# In This Issue

- Super urgent, immediately required encryption backdoor laws haven’t been used yet

- Apple made more money this quarter than ever before, mostly off the back of the AirPods & Watch

- Ring’s Android app sends heaps of data to 3rd party trackers about almost everything you do

- Find the cheapest storage (HDDs, SSDs, flash memory) on Amazon with this handy tool

- Cheap AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Polk Audio Signature S15 bookshelf speakers, PS4 Dualshock 4 controller, Firewatch for PC, 10% off Google Play gift cards

# News

#### Super urgent, immediately required encryption backdoor laws haven’t been used yet

According to an annual report on the use of the Telecommunications (Interception And Access) Act, those new mega powerful laws passed in late-2018 have been used a grand total of 7 times between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019. Twice by NSW Police and five times by the AFP. All 7 uses were Technical Assistance Requests - the "voluntary requests for the designated communications providers to use their existing capabilities to access user communications" - not the much scarier Technical Assistance Notices and Technical Capability Notices that force the receiver of the notice to come up with a backdoor of some kind to get the info the cops want.

#### Apple made more money this quarter than ever before, mostly off the back of the AirPods & Watch

I've written this similar paragraph multiple times over the years, but Apple had yet another record quarter. In the space of 3 months they made profit, (not revenue, profit!) of US$22.2b. That's about a quarter of a billion dollars of profit per day. Apple's value as a company shot up to over US$1.4t, making it the world's most valuable business once again. The iPhone is back at close to best ever sales numbers and Apple struggled to keep up with production of the Watch & AirPods. Next quarter or two will suck though, as Apple's supply chain and main market are being impacted by the virus outbreak in China.

#### Ring’s Android app sends heaps of data to 3rd party trackers about almost everything you do

The Android app for Ring doorbells are packed full of third party trackers. The list of data being sent to Facebook, AppsFlyer, MixPanel and Branch include: *deep breath* when the app is opened and upon device actions such as app deactivation after screen lock due to inactivity, time zone, device model, language preferences, screen resolution, a unique identifier, local IP address, model, screen resolution, hardware unique identifier, all app interactions (what you do in the app), full names, email addresses, device information such as OS version and model, whether bluetooth is enabled, and app settings such as the number of locations a user has Ring devices installed in. Don't know what happens in the iOS app, but that's a lot of data going to companies that then on-sell that data, likely without users knowing.

# Not News

#### Find the cheapest storage (HDDs, SSDs, flash memory) on Amazon with this handy tool

It isn't the prettiest thing, but someone's made a website that scours Amazon for storage and sorts them by the lowest price per gigabyte. You can also filter by the drive type (e.g: NVMe M.2 SSDs, microSD, internal HDDs, etc) so you'll get the cheapest storage you can for your needs. It doesn't take into account storage quality (not all SSDs are equal) and at the moment doesn't scrape Amazon Australia (coming soon according to the site's creators), but this is so damn useful regardless I had to share it with ya.

# Bargains

- 10% off Google Play gift cards at PayPal’s digital gifts store

- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU - $287.10 from Amazon AU

- Polk Audio Signature S15 bookshelf speakers - $369 delivered from Clef Hi-Fi

- PS4 Dualshock 4 controller (white) - $49 from Amazon AU

- Firewatch for PC - $4.99 from GOG

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