Daily Archives: June 14, 2023

“Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs, making it impossible to repair RAID pools

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The practice’s revelation is the last straw for some users. Western Digital already had a steep climb to win back NAS customers’ trust after shipping NAS drives with SMR (shingled magnetic recording) instead of CMR (conventional magnetic recording). Now, some are saying they won’t use or recommend the company’s hard drives anymore.

“Warning,” your NAS drive’s been on for 3 years

As users have reported online, including on Synology-focused and Synology’s own forums, as well as on Reddit and YouTube, Western Digital drives using Western  Digital Device Analytics (WDDA) are getting a “warning” stamp in Synology DSM once their power-on hours count hits the three-year mark. WDDA is similar to SMART monitoring and rival offerings, like Seagate’s IronWolf, and is supposed to provide analytics and actionable items.

The recommended action says: “The drive has accumulated a large number of power on hours [throughout] the entire life of the drive. Please consider to replace the drive soon.” There seem to be no discernible problems with the hard drives otherwise.

Synology confirmed this to Ars Technica and noted that the labels come from Western Digital, not Synology. A spokesperson said the “WDDA monitoring and testing subsystem is developed by Western Digital, including the warning after they reach a certain number of power-on-hours.”

The practice has caused some, like YouTuber SpaceRex, to stop recommending Western Digital drives for the foreseeable future. In May, the YouTuber and tech consultant described his outrage, saying three years is “absolutely nothing” for a NAS drive and lamenting the flags having nothing to do with anything besides whether or not a drive has been in use for three years.

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Users are also concerned that this could prevent people from noticing serious problems with their drive.

Further, you can’t repair a pool with a drive marked with a warning label.

“Only drives with a healthy status can be used to repair or expand a storage pool,” Synology’s spokesperson said. “Users will need to first suppress the warning or disable WDDA to continue.”

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Since Western Digital’s questionable practice has come to light, there has been discussion about how to disable WDDA via SSH.

Synology’s spokesperson said if WDDA is enabled in DSM, one could disable WDDA in Storage Manager and see the warning removed.

“Because the warning is triggered by a fixed power-on-hour count, we do not believe [disabling WDDA] it to be a risk. However, administrators should still pay close attention to their systems, including if other warnings or I/O disruptions occur,” the Synology rep said. “Indicators such as significantly slower reads/writes are more evident signs that a drive’s health may be deteriorating.”

[…]

Source: “Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs | Ars Technica

Space Force doesn’t want HQ in anti-abortion Alabama, so their congressman Targets Air Force Funds

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President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly trying to reverse a decision to relocate the Space Command’s headquarters from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama, largely due to concerns regarding the state’s strict anti-abortion law that was put into effect last summer. In December 2022, the Biden administration directed the U.S. Air Force to conduct a review of the relocation decision, which was made by former President Donald Trump during his time in office. For months now, the move to Alabama has been put on hold pending the review.

Alabama lawmakers have been outspoken against Biden’s attempts to delay the decision and Congressman Rogers’ proposed bill, known as the chairman’s mark, could be the latest attempt to add pressure on the White House.

The bill, which the committee will consider on June 21, would limit funds “to construct or modify facilities for temporary or permanent use by United States Space Command for headquarter operations until the Secretary of the Air Force delivers a report on the selection of a permanent location to the congressional defense committees,” it states.

The proposed bill would also limit the travel funds of the secretary of the Air Force until the delivery of the report.

The Space Command is still not fully operational but is set to reach full operations by the end of the year. Senior military leaders have expressed concern that relocating the Space Command’s headquarters to Alabama could disrupt its operations while staying in Colorado would allow it to reach full operational capacity sooner, SpaceNews reported in March.

Officials in Alabama, however, are keen on having the Space Command based in their state. “Let me repeat what everyone already knows: Alabama is the only rightful home for Space Command Headquarters,” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey wrote in a statement on May 30.

The bill includes other restrictions targeted at the Space Command. It would limit funds for the WGS-12 satellite, stating that the secretary of the Air Force may not issue a contract for the procurement of a WGS-12 satellite, part of a geostationary constellation by the U.S. Space Command, until it can certify that the requirements met by the satellite cannot be fulfilled by commercial providers.

Finally, the proposed bill would require the Air Force to increase competition for phase three of the National Security Space Launch Program to provide “opportunities for emerging launch providers while also assuring access to proven launch capabilities for low-risk tolerant payloads,” the draft states. The program is intended to provide payloads from the Department of Defense and other government bodies with access to space.

Although it’s easy to confuse them, the Space Command is different from the U.S. Space Force. It’s a combatant command of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct “operations in, from, and to space to deter conflict, and if necessary, defeat aggression, deliver space combat power for the joint/combined force, and defend U.S. vital interests with allies and partners,” according to the DOD.

Source: Congressman’s Battle Over Space Force HQ Targets Air Force Funds

It’s not particularly surprising that no-one wants to move to a state that hates abortions.

Fitbit Privacy & security guide – no one told me it would send my data to the US

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As of January 14, 2021, Google officially became the owner of Fitbit. That worried many privacy conscious users. However, Google promised that “Fitbit users’ health and wellness data won’t be used for Google ads and this data will be kept separate from other Google ad data” as part of the deal with global regulators when they bought Fitbit. This is good.

And Fitbit seems to do an OK job with privacy and security. It de-identifies the data it collects so it’s (hopefully) not personally identifiable. We say hopefully because, depending on the kind of data, it’s been found to be pretty easy to de-anonymize these data sets and track down an individual’s patterns, especially with location data. So, be aware with Fitbit—or any fitness tracker—you are strapping on a device that tracks your location, heart rate, sleep patterns, and more. That’s a lot of personal information gathered in one place.

What is not good is what can happen with all this very personal health data if others aren’t careful. A recent report showed that health data for over 61 million fitness tracker users, including both Fitbit and Apple, was exposed when a third-party company that allowed users to sync their health data from their fitness trackers did not secure the data properly. Personal information such as names, birthdates, weight, height, gender, and geographical location for Fitbit and other fitness-tracker users was left exposed because the company didn’t password protect or encrypt their database. This is a great reminder that yes, while Fitbit might do a good job with their own security, anytime you sync or share that data with anyone else, it could be vulnerable.

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e Fitbit app does allow for period tracking though. And the app, like most wearable tracking apps, collects a whole bunch of person, body-related data that could potentially be used to tell if a user is pregnant.

Fortunately, Fitbit doesn’t sell this data but it does say it can share some personal data for interest-based advertising. Fitbit also can share your wellness data with other apps, insurers, and employers if you sign up for that and give your consent.

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Fitbit isn’t the wearable we’d trust the most with our private reproductive health data. Apple, Garmin, Oura all make us feel a bit more comfortable with this personal information.

Source: Fitbit | Privacy & security guide | Mozilla Foundation

So when installing one it says it needs to process your data in the USA – which basically means it’s up for grabs for all and sundry. There is a reason the EU has the GDPR. But why does it need to send data anywhere other than your phone anyway?!

This is something that almost no-one mentions when you read the reviews on these things.

How to Have Windows Remember Their Size and Positions With WinSize2

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We have been through multiple versions of Windows. Yet, Microsoft still refuses to give its OS one much-requested feature: the ability to remember each window’s desktop placement and dimensions.

Thankfully, the free WinSize2 utility can help with that. So, let’s see how you can use it to keep your desktop organized by “sticking” windows to their spot.

How to Download & Install WinSize2

Since it’s a third-party tool, it’s not included with Windows. Thus, to use it, you will have to download the app from the official WinSize2 site.

After you download and install it, you won’t see anything on your screen. The app will run in the background, hidden from sight, waiting for your input. As we’ll see next, its interface will be accessible from an icon in the window tray.

Before you access WinSize2’s interface, we should warn you that it looks ancient. That’s because, well, it is ancient.

WinSize2 was released over a decade ago, but that’s not a negative. On the contrary, it remains relevant many Windows versions later, the time since its release not affecting its usefulness.

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How to Insta-Lock Window Positions

Point your mouse cursor at WinSize2’s icon, lingering in the Windows tray. You will see a hovering bubble with its version and active hotkey.

You can use this hotkey combination, by default mapped to Ctrl + Alt + Z, to save any window’s position and dimensions on any desktop spot.

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With the window whose placement and dimensions you want to save visible, move it and resize it anywhere on your desktop, precisely as you’d like it to show up in the future.

With the window active and selected, to create an entry for it and save its spot and size, press WinSize2’s hotkey button combination (by default Ctrl + Alt + Z).

Almost immediately, a message will appear hovering next to your mouse cursor, informing you about the action’s success.

That was it! If you try closing and reopening the window, you will see it reappear on the same spot with the exact dimensions. Try moving it around and closing it. When it shows up again, instead of popping up on a random location on your desktop, WinSize2 will detect its appearance, and move and resize it wherever you “pinned” it.

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Source: How to Have Windows Remember Their Size and Positions With WinSize2