# In This Issue

- Trump wants to ban TikTok but is waiting to see if Microsoft buy it first

- Garmin & CIT coughed up millions of dollars in cryptolocker ransoms

- A large load of legitimate technology news

- Full map of NBN technologies deployed across Australia

- Cheap Circles.Life promo, Terramaster NAS, Doom Eternal, UE Megaboom 3, Far Cry 5 deluxe pack PS4, Lenovo Smart Display 7, Nokia 5.3 phone, Dell 4K monitor

# News

#### Trump wants to ban TikTok but is waiting to see if Microsoft buy it first

On Saturday Donald Trump told reporters flying with him on Air Force One that he's seriously considering banning TikTok from operating in the USA. Quite a hypocritical move for a country that loves to shout about freedom of speech, but apparently TikTok somehow enables the Chinese government to access data on US citizens? It's not really clear what beef the USA has with TikTok besides simply being popular and a way for the USA to continue waving their dicks in front of China. A day after Trump dropped that news, Microsoft confirmed it's trying to buy TikTok's USA, Canadian, Australian and NZ business. No coincidence that these are also Five Eyes countries. Dunno why the UK is missing.

#### Garmin & CIT coughed up millions of dollars in cryptolocker ransoms

A few days ago I wrote about Garmin copping a massive cryptolocker, taking down virtually all points of their business for over a week. It since has been revealed that Garmin paid a US$10m ransom after attempts to restore service failed. Meanwhile, US travel company CIT recently paid a US$4.5m cryptolocker ransom to get its data back. We know this because "the online chat room where the ransom negotiations took place was left online"! The lesson here is that if you have the skills to infiltrate a company with lots of money and poor IT infrastructure, you can get very rich, very quick.

#### A large load of legitimate technology news

Too much news today that would be crap of me to ignore, so here you go:

- Telstra's DNS servers took a shit on Sunday due to a denial of service attack. From around 10:30am to 2:30pm users with Telstra's default DNS settings couldn't resolve websites.

- Apple is again the world's most valuable company, worth US$1.84 trillion dollars. Fuck me dead. Not far off becoming the first ever US$2t business if you don't count the Dutch East India Company.

- A 19 year old Brit and a 22 & 17 year old pair from Florida were arrested over the weekend for the Twitter hack that got celebs to tweet out a Bitcoin scam. Have fun in prison lads.

- Amazon is getting in on the satellite internet game, obtaining FCC approval to launch 3,236 birds that’ll form its "Kuiper" constellation and take on SpaceX's Starlink

- Microsoft is downscaling the Cortana voice assistant. No more 3rd-party Skills, no more iOS or Android app, and no more standalone Cortana speakers. I get the feeling it won’t be missed.

# Not News

#### Full map of NBN technologies deployed across Australia

The Australian National Map has been updated with an NBN technology type layer. This means you can now look at a map of Australia and see which areas have what type of internet connection available. Handy for deciding where to live or set up a business. Look for the big patches of dark orange - that's where the good internet (FTTP) lives! It was amusing to me that remote areas like Geraldton in WA, Dubbo, Armidale & Coffs Harbour in NSW and Port Augusta in SA are fully kitted out with sweet, sweet fibre. Darwin is surprisingly flush with FTTP too.

# Bargains

- Circles.Life 100GB/m Optus 4G for $10/m for 3 months promo

- Terramaster F4-210 4-bay NAS (Realtek CPU, shite for Plex but fine for files/backups) - $288 from Amazon AU

- Doom Eternal for PC - $44 from GreenManGaming

- Ultimate Ears MegaBoom 3 portable Bluetooth speaker - $255 from Billy Guyatts

- Far Cry 5 + Far Cry New Dawn Digital Deluxe for PS4 - $29 on the PS Store

- Lenovo Smart Display 7 with Google Assistant - $99 at Harvey Norman

- Nokia 5.3 Android One smartphone - $289 at Big W

- Dell UltraSharp 27" 4K Monitor U2720Q - $832.15 delivered from Dell using the code AUAFFILIATES15%OFF

🎶 Blubber Boy - Regurgitator

😁 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.

📡 Aussie Broadband is the best ISP I've used since Internode's glory days. Their CEO gives talks at AUSNOG about their network and they even have network utilisation charts for every NBN POI. Their pricing isn't the cheapest, but if you want an ISP that's fast & reliable, give them a shot. Use my affiliate link or my referral code (1001031) and we both get $50 credit on our next bill.

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.​