav is possible, but a bit fumbly. I wouldn’t do it while driving along the motorway with 120Km/h.

In the Next part, I’ll get into the features when connected to a PC.

A colleague just told me that the IPhone is now sold at CHF 1.–!!!!!

Here’s the proof:

I’ve seen these Videos a few times now on the Internet. Last on eigent.li/ch.

Everone who has a cat, knows that it’s exactly like that.

Simon’s YouTube site

(via eigent.li/ch)

Today I used the GO 930 to get to work. I know, its somewhat over-delivery but its good to measure the accuracy of the nav in an area you know. After driving out of the garage, it had a lock almost instantly. about 3 mins later the TMC-Data was downloaded. It kept receiving the TMC-data on a regular basis <4mins.

My journey to work leads me aroud Zurich over the “Nordring”.  And usually its jammed. Via TMC my Nav was informed that there would be a delay of approx. 15 mins before the Gubrist-Tunnel. WOW. Of course it wanted to keep me away from the jam and re-calculated the route. Through the City. Not so cool. But still i’m surprised how fast and well it worked. Eventually it took me more than usual to get to work, but the trip through the city gave me a interesting sample of the capabilities of the nav. It guided me safely through the city and gave instructions precisely then, when I needed them. When driving through tunnels, it briefly lost connection to the satellites, but re-locked very quickly after exiting the tunnel.

The Telephony-functions really knocked me off my shoes. Usually, linking two devices of different brands via bluetooth is somewhat tricky. If one of the devices then offers a functionality which is not the core-competence of the manufacturer (Handsfree -> TomTom), trouble should be pre-programmed. The Go 930 taught me better. After pairing my phone, which is a SonyEricsson K800i, the nav asked me if I would like to copy the phonebook. After about a minute, over 400 contacts were copied.

While I drove on, I received a Text Message. 10 seconds later, the nav showed an envelope and gave an audible signal. Tapping the envelope showed me the message and gave me the possibility to either reply or call the sender. WOW! Because typing is not advisable while driving, I chose to call the sender. The sound quality coming from the nav was very convincing. Everything loud and clear. Also, my friend heard me loud and clear, almost no background noise. OK, there was not much noise, because I was still standing in the traffic Jam. I’ll test it on the Highway at 120km/h when I get the chance.

When making a phone call, you have the option to either use a Bluetooth headset, the Internal Speaker, the Line-Out connector or the built-in FM-Transmitter to give out the sound. I gather that except with bluetooth, the internal microphone is used. If you discuss confidential stuff on the phone, I would refrain from using the FM-Transmitter. Although you can choose the frequency it transmits on, everyone around you can tune in and listen what the person on the other end says. Its not very probable, but technically possible.

All in all, I am still very happy with the nav. I’ll update on this once I’ve used it for a bit longer.

The Nav already impressed me on the drive home. Operating is very intuitive and doesn’t require long study of the handbook. Although I recommend reading it to take advantage of all the features. I would like to go into a bit more detail and describe the features i’ve used so far.

Box Content

The packaging makes a practical and solid impression. the Nav itself is held securely in its own box, separated from the accessories. I suppose that is so the devices for the separate countries can be easily replaced. Apart from the Nav itself, you get the following:

• In-Car Charger
• Windscreen-mount with suction cup
• TMCpro antenna with 4 suction cups
• Bluetooth remote control
• Desktop dock
• Quick Start guide
• Installation Poster
• CD with full handbook as PDF
• Accessories-Catalogue

What I’m really missing here is a pouch to keep the Nav safe from scratches when it’s not used.

Installation

The Installation was quite straight-forward. Stick the holder to the windscreen using the suction cup. It says that you should clean the glass before sticking the support on it. I didn’t, and it holds just fine. Next was the TMC antenna. I chose to route it up the windscreen and then across towards the rear-view mirror. The “Egg” I positioned behind the nav. The Power-plug is angled to the rear. This means you can almost sit the nav on the dashboard, thats what i’ve thought. Too bad that the plug of the TMC-Antenna is straight down and about 4cm long. No sitting on the Windscreen in that case. The Suction-Cups of the Antenna don’t hold as well as the one from the support, but that might also be because I didn’t clean the windscreen prior the installation. When I get time, I’ll re-route the cable to go across the bottom edge of the windscreen.

The Power-Charger is a standard cigarette-lighter model which holds quite firmly in the socket. First thing that surprised me was, that the charger has its own fuse. The power cord is long enough to reach from the nav in the lower left corner of the windscreen across the cockpit and down to the ashtray where the cigarette lighter is. so much for therory. Too bad that i’m driving a car that isn’t exactly built to standard. My cigarette lighter is between the two front seats under the armrest. If I route the cable directly from the socket, across the steering column to the nav, it fits. I’ll have to either get a USB-Extension or a Extender for the Cigarette lighter socket.

Handling

If you ever used a TomTom-Nav before, you know exactly how to operate it. If you never had one in your hands, you’ll learn it quickly. The basic functions are found very easily. The configuration for the more advanced features (Hands-Free, FM-Transmitter, etc), which are not necessarily core-functions of a nav, are also easy to find and the on-screen-explanations are very simple and understandable.

The screen is bright and easily readable. It even switches from day to night-view automatically when it gets dark. This function is nice, but until now, it switches a bit fast.

I’ll try the TomTom on my way to work on monday and let you know how it went…