Apple vs. FBI fight

These last few days there has been an ongoing fight between Apple and the FBI. The reason of their conflict is an IPhone that one of the terrorists of the attack in San Bernardino has used. The FBI wants Apple to give them access to this IPhone by adapting their security system, which than unlocks the information on the IPhone of the terrorist. The FBI asks Apple to create a feature that deletes all of the information on the phone after 10 failed password attempts.

The problem here is that this feature will weaken the whole security system of Apple. This would mean that hackers could use this to their advantage and hack IPhones for any number of nefarious reasons. Apple of course disagrees about making this software for the FBI. The CEO of Apple calls this hack ‘the software-equivalent of cancer’. ‘If the court asks us now to make this software than please consider the possibility that they can ask for all sorts of other things in the future’, said Cook. ‘Perhaps an operating system for surveillance or maybe the opportunity for investigators to turn on the camera of the Apple devices. I do not know where it is going to stop.’

‘It would be great if we could make a backdoor that only the FBI could walk through,’ says Nate Cardozo, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ‘But that doesn’t exist. And literally every single mathematician, cryptographer, and computer scientist who’s looked at it has agreed.’ Cardozo also says that the FBI waited for the perfect timing to ask Apple for such a thing to do for them. That it’s a terrorism case, in particular, spurs sympathies to align with law enforcement, regardless of how much benefit the FBI would actually get from the access it has requested.

Apple now has to decide what they value more important: privacy of security. They of course have to consider their customers in their decision-making process. Will they appreciate the fact that the privacy will be violated or will they accept this if it is for their own security? I don’t really think that the costumers will appreciate it and that they won’t like the fact that it will be easier to for hackers to hack their phone and as a consequence abuse the information they can get. Maybe the costumers will turn their back on Apple as a consequence of their weak security system and all buy phones from other brands with a strong security system. Apple is considering letting this be a one-time thing, but will the FBI really use this hack once? I don’t think so.

V&D bankrupt

One of the biggest stores in the Netherlands, to be precise: the biggest warehouse, has officially been declared bankrupt. Although earlier there has been talked about a restart, due to a take-over, the V&D let us now last Tuesday that they were really down. Thanks to this, almost 10,000 people lose their jobs.

The V&D hasn’t been able to make profit anymore for the last few years. It had big debts, that couldn’t be solved anymore. At the end of 2015, the news of their issues became public. The employees were shocked. Plans were made for a restart, a take-over by another company which would help it continue. Unfortunately, this goal couldn’t be reached. There were no buyers, on a short term like this.

Now the V&D is officially bankrupt, there are still a lot of unsolved issues left. Close to 10,000 working people have lost their job. A lot of the employees were already older people. Often worked there already for so long, that they don’t know where to go now. Especially in these bad economic circumstances.

Besides, there is another problem. Lots of suppliers, who already owed money from V&D before the bankruptcy, are now even more in trouble. The V&D had big debts, which means that the suppliers haven’t gotten paid yet. It is said that probably they won’t see much back of their money.

Luckily, most employees of the store-in-stores, such as Ici Paris XL and Prénatal, will be able to keep their job. They will be transferred to other locations of the store. The stores are both successful so they said that there will be taken care of this.

Also the big success which was keeping V&D alive for several years already, has been taken over. Jumbo has paid 48 million euros to take over La Place. It has been proved that this made most profit for the store last years. Of course the La Place’s located in the V&D stores can’t continue, upcoming times. But Jumbo is looking forward to expand, possibly also abroad. This might create some new jobs, and probably also means La Place employees might be able to keep their jobs.

But still there are those other 10,000 unemployed people. What should be done? The UWV advises the unemployed to search for jobs on a wider branch than their original job. Especially the older people have a lot of competition and less chance, and the longer you are unemployed, the lower the chance for a job will be. That’s why the UWV tells the newly unemployed to start looking from day 1 at a wide branch, to find a new job as soon as possible.

The FNV – a company which creates lots of CAO’s in different branches – has also reacted on the loss of jobs. Quoting: “We will help the employees where possible, but unfortunately we are not able to create jobs for them”.

I agree with the UWV: people have to search extensively and widely, to be able to get employed again, in these times. Beside that, honestly I hope that other companies and agencies will set up some actions to create jobs. Overall, the situation for the ex-employees is truly saddening.

Temporary rental will lead to more insecurity

The cabinet is working on a law that makes temporary rental possible. Critics say that this will lead to more insecurity for people who count on staying in their rental home.

Minister Blok states that it will be good for the rental market that house-owners have a free choice whether they rent their home for a short time or for a longer period of time. At this moment, house-owners can rent out their house for a short period of time by means of a contract. If the renters do not want to leave they are protected by law. This means they do not have to leave the house if they do not want to. There are just a few exceptions on that rule. Exceptions mainly apply for chamber-rent, during the studying period, and for house-owners who wants to sell the house and, during the selling period, temporarily rent the house. But most of the rental contracts are for infinite time, with no possibility for the home-owner to end the contract.

If this law passes, more people will rent out their house for a short period if they want to, for instance, go abroad for a year. And they don’t have to be afraid that, if they return, the renters will not move out of the house. This law could also mean that fewer people will rent out their house in a traditional way, with a contract that includes an indefinite periode of time. Why would they? You never know what the future brings, and therefore it is attractive to choose for a short period, for instance one or two years. This will cause much insecurity for the people who want to rent a house. They have no other choice than to go with ‘house-rental-hopping’.

Temporary rental possibilities will certainly cause more flexibility on the house market, and therefore more and different choice for the renters. But if the future does not hold traditional contracts, but only temporary rental contracts, the renters will mainly face insecurity. Insecurity whether their chosen dream rental house will be their home for as long as they would like it to be. For young people this might not be a big problem, but for families with children this could cause major difficulties with finding a suitable home in a nice area. The children might have to switch schools and therefore might have difficulties to remain close to their friends. Now the question is whether that effect is the ambition of our cabinet.

Discussion on ‘Beter Leven’ labelled meat escalates

The right balance between the price of meat and the welfare of the animals that died for it, has still not been found. This is proved by the fact that many supermarkets such as Jumbo and Dirk do not have the ‘Beter Leven’ one star label yet. People are saying they are willingly to pay more for their meat if the welfare of the animals improves, but is this really the case? Do the poorest people in our society also agree to this?

Welfare organizations keep pushing the supermarkets to get the ‘Beter Leven’ one star label. Therefore the welfare organizations and the supermarkets Jumbo and Dirk have come to an agreement in 2013 to stop selling pig meat without the label in 2015. However according to ‘Varkens in Nood’ the supermarkets have violated this agreement. This resulted in a trial in which ‘Varkens in Nood’ sues Jumbo and Dirk.

Dirk responds to this by saying they have never even come to such an agreement. They say to have only received letters from ‘Varkens in Nood’ and ‘Dier & Recht’ in which is stated that the supermarket violates the law. As a response they have asked for more information but they never received it. ‘Varkens in Nood’ keeps recalling the agreement made that states the supermarkets will only sell pig meat with the animal protection label in 2015. Dirk says they only have agreed to produce meat that is more durable, but that they had never agreed to any kind of label.

Jumbo says their meat is durable enough, but that they just do not want to put the animal protection label on their meat. They say their meat suffices the welfare standards for the one star label; it is just not shown by the label.

Other supermarkets are also selling pig meat without any label, but among these supermarkets Dirk and Jumbo sell the most of it according to an investigation done in January. Another investigation proves that last year 40% more non-durable meat was sold than the year before.

On the other hand the supermarkets are already selling more durable meat, even double the amount of last year. However this increase is still not big enough to cope with the amount of non-durable meat sold, because in four out of five cases the offers include non-durable meat. With the trial the animal welfare organizations are trying to force the supermarkets to advertise the durable meat more than the other types of meat.

The victims of the more expensive, durable meat would be the people on social assistance. They are said not to have the money for more expensive meat. However it is proven to be much healthier to eat less meat, so when the meat gets more expensive those people are immediately improving their eating habits.

To my opinion the supermarkets do not have convincing arguments why they would not sell meat with a label on it. They say that their meat is up to the standards of the one star label, so why not put the label on it? In that way people can see they are buying the right kind of meat. I agree with the animal welfare organization that the alternatives for non-durable meat should be advertised more; as long as the supermarkets will keep advertising the regular meat, the durable meat or the meat replacement products will stand no chance. The low price of meat will also result in people eating more and more meat what is bad for the environment. Actually it is a never ending circle: the supermarkets sell cheap, non-durable meat, so if one supermarket sells the more expensive durable meat, it will not be able to compete with those other supermarkets anymore and that results in no supermarket daring to take a step in the right direction. The meat lovers will just have to take a step back or be prepared to pay more for their o-so-loved meat.