Daily Archives: December 22, 2019

Airbnb is a platform not an estate agent, says Europe’s top court – means they don’t have to collect taxes for counties either

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Airbnb will be breathing a sigh of relief today: Europe’s top court has judged it to be an online platform, which merely connects people looking for short-term accommodation, rather than a full-blown estate agent.

The ruling may make it harder for the “home sharing” platform to be forced to comply with local property regulations — at least under current regional rules governing e-commerce platforms.

The judgement by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) today follows a complaint made by a French tourism association, AHTOP, which had argued Airbnb should hold a professional estate agent licence. And, that by not having one, the platform giant was in breach of a piece of French legislation known as the “Hoguet Law.”

However, the court disagreed — siding with Airbnb’s argument that its business must be classified as an “information society service” under EU Directive 2000/31 on electronic commerce.

Commenting on the ruling in a statement, Luca Tosoni, a research fellow at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law at the University of Oslo, told us: “The Court’s finding that online platforms that facilitate the provision of short-term accommodation services, such as Airbnb, qualify as providers of ‘information society services’ entails strict limitations on the ability to introduce or enforce restrictive measures on similar services by a Member State other than that in whose territory the relevant service provider is established.”

Source: Airbnb is a platform not an estate agent, says Europe’s top court | TechCrunch

Amsterdam was hoping to make Airbnb collect tourist taxes too, which the county of Amsterdam will now have to do themselves. Also, Amsterdam – a 100% tourist city – is now whining that it doesn’t want tourists any more and is blaming Airbnb for having them.

 

IBM Research Created a New Battery That Outperforms Lithium-Ion, uses seawater instead of nickel and lithium

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scientists at IBM Research have developed a new battery whose unique ingredients can be extracted from seawater instead of mining.

The problems with the design of current battery technologies like lithium-ion are well known, we just tend to turn a blind eye when it means our smartphones can run for a full day without a charge. In addition to lithium, they require heavy metals like cobalt, manganese, and nickel which come from giant mines that present hazards to the environment, and often to those doing the actual mining. These metals are also a finite resource, and as more and more devices and vehicles switch to battery power, their availability is going to decrease at a staggering pace.

As a potential solution, scientists at IBM Research’s Battery Lab came up with a new design that replaces the need for cobalt and nickel in the cathode, and also uses a new liquid electrolyte (the material in a battery that helps ions move from one end to the other) with a high flash point. The combination of the new cathode and the electrolyte materials was also found to limit the creation of lithium dendrites which are spiky structures that often develop in lithium-ion batteries that can lead to short circuits. So not only would this new battery have less of an impact on the environment to manufacture, but it would also be considerably safer to use, with a drastically reduced risk of fire or explosions.

But the benefits of IBM Research’s design don’t stop there. The researchers believe the new battery would have a larger capacity than existing lithium-ion batteries, could potentially charge to about 80 percent of its full capacity in just five minutes, would be more energy-efficient, and, on top of it all, it would be cheaper to manufacture which in turn means they could help reduce the cost of gadgets and electric vehicles. These results are estimations based on how the battery has performed in the lab so far, but IBM Research is teaming up with companies like Mercedes-Benz Research and Development to further explore this technology, so it will be quite a few years before you’re able to feel a little less guilty about your smartphone addiction.

Source: IBM Research Created a New Battery That Outperforms Lithium-Ion

A Data Leak Exposed The Personal Information Of Over 3,000 Ring Users – Really, just don’t get one of these things!

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The log-in credentials for 3,672 Ring camera owners were compromised this week, exposing log-in emails, passwords, time zones, and the names people give to specific Ring cameras, which are often the same as camera locations, such as “bedroom” or “front door.”

Using the log-in email and password, an intruder could access a Ring customer’s home address, telephone number, and payment information, including the kind of card they have, and its last four digits and security code. An intruder could also access live camera footage from all active Ring cameras associated with an account, as well as a 30- to 60-day video history, depending on the user’s cloud storage plan.

Source: A Data Leak Exposed The Personal Information Of Over 3,000 Ring Users

HP loses appeal vs 123inkt for suddenly borking non-HP ink cartridges in their printer with a software update

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HP is being held liable for damages to 123inkt customers who bought the ink cartridges which they suddenly couldn’t use any more. From personal experience I know how annoying this is as several printers have started doing very sketchy things suddenly which were magically ‘fixed’ by inserting HP ink cartridges. It’s ink, people, there’s no way that another’s ink could break a printer.

Source: HP verliest hoger beroep Stichting 123inkt-huismerk klanten – Emerce

We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful

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It’s not so much being watched. It’s that I don’t really know if I’m being watched or not.

From across the other side of the world, a colleague has just accessed my Ring account, and in turn, a live-feed of a Ring camera in my apartment. He sent a screenshot of me stretching, getting ready for work. Then a second colleague accessed the camera from another country, and started talking to me through the Ring device.

“Joe can you tell I’m watching you type,” they added in a Slack message. The blue light which signals someone is watching the camera feed faded away. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling of someone may be tuning in. I went into another room.

[…]

Last week a wave of local media reports found hackers harassed people through Ring devices. In one case a hacker taunted a child in Mississippi, in another someone hurled racist insults at a Florida family. Motherboard found hackers have made dedicated software for more swiftly gaining access to Ring cameras by churning through previously compromised email addresses and passwords, and that some hackers were live-streaming the Ring abuse on their own so-called podcast dubbed “NulledCast.”

In response to the hacks, Ring put much of the blame for these hacks on its users in a blog post Thursday.

“Customer trust is important to us, and we take the security of our devices and service extremely seriously. As a precaution, we highly encourage all Ring users to follow security best practices to ensure your Ring account stays secure,” it said. To be clear, a user who decides to use a unique password on their Ring device and two-factor authentication is going to be safer than one who is reusing previously hacked credentials from another website. But rather than implementing its own safeguards, Ring is putting this onus on users to deploy security best practices; time and time again we’ve seen that people using mass-market consumer devices aren’t going to know or implement robust security measures at all times.

Ring is not offering basic security precautions, such as double-checking whether someone logging in from an unknown IP address is the legitimate user, or providing a way to see how many users are currently logged in—entirely common security measures across a wealth of online services.

[…]

A Ring account is not a normal online account. Rather than a username and password protecting messages or snippets of personal information, such as with, say, a video game account, breaking into a Ring account can grant access to exceptionally intimate and private parts of someone’s life and potentially puts their physical security at risk. Some customers install these cameras in their bedrooms or those of their children. Through an issue in the way a Ring-related app functions, Gizmodo found these cameras are installed all across the country. Someone with access can hear conversations and watch people, potentially without alerting the victims that they are being spied on. The app displays a user-selected address for the camera, and the live feed could be used to determine whether the person is home, which could be useful if someone were, for example, planning a robbery. Once a hacker has broken into the account, they can watch not only live streams of the camera, but can also silently watch archived video of people—and families—going about their days.

Source: We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful – VICE