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WhatsApp flunks the EFF’s annual data privacy test while Apple and Dropbox ace it

Jun18
by on June 18, 2015 at 4:35 pm
Posted In: adobe, Apps, Around the Web, dropbox, eff, Insider, whatsapp

whatsapp

WhatsApp has come out worst in the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s (EEF) annual ‘Who’s Got Your Back?’ report, which looks at privacy concerns and government requests for data.

The five criteria are:

  • Follows industry-accepted best practices
  • Tells users about government data demands
  • Discloses policies on data retention
  • Discloses government content removal requests
  • Pro-user public policy: opposes backdoors.

The Facebook-owned messaging app is the only company or service in the study to receive a one-star rating.

Screenshot 2015-06-18 17.02.50

The online freedom and privacy advocacy group says WhatsApp does not require a warrant before it provides content to law enforcement agencies and does not publish a transparency report or guide to how it deals with requests.

The messaging service also doesn’t offer a promise to users that they will receive advance notice about government data demands. The report goes on to criticize it for failing to publish information on data retention polices or content removal requests, i.e. when accounts are shut down.

The one area WhatsApp gets credit stems from Facebook’s publicly stated policy opposing the inclusion of backdoors that can be exploited by government agencies.

Adobe, Apple and Dropbox all received five-star ratings in the report, along with Wikimedia, Credo Mobile, WordPress and Yahoo.

WhatsApp’s owner Facebook got four stars, dropping for one failure to adequately disclose government content removal requests. You can see the whole table here.

I’ve contacted WhatsApp for comment and will update this post if and when it provides a response.

➤ Who Has Your Back? [EFF]

Read next: Privacy in the Internet of Things era: Will the NSA know what’s in your fridge?

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You can now flirt with strangers on Happn using songs from Spotify

Jun18
by on June 18, 2015 at 3:58 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, dating, Happn, Insider, spotify

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Tinder already lets you judge people according to their Instagram photos, but hyper-local dating app Happn is taking that up a gear by adding Spotify integration.

From today, users of the app, which shows potential partners who you cross paths with, can share songs from Spotify’s catalog on their profiles. You’ll also be able to send songs to your matches through its messaging function.

The feature is open to love seekers on Happn whether they have a Spotify account or not. If you’re rocking a Spotify Premium account you can hear full tracks. Without one, you’re limited to 30 second snippets.

Music taste can be a pretty good yardstick to measure how well you’ll get on with a potential mate, but it’s far from foolproof. Still, I know a couple where the woman loves death metal and the man is obsessed with K-Pop, and that works…so far.

➤ Happn [iOS | Android]

Read next: Believe in horoscopes? This dating app will match you with other credulous people

 

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FitBit has gone public, opening 52 percent above expecations

Jun18
by on June 18, 2015 at 2:43 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

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FitBit has gone public today after filing for a $100 million initial public offering (IPO).

The company is trading on the NYSE with the FIT ticker and opened at $30.40 per share, up 52 percent above expectations of $22 per share.

FitBit’s devices are hugely popular, seeing 10.9 million devices sold in 2014 and an additional 3.9 million devices sold through March 31 of 2015.

The IPO comes at an interesting time, with the Apple Watch launching only a few weeks ago. The company might be trying to squeeze value out of the market before it becomes significantly more competitive.

The fact that FitBit is actually profitable is fairly unique for a technology company going public. It reportedly controls 85 percent of the current wearable fitness tracking market, which may account for such a strong IPO.

➤ NYSE:FIT [Yahoo Finance]

Read Next: Fitbit launches 3 new activity trackers: the Charge, Charge HR and Surge

Image credit: FitBit

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Irish villagers are angry about Apple’s new data center

Jun18
by on June 18, 2015 at 2:30 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

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A group of residents in the Athenry area of Galway, Ireland have filed an objection to Apple’s €850 million data center, The Irish Times reports.

Apple announced its plans for the new data center in February year, with the picturesque greenfield land as its proposed site.

The company has said the 24,505 square metre facility will be entirely powered by renewable energy and create 100 new jobs in the center and the accompanying maintenance, administration and security buildings nearby.

Local residents deemed Apple’s application to be inadequate because it fails to address the issues of noise and vibration from the proposed 18 generators as well as traffic generation in the area.

As someone who is actually from the locality, I can agree that traffic generation during the build will be a concern and afterwards if some of the local roads aren’t improved.

That being said, I didn’t object to Apple’s application as I think the employment boost and potential for improvements in local infrastructure far outweigh the downsides.

The official objection lodged to Galway County Council and prepared by HRA Planning consultants in Limerick states that it is in the “wrong location and on the wrong site, remote from existing services and facilities and identified centres of population,” as well as conflicting with the Galway County Development Plan 2015-2021.

The land is currently owned by Irish forestry company Coillte. The weather and safety in the remote location are cited as being the attraction for Apple to the land, as well as energy links.

For now, the decision on Apple’s application has been suspended.

➤ Galway residents object to site of Apple data centre [The Irish Times]

Read next: Apple’s Beats One radio station to launch on June 30 at 9AM PT

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Filter a Custom Class Using CallByName

Jun18
by on June 18, 2015 at 2:18 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Classes

Andrzej asks

Is there a way to dynamically state by which property do I want to filter/sort/unique? ppl.FilterBy(City, “Tokio”).FilterBy(LastName,”Smith”).Unique(FirstName)
Without doing select case

James Brown corrected my response by saying:

You should be able to write a generic filter function in your custom collection class based around CallByName from the object class.

Of course he’s right. Here’s how that might look. Suppose I have some sample contact data.

I could filter by any one of those properties like this

Public Property Get Filter(ByVal sProperty As String, vValue As Variant) As CContacts
   
    Dim clsReturn As CContacts
    Dim clsContact As CContact
   
    Set clsReturn = New CContacts
   
    For Each clsContact In Me
        If CallByName(clsContact, sProperty, VbGet) = vValue Then
            clsReturn.Add clsContact
        End If
    Next clsContact
   
    Set Filter = clsReturn
   
End Property

The comparison value needs to be a variant to account for all the different data types your properties could be. If you had a property of your class that was another class it could complicate things. But this saves me having to write a bunch of Filter properties. So thanks James for making that comment.

Public Sub TestCallByName()
   
    Dim clsContacts As CContacts
    Dim clsFiltered As CContacts
   
    Set clsContacts = New CContacts
    clsContacts.FillFromRange Sheet1.ListObjects(1).DataBodyRange
   
    Set clsFiltered = clsContacts.Filter("State", "Nebraska")
    Debug.Print "Nebraska: " & clsFiltered.Count
   
    Set clsFiltered = clsContacts.Filter("Active", True)
    Debug.Print "Active: " & clsFiltered.Count
   
    Set clsFiltered = clsContacts.Filter("LastPayDate", #4/10/2015#)
    Debug.Print "April 10: " & clsFiltered.Count
   
End Sub

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