### Issue 1326 - Thursday 18th March, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- NSW's police boss reckons checking in with a QR code pre-root is a good way to avoid consent issues
- Wikipedia has a new enterprise API that businesses can pay to use and integrate
- SMS just became an even shittier way for 2FA thanks to lax SMS marketing services
- German dude owns up to losing $700,000 via a fake Elon Musk tweet
- Afterpay Day hits eBay and it's a full on bargain tsunami

## The News

### NSW's police boss reckons checking in with a QR code pre-root is a good way to avoid consent issues

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller probably thought he was being agile and innovative floating the idea of two people who want to have sex using a smartphone app to record that they both give consent, but ended up looking stupid instead. His rationale is "you can't walk into a shop at the moment without scanning in. Two years ago I would have said you're mad, I'm not doing that" and that a similar approach should be taken to the vastly different issue of people getting raped. Such a naive take to interpersonal relationships and how applying technology to a social problem might actually make things worse.

### Wikipedia has a new enterprise API that businesses can pay to use and integrate

Wikipedia is looking to make companies like Google, Apple and Amazon that use snippets of Wikipedia content for their products, pay for access. They call it Wikimedia Enterprise and will provide an API, developer tools and other services designed for easier integration into commercial products that companies can pay for. Wikimedia's posistion seems to be that these companies are the gateway for billions of people to access Wikimedia's content, so they may as well cooperate, get some of that corporate cash and have a role in how the world sees the fruits of their labour rather than letting these mega companies abuse them.

### SMS just became an even shittier way for 2FA thanks to lax SMS marketing services

I'm a few days late to the party, but there's a new way to intercept an SMS with fuck all effort. Something called Sakari (other similar services exist too) lets anyone sign up and pretend to be a phone number and any SMS sent to that number goes to Sakari instead of the SIM/device it's supposed to. Just make an account with Sakari, give em a few bucks with a pre-paid credit card and off you go intercepting SMSs like a champ. This is obviously a ripe way to obtain access to someone's online account, as SMS is often used a 2FA method (e.g: internet banking, MyGov). There's never been a better time to move your 2FA over to a token based system if you have the choice.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### German dude owns up to losing $700,000 via a fake Elon Musk tweet

The BBC has a funny/sad story about a German bloke who got sucked in by an Elon Musk impersonator Bitcoin scam on Twitter to the tune of A$730,000. The tweet that reeled him in was a reply to a legit Elon tweet that had a fake verified tick as an emoji in the username section, which looked believeable to Sebastian. In the tweet was a link to a "special event" "Elon" was holding for a few hours where Mr. Musk would send back twice as much Bitcoin as you send him. Sounds absolutely ridiculous but Sebastian sent 10 Bitcoin that he never saw again. He blames "greed" for blinding him to how obvious of a scam it was and that he "is not an idiot".

## Bargains

From now until Sunday, Afterpay is running a 20% off promo on a few sites and eBay is one of them, which means if you use 5% off gift cards as well as the 20% Afterpay discount, you can snag some serious bargains. At checkout, select Afterpay as the payment method but instead of paying with Afterpay, use the gift cards. If the gift cards cover the balance, great, no Afterpay - but any remaining amount after using the max of 7 gift cards at once will need to be settled with Afterpay. There's a shitload of deals, too many to list here, so visit Ozbargain's Afterpay Day sale page and skim through the deals for yourself. The prices listed there don't include the extra 5% off when using a gift card. Here's a few highlights including the 5% off:

- Nvidia Shield TV Pro - $257.64
- Bose 700 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones - $303.24
- Apple M1 Mac Mini or M1 MacBook Air - $835.24/$1,215.24
- Nintendo Switch console - $326.04
- 2TB Samsung T5 USB SSD - $189.24
- Synology DS920+ 4-bay NAS - $660.44
- Google Nest Wi-Fi 3-pack - $326.04
- Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine Pro - $471.20
- VIOFO A129 Pro Duo dashcam - $253.84
- Apple AirPods Pro with wireless charging case - $257.64

## The End

📻 Fairy Park - Magic Dirt

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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.​