### Issue 1951 - Thursday 12th October, 2023

Hello friends, it's Sam here - your local angry digital rights activist and writer coming to you from Naarm. It's my Sizzle debut, and I gotta say, I'm honoured to be here!

## In Today's Issue

- Online mis- and disinformation gone wild
- Australian schools: the next ransomware target?
- Amazon Ring owners unknowingly ping police
- A hand-painted video game from inside Monet's eyeballs
- Apple Magic Keyboard, Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2, Samsung EVO Plus MicroSD Card, and games!

## The News

### Online mis- and disinformation gone wild

For anyone scrounging around the remnants of Twitter/X, you've probably noticed the complete spiral of mis- and disinformation. This is of course made worse by the terrible decision to gut trust and safety teams and more recently, to remove the ability to report misleading content and to get rid of headlines from links. Today there's reporting on what is believed to be the first concrete evidence that a coordinated propaganda network are deliberately spreading false, inflammatory content related to Israel and Hamas. The EU has issued a warning to Musk that failing to moderate appropriately could incur a fine of 6% of Twitter/X's revenue.

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### Australian schools: the next ransomware target?

Australia's national cyber security coordinator, Darren Goldie, has said that schools may be the next major target of ransomware groups. This is pretty alarming, given the huge volume of personal information that schools collect and hold about children, as well as the EdTech programs that many schools foist upon students (and parents). Such programs often function as, surprise surprise, tools for surveillance and data harvesting. What makes all this worse is that many Australian schools aren't covered by privacy law. Yikes.

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### Amazon Ring owners unknowingly ping police

Amazon Ring's companion app 'Neighbors' is a social platform that encourages Ring doorbell users to publish posts and footage of what's happening in their neighbourhood. As a privacy advocate this sounds like my idea of hell, but apparently it's popular in Los Angeles. An investigation from The Markup has found that the app has been generating automatic crime alerts to police officers who opted-in, even though users had no idea their posts would be shared with law enforcement. Amazon frames all of this as increasing safety, but as always we should be asking: safety for whom? Safety from what?

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### A hand-painted video game from inside Monet's eyeballs

If you've ever wondered what it might be like to see the world through the eyes of Monet, never fear! Australian indie game developer Pat Naoum has created 'The Master's Pupil' based on the story of Monet's worsening eyesight and evolving style. It's a puzzle game featuring incredible hand-painted landscapes. Beaut! You can hear Naoum chat about it on ABC's The Art Show.

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## Bargains

- Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID in Black - $228 from Officeworks
- Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2 - 1 Pack $44, 4 Pack $135.20 from Samsung Education Store
- Samsung EVO Plus MicroSD Card 256GB, 512GB - $24.44, $46.06 from Bing Lee eBay
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III early access beta code - free!
- Bandai Namco Bundle: Tekken 7, God Eater 3, Code Vein, Tales of Vesperia and more - $15.64 from Humble Bumble

## Image Of The Day

Ellen Nold, the manager for support programs for the Apple Link program at Apple Computer, in 1986. On her desk sits a Lisa, the first consumer-oriented personal computer to use a graphical user interface. Many of its features were incorporated into the Macintosh. (Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

## The End

📻 Blak Matriarchy - Barkaa

😎 à demain mes petits croissants!

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## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

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.