The Amazon Echo Hub is a new smart home controller that offers a new experience for enthusiasts, especially those interested in the Alexa ecosystem. Unlike an Echo Show, the Echo Hub lets you customize your widgets and everything displayed on your device, letting you easily control your smart lights, Ring security system, smart plugs, and more. Review: Echo HubAlso, unlike the Echo Show, the Echo Hub doesn’t have a spatial audio speaker, though Alexa does respond when you ask questions. During setup, the Echo Hub plays music and audio over a preferred speaker in the Alexa app. Testing the Echo Hub for the past few weeks has proven an excellent start for a smart home panel in the Alexa ecosystem, though it does have some navigation lag and some bugs that can be worked out with software updates.Echo Hub features: Smart home control panel | 8-inch touchscreen | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter, Thread | Wall-mounted | Price: $180 More

Over the weekend as the Sydney’s Northern Beaches went back into lockdown over a coronavirus cluster, the Australian government once again called on citizens to use its so-called digital sunscreen.
Last month, the government said the app was recording excellent performance thanks to using an updated Bluetooth protocol dubbed Herald.
“The protocol provides for excellent performance of all encounter logging under all phone conditions and will continue to work on more than 96% of Apple and Android phones,” Health Minister Greg Hunt and Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert said at the time.
The same duo was back at it over the weekend, as the Herald update hit the Apple and Google app stores.
“Recent cases of COVID-19 in our community are a stark reminder the pandemic is not over and Australians must remain vigilant and be COVIDSafe,” Hunt said.
“New South Wales contact tracers are using the COVIDSafe App as one of their tools to search for close contacts during the current Northern Beaches outbreak.
“Our public health official contact tracing teams are world-leading and are ready to manage any cases that may occur, however, the best way to ensure you and your family are protected is to remember to practise good hygiene, physical distancing, get tested, isolate if you need to and download, register and update the COVIDSafe App.”

Must read: Living with COVID-19 creates a privacy dilemma for us all
On Friday during an update on the Northern Beaches cluster, digital venue check-in systems were said to be helping contact tracers track the outbreak. NSW representatives did not mention the COVIDSafe app.
The new release prompted Jim Mussared — who has pointed out technical problems with COVIDSafe from the get go — to state the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has not responded to concerns raised before the update was pushed.
“So far we’ve seen a bunch of old bugs re-introduced, plus some new ones. Hope they can fix before the app store freeze,” he wrote on Monday.
“Our analysis found a few reasons why the Herald changes will be less efficient compared to ‘COVIDSafe Classic’. The DTA has refused to respond to any of the requests for evidence for their claims.
For an app that has cost millions to create and just shy of AU$7 million to promote, Mussared gets the government was not above asking for free labour.
“They even attempted to reach out to a few of us privately asking for free help on a different issue (with apparently no sense of irony). We provided (in great detail, including code snippets) and then they still managed to not fix the bug,” he said.
“I raised another serious security issue last night, and so far nobody is replying to their security contact.”

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When is Black Friday? This year, Black Friday is happening on Friday, Nov. 28, while Cyber Monday will be on Monday, Dec. 1. Black Friday is always the day after Thanksgiving in the US, a holiday that is celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Many employers have historically given workers the Friday after Thanksgiving as a day off, so retailers started featuring discounts to encourage people to do their holiday shopping. Are robot vacuums really cheaper during Black Friday? Yes, robot vacuums really are cheaper during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Cyber Week is the last big shopping event before the holidays and also the last one of the year, so many retailers offer steep discounts on their stock to prepare for the new products that will launch in the new year.How did we choose these early Black Friday deals?I constantly monitor robot vacuum deals as part of my work, so I’m always looking for the best discounts that offer the best combination of features and value. As a robot vacuum reviewer, I’ve tested dozens of models across different brands and every price range — so I’ve become very well acquainted with robot vacuums, their features, and their worth. Through this experience, I’ve realized that the robot vacuum market is currently saturated, and many brands attempt to outcompete one another with significant discounts during shopping events. At ZDNET, we use our expertise and deal-tracking tools to identify the offers that are truly worth your attention — and only highlight those. More

Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto It’s well known that ransomware attacks are one of the most significant cybersecurity challenges facing the world today, and often the financial impact on victims is the most obvious and most discussed consequence. But that’s far from the only cost.  The Ransomware Harms and the Victim Experience project by the Royal United Service Institute […] More

The Tor Project has filed an appeal against a Russian court’s decision to block the Tor website in the country. 

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The Tor network is an open source system for anonymizing online communication. Also known as the onion router, the network is used to circumvent censorship and is widely accessed by civil rights activists, whistleblowers, lawyers, human rights defenders, and those under oppressive regimes.   On Monday, the network developers said an appeal has been filed regarding a decision by the Saratov District Court to impose a block on the torproject.org website in Russia.  The appeal has been filed between the Tor Project and RosKomSvoboda, a Russian digital rights protection outfit.  On December 6, 2021, the Tor Project was told that its website would be blocked in accordance with Article 15.1 of the Law on Information. Public proxy servers and some bridges were also blocked in the country, and Tor developers have noticed blocks across Russia in the past month.  According to Tor, the decision by the court was not based on any particular content. Instead, Russian authorities decided the website needed to be blocked as it permits “the download [of] an anonymizer browser program for subsequent visits to sites that host materials included in the Federal List of extremist Materials.” RosKomSvoboda lawyers are representing the Tor Project. According to the civil rights group, the ban “violates the constitutional right to freely provide, receive and disseminate information and protect privacy.” 

In addition, the decision may also be considered problematic as “the case was considered without the participation of Tor representatives, which violated their procedural rights and the competitiveness of the process.” Tor says that Russian users account for the second-largest user base by country, with over 300,000 daily users.  A mirror version of the Tor website has been launched by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  “With the help of Roskomsvoboda lawyers Sarkis Darbinyan and Ekaterina Abashina, we will appeal the court decision and hope to correct this situation and help create a precedent for the protection of digital rights in Russia,” commented Isabela Bageros, executive director of The Tor Project. Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More