The News

iiNet is the latest Australian company to get hacked in a very dumb way

At least 280,000 iiNet customers have been exposed in a hack of the ISP (Cyber Daily AU). Its owner, TPG, says its order management system was exposed using a stolen employee credential and that hackers were able to hoover up 280,000+ emails, 20,000 phone numbers, as well as 10,000 addresses and 1,700 modem passwords (iiNet)

The Sizzle: Feels like the same old story. An Australian company gets popped — not because of a high-level exploit, but because the company doesn’t have systems that would stop a single staff member’s account from exfiltrating a shit ton (that’s a technical term) of data. Regardless of whether it’s an insider threat or opportunistic scammers getting credentials from elsewhere, this really shouldn’t be happening.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Trump wants to get a little bit of the Intel action

The Trump administration wants to take a 10% stake in an embattled Intel, instead of handing it billions of dollars in grants (Bloomberg, $). The struggling US chipmaker is in line for $16 billion in US government grants for military and commercial production — but apparently the Trump admin is considering just asking for an equivalent amount in equity. Japanese mega-investor SoftBank also just tipped in $3 billion to the company as well (WSJ, gift link).

The Sizzle: Ok, so obviously this is a shake-down. Or, as The Verge called it: gangster tech regulation, like taking a slice of Nvidia’s China sales (Reuters). But am I crazy to think that this is … a good idea? The US government needs Intel to be a competent chipmaker for national security reasons. But instead of Intel having them over a barrel, saying “it’d be a real shame if we went out of business”, the government will get something for handing over billions of dollars. (Naturally, it’s Trump, so there’s going to be some cursed demand like Intel Also Can’t Be Woke Anymore).

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Is Google demanding data that it doesn’t need?

Former tech company founder Mike Olson wrote a blog post called Google is watching about the company “demand[ing] access to data it doesn’t need and that we have no reason to share”. His examples were Google’s updated Nest camera app asking for location data from a smartphone, and its Photos service asking for access to all images on a device to take part in a shared album. Olson says the reason it wants that data is because Google is “absolutely rapacious for data that it can turn into money”.

The Sizzle: I think this post might be a bit of a Rorschach test. We’re all pissed off about companies milking more data from us. But, often, there’s at least a reason that the company wants this data. I’m assuming Google asks for access to all images on an iPhone is because, otherwise, the user will have to go back and do the two step process of asking iOS’ approval each next time they want to upload an image. Am I being a Big Tech shill? I am curious what you think!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

A cute illustrated history of Microsoft’s Solitaire

USA Today has a nice illustrated history of Microsoft Solitaire’s 35 year existence. I remember burning plenty of hours on this as a kid — but didn’t know that it was essentially invented as a ruse to get Windows 3.0 users used to a relatively new input method: the mouse. Fast-forward nearly half a century later, Windows still has Solitaire… except now it comes with advertisements. Ain’t that a sign of the times.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electricla & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.