### Issue 2177 - Wednesday 18th September, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Israeli carries out supply chain attack on 4,000 pagers, uses them as explosives in Lebanon
- Instagram launches big changes to how it handles users under 18
- Games sold in Australia with simulated gambling are now getting R18+ classification
- TouchArcade calls it quits after 14 years of publishing smartphone game reviews
- Cheap LG 42" OLED TV, TP-Link gigabit switches, refurb Dell laptop, DJI Mini 2 SE Drone Fly More combo

## The News

### Israeli carries out supply chain attack on 4,000 pagers, uses them as explosives in Lebanon

It appears that Israel has carried out a massive supply chain attack on pagers used by Hezbollah in Lebanon and used them to injure and kill thousands of people. Israeli spies intercepted the Gold Apollo AP924/AP900 pagers in transit Taiwan and Lebanon, implanted "as little as one to two ounces" of explosive material near the battery and once they were all out in the field, sent a message to the pagers that activated the explosives. Wired reckons 4,000 pagers exploded at around 3:30pm and 2,750 people wounded, 200 severely. There was talk of it being malware that overheated the batteries, but 404 Media talked to some experts in this kinda thing and they reckon the explosions captured by CCTV are more powerful than a lithium battery would be capable of. Either way, imagine sending a message to a pager that kicks off a series of explosions around the country. That's C-grade spy thriller movie shit.

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### Instagram launches big changes to how it handles users under 18

As of today, all accounts Instagram thinks are being used by people under the age of 18 are now "Teen Accounts". These accounts are private by default, can only be messaged or tagged by people they follow, will automatically be placed into the "most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control", get a daily notification telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes of use and more. Meta is also "building technology to proactively find accounts belonging to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday" and get them to go through an age verification process. What that technology is exactly, we don't know, but an example given is "if a user says they're 18 when creating an account but someone on the app tells them Happy 14th birthday, Instagram can use that to inform their real age".

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### Games sold in Australia with simulated gambling are now getting R18+ classification

New Australian classification rules for video games come into effect next week. Titles with with "in-game purchases linked to elements of chance", like loot boxes or other randomised rewards will be rated M. Titles with "simulated gambling", such as slot machines, roulette wheels or other casino games, will be given a strict R18+ rating. It only applies to new titles, not games currently on sale, but Vooks reckons if Pokemon Red and Blue were to be classified today they'd be slapped with an R18+ rating due to a slot machine mini game and kids would be banned from buying it. But even games like EA Sports FC, which uses copious amounts of loot box mechanics, would now be rated M and while not banned for kids under 15, might give parents a moment to pause and think "hmm, should my 13 year old kid be playing this??".

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### TouchArcade calls it quits after 14 years of publishing smartphone game reviews

Back when smartphone apps were cool and interesting, TouchArcade was the pinnacle of smartphone game reviews. They did that for 14 years but similar to Anandtech's recent announcement, publishing on the web just doesn't make enough money these days so they're shutting down. From the blog post - "a website like ours just doesn't make money anymore. To our own detriment we've resisted things like obnoxious in-your-face advertising, egregious clickbait headlines, or ethically questionable sponsorships, which sadly are the types of things that actually still make money in the internet of today". Apple getting rid of affiliate links to the App Store a few years ago didn't help either. RIP to a real one and damn it all to hell that sites like this are no longer sustainable.

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## Bargains

- LG C4 OLED 42" 4K TV - $1699 + delivery from Appliance Central
- TP-Link LiteWave gigabit switch 5-port or 8-port - $15/$23 for 1, $27/$41.10 for 2 from Amazon
- Refurb Dell Latitude 5300 laptop (i5-8365U, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 1080p touch, brand new battery)
- DJI Mini 2 SE Drone Fly More Combo - $479.99 from Mobileciti's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

Dick Smith Electronics Catalogue 1985-86 (Internet Archive / Jongleur)

## The End

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