### Issue 1789 - Monday 20th February, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Meta announces paid verification for $12/m, launching in AU & NZ first
- Someone's trying to gut APNIC of its valuable IP addresses
- Civ 7 announced, GoDaddy hacked for years, a human has thrashed an AI in the game of Go
- They've made movies about Tetris and BlackBerry
- Cheap Herman Miller Mirra chair, RACV Bike Assist, Apple Gift Cards, Kingston SSDs, Lenovo laptops, Xbox Series X, B&O earbuds, GL.inet travel router, Ring doorbell & Echo Show combo, Eve Motion, Jabra earbuds, IKEA rechargeable batteries

## The News

### Meta announces paid verification for $12/m, launching in AU & NZ first

Meta is launching paid verification for users in Australia and New Zealand this week. We are first in the world to be blessed with the ability to give Zuck US$11.99/m (or $14.99/m via Android/iOS app) and receive in return "a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support". You'll need government ID that matches the name and photo you use on either Facebook or Instagram, be over the age of 18 and meet "minimum activity requirements". Sounds like an extortion racket to me. Pay up or if something bad happens to your account, stiff shit.

### Someone's trying to gut APNIC of its valuable IP addresses

Sizzle subscriber Brad let me know about some nasty shit going on at APNIC, the entity responsible for IP addresses and AS numbers in our part of the world. The Register has a proper article, but at its core there's a group of wankers called LARUS that infiltrated AfriNIC (the African equivalent of APNIC) and assigned themselves millions of IP addresses under false pretenses that they then resell and lease at a huge profit. LARUS is now looking to do the same thing with APNIC and has managed to befriend a handful of people on APNIC's executive council. Hopefully APNIC can reform their bylaws to prevent LARUS pillaging our precious IP addresses for their own personal gain.

### Civ 7 announced, GoDaddy hacked for years, a human has thrashed an AI in the game of Go

- Firaxis Games has a new studio head, Heather Hazen. I mention this because in the press release announcing the new boss, Heather lets loose that "I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio's storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise". There we have it folks, Civ 7 coming soon.
- GoDaddy announced that it has been "part of a multi-year campaign by a sophisticated threat actor group that, among other things, installed malware on our systems and obtained pieces of code related to some services within GoDaddy". Three incidents have been linked to this campaign. A breach of its cPanel setup in December 2022, a breach of its managed WordPress setup (1.2m customers!) in November 2021 and an SSH breach for 28,000 customers in October 2019.
- Kellin Pelrine has "comprehensively defeated" KataGo - one of the best Go-playing systems in the world. I don't know enough about Go to describe it properly, but effectively Kellin found a "blind spot" that a human would easily be able to combat, but these AI systems are weak against. Kellin used the same strategy to beat Leela Zero, another highly ranked Go system.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### They've made movies about Tetris and BlackBerry

There's a Tetris movie coming to Apple TV+ on March 31st that's pitching itself as an "80s Cold War techno-thriller", telling the true story of how Tetris was exfiltrated out of the USSR and become a worldwide hit that's still played to this day (I got stuck on the couch Sunday arvo playing Tetris 99 on the Switch - couldn't get past 25th place!!). Tetris not your thing? What about "BlackBerry", a movie that "re-creates the excitement that followed the invention of the first smartphone, amplifying the atmosphere of chaos that surrounds an industry run by brilliant but immature young men"? It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival last week, dunno when it will get a wider release. I'd like to watch it.

## Bargains

- Herman Miller Mirra 1 office chairs (used) - $275 pickup in Sunshine, VIC from Sustainable Office Solutions
- RACV Bike Assist - $23.50 for 1 year from RACV
- 20x Flybuys points when buying Apple Gift Cards from Coles
- Kingston NV2 M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1TB SSD - $84 from Amazon
- Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 3 11" 2K Chromebook (128GB) - $389 from JB Hi-Fi
- Xbox Series X 1TB Console & Forza Horizon 5 Premium Edition Bundle - $799.61 from PBTech
- Bang & Olufsen Beoplay EQ Adaptive Noise Cancelling Headphones - $261.51 from Amazon UK
- Kingston KC3000 or Fury Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD - $269.60/$281.39 from Amazon UK
- Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (Ryzen 5625U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1080p 14" IPS) - $711.20 from Lenovo's eBay Store
- GL.inet GL-MT300N-V2 Mango Mini Travel Router - $29.92 from Amazon
- Ring Video Doorbell 2 and Echo Show 5 with Screen - $133 from Amazon
- Eve Motion - Smart Sensor with Light Sensor, IPX3 (Homekit, Thread, Bluetooth) - $58.65 from Amazon
- Jabra Elite 85T Noise Cancelling Earbuds - $178 from Amazon
- LADDA rechargeable batteries - AAA 4pk, AA 1900mAh 4pk, AA 2450mAH - $8, $10, $12 + delivery (or pickup) from IKEA

## Image Of The Day

Quietly tucked away in a few unassuming buildings in lower Manhattan, massive flows of data pulse through some of the world's largest and most heavily guarded hubs of global internet infrastructure. (Peter Garritano)

## The End

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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.