Loek Essers, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Loek Essers

Author Archives: Loek Essers

Server heating startup teams with energy company to heat Dutch homes

A Dutch utility is inviting five families to use radiator-sized servers to heat their living rooms for free.In a trial organized by local utility Eneco, Nerdalize will install its server radiators in five homes, using them to deliver cloud computing services to its clients.The households using the heater could save €400 (about US$440) on their annual heating bill, said Eneco spokesman Marcel van Dun .Nerdalize pays for the electricity, but doesn’t have to deal with the space and cooling costs of conventional cloud and co-location data centers, allowing it to sell its services for 30 to 55 percent less than more conventional cloud-providers, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Case that could overturn EU-US data exchange deal to be heard by top EU court

U.S. companies’ ability to process personal information from European Union citizens will be challenged in the European Union’s highest court on Tuesday.At stake is the Safe Harbor Framework allowing U.S. companies to self-certify that they meet tough EU rules on the processing of personal information.A decision to revoke the deal could have serious consequences for U.S. companies that process EU citizens’ data in the U.S. Earlier this month, Twitter warned that a revocation of the deal could seriously hurt its business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Opera buys VPN service to help protect user privacy

Norwegian browser developer Opera Software has bought virtual private network service SurfEasy to help its users protect their privacy when accessing the Web from smartphones, tablets and computers.The acquisition of the Canadian company also appears to be the latest in the company’s strategy to expand into other products beyond the browser.SurfEasy offers applications to encrypt Internet traffic on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices as well as a password-protected USB plug-in that lets users browse securely from any computer or network, without leaving a trace.Opera bought SurfEasy because Internet users are increasingly looking for ways to securely access the Internet, the company said in a release announcing the deal. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Opera buys VPN service to help protect user privacy

UberPop banned by German court

The Frankfurt Regional Court has issued a nationwide ban against Uber ride-hailing service UberPop, declaring its business model illegal.UberPop is a service operated by Uber that connects users of its smartphone app with private drivers who offer rides in their own cars for fees that are substantially lower than regular taxi fares. Mediating rides with private drivers who don’t have the required licenses is illegal, though, the court ruled on Wednesday.Uber should in principle put a halt to the service immediately, a court spokesman said, adding that if it does not, it can be fined up to €250,000 (about US$265,000) for every violation.Uber can appeal the ruling and meanwhile, the complainant in the case, Taxi Deutschland, needs to post a €400,000 security deposit. The money is meant to compensate Uber for lost business in case it wins an appeal. Taxi Deutschland will post the deposit as soon as possible, a spokeswoman said in an email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK government filing raises fears about misuse of hacking powers

A legal filing by the U.K. government has raised fears that the country’s intelligence service GCHQ is misusing its powers to hack telecommunications companies in other countries.The document was made public by Privacy International and the Chaos Computer Club, both claimants in a lawsuit filed last year against GCHQ over its spying practices. In the filing, which is part of the case, the U.K. government claims it has the right to break into computers anywhere in the world, even if they are not connected to a crime or a threat to national security, the groups said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU Parliamentarians visit U.S. to talk data protection, mass surveillance

Data protection and mass surveillance are high on the agenda for talks between members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and their U.S. counterparts in Washington, D.C., this week.A delegation of 11 MEPs, all members of the Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE), are in Washington to discuss major issues. One of them is the renewal of the so-called Safe Harbor deal that regulates the transfer of personal data of EU citizens to the U.S.In the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about U.S. government spying, the European Commission—the E.U.’s executive branch—gave the U.S. 13 demands that it wanted met in order for the Safe Harbor deal to continue. So far, however, no agreement has been reached. A summer 2014 deadline was postponed and the Commission now hopes to conclude talks on the deal by the end of May.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Government requests for Facebook data continue to grow

Requests from governments for people’s Facebook account data were overall on the rise in the second half of 2014, though they declined in the U.S. and Germany.The total number of requests rose slightly to 35,051, up from 34,946 in the first half, Facebook said in a post on its updated Global Government Requests Report released Monday.The vast majority of requests relate to criminal cases including robberies and kidnappings, the social networking company said. In many of the cases, the government was seeking basic subscriber information such as name and registration date. In others, law enforcement also sought access to IP address logs or account content.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU ministers OK new cross-border data protection plan, sparking criticism

Ministers of European Union countries have agreed on a new plan to deal with cross-border privacy cases. Companies and a variety of critics, though, have called the proposal a mess.The plan, at least originally, was supposed to put in place a “one-stop-shop” mechanism that would make it easier for businesses and citizens to deal with privacy-related complaints. The idea of a streamlined approach to resolving privacy issues is a key pillar of EU data-protection reform and member states agreed on a version of such a plan on Friday, said Vra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice during a press conference.At the moment, companies operating in the EU like Google, Facebook and Apple can be held responsible for privacy issues by national data protection authorities (DPAs). In Google’s case, for instance, this has led to multiple simultaneous investigations into the privacy policy it introduced in 2012. Enforcement actions related to various complaints have been taken in several EU countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU law makers to discuss whether Facebook qualifies as critical infrastructure

European legislators are about to reopen a debate on whether Facebook and Twitter should be subject to the same rules as power grids and payment services for protecting critical IT infrastructure and the data it carries.The proposed rules require providers of essential energy, transport, banking and healthcare services to protect their communications networks from hacking and intrusion, and to disclose security breaches. “Key Internet enablers” such as e-commerce platforms and search engines might also have to comply with the rules.Which companies the new law will cover, though, is a focus of upcoming negotiations between the three European Union law-making bodies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wikimedia sues NSA to stop it from spying on its users

In an effort to stop the U.S. government from spying on Wikipedia’s readers and editors, the Wikimedia Foundation will sue the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).The lawsuit, due to be filed with a coalition of eight civili liberties organizations later Tuesday, challenges what Wikimedia calls the NSA’s unfounded, large-scale search and seizure of internet communications. Using surveillance techniques the NSA intercepts virtually all internet communications flowing across the network of high-capacity cables, switches, and routers that make up the internet’s backbone, which is used by Wikimedia to connect Wikipedia readers and contributors, the organization said in a blog post signed by its senior legal counsel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SAP to cut 2,200 jobs, plans to recreate them in other parts of the company

SAP will cut over 2,200 jobs this year in activities where it sees no future, but plans to create others around cloud services and its HANA in-memory database offering, where it sees more potential.“There won’t be any impact on customers. We will ensure that we have sufficient hand-over time between colleagues who might be leaving and others taking over,” a company spokeswoman said Friday.The restructuring will affect about 3 percent of SAP’s 74,400 employees. Workers in Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. will be offered early retirement, or the opportunity to switch jobs and work for other divisions of the company. Staff in Europe won’t be forced to leave, but lay-offs can’t be avoided elsewhere, said the spokeswoman.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU countries agree on watered-down roaming and net neutrality plans

European Union countries have proposed keeping roaming charges around at least until mid-2018, going against proposals from the European Parliament and Commission for their all-out abolition by the end of the year.At the same time, representatives of the countries proposed weakening the net neutrality rules already agreed on by the Parliament and the Commission. The counter-proposal sets the stage for heated discussions as the 28 EU member states, gathered as the Council of the EU, try to reach a compromise with the EU’s other two law-making bodies on a new telecommunications law before the end of June.The Council proposed introducing a basic roaming allowance within which consumers can make and receive calls, send text messages and use data services without paying roaming fees. Once this allowance is used up though, the operator will be allowed to charge a fee, albeit much lower than current charges, the Council said. It proposes reassessing the situation in mid-2018 to see if further regulatory measures are needed to phase out charges altogether.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU data protection reform ‘badly broken,’ civil liberty groups warn

Leaked documents show that the European Union’s data protection is on its way to become an empty shell devoid of meaning, European civil rights groups warned Tuesday.The EU is busy overhauling its data protection rules, which date back to 1995. The European Commission and the European Parliament have already agreed on a draft regulation that seeks to modernize data protection rules to take new digital technologies into account.However, there is one more legislative body that has to sign off on the new rules: the Council of the EU, which consists of national ministers of EU member states.Since the Parliament approved the draft with minor changes in March last year, the Council has been busy changing the text. Ministers are expected to agree on how they want to reshape the text by Summer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Europe’s political youth organizations demand strict net neutrality rules

European political youth organizations have demanded that European countries draft strict and clear net neutrality rules that prevent ISPs from discriminating against certain Internet traffic.In order to keep the Internet open, all data on the Internet should be treated equally, 51 youth organizations said in a manifest sent to European ministers on Monday.The ministers, gathered in the Council of the EU, are in the process of discussing a new EU telecom law as proposed by the European Commission and the European Parliament that contains clauses on net neutrality and roaming. The Parliament in April last year voted to enshrine net neutrality in EU law, so that all traffic would be treated equally and without discrimination. However, the Council is trying to get some traffic discrimination back into the draft.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Iran ready to work with Google, other global Internet companies

Iran is ready to cooperate with Google and other global Internet companies to allow them to operate in the country, according to Iranian media reports.Talks are already under way with Google to place servers in Iran, according to a report Sunday from the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The article quoted remarks made to local press by the country’s deputy minister of telecommunications and information technology, Nasrollah Jahangard.Similar negotiations are ongoing with several other major U.S. and European Internet companies, according to IRNA.In a separate report from the Fars News Agency (FNA), Iran’s semi-official news agency, Jahangard was quoted saying “We are ready to provide Google or any other company with Iran’s possibilities and facilities for service providing to the region.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chip makers NXP and Freescale plan merger, focusing on car chips and wearables

Chip makers NXP Semiconductors Freescale Semiconductor are to merge, creating a US$40 billion company that, they say, leads the market in automotive chips and general-purpose microcontrollers.The combined entity will have revenue of over $10 billion, much of it from microcontrollers and chips for cars, the companies said. As mobile phone and automobile manufacturers join forces to bring more intelligence to vehicles, and as the market for wearables and other small connected devices takes off, these markets are likely to see strong growth.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google agrees to Italian privacy authority audits in the US

Google has agreed to on-the-spot audits at its U.S. headquarters in order to comply with Italy’s data protection laws.The Italian data protection authority (DPA) imposed several privacy measures on Google after an investigation into the company’s policies that was completed in July 2014. On Friday, the authority said Google will comply with all demands.The process to verify compliance calls for the DPA to check up on Google’s progress at its U.S. headquarters. It remains unclear when that will happen, though. “There is no precise appointment at the moment but there is an agreement to be able to go there,” a spokesman for the authority said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sensors and lasers will help Volvo’s self-driving cars stay on the road

A complex network of sensors, lasers and a cloud-based positioning system are part of a plan from Volvo Cars to have 100 self-driving cars on the road by 2017.Volvo’s project to put self-driving cars on the streets of Gothenburg is entering its second year. It aims to let ordinary people drive a car with an autopilot in normal traffic on public roads. On Thursday, Volvo gave some insights into the technology it will use to integrate self-driving cars into real traffic.“The key to success is combining sensors, computers and a chassis system in a clever way,” said Erik Coelingh, a technical specialist at Volvo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Payments startup iZettle makes chip & PIN card reader available for free

With a free Chip & PIN card reader, Swedish mobile payments company iZettle is lowering the threshold for small companies to start accepting card payments.The Card Reader Lite, released Tuesday, connects to tablets or smartphones via an audio cable and it is meant to lower the cost barriers small merchants face when setting up their businesses, iZettle said.Startup costs weren’t that high to begin with though. Businesses only pay €49 (about US$55) for iZettle’s wireless Bluetooth card reader, which it will continue to offer, and similar readers from competing services such as Payleven and SumUp cost only a little more at €79.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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