# The Sizzle

### Issue 492 - Wednesday, 4th October 2017

- Australia's latest cyber plan to maximise and defend the country's cybers
- Fed gov wants to feed drivers licence photos into it's CCTV face ID system
- Verizon just found out that Yahoo lied and all 3b of its accounts were hacked
- Microsoft reminds us that Windows Mixed Reality is coming in a few weeks
- US judge calls for unprecedented blocking of Sci-Hub

- Buy this $3500 camera and contribute to Google's Street View for no reward
- Detailed vids of Tesla's Model 3
- 10% off everything on eBay using the code FILLUP

NEWS

Australia's latest cyber plan to maximise and defend the country's cybers
Australia's International Cyber Engagement Strategy was launched today. "It establishes a whole-of-government approach to cyber affairs spanning seven key themes: digital trade, cyber security, cybercrime, international security, internet governance and cooperation, human rights and democracy online, and technology for development". Basically it's an assortment of things the government thinks the internet is important for and how it plans to respond. Most of it relates to making sure we, and our close neighbours don't get owned by the Chinese or Russians. The full strategy is available from DFAT - if the word cyber offends you, do not visit that link.
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Fed gov wants to feed drivers licence photos into it's CCTV face ID system
The government also announced its desire to ingest every citizen's driver's licence photos into the National Facial Biometric Matching Capability (aka "The Capability"). Right now it just uses passport photos, but it wants the states to open up its collection of driver's licence photos. This would allow the CCTV footage to be matched up with info on who's in the video in real-time. If you've watched Person of Interest, that's essentially what's going on here. The PM argued there's nothing to be worried about because people post so much shit to Facebook about themselves, it means nobody cares about privacy and the government should be left alone to do what it wants.
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Verizon just found out that Yahoo lied and all 3b of its accounts were hacked
Remember late last year when Yahoo announced that over one billion of its customer's accounts were hacked? If you forgot, usernames, email addresses, answers to password recovery questions, weakly encrypted passwords, telephone numbers and addresses were part of that treasure trove of info. Yeah, well, it's actually 3 billion, as all of Yahoo's accounts (now Oath's) where pwnd. From Oath's statement: "Subsequent to Yahoo's acquisition by Verizon, and during integration, the company recently obtained new intelligence and now believes, following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft". I reckon Verizon aren't happy they got sucked in to buying such a liability.
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Microsoft reminds us that Windows Mixed Reality is coming in a few weeks
Microsoft's shown off a new Windows Mixed Reality headset, the Samsung HMD Odyssey, as well as announcing the acquisition of AltspaceVR. Samsung's headset looks pretty cool, it's like an Oculus Rift, but works with the whole Mixed Reality thing going on in Windows 10's upcoming Creator's update. Here's a hands on video. Imagine the Oculus Rift, but for navigating Windows - it's pretty wild. AltspaceVR is Second Life, but in VR. Float around and chat to people in virtual reality, taking us one step closer to full a disconnect from meatspace. The ~30min keynote is on YouTube if you want the full details of what Microsoft's up to in VR.
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US judge calls for unprecedented blocking of Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub, commonly referred to as the Pirate Bay of science journals (and is really goddamn cool, albeit illegal), has had it's harshest punishment yet. "Judge Anderson agrees that Sci-Hub is guilty of copyright and trademark infringement. In addition to $4,800,000 in statutory damages, he recommends a broad injunction that would require search engines, ISPs, domain registrars and other services to block Sci-Hub’s domain names." - which is common in Australia thanks to Foxtel & Village, but not in the USA. Sci-Hub's brave operator, Alexandra Elbakyan, has managed to keep the site going despite getting slapped with lawsuits all over the world. I wonder how she'll handle this one?
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COOL SHIT

Buy this $3500 camera and contribute to Google's Street View for no reward
Do you feel like contributing to one of the world's largest companies most profitable features? Yes? Well the Insta360 Pro 8K is for you. It's a bulbous looking camera that you whack on top of a car and turns it into one of Google's Street View cars. The 360-degree images it snaps can be uploaded to Google for use in Street View. As much as I joked about assisting Google in doing something it can easily afford to do itself, I do like the idea of adding areas to Street View that probably never will be. It'd just be nice if Google somehow rewarded the people volunteering their efforts to assist their revenue generating product. I'm guessing the main audience for this camera are businesses that want to be seen on Street View now rather than when Google gets around to it.
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Detailed vids of Tesla's Model 3
I thought it was weird we haven't seen 5 hour long YouTube videos of some nerd obsessing over his Tesla Model 3, but apparently Telsa has had an implied NDA for the first few owners of the cars. You post too much info about it online, Tesla will shut you down. But finally, someone's busted that NDA and Tesla haven't yet ordered the videos taken offline. In these three videos, a car wash (sorry, "detailing") joint has taken a really close look at all the little features in the Model 3. I loved watching them, but now I feel extremely poor and also upset that they won't be in Australia until 2019.
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10% off everything on eBay using the code FILLUP
Oh look, *another* eBay sale! This one is for 10% off the entire site using code FILLUP. It's not very well promoted on eBay, but is active now and works until 23:59 on the 6th of October.. You might actually find stuff cheaper with this coupon, instead of the 20% off code, as sellers haven't jacked the prices up to compensate. If you score anything good, let us know in the #bargains channel of The Sizzle's Slack group!
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Here endeth the sizzle (until tomorrow!)
--Anthony

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