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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 30 SEPTEMBER - 05 OCTOBER, 2024
Hello and Welcome,
Meeting This Week
2024/10/01 — 18:00-20:00 — October, Tue — Main Meeting
SPCTUG Zoom Main Meeting
Time: Tuesday 1st October, 2024, 18:00 Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 846 0877 3479
Passcode: SydPCMain
Meetings Next Week
NO MEETINGS
Schedule of Current & Upcoming Meetings
First Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Main Meeting
Third Tuesday 10:00-12:00 — Tuesday Group
Third Saturday 14:00-16:00 — Web Design
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Go to the official Sydney PC Calendar for this month's meeting details.
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ASCCA News:Tech News:
Photo-Scraping Business Ignores $39M Privacy Fine
See the InfoPackets article by John Lister on September 9, 2024, at 12:09 pm EDT.
A US company that used billions of online photos without permission for facial recognition faces a fine of more than $35 million. Regulators say they may hold Clearview AI's directors personally responsible after the company said the fine was unenforceable.
Clearview has attracted the attention of regulators in several companies because of its business practices. For example, it provides facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies to identify alleged offenders from crowd photos or live video.
The software works thanks to a massive database of pictures that Clearview scraped from websites, including social media sites. It argues that pictures online are public information and thus fall under the First Amendment, giving it the right to use them without permission.
Permission Required
Regulators in European countries disagree and say it violates the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They say photos count as personal data and that collecting or using photos without the subject's permission is not usually lawful.
This permission must cover the specific way the image is used, and the fact they've already put it on a website isn't relevant. Although there's a "legitimate interest" defence that can cover some business use, this can't outweigh the individual's privacy rights.
Netherlands data regulators have issued the biggest ever fine against Clearview, €30.5 million plus another €5.1 million for continuing to breach GDPR after learning it was under investigation. That's the equivalent of US$39.3 million. (Source: theverge.com)
Clearview's Views Clear
Clearview issued a media statement reading, "Clearview AI does not have a place of business in the Netherlands or the EU, it does not have any customers in the Netherlands or the EU, and does not undertake any activities that would otherwise mean it is subject to the GDPR. This decision is unlawful, devoid of due process, and unenforceable."
Despite the location of Clearview and its customers (the police), it does come under GDPR because its database includes pictures of users from EU countries. However, given that it doesn't have an EU presence, it may indeed be difficult to enforce the fine.
The regulators will now investigate "if the company directors can be held personally responsible for the violations." That's legally uncertain and, again, would have enforcement problems if the directors wanted to visit an EU country in person or expand their operations and client base. (Source: theregister.com)
What's Your Opinion?
Should Clearview's operations be legal in the US? Do you agree with their argument that people who post photos on a website lose the right to control their use? Does it make a difference that their product is used for law enforcement?
Comments —
Photo theft — Submitted by rwells78_13585 on Mon, 09/09/2024 — 22:59.
No, No, and a hard NO!
A bit of REASONABLESS. — Submitted by russoule on Tue, 10/09/2024 — 17:00.
OK, I understand the dude with "no, no and hard no", but let's be reasonable here. The firm is NOT located in the EU, nor are its clients in the EU. Holding it liable for violating an EU rule is the same as the USA, which has a German bank located only in Germany for violating usury laws here if it lends its customers at a 30% interest rate, but the customer is in Germany. As for Clearview's position that posting a selfie to a social site makes it an "open" photo, that again would be based on the country's laws and not on our desires unless we have posted a statement of PRIVATE, NO ADMITTANCE to our social sites. Now if Clearview were travelling around the various countries and sucking these photos off the personal wifi, THAT would likely be an invasion of privacy in most countries. My understanding, however, is that they merely take, via software scraping, pix that are open to public view. MY pix are all posted as private to me and "friends" unless I decide to make them public, such as sharing a meme or a news article. The real problem is that Clearview seems to be making a profit (Oh My GOD!).
Photo Theft — Submitted by bigton on Thu, 12/09/2024 — 06:49.
I have to agree with the first post. To be honest, it is a little different from a scammer lifting your photo to use for profit. Yet that is classed as illegal. So why should a company, no matter where it is based, be allowed to do as it pleases? Personally, I think its about time countries worked together to agree on online rules, and agreed to enforce a legitimate court order no matter where it comes from or where the company is based.
Why Is It Called a Terminal "Emulator"?
See the How-To Geek article by Dave McKay | Published Sep 2, 2024.
Several Terminals
Key Takeaways
Terminal emulators in Linux replicate old hardware terminals.
Gaming emulators can mimic multiple gaming platforms, but terminal emulators only emulate a physical computer terminal.
Choose from various Linux terminal emulators like Terminator, Guake, and Tilix for different features.
Once you start dabbling with Linux, you'll repeatedly encounter the phrase "terminal emulator". You might be familiar with game emulators, but don't be misled. This is very different.
Not the Emulator You Might Be Thinking Of
When you hear the word emulator in general conversation, it's frequently used in the context of game emulation. In particular, it's usually associated with retro games emulation.
If you want to play the video games of yesteryear, you either need to have access to a working example of the original hardware, or you need a way to run the game on modern hardware. Modern devices you can buy will play old video games, and some even come preloaded with games.
Apart from using dedicated hardware, you can use software emulators on smartphones and computers. These mimic the original hardware so that, as far as the game is concerned, it's running on its original target platform.
On Linux, a terminal emulator fulfils an entirely different need.
What Does a Terminal Emulator Emulate?
A gaming emulator emulates hardware, and so does a terminal emulator. But that's about the only similarity.
Linux is based on Unix, an operating system from the early 1970s. Computing back then was carried out on large computers that supported concurrent connections from multiple users, each of whom used a terminal.
The terminal had a screen, a keyboard, and a connection back to the main computer. The user interface was text-based. A command prompt allows you to enter and run commands, and launch programs.
Your terminal allows you to communicate with the computer and access its computational power. Because the terminal itself had no computational power, it was often called a dumb terminal. A terminal with no connection to the actual computer was useless.
There's a direct line of descent from the earliest teleprinters of the 1830s and 1840s, through the teletypewriters of the 1880s, to the terminals of the 1970s.
The hardware terminals of the 1970s live on, replicated in software, in the terminal emulators found in today's Linux. The nickname for the teletypewriter, tty, lives on as a command you can still type on your Linux command line today. The difference is that the terminal emulator hosts a command shell, like Bash or Zsh. The shell handles or brokers your input, not a remote mainframe.
You'll hear phrases such as the Linux command line, a terminal window, a command prompt, etc. They all refer to the same thing: a software emulation of a physical terminal that lets you type commands into your computer, and read its responses.
Perhaps a Better Word Would be "Emulation"
When I hear the word emulator, rightly or wrongly, I think of something that can emulate things. Not a single thing, multiple things. If an impressionist could only make an impression of a single person, would they be an impressionist? Or are they a celebrity impersonator?
It's common for software-based gaming emulators to accept plug-ins, allowing them to mimic a variety of hardware platforms so the user can play games designed for each of those different gaming devices. A terminal emulator emulates one thing only — a physical terminal — so maybe it should be called a terminal emulation.
Whilst a terminal emulator could be viewed as something of a one-trick pony, there are many terminal emulators to choose from. And some of them provide enough bells and whistles to turn the one-trick pony into Champion the Wonder Horse.
Terminator allows you to open and arrange multiple terminal windows in one desktop window.
Terminator
We installed it on Ubuntu with sudo apt install terminator
On Fedora, you should type: sudo dnf install terminator
For Manjaro users, your command is: sudo pacman -S terminator
Whenever you press F12, Guake opens a drop-down terminal window. It's handy to have a terminal window appear and disappear with a click of a button. It also supports multiple sub-windows.
Guake
To install Guake on Ubuntu, use: sudo apt install guake
On Fedora, you need to type: sudo dnf install guake
On Manjaro, use: sudo pacman -S guake
Tilix offers multiple tiled terminal windows, with easy buttons to split the current terminal window horizontally or vertically.
Tilix
To install Tilix on Ubuntu, type: sudo apt install tilix
The command for Fedora is: sudo dnf install tilix
The install command on Manjaro is: sudo pacman -S terminator
We've covered Cool Retro Terminal elsewhere. It's a just-for-fun terminal emulator whose party trick looks just like those cathode ray tube terminals from the early days of computing. It's a whole new spin on retro.
There are many terminal emulators available. These are just some that the other Linux writers at How-To Geek recommended.
It's All Terminology
Emulator or emulation? As long as they're easy to install, fun to use, and they make you productive, that's all that counts.
Why I Wish I Started Using OneDrive Sooner
See the How-To Geek article by David Mosk | Published Sep 6, 2024.
OneDrive Logo
I discovered OneDrive under some pretty harrowing circumstances. Despite this, however, when I found out that not only was my data more secure on the Cloud, but it also had version control and could be called up on another device, I felt that this peace of mind was worth the dollars a month it cost. In this article, I will provide the story behind what led me to start using OneDrive, a general overview of the application, use cases that make it stand out, and my overall impressions.
A Harrowing Experience with Data Loss
The year was circa 2007. As I was about to make the final changes to a legal document I was working on for my boss, the "blue screen of death" flashed across my computer screen.
"No big deal," I thought — "a simple reboot of my PC should fix whatever caused the error, and I'll be on my way; after all, I have the 'Auto-save' function turned on, so I should be good."
As my PC started up, I got the dreaded blinking cursor. The panic and realization that I had likely lost my hard drive set in. After my stomach settled and the colour returned to my face, it was clear that the likelihood of me getting access to my paper was zero.
Blue-Screen ReactOS
This experience led to an epiphanic* moment for me. Not only did I lose almost one week's worth of content, but this was an essential document, and I had completely lost it. I knew there had to be better options than auto-save and connecting my PC to an external hard drive. Unfortunately, I hadn't backed up the document to the hard drive yet and was planning on backing up the document shortly before my PC crashed — I know, I know.
Around this time, Microsoft announced the upcoming release of its first Cloud storage option, SkyDrive. SkyDrive (later to be renamed OneDrive) promised to allow users to save their Office files into the Internet Cloud. This idea instantly made a lot of sense to me, so I pitched it to my boss. He, too, liked the idea, so I got to work setting up our office to work with OneDrive and set up OneDrive for my files, too.
How Does OneDrive Work?
In today's tech landscape, we've all heard of the vast number of options available for Cloud storage. All the significant platforms offer their variations, including Google Drive, Apple iCloud, and Samsung Cloud, to name a few. OneDrive is connected to a user's Microsoft account allotted a certain amount of space to store files and folders. I can select which files and folders are "synchronized" from my operating system to my OneDrive Cloud.
The benefit here is that when I make changes to a file synchronized to my OneDrive Cloud (and the program supports the Sync function), the file is automatically saved as changes are made, so long as I have an Internet connection. If there is no connection to the Internet, a local copy is saved to my hard drive as I'm working, which will then be synced to my Cloud once there is an established Internet connection.
Core Functionalities I Love About OneDrive
It's great to know that the content I'm working on will remain as I approach the tail-end of my very important document. Despite my love of the sync feature (though sometimes it didn't work how I expected it to or some files got caught in a bottleneck), the most significant feature is the automatic snapshot function. Office applications take a snapshot of the document state at specific points and create a version of that document or file that you can restore later.
OneDrive Version history
I made several changes to a PowerPoint presentation one day. The next day, I needed to restore yesterday afternoon's version. The Version history feature allows me to restore to past versions. I can view those versions or replace the newer ones with the previous ones, as needed.
Another great feature of OneDrive is that it allows me to use File Explorer to interact with my documents and files, just as I would on my local PC. The OneDrive integration will easily enable me to create new folders, organize my documents and files into the respective folders, and make changes as I would to files on my hard drive.
The ability to interact with documents from an interface that is similar (and thus familiar) to the structure of my documents makes for a streamlined, painless experience. It also offers one place for me to access my Cloud files and folders.
The last function I love about OneDrive is the ability to access my files and folders from any PC with an internet connection. Since my files are on the Cloud, I can access them from another PC by logging into my Microsoft OneDrive account and accessing my files and folders from within a browser.
OneDrive Isn't Perfect, but it is Great for Microsoft Users
OneDrive has its limitations. First, bottlenecks are an issue. During my time working in the enterprise environment, reports of errors in syncing were among the biggest known issues with OneDrive. Luckily, this isn't much of a problem for consumer users, though it is still possible. Second, there are known "phantom" issues that creep in when it comes to the OneDrive desktop app updating folders that are changed in OneDrive online and vice versa.
Aside from those points, though, OneDrive has provided a fantastic security cushion for my data. I strongly recommend users in the Windows environment consider OneDrive as their backup solution, especially if they have a Microsoft account. It would have saved me an enormous amount of trouble in the past. If you need a user account, setting yourself up with one is very easy.
*epiphanic in British English adjective.
(of a moment or event) characterized by a sudden and profound understanding or revelation. The word epiphanic is derived from epiphany.
Windows File Explorer Can Remotely Access Android Phone
See the InfoPackets article by John Lister on September 23, 2024, at 12:09 pm EDT.
Windows users can soon access files on their Android phone or tablet without a USB cable. The feature is already available in test editions of Windows 11.
The feature, first reported in June, has now arrived for members of the Windows Insider Program, which gives early access to in-development and test features. They will also need to install the "Cross-device experience host" tool from the Microsoft store.
Windows already offers some wireless connectivity with Android phones such as using the phone as a webcam or getting on-screen notifications from the phone replicated on the computer monitor. A dedicated Phone Link app also offers some file access, mainly limited to viewing and moving photos between folders.
No Cable Needed
The new tool is accessible in Windows's "Manage mobile devices" tool, with a switchable option to "Show mobile device in File Explorer."
Once enabled, this will work much the same way as when a phone is connected to a Windows computer through a USB cable, with file access switched on. Users can then easily open, copy, or delete files, and transfer them back and forth.
The connection is via WiFi, so transfer times (and how they compare to using USB) will vary depending on the local network.
Early Glitches
The feature will only be available for Windows 11, and not the soon-to-be-unsupported Windows 10.
The feature is still in the testing stages, and some users have reported glitches that mean changes made on the computer aren't always reflected on the phone itself. That's clearly a significant problem, and while it's likely Microsoft will quickly fix it, it may be worth waiting until the feature rolls out to the main public version of Windows 11 before using it for any important files.
What's Your Opinion?
Is this feature helpful? How often do you connect your phone to your computer via USB? Do you worry about managing files stored on your phone?
Comment
Potential attack vector — Submitted by Dennis Faas on Mon, 23/09/2024 — 13:02.
This is a very handy feature. However I'm not keen on my computer's ability to access my phone seamlessly to move files around. This could open up major security exploits whereby bad actors could plant malware on the phone or browse phone content without knowledge from the user. I hope there is an option that requires the phone's owner to 'tap to confirm' before allowing remote file management. This would be similar to unlocking the phone and plugging in a USB cable between the phone and the PC to manipulate files (i.e., current requirements) — as this is undeniably deliberate.
A little program... — Submitted by DLStoehner on Mon, 23/09/2024 — 15:37.
I have used Any Desk in the past. It can do this, too. I can copy or transfer files or pictures. I can also do work with my desktop computer from my Android phone.
Fun Facts:
Displaying the Day-of-the Week on Windows
See the Reddit reply by YueLing182 | 2y ago.
Press Win+R, type intl.cpl and hit Enter.
Region, Date and Time
Select "Additional settings" and switch to the "Time" or "Date" tab, depending on what you want to customise.
Customise Format
Choose Date.
Customise Date
Note that the Short date format says "ddd, dd/MM/yy". That means the date will be "Short day of week, Day of Month/Number of Month/2-digit Year".
Today that means "Sat, 28/09/24".
You can experiment with many alternatives, noting the hints given, such as "d, dd = day; ddd, dddd = day of week; M = month; y = year."
I think it's better to have the day of the week displayed all the time, rather than hovering over it, waiting for the "hint" to appear.
The procedure for customising the time is almost identical. The main difference is that you can set the time in 12/24 hour/day format.
— Ed.
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