Other World Computing and Hedge Partner to Deliver Revolutionized LTO Archiving Experience

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 6, 2025 by itnerd

 Other World Computing and Hedge, a pioneer in media and entertainment software solutions, today announced a strategic partnership. Under terms of the agreement, every OWC Archive Pro purchase will now include a license for Hedge’s acclaimed Canister software for streamlined Linear Tape-Open (LTO) backups – a $399 value at no additional cost.

The alignment between OWC and Hedge addresses several critical challenges faced by professionals managing large volumes of data. As the demand for higher-resolution media and stringent compliance grows, organizations grapple with the complexity of securely backing up, archiving, and retrieving vast datasets. OWC Archive Pro, paired with Hedge Canister, simplifies this process with drag-and-drop functionality, automatic cataloging, and cross-platform compatibility, ensuring data preservation is fast, efficient, and reliable. This solution also mitigates risks associated with data sprawl, compliance failures, and operational inefficiencies, empowering users to focus on creative and business goals without compromising data protection.

The OWC Archive Pro Thunderbolt archiving solution for M&E pros, corporations, government branches, and small businesses seeking to preserve critical data, offers: 

  • A 577% ROI with up to 55% lower costs vs HDD storage
  • Up to 18TB native and up to 45TB compressed storage capacity per tape cartridge
  • Built-in IBM LTO-7, LTO-8, or LTO-9 drive options
  • Up to 30-year tape longevity
  • LTFS compatibility – archive files/folders with drag and drop ease
  • Up to 300MB/s native, up to 750MB/s compressed transfer rates for fast tape creation 
  • Easy drag, drop, and retrieval of files with the included Hedge Canister archiving app

The Hedge Canister app, featuring an easy setup, driver assistance, and true drag-and-drop UI makes working with tape a breeze, offers: 

  • A canister filled to the brim with technology to ensure tapes are taxed as little as possible
  • A canister that is at home on Windows just as well as on macOS – because all Hedge apps are crafted specifically for each OS, they make the most of what each OS has to offer
  • Queuing – while transfers are running, keep queuing up new files and folders to be archived
  • A Canister’s spanning engine that keeps track of your files across multiple tapes
  • The all-new Library Manager — the only true drag-and-drop UI in the world for working with tape libraries

OWC will showcase the OWC Archive Pro featuring the Hedge Canister archiving app as well as an array of additional groundbreaking products at the following live media events: 

  • Pepcom’s Digital Experience! @ CES 2025: Monday, January 6, 7:00 pm – 10:30 pm at Caesars Palace, in the Octavius Ballroom 
  • ShowStoppers @ CES 2025: Tuesday, January 7, 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, in the Grand Ballroom
  • Everything Tech Event @ CES 2025: Wednesday, January 8, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Caesars Palace, in Milano 1 & 2

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Other World Computing Launches ThunderBlade X12 and Active Optical Cable, and Announces Thunderbolt 5 Hub General Availability

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 6, 2025 by itnerd

 Other World Computing today announced its latest innovations: the OWC ThunderBlade X12, a game-changing professional-grade RAID solution – the next step in OWC’s TB5 solutions; and the OWC USB4 40Gb/s Active Optical Cable, for long-distance connectivity without compromising speed or reliability. OWC also announced the general availability (GA) of the OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub, redefining workflow efficiency with its unparalleled connectivity. 

OWC ThunderBlade X12

The OWC ThunderBlade X12 is the answer to Motion Picture Professionals and DITs looking for a production shuttle RAID capable of offering large amounts of storage at blazingly fast sustained speeds in a portable solution. To be more specific, the biggest problem this product solves is the need for a RAID solution compatible with RAID 5 that offers large amounts of storage at blazingly fast sustained speeds to streamline ingestion and backup times on set while also having a small footprint so that can be used as a shuttle drive. Beyond that, it’s also considered a premium editing drive for video editors and VFX artists working with cutting-edge workflows such as multi-cam sequences at 4K and 6K, 8K and 12K RAW video, or stereoscopic 360 VR (Spatial Video). It’s the ultimate shuttle RAID for production use and the premium external editing drive for cutting-edge workflows.

OWC ThunderBlade X12 – Key Features/Functionality:

  • Speeds up to 6,500MB/s – double the performance of its predecessor
  • Capacities from 12TB to 96TB with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 configurations
  • Premium build with dimmable LED lights and enhanced thermal stability
  • Ideal for workflows involving 8K RAW, 16K video, or VR production

The OWC ThunderBlade X12 will be available in March.

OWC Active Optical Cable

The OWC Active Optical Cable is the fastest, most powerful, and most reliable solution for cost-effective long-distance connectivity of Thunderbolt 4/3 and USB4/3/2 devices. It provides up to 40Gb/s of stable bandwidth, up to 240W of power delivery, and up to 8K video resolution at up to 15 feet. Featuring universal USB-C connectivity and optical fiber technology, it eliminates the 2-meter distance limit of traditional copper-based Thunderbolt and USB4 cables so devices can be placed further away for noise reduction, provide more convenient access, be hidden for a more aesthetic work environment, or enable more efficient cable management in professional settings.

OWC Active Optical Cable – Key Features/Functionality:

  • Longer distance connectivity enables optimal placement of USB4 and Thunderbolt 4/3 devices for a highly organized, convenient, quieter, and productive workspace
  • Work and play faster with up to 40Gb/s of stable data transfer speed over long-distance
  • Connect to millions of Thunderbolt 4/3 and USB4/3/2 USB-C equipped docks, displays, eGPUs, PCIe expansion, external SSDs, RAID storage, and accessories
  • Lab-certified to safely deliver up to 240 watts (3M) or 60 watts (4.5M) to charge your devices quickly
  • Supports high-resolution displays up to 8K, including DisplayPort over Thunderbolt, Apple Pro Display XDR, Apple Studio Display, LG Ultrafine, and any display plugged into a Thunderbolt dock or hub
  • Braided nylon exterior over advanced internal fiber optical cable for highly durable and consistent signal reliability immune to EMI/RFI interference

The OWC USB4 40Gb/s Active Optical Cable is now available in two lengths:

  • 3 meters (9.8 feet) for $98.99
  • 4.5 meters (14.76 feet) for $129.99

OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub 

Now generally available (GA), the OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub is the perfect compact connectivity solution to solve the big problem of not having enough Thunderbolt 5 ports. Now you can turn a single cable connection from your machine into three Thunderbolt 5 ports and one USB-A port. With up to 80Gb/s of bi-directional data speed – up to 2x faster than Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 – and up to 120Gb/s for higher display bandwidth needs, you will redefine your productivity.

OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub – Key Features/Functionality:

  • Adds more universally compatible Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) ports to a Mac, PC, or iPad Pro to greatly expand device connectivity possibilities and productivity
  • Work and play faster with up to 80Gb/s of bi-directional data speed and up to 120Gb/s for higher display bandwidth needs
  • No worries or confusion…connect to Thunderbolt 5, Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB4, or USB-C machine or device with 100% compatibility
  • Delivers the best performance of devices with today’s computers and the best speed possible in the future with any Thunderbolt 5 Mac or PC
  • Create three separate daisy chains of devices – even bus-powered – and remove devices from one chain without affecting the other chains
  • Safely delivers up to 140 watts to charge the most power-hungry notebook computer
  • Connect to the latest and future Thunderbolt, USB-C, and DisplayPort displays for incredible 4K, 5K, 6K, and up to three 8K displays
  • Built-in OWC reliability and dependability for Mac and Windows
  • Fanless aluminum enclosure for quiet and cool operation

The OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub is now generally available for $189.99

OWC will showcase these groundbreaking products and more at the following media events: 

  • Pepcom’s Digital Experience! @ CES 2025: Monday, January 6, 7:00 pm – 10:30 pm at Caesars Palace, in the Octavius Ballroom 
  • ShowStoppers @ CES 2025: Tuesday, January 7, 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, in the Grand Ballroom
  • Everything Tech Event @ CES 2025: Wednesday, January 8, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Caesars Palace, in Milano 1 & 2

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Review: AirTag Fabric Holder

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 5, 2025 by itnerd

Here’s the deal. Apple AirTags are great. But placing them securely in places where potential thieves can’t see them can often be a problem. This matters to me because I am starting to hear stories of people’s bags being snatched in public places by thieves, and said thieves looking for and disposing of said AirTags should they see one so they don’t get hunted down by the owner of the item or the police. So to stop that from happening to me should the worst happen, I acquired these AirTag Fabric Holders from Amazon. Here’s what they look like:

The AirTag inserted into a high-quality silicone shell that you can somewhat easily remove the AirTag from if you need to do something like replace the battery. It has 3M tape on the back that ensures that it will stay in place no matter what. In fact, when I applied them I found that getting them off would cause a lot of damage to the item that they were attached to. So choose the location that you stick these to wisely. Which is to do is place it where a thief won’t see it. In testing it, I found that all the precision tracking functionality worked fine which I expected, and the ability to play sounds to find the AirTag also worked fine. I didn’t expect that part because I was expecting the sound to be somewhat muffled. But that wasn’t the case. I also noted that the AirTag wasn’t going to accidentally slip out.

Now with each AirTag holder, you also get a secondary piece of fabric with 3M tape on the back that allows you to adhere the AirTag holder more securely. I didn’t end up using that because my use cases didn’t call for it. But it’s nice that this is included if your use case calls for it.

You get two in a pack for $16.99 CDN, or four in a pack for $25.99. I placed them in a couple of items in places were a thief is unlikely to look for them. And I am hoping that if the worst happens, I will have a chance to do a Liam Neeson and find them. With the assistance of the police of course.

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Honey Loses 3 MILLION Users After Their Shady Behaviour Went Public

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 4, 2025 by itnerd

Yesterday I put out a story about a browser extension named Honey that’s owned by PayPal which promised you that it would find the best coupon codes for your online purchases. The reality was that not only did it not do that, but it worked with retailers to keep you finding the highest value coupon codes available. IF that wasn’t bad enough, it also stole money out of the pockets of creators. Many of them promoted Honey. As a result, a class action lawsuit has been filed.

In the above story, I said this:

Now let me give you a piece of advice regarding Honey. If you have their browser extension installed, uninstall it now. As in drop what you’re doing and uninstall it. It doesn’t do what it says it does. And given what has come to light about them, you have to wonder what else it might do. Thus removing it is the best course of action for anyone who has it installed.

Apparently 3 million people have done just that:

By looking at The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the Chrome Web Store shows that at least 3 million users have uninstalled Honey recently, as the extension had over 20 million users before the video was posted, and is now down to 17 million, dropping roughly 2 million in just the week the video was posted.

That’s just the Chrome Web Store. I can’t do the same search on the Apple side of the fence as they don’t report active users for extensions that are compatible with the Safari web browser. But Firefox does keep track of active users. Here’s a screenshot from yesterday:

This is from December 26th of 2024:

The math says they’ve lost about 100,000 users. That’s a non-trivial amount which reinforces the fact that they are in deep trouble because their revenue model, if you want to call it that, is based on users using the plug in. So it truly sucks to be them. If I were you, I would uninstall their plug in if you haven’t already and add to their pain.

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Honey Is In Deep Trouble… VERY Deep Trouble

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 3, 2025 by itnerd

Over the last week or so, Honey has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Honey is a browser extension that claims to find you the highest value coupon codes when buying items from Amazon and some other online retailers while costing you nothing. Creators promoted them heavily a few years ago via paid ads in their YouTube videos for example which helped Honey to become very popular.

The thing is, it now appears that Honey wasn’t telling the truth. A YouTuber who goes by the name Megalag posted a video exposing two things that Honey was doing:

  • He accused Honey of working with retailers to not display high value coupon codes so that users of this browser extension would only find the coupon codes that they wanted you to find. Typically these were ones that were the lowest value available, despite the fact that there were higher value ones available.
  • He accused Honey of manipulating creators affiliate links so that Honey would get the money that should have gone to the creator in question. Effectively stealing from the creators that they worked with to promote the browser extension.

If you really want to go into the weeds here, the video is below and I suggest that you watch it:

Now since this story came to light, several creators have come out with videos commenting on this situation. MKBHD and Linus Sebastian for example have done this. I encourage you to watch their videos as well. But it highlights the danger of being a creator and having to work with brands to make money. Which is the brand in question may be “shady AF” as the kids say. Though with the information that is out there, Honey appears to be the most shady company the world has ever seen as what they have been accused of doing most certainly harms creators and consumers.

As an aside, that’s why I don’t take sponsorships from brands. And while I do occasionally get products sent to me for free, I review them as if I have paid for them. You can read more about that here.

In any case, Honey’s problems don’t end here. Last night Devin Stone, who is also known as the YouTuber Legal Eagle dropped this video on YouTube:

He’s filed a class action lawsuit against Honey on behalf of all creators. This is a huge problem for Honey and their corporate masters at PayPal. The bad press around their shady actions have sent Honey underground. Likely because they either are unable to or unwilling to respond in any way shape or form that will put this firestorm out. Perhaps both. But the fact is that now that a lawsuit has been filed, they might have no choice but to answer this.

Now let me give you a piece of advice regarding Honey. If you have their browser extension installed, uninstall it now. As in drop what you’re doing and uninstall it. It doesn’t do what it says it does. And given what has come to light about them, you have to wonder what else it might do. Thus removing it is the best course of action for anyone who has it installed. Related to this, this highlights why you should be very careful about what software you install on your computer. Because even if it comes from the Apple App Store or the Google Play store (because as I type this, Honey is still available in the Apple App Store… Why I do not know) doesn’t mean it is safe or does what it claims to do.

I’ll be watching this situation with great interest as this situation is one that is likely going to evolve over the coming weeks as the bad press along with the lawsuit plays out. But what is clear is that Honey, and their corporate masters at PayPal are likely to come out on the losing end of this no matter what happens.

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HIPAA to Mandate MFA, Risk Analysis, Vulnerability Scanning Among Other Items In The Wake Of Breaches

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 2, 2025 by itnerd

To better protect patient records, the Department of Health and Human Services’ HHS Office for Civil Rights is proposing substantial cybersecurity requirements for all covered entities and their business associates be added to the HIPAA Security Rule (enacted in 1996). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Security Rule to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Electronic Protected Health Information is set to be published on January 6, 2025.

A 300+ page working draft for public comment is currently in the Federal Register: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-30983.pdf

Ted Miracco, CEO, Approov had this to say:

  “The proposed updates to HIPAA are an overdue response to the escalating cybersecurity attacks on the healthcare sector, especially with regards to mobile devices and API attacks. Enforcing stricter security measures such as encryption, MFA, attestation and network segmentation, is a strong start as HHS aims to enhance the protection of patient data significantly. However, for mobile app developers, this will mean adapting much more advanced security practices to meet these emerging standards. Rebuilding user trust and safety remain critical priorities, given the extensive number of data breaches that have occurred in recent years, and their devastating impacts.”

Lawrence Pingree, VP, Dispersive follows with this:

   “For HIPAA/HITECH, this guides organizations to more prescriptive controls – e.g. not just “you need to protect your data and users” – it’s now bringing more specific controls around multi-factor authentication and data protection strategies. In security, the more prescriptive the controls, the better since this reduces the variance of approaches that might not adequately address current threats. The grand challenge is for prescriptive guidance not to become outdated, so much be continuously uplifted to address modern threats.”

Given how often the health care sector gets pwned by hackers, it’s about time that something like this has come down the pipe. Because if the health care sector wasn’t going to do protect themselves on their own, they need to forced to protect themselves.

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Other World Computing Names Matt Dargis as Chief Revenue Officer

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 2, 2025 by itnerd

Other World Computing today announced the appointment of Matt Dargis as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Reporting directly to OWC Founder and CEO Larry O’Connor, Dargis will leverage his extensive experience in sales leadership and global market strategy to spearhead OWC’s continued growth and market expansion, cementing the company’s position as a leader in workflow, performance, and collaboration innovations for Mac and PC users.

As CRO, Dargis will be responsible for driving OWC’s global revenue growth and expanding its market presence across both commercial and consumer channels. He will oversee the company’s sales and channel strategies, ensuring alignment with OWC’s mission to deliver the highest performance and most trusted technology solutions that provide the greatest value and ROI. Additionally, Dargis will focus on building and scaling high-performing teams, optimizing go-to-market initiatives, and enhancing customer experiences to meet and exceed evolving market demands.

With an entrepreneurial spirit backed by decades of experience and customer relationships, Dargis is a seasoned executive with more than 20 years of building and scaling tech businesses through his superior market knowledge, and exemplary team building and servant leadership style. Prior to joining OWC, Dargis served as Senior Vice President, US Sales at ACCO Brands and Vice President of North America Sales at Kensington where he rebuilt the North America sales team and created a new go-to-market strategy and three-year plan to double sales while improving the bottom line. Before that, he led Buffalo Americas, Inc. as Executive Vice President, COO, where he was responsible for building new sales and marketing teams and expanding internationally. Dargis has also served as Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Marketing at ioSafe, Inc., and held senior sales and marketing positions with NETGEAR, Inc. and D-Link Systems, Inc. Dargis attended the v where he majored in Business Administration and minored in Computer Science.

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China Tied To Hack Of US Treasury Department

Posted in Commentary with tags on January 2, 2025 by itnerd

U.S. Treasury office that administers economic sanctions has admitted that they were pwned by a “Chinese threat actor”:

Chinese government hackers breached the U.S. Treasury office that administers economic sanctions, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, identifying targets of a cyberattack Treasury disclosed earlier this week.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Washington Post said hackers compromised the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Office of Financial Research and also targeted the office of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The department earlier this week disclosed in a letter to lawmakers that hackers stole unclassified documents in a “major incident.” It did not specify which users or departments were affected.

Asked about the paper’s report, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the “irrational” U.S. claim was “without any factual basis” and represented “smear attacks” against Beijing.

Yeah. Right. I don’t believe anything that the Chinese have to say at this point. More on that later. Avishai Aviva, CISO, SafeBreach had this to say:

“In this latest breach of the US Treasury workstation, neither the government nor BeyondTrust, the vendor involved, provided sufficient information to understand what happened fully. This is normal for such events. Let’s peel through the layers of obscurity and get a clearer picture of what happened in this breach.

First, looking at the letter from the Treasury to lawmakers, we find this:”  “gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor could override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users.” With all my years of experience, I was scratching my head at this narrative. When reading the BeyondTrust statement on their website – it became more apparent.

BeyondTrust, unironically, provides a secure method for Information Technology (IT) support personnel to provide remote support to end users. This method involves establishing a trusted connection between the support person and the end user. This trusted connection punches through traditional perimeter security controls and gives the support person full access and control over the end-user workstation.

Once inside, the support person can send documents back over that secure channel or masquerade as the end-user and send the same documents directly.

The security controls protecting the US Treasury network have no way of knowing something nefarious is happening, as the trusted connection is, well, trusted.

From the BeyondTrust website, the malicious actors used a critical vulnerability to gain unauthenticated (read as untrusted) access to the same support functionality that the authorized IT support personnel.

This incident boils down to what we refer to as a supply-chain vulnerability leading to a data breach. An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) vendor in the US Treasury supply chain had a vulnerability that was then used to extract data out of the US Treasury end-user workstations and network.

Now that we understand what happened, albeit at a high level, let’s focus on the following interesting detail – Attribution. The letter from the US Treasury indicates that this breach originated from China. It is unusual for an early notice, especially in case of such breaches, to be able to make such clear attributions. Looking through the technical details provided by BeyondTrust, we can see that the vulnerability was associated with four IP addresses. These addresses belong to DigitalOcean, a New Jersey Cloud Service Provider (CSP). This information indicates to me that the malicious actors used this cloud provider as a jumping-off point to infiltrate the BeyondTrust service and exploit the trusted connection to the US Treasury. The clear attribution suggests that the investigation was able to link these four addresses to accounts originating in China.

Last but not least, was there something that the US Treasury could have done to prevent this? The sad answer appears to be yes. Again, referring to the scant technical information BeyondTrust provided, the system administrators at the US Treasury, or the vendor likely to provide support services, failed to configure trusted locations from which the support agents could connect. We refer to this as IP Whitelisting. This failure is a critical risk with any such service. The same issue led to notable breaches in 2023 and 2024. This oversight is why we urge all service vendors, especially trusted ICT vendors, to follow the CISA Secure-by-Default guidance.”

The fact is that there appears to be enough evidence to tie China to this. Thus besides taking action to prevent these incidents from happening as this appears to be the latest attack that has been tied to China. Thus there needs to be action to make such activities something that China is less likely to carry out. And there needs to be action to make it way harder to get into supposedly secure networks.

UPDATE: Will Lin, CEO, AKA Identity adds this:

“This incident highlights two urgent, unsolved security issues today: third party vendor risk management and a lack of real-time visibility into identities. Because technology tools are built to trust valid credentials, the average identity-based breach takes over 200 days to detect.

Kudos to the US Treasury and BeyondTrust for detecting this incident and wishing the best in determining the investigation’s blast radius.”

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More US States Restrict Access To Porn…. VPN Usage Spikes As A Result…. Shock… Not….

Posted in Commentary with tags , on January 2, 2025 by itnerd

About two or so years ago, a trend in the US started where individual states started to require online porn sites to do some form of age verification to keep kids from accessing online porn. Now whether that is the true goal of the states who do this is an open question as some would argue that these states are trying to restrict access to the Internet. But I will leave you to form your own opinion on that.

As of the new year, the list of states that restrict online porn is as follows:

  • Virginia 
  • Montana
  • North Carolina
  • Arkansas
  • Utah
  • Mississippi
  • Texas
  • Nebraska
  • Idaho
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Indiana
  • Alabama
  • Oklahoma
  • Florida
  • Tennessee
  • South Carolina
  • Louisiana

Georgia has a law that takes effect in July.

The net result of this is that porn sites such as PornHub which is apparently the biggest player in the online porn space have outright blocked access to their sites in those states. Why? Well, for sites like PornHub to comply with these laws, they would have to perform reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the material, which usually involves uploading your ID to them for verification purposes. PornHub clearly doesn’t want to play gatekeeper, nor do they want to be responsible for all that personally identifiable information, so they blocked access instead.

Now history has proven that if someone wants to ban something, those who want access to what is being banned will find a way to access it somehow. Which is why it isn’t surprising to me that according to VPN Mentor, in the state of Florida alone, they detected a surge of 1150% in VPN demand in the first few hours. You have to assume that similar things are happening in other states that have been geo blocked by PornHub. Meaning that the efforts to restrict access to online porn are completely ineffective. Not that I am surprised by that because anyone who has been on the Internet for something longer than 60 seconds could have predicted that this was going to happen. Thus it will be interesting to see what these states do next? Do they ban VPN usage? Do they force ISP’s to hand over info on which of their customers use VPNs? Do they go after PornHub or other online sites for not doing enough in their eyes? Or do they do nothing?

Get the popcorn ready.

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Canadian Gets Held By Indian Authorities For Carrying A Garmin InReach Satellite Communication Device

Posted in Commentary with tags , on January 2, 2025 by itnerd

Before travelling to another country with your tech, it always pays to see how the local laws might affect you and the tech you carry. For example, some countries have restrictions on VPN usage or encryption technologies. Thus if you’re going to one of those countries, you might want to avoid using a VPN or bringing a laptop that’s encrypted.

Now to be clear, this example that I am about to bring you is not a case of blame the victim. It’s more of a cautionary tale:

In early December, a Canadian trail runner named Tina Lewis was two months into her extended trip to India when she ran into legal trouble due to her backcountry GPS communication device.

On December 6, Lewis, 51, arrived at Dabolim International Airport in the city of Goa, to fly to the nearby city of Kochi. She was traveling with a Garmin inReach Mini, a popular GPS and satellite messaging device often used by backpackers and climbers.

“It had been an amazing trip, the trip of a lifetime,” Lewis told Outside.

But when Lewis removed her InReach from her carry-on bag and placed it onto a scanning tray, she said a security officer approached her and asked her questions about the device. Lewis said armed guards then removed her from the line.

Lewis missed her flight. For the next four hours she was detained and interrogated about the InReach. Although her eventual fine was just $11, Lewis said she spent more than $2,000 to pay legal fees and bail.

“They treated me like a frickin’ fugitive,” she said.

And:

Lewis had unknowingly violated an Indian law that requires individuals to obtain a license before owning or using a personal satellite communication device. Lewis spent the next six days attempting to get her passport back from authorities. She had to appear in court on three consecutive days, and she eventually hired lawyers to avoid jail time.

India’s laws prohibiting individuals from owning satellite devices are published online: Unless registered and licensed by the government, satellite communicators are illegal. The Garmin website lists India as one of 14 countries that may “regulate or prohibit the use or possession of a satellite communicator” or are otherwise embargoed by the United States. The other nations on the list are Afghanistan, Ukrainian Crimea, Cuba, Georgia, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Russia.

But the roots of the law are tied to an obscure rule from India’s past. The ban on satellite communication originated with the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 and the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1933. According to Global Rescue, an international medical and security evacuation service, these older laws were reinforced after the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, when an Islamist militia used satellite communicators to coordinate bombings and shootings that killed nearly 200 people.

Now from first hand experience having travelled to the country on several occasions, I can say that India has some “interesting” laws when it comes to tech. But this one is kind of surprising. Though I can see from India’s perspective why they need a law like this one. The flip side of that is that the Garmin InReach is a popular device among those who go to remote areas on a frequent basis. Thus you would think that that this is a law that requires modernization for that reason.

By the way, this Canadian wasn’t the only person caught up in a situation like this:

She isn’t the only traveler to run afoul of the law. On December 9, just three days after Lewis’ arrest, a Czech traveler named Martin Polesny with a Garmin was detained at another Goa state airport. The following day, an American named Joshua Ivan Richardson was arrested with a satellite phone in Dehradun. A month prior, another American was detained at Chennai airport for the same reason.

Well, that’s not going to help with getting tourists into India and spending money there. Because now that these stories are out there, the users of these devices are going to think twice about going there because few if any of them are going to leave their Garmin InReach devices at home.

Oh. To borrow a phrase that was often used by Steve Jobs, there’s one more thing:

Direct satellite communication features are increasingly standard in modern smartphones. The newest versions of Apple’s iPhones have satellite communication capabilities. iPhones allow users to send messages to emergency services, share location, and stay in touch with emergency contacts, all while off the grid, with no cellular or Wi-Fi coverage, via satellite connection.

So in theory, if I go to India with my iPhone 14 Pro which has a feature called SOS Over Satellite, I could get into trouble. Well, seeing as I don’t go anywhere without my phone I have two choices. Take my chances or avoid going to India. And it will likely be the latter. Thus if I could give one piece of advice to the Indian government, you need to rethink this law. And at the same time, if I could give one piece of advice to travellers, check the local laws in regards to your tech and make your travel plans accordingly.

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