### Issue 1493 - Monday 15th November, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Flaw in FBI's website allowed pople to send emails pretending to be the FBI
- EU wants to make it mandatory scan all phones, messages and photos for "suspected content"
- Three pieces of Tesla-related news
- Cryptocurrency mining isn't helping the semi-conductor shortage
- Cheap Dell 34" monitor, bonus Fire TV with Philips Hue, Nanolead Essentials, AU domain renewals, Optus & Telstra 365-day SIMs, LIFX Mini, bonus Pixel Buds with Pixel 6, Kindle Paperwhite, Echo Dot, Netgear networking equipment, Tenda mesh wi-fi, TCL 8K TV, bonus Flybuys points with Apple gift cards

## The News

### Flaw in FBI's website allowed pople to send emails pretending to be the FBI

Someone's been using the FBI's infrastructure to send 100% legit looking email headers pretending to be the FBI. Fortunately, the hacker, Pompompurin, didn't do anything malicious with this access and just sent out a nonsense looking email. Their aim was to point out a glaring flaw in an FBI system that allowed them to send emails from the FBI's infrastructure simply by editing a browser request. It's since been fixed, but damn, coulda done a bit of damage with this. Some tasty ransoms or social engineering that's for sure.

### EU wants to make it mandatory scan all phones, messages and photos for "suspected content"

You thought Apple's built-in scanner for kiddie porn was bad? The EU is currently discussing something called "chat control", which would "oblige providers of messenger services such as Whatsapp and email services to automatically search encrypted and unencrypted communications, private messages and attached photos for suspected content and report it to the police". For encrypted messages, "the EU Commission wants all smartphones to search messages and photos for allegedly suspicious content before they are sent via encrypted messaging services". Keep an eye on this dumpster fire.

### Three pieces of Tesla-related news

A bit of Tesla related news today. First up, they've sold over 10,000 cars in Australia during 2021 so far. To put that in perspective, for 2020 Lexus sold about 8,800 cars, BMW 23,500 and Mercedes 36,233. In the USA, supply shortages are getting so bad, Tesla is delivering vehicles without USB ports or wireless phone charging and aren't giving customers a heads up prior to delivery (BMW aren't shipping touch-screens on some cars). Also in the US, there appears to be the first reported first major accident (no deaths or injuries) involving a Tesla part of the beta test program for "full self driving".

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Cryptocurrency mining isn't helping the semi-conductor shortage

Like many of you, I am pissed off that I can't buy a nice GPU for a holiday gaming rig because of semiconductor shortages and cryptocurrency miners hogging all the little stock there is. Matt Ranger investigated how much of an impact cryptocurrency has on the shortage - approximately 1/5th of all new GPUs are dedicated to mining ETH. I also didn't know that Bitmain, who design chips specifically for mining and not much else, are along with AMD, Apple, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia and Qualcomm, pay top dollar for access to TSMC's industry leading 5nm process. Not only is Nvidia getting squeezed because of a general shortage, Bitmain's useless chips are wasting at least 4% of TSMC's precious capacity too.

## Bargains

- Dell S3422DWG 34" widescreen gaming monitor - $584 from Dell
- Buy a Philips Hue "entertainment product" (like those dumb things that sync RGB LEDS with the colours on a TV) and get a free Amazon Fire TV 4K Max
- Nanoleaf Essentials smart bulb (hello Brady!!) - $27.50 from Amazon
- 30% off .au domain name renewals at VentraIP during Customer Appreciation Week
- Optus 120GB data 365-day pre-paid SIM - $150 from Optus
- LIFX Mini White smart bulb - $15 from LIFX
- Buy a Google Pixel 6 from the Google Store and get a free pair of Pixel Buds A-series
- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 11th-gen 8GB or an Echo Dot 3rd-gen - $169/$19 from Myer next week
- 20% off store-wide on the official Netgear Australia online store
- Get 20x FlyBuys points when buying an Apple gift card at Coles
- Tenda Nova MW6 mesh wi-fi 4-pack - $148.95 from Shopping Square
- Telstra 365-day pre-paid SIM with 40GB of data - $120 from Telstra
- TCL 75X925 75" Mini-LED 8K TV - $4090 from Appliance Central

## The End

📻 Loomer - My Bloody Valentine

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

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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.