Month: January 2018

Bis zu 33 Stunden hält der Akku der Casio G-Shock Rangeman beim Einsatz von GPS durch - bei Sonnenschein kommen noch ein paar dazu. Das Wearable verfügt für drahtloses Laden zudem über eine zwei Millimeter dicke Keramikrückseite. (Casio, GPS)

2017 wurde viel Firmware und andere grundlegende Computertechnik produktiv auseinandergenommen und kaputt gemacht. Gut so, denn die Fundamente moderner Computer sind oft brüchig. Eine Analyse von Hauke Gierow (Security, WLAN)

Wenn das Bundesverkehrsministerium weitere 30.000 km neue Glasfaser feiert, ist damit nicht gesagt, wie viel Vectoring-Ausbau hier gefördert wird. Wir haben genauer hingesehen. Eine Analyse von Achim Sawall (Breitband, Glasfaser)

Das Elektroauto Genovation GXE kommt auf eine Endgeschwindigkeit von 335 km/h und kann mit einer Handschaltung oder mit einem Automatikgetriebe geordert werden. (Auto, Technologie)

As Russia’s largest torrent site and one that earned itself a mention in TF’s list of most popular torrent sites 2018, RuTracker is continuously under fire.

The site has an extremely dedicated following but Russia’s telecoms watchdog, spurred on by copyright holders brandishing court rulings, does everything in its power to ensure that people can’t access the site easily.

As a result, RuTracker’s main domains are blocked by all ISPs, meaning that people have to resort to VPNs or the many dozens of proxy and mirror sites that have been set up to facilitate access to the popular tracker.

While all of these methods used to work just fine, new legislation that came into force during October means that mirror and proxy sites can be added to block lists without copyright holders having to return to court. And, following legislation introduced in November, local VPN services are forbidden from providing access to blocked sites.

While RuTracker has always insisted that web blockades have little effect on the numbers of people sharing content, direct traffic to their main domains has definitely suffered. To solve this problem and go some way towards mitigating VPN and proxy bans, the site has just come up with a new plan to keep the torrents flowing.

The scheme was quietly announced, not on RuTracker’s main forum, but to a smaller set of users on local site Leprosorium. The idea was that a quieter launch there would allow for controlled testing before a release to the masses. The project is called My.RuTracker and here’s how it works.

Instead of blocked users fruitlessly trying to find public circumvention methods that once seen are immediately blocked, they are invited to register their own domains. These can be single use, for the person who registers them, but it’s envisioned that they’ll be shared out between friends, family, and online groups, to better make use of the resource.

Once domains are registered, users are invited to contact a special user account on the RuTracker site (operated by the site’s operators) which will provide them with precise technical details on how to set up their domain (.ru domains are not allowed) to gain access to RuTracker.

“In response, after a while (usually every other day), a list of NS-addresses will be sent to the registrar’s domain settings. Under this scheme, the user domain will be redirected to the RuTracker site via a dynamic IP address: this will avoid blocking the torrent tracker for a particular IP address,” the scheme envisages.

According to local news resource Tjournal, 62 personal mirrors were launched following the initial appeal, with the operators of RuTracker now planning to publicly announce the project to their community. As more are added, the site will keep track of traffic from each of the personal “mirrors” for balancing the load on the site.

At least in theory, this seems like a pretty innovative scheme. Currently, the authorities rely on the scale and public awareness of a particular proxy or mirror in order to earmark it for blocking. This much more decentralized plan, in which only small numbers of people should know each domain, seems like a much more robust system – at least until the authorities and indeed the law catches up.

And so the cat-and-mouse game continues.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons

Eine neue Sicherheitsabteilung soll es künftig richten: Intels Chef Brian Krzanich versetzt zahlreiche Topmanager in eine neue Abteilung, die Probleme wie Meltdown und eine löchrige Intel Management Engine in Zukunft verhindern sollen. (Intel, Prozessor)

Es gibt neue Informationen zu Facebooks eigenem smarten Lautsprecher mit Display. Er soll Portal heißen und vor allem für Videotelefonate gedacht sein. Das Gerät mit 15-Zoll-Display könnte dieses Jahr für 500 US-Dollar erscheinen. (Facebook, Google)

Matias bringt das Apple Wired Keyboard zurück - oder zumindest eine Alternative. Die kabelgebundene Tastatur nutzt Flachtasten und hat einen USB-Hub integriert. Sie wird mit Mac- oder Windows-Tasten angeboten. (Tastatur, Apple)

Elon Musk hat schon eines - die regulären Kunden kommen jetzt dran: Tesla hat mit der Produktion der Solarschindeln begonnen und bereitet die ersten Installationen vor. (Elon Musk, Technologie)

Zwei Jahre lang sind die Spiele der Overwatch League bei Blizzard selbst und sonst nur bei Twitch zu sehen. Der zu Amazon gehörende Streaminganbieter wagt damit eine Millionenwette mit ungewissem Ausgang auf den Erfolg der neu startenden Liga. (Overwatch, Blizzard)