Patent lawyer Arnout Engelfriet says (Dutch) that searches of mobile phones and laptops at the airports by the marechaussee, a form of military police, may be illegal. He refers to the fact that the powers of the marechaussee are the same as those of the regular police, and regular police may only perform searches when they have good reason to suspect a specific wrongdoing. The marechaussee’s actions are part of a test started last year in the hope to lessen the smuggling of child pornography.
According to tech news site Tweakers.net (Dutch), the justice department wanted to keep the test a secret because of expected “legal complications.” Journalist Brenno de Winter discovered that although 900 mobile phones, 62 hard disks and sundry other digital devices were searched, none of the victims were prosecuted on the basis of these searches.
The marechaussee was installed in 1814 by later king Willem I as a successor to Napoleon’s reviled gendarmerie. Its tasks have included policing of citizens from the word go. When the civil police reorganized in 1988, guard and police duties at national airport Schiphol got assigned to the marechaussee. The organization took over guard duties for the royal familie in 1908, a job hitherto performed by the palace’s gardening staff.
Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 8:39 am
Last December, Paul Wiegmans from Alkmaar discovered an ATM skimming device (Dutch) attached to an NS ticket vending machine (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, i.e. Dutch railways). Being a hacker, he pulled the device loose and photographed it extensively before turning it in to the police. Marvel at the diminutive size of these things!
The Nederlandse Bank estimates that skimming at train stations and banks results in ten million euro in damages per year, reports Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch). The NS told the same daily that approximately two skimming accidents occur per day at its train stations. That’s a rather small amount compared to the number of ATM transactions taking place per day there—200,000.
Update: Meanwhile, Salima Douhou and Jan Magnus of the University of Tilburg claim that skimming would become almost impossible if banks incorporated code that would verify the way people type their PIN codes, reports De Telegraaf (Dutch). Apparently, nobody does that quite the same way, making your punch as distinct as your signature. The article unfortunately doesn’t mention what the percentage of false positives is with this method, and calls the method “almost unhackable”, which in this reality means the same as positively hackable.
In 2005 the well-known Stichting Natuur en Milieu foundation (Foundation for Nature and Environment) asked students of the three technological universities (Delft, Eindhoven, Twente) to invent the car for the year 2020. This is what they came up with, called the c’mm’n, and the first thing you will notice is that it doesn’t fly. The car that is, not or not necessarily the concept.
Mega-iPhone-like dashboard that lets you play GTA IV while the auto-pilot drives the car
Configurable driver’s seat that makes it impossible for other drivers to seek eye contact
Memory foam back seat
Active suspension (makes the car stick to the road better)
Frame that doubles as a shockabsorber
Fully electrical powertrain
Optional diesel range extender (the so-called engineering booth makes it possible for you to compose your own car and calculate the effects of your choices)
They seem to have put more thought into the ‘car of the future’ bit than into the ‘open source’ bit—the c’mm’n people still have to decide on the license. I understand that can be a tricky thing but on the other hand even Ford, which isn’t in the business of giving away its products, at least opened up its press photography.
The trade association of deurwaarders (bailiffs, court appointed debt collectors) has decided that its members should leave PCs, TVs and refrigerators untouched from now on when collecting debts because they are considered basic needs. The association, KBvG, which represents all 900 bailiffs in the Netherlands, has a list according to Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch) of basic necessities that a bailiff should not repossess, but the list stems from the nineteenth century and only contains items such as beds, books and food.
KBvG chairman John Wisseborn pointed out that people need a PC nowadays to apply for jobs and fill out tax forms.
Sociaal Raadslieden (municipal advisers) is happy about the change. According to them bailiffs can use their own discretion on what to take and what to leave behind, and have apparently figured out that just the threat of taking the PC can be a powerful means of putting pressure on the debtor.
It’s not much to look at, a blotchy photo of a drawing of Johannes Enschedé III, but this is the oldest photo of the country according to De Pers (Dutch). To be precise, it’s the first daguerreotype photo sent to the Netherlands. It was discovered recently in the private museum of Royal Joh. Enschedé, the famous printers from Haarlem (1703) who amongst other things used to print the Dutch bank notes and passports.
The museum’s website reports (Dutch) that the photo was sent from France by Jeanne Enschedé – Dalen, who lived in Paris, to Haarlem where it arrived on October 4, 1839.
In De Pers’ article Andrea Roosen, an employee of the museum, calls the family a bunch of pack rats. When they discovered a note in Johannes Enschedé III’s 1839 diary about the payment for reception of the photo to the courier or mailman, “we knew that that photo still had to be around.” Daguerre had announced the invention of his type of photography only that same year.
The photo will be displayed as part of a larger exhibition of Daguerreotypes of the Enschedé family at photo museum Huis Marseille in Amsterdam from today until May 24.
Filed under: Art,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:18 pm
Panorama Mesdag, the largest cylindrical painting in Europe, located at the Panorama Mesdag museum in The Hague, is going to be digitised. It was painted by Hendrik Willem Mesdag, his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, along with help from G.H. Breitner, T. de Bock and B.J. Blommers. It is apparently one of the world’s finest and largest surviving panoramas. The visitor’s platform is a dune, creating the illusion of being back at the nearby Scheveningen beach in 1880.
The panorama is 120 metres long and about 14 metres high, of which every brush stroke will be photographed. A total of 10,000 details of an exceptionally high resolution will be taken using a specially designed tripod.
The museum believes that this project, which will last for months, will provide countless possibilities for studies and restoration.
A ticket machine at the Pathé De Munt film theatre in Amsterdam offered access to a list of online reservations for 2008, including the names of people who had reserved tickets online. According to Bright.nl, Reinder Rustema discovered this during the holidays when he walked along the ticket machine in the Pathé De Munt film theatre and saw that the Windows trash can was displayed on screen. “Through the trash can I was able to browse and look through the entire system (…). Finally, I saw a file called presales.xls (…) that I could open in Wordpad and there they were: all of the online reservations of 2008.” Bright.nl is still waiting for a response from the film theatre.
And yes it’s a big deal because it’s a breach of privacy and most probably illegal. Someone will surely explain it to us all here.
Give it to me straight: Bad taste? Stupid? Clever? Sexist? No way she could have had those identical triplets? This advert was on the front page of December’s Dutch IT newspaper Automatisering Gids. It reads “Need additional temporary hardware?”
Off to New Year’s celebrations now. Happy New Year to all our readers!
According to the police, a 47-year-old man on a scooter in Apeldoorn, Gelderland was fined last Friday for driving on the A50 motorway. The man listened and blindly obeyed the advice of his navigation system (I’d love to know which one, as I can’t automatically assume it’s from that Dutch brand, but it’s a distinct possibility).
The guy drove his scooter over the emergency lane of the A50 in the direction of Zwolle en route to Leeuwarden. The police eventually stopped him and fined him. The man claimed his GPS ‘told’ him that the quickest route to Leeuwarden was to scoot over the A50.
So the GPS obviously screwed up, but the man deserves a ticket for forgetting anything he learned about driving and safety. And how about that GPS software?
Waiting for your order at a restaurant is never any fun. Restaurant ‘t Hart van Breda has solved this problem by installing a computer that takes orders: you click on a computer screen from your table and voilà . You can even play computer games and chat with guests of the place as well. According to owner Nanda Koomans, “it’s in tune with the times. We have a young target group who lives and works digitally. This is perfect for them.” She emphasises the popularity of the system using an example. “Yesterday we had a group of girls and boys that were chatting with each other. After their digital talk they all went outside to go out together as a group. That’s of course very nice!”
There are also eight “digital free” tables out of the 26 for the non computer-savvy. The system was developed in Israël where its introduction has usually led to an increase in turnover. Although the initial investment is pricy, Koomans believes it is worth it.
I’d rather use a computer than get stressed out over the service in the Netherlands, but computers break down and make mistakes too. Life is tough.
Patent lawyer Arnout Engelfriet says (Dutch) that searches of mobile phones and laptops at the airports by the marechaussee, a form of military police, may be illegal. He refers to the fact that the powers of the marechaussee are the same as those of the regular police, and regular police may only perform searches when they have good reason to suspect a specific wrongdoing. The marechaussee’s actions are part of a test started last year in the hope to lessen the smuggling of child pornography. 
Last December, Paul Wiegmans from Alkmaar 
The trade association of deurwaarders (bailiffs, court appointed debt collectors) has decided that its members should leave PCs, TVs and refrigerators untouched from now on when collecting debts because they are considered basic needs. The association, KBvG, which represents all 900 bailiffs in the Netherlands, has a list 
