Plus: Just a really good watering hole ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

October 21, 2025 | Read online
# AWS outage, satellite interceptions and Adobe's 'ethical' AI Plus: Just a really good watering hole
Edition TKTKTK
"Mastering" (Flickr: Pixel Truppen)
# The News
### AWS went down and took the internet with it. Why does this keep happening?
I’m not sure if anyone noticed this but — I think AWS was down?
For a couple of hours last night, Amazon Web Services US-East-1 region had DNS issues — it’s always DNS — which brought down the whole internet (The Verge). On top of your big names like Snapchat, Reddit, ChatGPT, Fortnite, Amazon’s Alexa, the outage affected Signal (TechRadar), Commonwealth Bank (Down Detector) and crypto platforms like Coinbase (CoinTelegraph) which you’d think might be a bit more resilient to this kind of stuff. Also some people’s “smart” beds overheated (X dot com) and others couldn’t do Wordle (TechRadar).
| Tess @itstessinadress.bsky.social |
Everybody relax, yahooserious.com is unaffected by the AWS outage 🙏🏻🥹
10:25 AM • Oct 20, 2025
59 Likes 15 Reposts | 6 Replies
The Sizzle: This is the part where I say “isn’t it bad that the whole internet, designed to be a decentralised, resilient technology, all depends on like 3-4 companies?” In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said the same thing before. Experts told the Guardian that it’s pretty obvious problem. The discussion about what to do about it comes up during the annual AWS outage. Even Amazon’s own efforts to mitigate local problems by offering hosting outside of the US didn’t work because some of its critical systems to run those were also down, lol.
| monashposting @monashposting |
signal and canva are both down this may be the end of the modern australian labor party
8:02 AM • Oct 20, 2025
597 Likes 25 Retweets
4 Replies
I’m interested why there isn’t more planning by individual organisations into how to avoid this. Speaking realistically, most don’t want the headache of hosting their own stuff. The FT ($) points out that so-called “multi-cloud computing” — aka engaging two providers — is possible but adds costs and headaches. Maybe it’s as just simple as the blame game: if everyone has an outage because of AWS, then CTO gets in trouble because everyone is down. But if you go out on your own, find a smaller provider or self-host, and suffer an outage — then suddenly you’re the only story.
Strength (or weakness, I guess) in numbers. And the market reflects that: AMZN was up.
| JT @jiratickets |
the lion does not concern itself with the global consequences of critical infrastructure failure
8:21 PM • Oct 20, 2025
1.89K Likes 77 Retweets
25 Replies
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### People using unencrypted satellite communications don’t seem to realise that anyone can listen
Phone calls, text messages, in-air internet, critical infrastructure communications, even sensitive information broadcast by the military are all up for grabs using an off-the-shelf satellite receiver set up, researchers have found (WIRED, $). Researchers at UC San Diego and University Maryland found that there is a crazy amount of data being sent to and from satellites that can be intercepted by anyone with about $1,200 worth of consumer-grade hardware because it’s all unencrypted (research website). This can affect anyone on cell network that has even one tower using satellite communications via a relay attack.
“The implications of this aren't just that some poor guy in the desert is using his cell phone tower with an unencrypted backhaul. You could potentially turn this into an attack on anybody, anywhere in the country.”
Johns Hopkins’ Matt Green.
Several organisations contacted by researchers said they were going to start encrypting their traffic. Seems like a good idea!
(Also … anyone just come up with an idea for fun Sizzle summer project 👀)
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Adobe’s ethical AI factory shows one way forward
Adobe is going to start selling custom AI models for businesses based on its own “ethically sourced” corpus of training data (ZDNet). Unlike the vast majority of other AI model makers, Adobe actually owns the rights to its big old library of content and has maintained it so it’s not filled with bullshit, copyright violating material or CSAM. It’s been using this data for its own AI tools and, now, is going to use this material to train models for other companies.
The Sizzle: I don’t usually write about random new products, let alone B2B offerings, but I thought this was interesting for two reasons. Firstly, Adobe has found out that not flagrantly violating intellectual property both reduces your own headaches but also opens up new business opportunities? Who’d’ve thought!
And the second reason is flagging the trend of companies training smaller AI models for businesses rather than just putting a wrapper around generalist models. At SXSW last week, Maincode CEO Dave Lemphers told us this approach is efficient and predictable, given that you’re choosing the basis of the model rather than trying to control all the different possible outcomes with instructions after the fact (Information Age).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australia:
Guidance on cloud computing shared responsibility (Cyber.gov.au) OpenAI courts Australia in its $771b global infrastructure push (Australian Financial Review, $) OpenAI deepens Canberra ties with new contract (Information Age | ACS) NSW agencies told to set authority limits on AI agents (InnovationAus, $) First Nations creatives warn against AI 'double colonisation' (ABC News)
Rest of the world:
This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services (Where’s Your Ed. At) this is very loud and occasionally smug but it’s also worth at least skimming to see that AI companies do not seem to be getting scaling benefits from growth so far because doing AI is expensive Google to Let ‘Superfans’ Test Pixel 11 Before It’s Announced (Bloomberg, $) The Sims Mobile is shutting down in 2026 (The Verge) There’s a Bed Bug Infestation at Google’s Manhattan Offices (Wired, $) Hackers Dox Hundreds of DHS, ICE, FBI, and DOJ Officials (404 Media, $) AI-generated ‘poverty porn’ fake images being used by aid agencies (The Guardian) Japanese convenience stores are hiring robots run by workers in the Philippines (Rest of World) Are we living in a golden age of stupidity? (Guardian) great rec from Sizzler Christopher!
| Michi @NekoMichiUBC |
If you're making more typos in iOS lately, you're not going crazy - it's a bug in iOS that causes the keyboard to randomly insert the wrong letter instead of what you typed.
4:29 PM • Oct 19, 2025
20K Likes 1.45K Retweets
729 Replies
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Just a really good watering hole
Yesterday, I came across this blog post that pointed me to a livestream of a watering hole in the Namib Desert. I don’t have much more to say than that it’s neat and very relaxing to watch. I saw some zebras yesterday.
Namibia: Live stream in the Namib Desert
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & electronics
Roborock Qrevo MaxV Vacuum Cleaner White ($820.62 for First Order - Extra 3% off) - $846 at Roborock Australia Samsung 75" The Frame QLED 4K Smart TV QA75LS03DAWXXY - $1499 at Costco (down from $3199)
Computing
Samsung Type-C USB Flash Drive 256GB USB3.1 Blue - $37.55 at Amazon US via AU
Mobile
Apple iPhone 15 Plus Magsafe Case - $29 at Perfect Preowned EzySim Ultimate 12 12-Month 100GB eSIM Plan - $99 at EzySim (Down from $175)
# The End
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