### Issue 1282 - Wednesday 13th January, 2021

Can I ask for a quick favour? I'm after a few testimonials from Sizzle subscribers, so randos who discover it via some promotional stuff I've got planned don't think it's dodgy. If you've got a spare minute or two, post on Twitter or Facebook with a short sentence or two about why you subscribe to The Sizzle, with a link to https://thesizzle.com.au so I can find it. It would be a huge help - thanks!

## In Today's Issue

- Amazon & Facebook on terrorist watch after banning sickos & Australian MPs line up to regulate them
- Aussie businessman arrested in Germany for operating a successful e-commerce platform on the darkweb
- Interesting stuff from CES 2021
- Man has $300m of Bitcoin sitting on an encrypted drive he can't remember the passphrase of
- Cheap Bioshock Collection, AU VPSes, Logitech USB headset, 10% off Macs at TGG, Google Nest Wi-Fi, Seagate 8TB HDD, Logitech MX Master 3 mouse

## The News

### Amazon & Facebook on terrorist watch after banning sickos & Australian MPs line up to regulate them

Amazon's VP of Web Services sent out a memo to staff titled "Be safe. Be vigilant" and Facebook sent a similar memo "encouraging everyone to avoid wearing or carrying Facebook-branded items at this time", as both companies are slightly worried about ex-Parler and banned-Facebook users seeking revenge. Australian politicians also didn't like what they saw tech companies do to Trump, starting a "Parliamentary Friends of Making Social Media Safe" group yesterday that's gained 50 MPs as members already. The aim of the group is to "start the conversation" around potential regulation of online discussions. I can't wait for there to be a new government body to deal specifically with how platforms moderate users. Banned from Whirlpool? Straight to the ombudsman!

### Aussie businessman arrested in Germany for operating a successful e-commerce platform on the darkweb

DarkMarket is one of the more popular darkweb sites selling drugs, counterfeit money, stolen or counterfeit credit card details, anonymous SIM cards, malware and other interesting goodies, with over 500,000 users. Like most darkweb sites that get popular, cops infiltrate it then tear it down - which is exactly what happened to DarkMarket this week. German police arrested a 34 year old Australian man on the Germany-Denmark border, seizing 20 servers in Moldoa and Ukraine. DarkMarket apparently processed over 32,000 sales worth over A$220m. Sounds to me like an Aussie entrepreneur doing well on the global stage! Gotta go overseas if you want to hit the big time.

### Interesting stuff from CES 2021

- AMD announced Ryzen 5000 series mobile CPUs based on the Zen 3 architecture. Will be interesting to see how they compete with Apple's M1 that uses about half the power of these 35W/45W chips.
- Razer has gone all out making an N95 mask concept called Project Hazel with microphones and amplifiers and RGB lighting. God help us if we still need to wear fucking masks by the time this ever becomes a product.
- Lenovo stuck a 12" e-ink screen on the back of the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 13.3" laptop that you can use like a tablet. One side is a normal colour LCD display, the other is a monochrome e-ink screen. Wild.
- LG gave us a little tiny tease of a "rollable" smartphone. The display expands out to a small tablet-ish size, then can roll back in to be a normal smartphone sized device. LG has confirmed it's a real product that'll go on sale in 2021.
- Linksys has the world's first WiFi 6E router. It still uses 802.11ax, but just a different part of the radio spectrum (~6GHz) that's less congested, so more channels can be used for higher bandwidth.
- Nvidia's got a new mid-range GPU, the RTX 3060. It uses a cut down version of the Ampere architecture, with 12GB of VRAM. It'll cost around US$329 and supposed to come out late-Feb but who knows when you'll see one in a store.
- Viewsonic is gonna sell an 8K 32" display with 99% Adobe RGB. 8K! That's 7680 x 4320, a whopping 275 PPI. That's more "Retina" than Apple's XDR or iMac Pro displays (but not as much as the iPhone 12 Pro with 457 PPI).
- Kensington has a dock with 3x USB ports, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI and a USB-C port for 18W charging, that'll turn your iPad Pro into an mini iMac. It's even got two wireless Qi chargers in the base, a headphone port and a SD card reader.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Man has $300m of Bitcoin sitting on an encrypted drive he can't remember the passphrase of

Most nerds have a sad Bitcoin story (like me, who sold his 13 BTC years ago for fuck all when they'd be worth over $650k now, fuck), but Stefan Thomas' tale is next level. Old mate has 7,002 BTC, worth roughly A$300m, sitting on an IronKey encrypted flash drive that he forgot the passcode to. It'll "seizes up and encrypts its contents forever" after 10 incorrect tries - Stefan has tried 8 times. Alex Stamos jokes he could crack this $50 consumer device's security it for "only" 10% of the Bitcoin. That should be a job, Bitcoin Bounty Hunter.

## Bargains

- Bioshock: The Collection for PS4 - $19.99 from the PlayStation Store
- Cheap Melb & Syd based VPSes from Servers Galore
- Logitech H540 USB headset - $39 at Officeworks
- 10% off Macs (including the M1 models) at The Good Guys
- Google Nest WiFi 2 Pack - $299 at Officeworks
- Seagate 8TB Ironwolf SATA HDD - $278.10 from Computer Alliance's eBay store
- Logitech MX Master 3 mouse - $119.20 at Big W (can get Officeworks to price match too if you're keen)

## The End

📻 Dead in a Ditch - Cosmic Psychos

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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong 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.​