I’ve got quite a busy week of streaming coming up, starting tomorrow afternoon with the release of Humankind:

By the way: If you want to keep up to date with what I’m streaming when, check out the /stream page regularly.

“Hexagonis”

A postcard from No Man’s Sky

I’ve just released the latest episode of The Private Citizen, where I cover Apple’s new privacy-defeating features in iOS and tie that together with some of their recent supposedly privacy-friendly initiatives to explain how its all part of the same strategy: Do things that are best for the company while pretending they have their users’ interests at heart.

It always amazes me how people can be very suspicious of almost every other company but then give Apple a free pass. And this is IT security experts and journalists we are talking about. Well, they were in for a rude awakening last week…

→ The Private Citizen 81: Let’s Talk about Apple

What are the new features Apple is implementing in iOS 15 that have privacy and security people all up in arms? And why none of this should come a surprise to anyone who’s actually paid some attention and is thinking for themselves instead of just buying the company propaganda.

If you want to get notified automatically when new episodes are released, you can subscribe to the show via a number of methods:

This week, I finally picked up streaming games again. I started by getting back to The Witcher 2, which was actually a lot of fun, especially considering how long I hadn’t played the game and that I stopped right after starting it. Despite not knowing any of the combat controls anymore, the story hooked me and pulled me right back in. And the graphics are just such an unbelievable improvement on the first game!

I also picked up Snowrunner again on Saturday after a similarly long hiatus. I fell right back into loving that game, though, and it ended up being a very chill weekend stream with some nice discussions about weddings and such with chat. I’m looking forward to doing more game streams soon!

“NEU”

Street art in Düsseldorf
Nikon D7100, AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D (ISO 400 • 1/2500 s • f/22)

“Fab's Landing”

A postcard from No Man’s Sky

I’m a day late with this since I had a bit of an emergency last night and couldn’t record the podcast, but I’ve now released the latest episode of The Private Citizen. It’s all about a speech Joe Biden gave recently and why what he said concerns me greatly. And why I think it should concern you, too.

→ The Private Citizen 80: Biden’s Dangerous Cyber Jingoism

The US President says it’s likely that hacker attacks will lead to a real war and that is something that scares me a lot.

If you want to get notified automatically when new episodes are released, you can subscribe to the show via a number of methods:

“Pastellum”

A postcard from No Man’s Sky

“Walking the Walk”

My friend Jonathan at the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord
Nikon D7100, AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D (ISO 400 • 1/2500 s • f/3.2)

“It’s what’s wrong with the world. People think technology is an easy ride. They’re watching too much TV.”

— Harry Bosch, The Closers

Typical. Typical for Tarkov to wipe while I have no time to play games for a few weeks. By the time I’ve got time again, all the streamers will have Kappa and I’ll be completely outgunned again. What kind of time to wipe is the middle of the summer, anyway? Some of us actually have a life. You know, go out in the sun and such? Damn you, Nikita!

A Tesla is full of brilliant engineering. Well. Kind of.

I turns out that the Model S has a conventional car battery. Which can fail, even while the car is plugged into a charger. That’s because once the big battery for the motors is charged, the charger will turn off and stop topping off the conventional battery that powers the computers, car locks etc. Which means that can eventually run flat, just like in one of those horrible, old-fashioned patrol cars. But unlike with one of those old-fashioned petrol cars, you have to actually partially disassemble a Tesla to get to the battery to charge it manually so that you can use your car again. Which, meanwhile, was sitting on a huge battery, fully charged and fully ready to drive off. Hilarious.

“Death of a Professor”

The Witcher

Well, YouTube has restored the episode of The Private Citizen they’ve blocked yesterday. Apparently, I’m not a liar or incredibly bad at my job or whatever they were alleging with their unjustified claim of a TOS violation. They say in an email:

After taking another look, we can confirm that your content does not
violate our Community Guidelines.

Thanks for your patience while we reviewed this appeal. Our goal is to make
sure content doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines so that YouTube can
be a safe place for all – and sometimes we make mistakes trying to get it
right. We’re sorry for any frustration our mistake caused you, and we
appreciate you letting us know.

I guess that’s admitting that they fucked up. No explanation of how such an incredibly dumb mistake could have happened to such a supposedly very smart company, though.

I am still awaiting a response from their press office with a proper explanation. In my opinion, this automated email is a very sorry excuse for supressing important journalistic work. I will continue my research into what options journalists have to prevent overblocking like this.

You probably know that I record a weekly podcast on privacy, security, civil rights and other policy issues. You might also know that I record each episode live on Twitch and later upload it to my YouTube channel. Today, YouTube informed me that one of my videos had been blocked for a TOS violation for the first time.

They have removed the video for episode 74 of The Private Citizen because it allegedly contains “medical misinformation” with regards to COVID-19. This is a ludicrous claim and obviously bogus – that should be clear to anyone who listens to the episode (which is of course still available in podcast form). It was probably an automatic decision and YouTube is not providing any information on why they think I violated their TOS at all.

Now, it happens that I am not just some random YouTuber. I am a journalist and this video was made with my usual journalistic standards (see my previous work and the ethical guidelines for journalists in the German press codex , which I follow to the letter to the best of my abilities). As such I regard this kind of unsubstantiated claim as a grave insult to my work ethics. And I will fight this tooth and nail – my professional reputation is on the line here.

I have disputed the claim and contacted Google’s press office to provide me with information on why they think I violated their TOS, i.e. detailed justification as to where exactly my video contradicts expert guidance from the WHO and/or RKI. I will also take up this matter with my trade union, the DJV, as I consider this kind of behaviour by YouTube to be a threat to press freedom, especially of independent freelance journalists, here in Germany. I will keep you informed about Google’s response and my further steps in the matter.

Funnily enough, I pretty much predicted that something like this might happen on the podcast only last week when talking about YouTube, upload filters, journalism and free speech: The Private Citizen 73: A Great Time to Be a Podcaster.

What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? They push this shit on my taskbar with a minor update? Not even with one of those twice-a-year feature updates?

Look at that shit! Pixelated weather icon looks like it was copied off 1998-era ICQ assets. The fucking font isn’t the same as anything else on the taskbar (or the Start menu for that matter). It’s blurry as fuck as well. And the whole thing doesn’t even adhere to the operating system’s language settings? What the hell, Redmond?

I legit thought someone had installed malware on my computer. This whole thing looks like baitware for a trojan straight from a Russian hacker forum that you get served as a “Free Weather App for Windows” via some scammy banner ad. Only remembering that I shut down my PC for a Windows update before booting into Linux last night saved me from total panic here. And a search on the web.

Apparently, Microsoft has tested this absolute shitshow since January. How the fuck did nobody notice that this piece of shit looks like Russian malware and not like a part of the operating system made by the fucking maker of the operating system? Jesus Christ. People are really going soft in the brain working from home.

“Aлтын”

Escape from Tarkov