All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Tech News : Millions Of iPhone Users Could Receive ‘Batterygate’ Payouts

Following a claim made by a consumer champion against Apple over the ‘Batterygate’ alleged throttling of older iPhones, millions of people could receive compensation if the claim is successful.

Batterygate 

The recent claim in relation to what has become known as ‘Batterygate’ refers to a 2017 software update to iPhones which Apple says was a power management tool to help combat performance issues and to stop older devices from abruptly shutting down.

Some iPhone users at the time shared concerns online that their iPhone’s performance had slowed over time yet had sped up after a battery replacement. This led to a customer sharing comparative performance tests of different models of the iPhone 6S on Reddit, which appeared to support the customer suspicions. Slowing of iPhones was reported to be affecting iPhone 6 and 7 and SE models (back in 2016 also).

Technology website Geekbench also shared the results of its own tests of several iPhones running different versions of the iOS operating system where some showed slower performance than others.

After customers’ concerns mounted and received more press, Apple publicly admitted that it had made changes one year earlier in the iOS 10.2.1 software update (the so-called ‘power management tool’) that is likely to have been responsible for the slowdown that customers may have experienced in iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, and iPhone SE.

The slowing affected millions of people with thirty-three U.S states claiming that Apple had deliberately caused the battery-slowing (a process known as ‘throttling’) to encourage battery replacement and new phone purchases.

Apple issued an apology to customers in January 2018 but said that their motivation for slowing the batteries was a desire to prolong the life of customer devices by managing their ageing lithium-ion batteries and preventing the inconvenience of a sudden and unexpected shutdown.

Back in November 2020, Apple agreed to pay $113m (£85m) in the hope of putting an end to the ‘Batterygate’ scandal

The New Claim 

The new ‘Batterygate’ claim by UK consumer champion Justin Gutmann alleges that Apple misled users about the upgrade, in that when Apple said it would enhance performance but instead appeared to slow phones down. He is seeking around £768m in damages for up to 25 million UK iPhone users.

Mr Gutmann claims that Apple introduced the software tool in a concealed way to hide the fact that iPhone batteries may not have been able to run the latest iOS software at the time. This allegedly was a plan to save the company the cost of having to recall products and provide replacement batteries, instead making users seek to buy their own new batteries or new iPhones after noticing a slowdown (following the update).

What Does Apple Say? 

Back in 2018, Apple said that it would never intentionally “degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.”  Apple is still sticking to this denial and still claims that the update was intended to help owners by extending the life of their old batteries

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Batterygate was very damaging to Apple’s reputation the first time around and Apple offered to pay £85m two years ago to make the scandal go away. Apple is, therefore, likely to be very unhappy that the issue has re-surfaced in this way, and it could be facing a big £700 million+ payout. Some people have noted that Apple makes more than 80 per cent of its revenue from new devices which means that there are now many different models being used by customers where there is likely to be a need for updates that can ensure the batteries can handle the continuing improvements in software. The claim by Mr Gutmann is an opt-out type of claim, meaning that iPhone users don’t need to do anything to possibly benefit and receive a payment from Apple if Mr Gutmann is successful. This may provide some sense of compensation and satisfaction to many users who may feel as though they were tricked into unnecessarily buying a replacement phone or battery at great expense. Although the new claim will once again affect Apple’s reputation, it may be a necessary step in ensuring that the scandal will finally go away.

News

Sustainability : First Off-Grid, Self-Powering Phone Mast Switched-On

Vodafone has announced the switch-on of the UK’s first wind and solar-powered mobile phone mast in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Wind And Solar Power 

The mast, designed to provide 4G coverage to the community of Eglwyswrw (pronounced Egg-lis-oo-roo), incorporates a wind turbine, solar panels, and on-site battery storage. This makes the mast off-grid and self-powering and enables it to function with no connection to the national electricity grid.

Connectivity For ‘Not-Spots’ 

Vodafone says that this type of mast could provide connectivity to ‘not-spots’ in the UK’s most remote and inaccessible locations. This could help bring mobile and internet services to rural communities, boost the local economy, tackle isolation, and close the rural digital divide.

Covering ‘not-spots’ with self-powering masts that use solar and wind could help Vodafone reduce carbon emissions and support its target of reaching net zero UK operations by 2027, and help the industry achieve 95 per cent of UK landmass coverage by 2025.

No Digging + Quiet 

Other advantages of the mast, which was built in partnership with wind turbine technology specialists Crossflow Energy and mobile infrastructure partner Cornerstone, are:

– The mast can be installed without the need to dig trenches and lay electricity cables, making it faster and easier to install and reducing the impact on the local environment.

– It is extremely quiet. This makes it viable for sensitive sites such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

– The mast can be ‘filtered out’ as a solid object by radar, birds, and bats, so it is easily avoided, making it less harmful to wildlife.

– It will provide a more secure power supply, i.e., it will not be affected by problems associated with the grid.

– A reduced reliance on diesel generators for back-up power due to the increased renewable contribution from the combination of wind and solar, together with battery storage systems on-site.

Two-Year Trial 

This first mast, at Home Farm in the village of Eglwyswrw is being run as a two-year trial which will hopefully provide data to help Vodafone optimise the technology and determine which sites are most suitable for ‘self-powering’ masts.

Roll Out More If Successful 

Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, and Development Director at Vodafone said: “This self-powering mobile phone mast, with on-site battery storage, could help us connect places that were previously impossible to reach. It will also help us reduce carbon emissions and minimise our impact on local environments.” 

“If this trial is a success, we would like to roll out more ‘self-powering’ masts, with a focus on areas with poor or no coverage.” 

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

This is likely to be particularly good news for businesses in rural areas that have struggled to get any reliable phone connections due to their distance from the grid and any masts, and for the Welsh Government which has expressed its approval of green innovation being trialled in its rural communities. In addition to potentially boosting the local economy, tackling isolation, and closing the rural digital divide (if more masts are deployed), it could also be good news for the environment. A mast that is self-powered with wind and solar, is quiet, and doesn’t require digging to install, so it will have a minimal impact on the environment. If the trial is successful, this could also create more business opportunities and jobs in the development of similar masts and in other industries where remote, self-powered solutions are required. Wider use of these masts will also help Vodafone to meet its own carbon emissions targets and help generally in the climate change battle by allowing a clean expansion of a network by not having to rely on the grid and by using natural on-site, clean power sources.

News

Security-Stop-Press : Microsoft 365 Loophole Could Allow Ransomware Attack

Proofpoint researchers have reported finding a way that attackers could use a Microsoft 365 loophole to launch ransomware attacks. The method involves using compromised SharePoint Online or OneDrive accounts to reduce the (user-configurable) setting for the number or saved versions in SharePoint Online or OneDrive. Attackers can then encrypt files in those drives so that they are unrecoverable, have no backups, and no decryption key. Attackers could then demand a ransom to restore/recover the original files. The protection advice includes making sure that detection of file configuration changes for Office 365 accounts is switched on, implementing cloud security and threat intelligence, and implementing data loss prevention technology.

News

Tech Tip – YouTube Navigation Keyboard Shortcuts

Here are some fast and easy keyboard shortcuts to save time in navigating YouTube videos:

– To pause or play a video, press the space bar.

– Press m to mute/unmute the video.

– Move 10 seconds forwards by pressing L, and 10 seconds back by pressing j.

– Press f for full screen and Esc to go back to normal screen size.

– Use the < and > keys (with shift) to slow down or speed up the payback rate.

– Press 0 (zero) to go to the beginning of the video or End to go to the end of the video.

News

Tech News : Russia Cautions Cyber Attacks May Start Military Confrontation

The growing number of cyber-attacks since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine have led The Russian Foreign Ministry to warn that more western cyber-attacks on its infrastructure could lead to a direct military confrontation.

Housing Ministry Website Hack 

The warning followed an apparent cyber-attack on the Russian housing ministry website which led to a “Glory to Ukraine” sign (in Ukrainian) being displayed.

Several Russian state-owned companies and news organisations have been targeted with cyber-attacks since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February. For example, hacks have affected Russia’s RuTube video-hosting platform, and the satellite television broadcast of Moscow on Victory Day.

Interstate Confrontation Threat Increased 

Russia has claimed that its critical infrastructure and state institutions are being hit with more cyber-attacks from the United States and Ukraine. This has triggered an accusation by Russia that the U.S. is “deliberately lowering the threshold for the combat use” of IT, and the chilling warning that “The militarization of the information space by the West, and attempts to turn it into an arena of interstate confrontation, have greatly increased the threat of a direct military clash with unpredictable consequences.”

Cyber Attacks By Russia 

There were of course no references made to the many cyber-attacks emanating from Russia from the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine. For example:

– Back in January, defacements of Ukrainian government websites and the deployment of Whispergate destructive malware believed to have been carried out by Russian Military Intelligence.

– In February, the cyber-attack impacting Viasat.

– The cyber-attacks on oil facilities in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

– It’s also worth remembering that last year, the U.S. sanctioned Russia over the ‘SolarWinds attack’ where alleged Russian-state sponsored cyber-criminals accessed 18,000 government and private computer networks, and over alleged Interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

State-sponsored cyber-attacks are nothing new and have been ongoing for many years, as a means to steal secrets, disrupt, interfere, and apply pressure as part of the power struggle between many countries, and notably between east and west. It should be no surprise to Putin’s government that following their own cyber-attacks against and the invasion of Ukraine that cyber-attacks on their own state’s infrastructure would follow. Based on the magnitude of recent threats by Russia, the strong wording of its warning over cyber-attacks is also to be expected and could also be a sign recent cyber-attacks are causing enough damage and disruption to be noticed by Russian people, and annoy Putin’s government. The list of businesses and global companies that have now pulled out of Russia is significant and still growing and news indicates that sanctions are having a massive impact on the Russian economy. For example, the Institute of International Finance estimated that the crisis could wipe out 15 years of economic development and the IIF estimates Russia’s gross domestic product will shrink 15 per cent this year. Many of the big names that have pulled out of Russia will, of course, suffer financial consequences themselves but may also may now want to boost their own cyber defences in case they are now targeted by Russian state-sponsored hackers.

News

Tech News : UK Not Adopting EU’s Universal Charger

Following the recent news that the EU plans to introduce a single, universal charger for all devices, it has been reported that the UK has said that it is not currently considering copying the idea.

Just One Universal Charger Cable

A week ago, the EU parliament announced that by autumn 2024, USB Type-C will become the common charging port for all mobile phones, tablets and cameras in the EU. This will mean that consumers will no longer need a different charging device and cable every time they purchase a new device and can use one single charger for all their small and medium-sized portable electronic devices.

It has been reported that the reasons for this change are to make products in the EU more sustainable, to reduce electronic waste, and make consumers’ lives easier. Also, charging speed is harmonised for devices that support fast charging, allowing users to charge their devices at the same speed with any compatible charger.

E-Waste 

The EU parliament says that having one universal charger will lead to more re-usage of chargers and will help consumers save up to 250 million euros a year on unnecessary charger purchases. Also, it will help the environment by reducing the growing pile of e-waste. Currently, for example, disposed of and unused chargers are estimated to represent about 11,000 tonnes of e-waste annually.

UK Says No 

It has, however, been widely reported that the UK government is not currently considering replicating the EU’s idea, and a parliamentary report from December 2021 states that “the new requirements may also apply to devices sold in Northern Ireland under the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Brexit Agreement, potentially triggering divergence of product standards with the rest of the UK.”

Apple Was Against The Idea 

When the proposal for a universal charger for the EU was first proposed, it was met with objections from Apple which has its own Apple-made “Lightning” connector. Back in September 2021, for example, Apple said that requiring just one type of connector “stifles innovation” and would “harm consumers” in Europe and around the world.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Having just one type of charger for all devices sounds like it could be very helpful to EU consumers, provided that the charger is reasonably priced and could be better than being faced with a dizzying array of different charger options and trying to find the right one quickly, e.g if a charger has been forgotten or is broken. The EU rule, however, will be bad news for those companies who currently manufacture the many different types of chargers and for many retailers who currently derive revenue from the many different chargers and cables. For Apple, the EU’s decision also appears likely to cause problems and force the company to come up with a potentially costly solution for its many devices and push it into the uncomfortable area of having to accept a third-party charger, instead of its own lightening connector. The EU’s new rule on chargers is likely to be a positive step for the environment and has the potential to reduce the amount of e-waste that is currently being produced. Many UK consumers are likely to be disappointed that the universal charger will not apply here both from a convenience and an environmental point of view.

News

Tech Insight: What Is Shopify?

In this insight, we take a look at Shopify, what it offers, and how it has grown to become a major e-commerce platform.

Where And Who? 

The Canadian-based Shopify Inc. is a multinational e-commerce company founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake after they tried to set up an online store for snowboarding equipment but were dissatisfied with the e-commerce solutions available on the market.

What? 

Shopify is a cloud-based and hosted online platform (although it does have a physical store in the US) that offers users a complete, all-in-one e-commerce shop. Shopify enables users (its merchants) to build and customise an online store and sell in multiple places, including web, mobile, in person, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops and across multiple channels from social media to online marketplaces. Shopify merchants can run their store from an app, and the platform has its own app store with 9,000+ apps from third-party developers that merchants can add to their store.

Subscription 

Merchants pay a monthly subscription for their e-commerce store and there are 5 different pricing plans to choose from, ranging from Lite at $9/month, and Basic Shopify $29/month, right up to Shopify Plus starting at $2,000/month.

Is It A Popular Platform? 

Shopify has more than 1,700,000 merchants’ businesses in 175 countries. Shopify is the biggest and most popular of what could be regarded as the e-commerce platform market, and many users value its ease of set-up and use. For example, Shopify claims that using its ‘Marketplace Kit,’ merchants can set up their marketplace in less than 8 minutes. Also, many users value the convenience of operating their Shopify site from an app, the websites themselves and their sales features, and the e-commerce tools. Other, similar platforms to Shopify include Magento Ecommerce, Pixpa, 3DCart, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Squarespace.

Amazon  

Shopify had a huge boost back in 2015, when Amazon announced it would be closing its Amazon Webstore service for merchants, and suggested Shopify as the preferred migration provider. Also in 2017, Shopify announced an integration with Amazon, allowing Shopify’s merchants to sell on Amazon from their Shopify stores. Whereas Shopify lets users build an e-commerce store and essentially rent a selling space on its platform, Amazon is in itself a huge online shop. Amazon does also, however, allow third-party sellers to sell new or used products on a fixed-price online marketplace next to Amazon’s regular offerings.

After surpassing $54 billion in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in the fourth quarter of 2021, the Shopify platform is now 50 per cent the size of Amazon Marketplace. Sellers on Amazon transacted $390 billion worth of goods in 2021, whereas the combined transactions of Shopify merchants totalled $175 billion GMV.

Snapchat Integration Too 

In 2019, Shopify also announced an integration with Snapchat, thereby allowing Shopify’s merchants to buy and manage Snapchat Story ads directly on the Shopify platform. This can be useful for those with products aimed at younger customers.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

For those wishing to sell products online, there are now many different options available, e.g. build your own website and add a shop, sell on eBay, sell on Amazon, or set up a shop on a popular e-commerce platform. Shopify has grown (with help from Amazon) to become a very large and popular e-commerce platform. The fact that it’s subscription-based, the convenience of all-in-one model, and that it’s relatively easy to set up and manage and can be operated from an app, it has a good breadth of bolt-ons and an app store, and has integrations with other big platforms (e.g. Amazon) are all reasons why it is so popular.

News

Featured Article : What Happened Recently With The ICO?

Following news of a Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosure revealing a lack of public reprimands issued over GDPR breaches in the public sector, we take a closer look at the FOI, what it can be used for, and how it’s linked to the ICO.

What Is The Freedom of Information Act? 

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA) are the UK laws that cover the public’s general right of access to information held by public authorities.

Public authorities include government departments, devolved administrations, other public bodies and committees, local councils, schools, colleges and universities, the NHS, publicly owned companies publicly funded museums, galleries and theatres, the police and fire services, and the National Archives.

Who Can Make One … And How? 

The FOI Act gives everyone a legal right to see information held by public bodies/authorities. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request can be made in writing by letter, email, social media or online form. Those making an FOI request need to include (not needed for environmental information) a contact postal or email address and a detailed description of the information required, e.g. all information held on a subject, or just a summary. The information can be requested in a particular format, e.g. paper or electronic copies, large print, or audio.

What Is The ICO And What Is Its Connection To FOI?

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s independent, non-departmental public body set up to uphold information rights in the public interest.

The ICO should also promote openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals. The ICO plays a key role in administering the FOI because it is the regulator for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, with key responsibilities under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), as well UK GDPR, and other acts. The ICO also has a Regulatory and Enforcement Activity Policy, and its “default position” under this policy is to publish all formal regulatory outcomes such as reprimands issued under GDPR, which can include reprimands issued to private companies. Formal reprimands, fines and other enforcement notices, for example, can be issued to organisations by the ICO where GDPR has been contravened.

What Happened Recently?

A week ago, it was reported that following a FOI request by Jon Baines, a senior data protection specialist at law firm Mishcon de Reya, there appears to have been failings in the disclosure by the ICO of reprimands it had issued to public authorities under GDPR. The FOI request by Mr Baines revealed that although the ICO had issued 42 reprimands between 25 May 2018 (when the UK GDPR came into effect) and 15 November 2021, most were not publicly disclosed.

Considering that the ICO’s default position should be disclosure of the outcomes, the failure to do so in most cases over more than 3 years has led to criticism that the ICO has been failing in this area.

Which Bodies Were Formally Reprimanded By The ICO?

The FIO request revealed that reprimand recipients included some very large organisations, and not just those in the public sector. For example, the supermarket chains Asda and Morrisons, healthcare provider BUPA, apps like Houseparty and Zoom, and EasyJet are reported to have received reprimands. Other recipients are reported to include West Midlands Police (twice), The Home Office (twice), Oxford University, NHS health boards, schools, and some local councils. Mishcon de Reya, the company whose data protection specialist made the FOI request, reports that the Digital Service (part of the Cabinet Office), UKIP, and the CPS were also recipients of reprimands under GDPR. However, the ICO has (according to Mishcon de Reya) withheld the identity of one of the recipients because the information relates to a body dealing with national security and intelligence or serious organised crime.

What Does The ICO Say?

Mishcon de Reya reports that the ICO has confirmed that in the future, when it publishes its online datasets of casework outcomes, these will include reprimands.

A New Information Commissioner

A new Information Commissioner, John Edwards, took over from Elizabeth Denham CBE on 3 January 2022. John Edwards has been New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner since February 2014, and has practiced law in Wellington, New Zealand for more than 20 years (specialising in information law). The hope is that this area around publishing details of reprimands will be given more attention under his leadership.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Data privacy is an important matter to individuals and businesses, and it could be strongly argued that it is in the public interest to see, through reports of reprimands under GDPR, which organisations may not be acting responsibly with their data. This could influence whether consumers choose to use the services of particular company (a matter of trust). It may also be very disappointing to many businesses that have been paying close attention to complying with GDPR to see that the regulator appears not to have been paying attention to its own policy and appears to have been failing in an important area for 3 years. For those companies whose reprimands weren’t made public, the apparent failure of the ICO in this area has been an unexpected let-off that they are likely to have been glad of in terms of protecting their reputations. This story also illustrates how important and powerful the right to make FOI requests can be and how this right should be valued.

News

Sustainability : IT Industry’s Sustainability Action-Gap

A report by datacentre energy management company Schneider Electric has highlighted a sustainability action gap between the statements of intent and actions of IT companies.

The Research 

The research for the report, carried out with Forrester and 451 Research, collected data from 3,000 global cloud and IT businesses, and comments about the IT industry’s lack of action on sustainability were made at a Schneider Electric virtual event.

The Key Points 

The key points identified by the company’s vice-president for the secure power division (France) about the apparent sustainability action gap in IT companies were:

– Many IT companies appear to be struggling to make their statements of intent on IT sustainability live up to their actions.

– There is too much of a focus on simply tracking power usage effectiveness / PUE (an efficiency measurement in data centres), rather than finding out which facilities use renewable energy and measuring greenhouse gas emissions from operations.

– The complexity of trying to track and manage the energy usage of IT assets within hybrid environments is contributing to the sustainability action gap.

– IT companies that don’t address the gap between their sustainability pledges and their actions may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Another Report 

A report by NewClimate Institute in February, for example, showed that it isn’t just IT or tech businesses that may be suffering from a sustainability action gap. For example, the report drew upon a survey of 25 of the world’s biggest companies, which include Amazon and Apple but also Nestlé, Unilever, Sony and Vodafone. The report showed that some of the biggest companies will only cut their carbon emissions 40 per cent rather than the 100 cuts claimed and that the companies surveyed may only cut their emissions by 23 per cent on average by 2030, which is far short of the figure of almost halving them in the next decade that’s needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

What Can Be Done To Help Close The Gap? 

Some ways that IT companies could close the gap include:

– Greater communication and collaboration between datacentre operators, colocation providers (data centres that rent equipment, space, and bandwidth to retail customers) and IT leaders is one way to start closing the gap more quickly.

– CIOs could be making greater efforts to find ways to optimise the energy efficiency of their hybrid environments.

– IT tech and solution providers could introduce training programmes to help CIOs to breach the sustainability gap.

– Not relying solely on carbon offsetting for a large portion of their promised cuts and recognising that forestry is not a great substitute for immediate cuts in emissions.

– Trying to be more transparent in target-setting and corporate reporting.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

What this report and others appear to be saying are that many companies, not just in the IT and tech fields have a sustainability action gap that they are not working quickly or smartly enough to bridge to meet their own targets let alone making the required contribution to meeting the wider national and global targets to reduce global warming. Hybrid environments, a lack of communication and collaboration, a focus on the wrong metrics, and favouring offsetting over making actual emission cuts now all appear to be holding back the amount of real, immediate action that’s needed. Time really is running out and all businesses, not just those in the IT and tech fields need to look closely at how they can do things differently now to play their part in reducing global warming and may find that they create competitive advantages for themselves in doing so.

News

Security-Stop-Press : Snake Keylogger Malware Being Spread In PDF Files

Online security experts are warning people to take extra care when downloading PDF files after PDFs were recently used in campaigns to deliver Snake Keylogger malware. Snake Keylogger, which is eighth place in Check Point’s Global Threat Index, records a user’s keystrokes and transmits the collected data to cybercriminals. The advice is to use a robust email security solution that quarantines and inspects attachments.