### Issue 1465 - Tuesday 5th October, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Everything Facebook owns was down for multiple hours due to a BGP routing error
- Windows 11 is ready for the general public, reviewers have lukewarm response
- Big telecommunications company you've never heard of with fingers in many pies has been hacked
- S7 Apple Watch sale date, Bezos taking Shatner to space, 10 years of Siri, iPad mini jelly scrolling, GTHO Phase III NFTs
- Cheap AKG Podcasting kit, Melbourne museum memberships, EFA memberships, Logitech MX Master 3, 15% off tech eBay sale

## The News

### Everything Facebook owns was down for multiple hours due to a BGP routing error

Unless you've been doing something productive all morning, you probably know by now that Facebook shit the bed. Like most "wahhh I can't access the website", it was a combination of DNS and BGP errors, which is kinda boring and happens all the time - what is unique about this scenario is the vast swathe of stuff taken down because nobody's ISP could find a route to Facebook's servers. Whatsapp, Instagram, Messenger, everything Facebook related died, including access to physical buildings because their fancy IoT locks use Facebook's DNS servers. It even caused problems for other DNS servers as all the Facebook apps kept trying to resolve Facebook's domains constantly. Cloudflare have a technical explanation for what happened that I recommend reading if you're interested in how the sausage is made.

### Windows 11 is ready for the general public, reviewers have lukewarm response

Windows 11 is now out of beta and ready for the early adopters to install on their computers (here's how to grab an ISO if the upgrade doesn't appear in Windows Update). Lots of hot takes from ArsTechnica, The Verge, Anandtech and PCWorld. Reviewers like the new window management stuff, find the touch screen and pen support great on tablets and appreciate the slight UI overhaul. They don't like how much of a hassle it is to set a default browser other than Edge, the fact you can't move the taskbar to the side/top anymore, the UI changes are still not consistent with remnants of Windows 8 & 10 still lurking and the fact that if your PC doesn't support TPM 2.0 you won't get security updates. I'm gonna try and install Windows 11 on my PCs tonight. I don't even know if they have TPM 2.0, so that'll be fun.

### Big telecommunications company you've never heard of with fingers in many pies has been hacked

Syniverse, "a common exchange hub for carriers around the world passing billing info back and forth to each other" and "carries sensitive info like call records, data usage records, text messages, etc", told the SEC that an unknown "individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers" - customers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and China Mobile - since May 2016. Dunno what was pilfered exactly, but that level of access, for that long, to that type of system, can't be good. One researcher quoted in the article reckons things like 2FA SMS could have been intercepted.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### S7 Apple Watch sale date, Bezos taking Shatner to space, 10 years of Siri, iPad mini jelly scrolling, GTHO Phase III NFTs

- At Apple's last event they showed off the new Series 7 Apple Watch, but did not give a date for when you can buy one. There's a date now. October 15th. You can pre-order tonight ya little capitalist piggy.
- Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' rocket business, is gonna send 90 year old William Shatner (Captain Kirk from Star Trek) on a space joyride like Jeff did a few months ago. The flight takes place on October 12th.
- Can you believe it's been 10 years since Siri popped up on the iPhone? It's vastly overshadowed by the more impressive and useful Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, but at the time it was pretty damn cool.
- iFixit has an explanation for anyone noticing "jelly scrolling" on the new iPad mini - the location of the display controller board affecting how the screen is refreshed. Apple reckon its normal.
- Car nuts know about the legend that is the Phase III GTHO Ford Falcon. Now you can buy it as an NFT. That's right, a 3D animation of this Aussie muscle car can be yours for $51,000. Lord have mercy on us all.

## Bargains

- AKG Pro Audio Podcaster Essentials Kit - $299 at Amazon
- 21% off Melbourne Museum Annual Household or Adult Memberships
- Logitech MX Master 3 mouse - $126.65 from digiDIRECT
- 50% off Electronic Frontiers Australia memberships during October & November

eBay's got a chunky 15% off selected tech items sale on for Plus members. Here's some good stuff:

- Samsung 8TB 870 QVO SATA SSD with $150 Steam gift card - $806.65
- Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD with $70 Steam gift card - $458.15
- Logitech Brio 4k Ultra HD Webcam - $242.12
- Bose QC35 II headphones - $253.29
- Refurbished Lenovo M900 Tiny PC (i5-6400T, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) - $245.65
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (tray) or Ryzen 9 5950X (box) - $556.66/$976.56
- iPad Pros, Mac Minis, MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs
- Ubiquiti U6-LITE access point - $147.05

## The End

📻 Too Many - Moaning Lisa

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info? Visit the customer portal.

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.​