### Issue 1992 - Monday 11th December, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Beeper Mini no longer sends or receives iMessages after Apple fixes exploit
- EU members come to provisional agreement on artificial intelligence laws
- JB Hi-Fi facing class action lawsuit for useless extended warranties
- Anna's Archive project to collect digital copies of every book ever made is bloody awesome
- Cheap Belkin USB-C chargers, Micro & Crucial SSDs, 8BitDo Arcade Stick, Amazon Echo Pop, portable 7kw EV charger, Lenovo 34" monitor, Bose QC45SE headphones, Nokia dumb phones

## The News

### Beeper Mini no longer sends or receives iMessages after Apple fixes exploit

Beeper Mini, that Android app that reverse engineered iMessage, has already been disabled by Apple, who released a statement yesterday: "At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control of their data and keep personal information safe. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users". Yeah, makes sense, but still, it would be nice if Apple released an official iMessage app for Android.

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### EU members come to provisional agreement on artificial intelligence laws

The European Union has come to a "provisional agreement on the proposal on harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI), the so-called artificial intelligence act". The law is far from complete, but the intial proposal's main elements are: "rules on high-impact general-purpose AI models that can cause systemic risk in the future, as well as on high-risk AI systems; a revised system of governance with some enforcement powers at EU level; extension of the list of prohibitions but with the possibility to use remote biometric identification by law enforcement authorities in public spaces subject to safeguards; and better protection of rights through the obligation for deployers of high-risk AI systems to conduct a fundamental rights impact assessment prior to putting an AI system into use". I don't really know if this is good or bad or even if it'll make a difference in practice, but good luck to everyone involved.

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### JB Hi-Fi facing class action lawsuit for useless extended warranties

Law firm Maurice Blackburn is leading a class action against JB Hi-Fi for selling "extended warranties that essentially offer Australian consumers the same thing as what they already get for free under the Australian Consumer Law". They reckon the overlap between Australian Consumer Law and the extended warranties are so tight that the extended warranty offers nothing of value. Fancy TV that dies in 5 years? ACL covers it. Expensive fridge that conks out after 7 years? ACL has your back. The only valuable thing these extended warranties help with is short circuiting the threats and bullshit you need to throw at a retailer to follow the law. JB Hi-Fi's chairman said it "intends to vigorously defend the proceedings" and I look forward to seeing it play out in Federal Court.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Anna's Archive project to collect digital copies of every book ever made is bloody awesome

Anna's Archive describes itself as the "largest truly open library in human history" and I 100% believe it. Anna and their group of collectors go around the internet sucking up all the pirate books trying to create an archive of all the books ever published. The core of it will be familiar to anyone who's into book piracy - Libgen.rs, Sci-Hub, Libge.li, Z-Library and the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending collection. Together it adds up to over 586TB of unique titles that you can search for and download. It's bloody impressive. Their main task at the moment is trying to match up what's in their collection with what's in WorldCat to see what's yet to be preserved. WorldCat has 700 million unique records and Anna's Archive has "only" 27 million once you remove Sci-Hub's papers. God speed to these legends.

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## Bargains

- Belkin WCH013AUBK 65W or WCH010AUWH 108W USB-C GaN chargers - $40.67/$73.87 from Personal Digital's eBay store
- Micron 7400 Pro 3.84TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 110mm NVMe SSD - $405 + delivery from Skycomp
- 8BitDo Arcade Stick - $130.36 from Amazon
- Crucial T500 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB/1TB/2TB - $87.59/$120.77/$204.07 from Amazon
- Amazon Echo Pop Compact Smart Speaker - $25 at Officeworks
- Portable Type 2 EV Charger for Single Phase 7kW 32A - $399 from EVchargers
- Lenovo G34w-10 34" 3440x1440 144Hz curved gaming monitor - $397 from Officeworks
- Bose QuietComfort 45 SE - $249 at JB Hi-Fi
- Nokia 110 or 2660 dumb phones - $53.58/$91.18 from Bing Lee's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

The space shuttle Discovery is the centerpiece of the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum / Flickr)

## The End

📻 Big Mouth - Necking

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