### Issue 2057 - Thursday 28th March, 2024

The Sizzle is taking a break over Easter. I'll be back on the 2nd of April.

## In Today's Issue

- Facial recognition software used with no oversight across Gaza
- Telstra's brief 000 outage was a series of cascading errors
- Telcos must implement new Financial Hardship Standards for customers doing it though
- Apple devised a system to update iPhones while they're still in the box
- Cheap Lenovo handheld gaming PC, 77" LG OLED TVs, CatchConnect pre-paid SIM, 13" 1080p OLED USB-C monitor

## The News

### Facial recognition software used with no oversight across Gaza

The New York Times has a report on the use of facial recognition technology in Gaza by the Israeli military's cyber-intelligence division, Unit 8200. They've deployed software by a company called Corsight across networked surveillance cameras all over Gaza and initially it was used to try and find Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas, but is now cataloging innocent Palestinians without their consent. The problem lies when the software (which isn't perfect, we know this) identifies people incorrectly and the heavily armed and nervous soldiers refuse to believe the human, assuming the computer is correct every single time. The Israelis are also using Google Photos to do face matching in addition to Corsight's platform.

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### Telstra's brief 000 outage was a series of cascading errors

Telstra has explained what happened to cause a 90-minute outage of 000 on March 1st that lead to 148 people seeking help unable to be transferred to the right service and one Victorian man dying. The root cause of the outage was a combination of "a high volume of registration requests" from medical alert devices combined with "other system activity that resulted in connections to the database reaching the maximum limit". The backup system then failed because "Telstra had stored the wrong alternative number for eight emergency services", which "prevented our team from making the manual transfer of the call to the respective emergency services operator".

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### Telcos must implement new Financial Hardship Standards for customers doing it though

ACMA's announced a new Financial Hardship Standard for telcos. It means that "telcos must take all reasonable steps to proactively identify customers who may be experiencing financial hardship" and make sure internet and mobile phone services remain connected, including small businesses. It reflects how important these services are now and that removing access is probably going to make it harder for someone to pay what they owe, similar to water and electricity. More details about the Telecommunications Financial Hardship Industry Standard are on ACMA's website.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Apple devised a system to update iPhones while they're still in the box

A French Apple blog has revealed information about Presto, Apple's system for updating iPhones wirelessly while they're still in the box. The Verge describes the setup as "like little pizza ovens but for phones". Some poor sap at the Apple Store loads up a dozen or more of the phones into this box while the phones are still in their unopened packaging and it uses MagSafe power plus some wireless comms (dunno what exactly) to turn the iPhone on, run an update, then turn it off when complete. This is so when the customer buys it, it has the latest version of iOS on it, not what was shipped with the device from the factory. Impressive overkill.

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## Bargains

- Lenovo Legion Go PC Gaming Handheld Z1 Extreme - $1099 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- LG OLED77B3PSA or OLED77C2PSC 77" OLED 4K TVs - $3950/$4370 + shipping from Appliance Central
- Bimawen 13.3" 1080p OLED HDR 60Hz portable USB-C monitor - $162 from Aliexpress
- CatchConnect 365-day pre-paid SIM with 60GB data, unlimited calls & SMS - $99 from Catch

## Image Of The Day

French IBM poster from 1987 about the then new line of PS/2 computers. (Jonas-fr / Internet Archive)

## The End

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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.