### Issue 2097 - Tuesday 28th May, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Optus loses bid to keep its forensic report into 2022 data breach secret
- EFF & FIRE allowed to be involved in eSafety vs X federal court case
- xAI gets $6b of funding that may as well be flushed down the toilet
- If you happen to be in Switzerland, please buy me an LTO tape used at CERN
- Cheap Razer mouse, Belkin USB charger, Motorola phone, Coolermaster monitor, Apple gift cards, refurb Fetch PVR, 20% off at DigiDirect

## The News

### Optus loses bid to keep its forensic report into 2022 data breach secret

Optus has been fighting the Federal Court to stop the forensic report it paid Deloitte to create about its 2022 "cyberattack" becoming evidence in a class action lawsuit. Common sense prevailed and Optus lost that battle, largely due to the fact Optus said in its own press release when the report was complete that the report "may also help others in the private and public sector where sensitive data is held and risk of cyber attack exists". Unfortunately the full report will not be made public, but parts of it will as the lawsuit progresses.

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### EFF & FIRE allowed to be involved in eSafety vs X federal court case

Also in Federal Court, eSafety copped a kick in the arse again, with the judge deciding that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) can participate in X's lawsuit against eSafety. They argued that "if an Australian court makes a global takedown order, it might signal to other countries that they can impose similar orders under their own laws" and impacts users globally. The judge agreed so now they can give their points of view in this case. Good, because eSafety needs to hear them.

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### xAI gets $6b of funding that may as well be flushed down the toilet

A bunch of idiots gave Elon Musk US$6b to further fund xAI - X/Twitter's AI offshoot that's developed the "Grok" LLM. It's a piece of shit compared to GPT-4, Mistral, Claude, Gemini or LLaMA, but Musk's involved so he did what he does best - bullshit - and got some funding for it. Musk does have a track record of making other people rich (Tesla & SpaceX), but we all know xAI won't achieve shit, will leverage Tesla's huge cluster of Nvidia GPUs for free anyways, so is really just US$6b to delay the collapse of the failing social media network.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### If you happen to be in Switzerland, please buy me an LTO tape used at CERN

I've been lucky enough to visit CERN over in Switzerland and while I didn't get to see the Large Hadron Collider (tours booked out for months in advance!) I did get to visit the museum and gift shop. It was one of the highlights of my time in that beautiful country and I recommend you pay CERN a visit, not only because it is cool and interesting, but also because you can buy used LTO tapes that held LHC data for CERN. If you do visit, get one for me too please, as when I went back in 2018 they were still using those tapes! CERN moved to a newer LTO standard in 2019 and decided to sell the old tapes for 10CHF each (~A$17) at the gift shop.

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## Bargains

- Razer DeathAdder V2 X HyperSpeed wireless gaming mouse - $59 at Centrecom
- Belkin BoostCharge Pro 4-Port GaN Charger 108W - $79 + delivery at Umart
- Motorola G54 5G 8GB RAM/128GB smartphone - $179 + $30 SIM from Amaysim
- Coolermaster GM34-CWQ2 34" 3440x1440 QLED VA curved monitor - $598 at JB Hi-Fi
- 20x Everyday Rewards points on Apple gift cards at Woolworths
- Refurbished Fetch Mighty PVR - $129 at JB Hi-Fi
- 20% off at DigiDirect's eBay store (just be careful of price jacking)

## Image Of The Day

The IBM Selectric on display in a shop window in Paris in the 1960s. (IBM Heritage)

## The End

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