### Issue 1985 - Thursday 30th November, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Elon Musk thinks companies not advertising on X are blackmailing him
- Google Drive's File Stream feature potentially broken, reports of data loss
- Okta reveals last month's data breach more significant than first thought
- Ubiquiti's new UniFi Express looks fantastic
- Cheap Denon AVR, SVS subwoofer, Dell micro PC, Fitbit Versa 4

## The News

### Elon Musk thinks companies not advertising on X are blackmailing him

Elon Musk got up on stage at some New York Times thing this morning and when asked about how whenever he says one of this dog shit dumb opinions out loud, it pushes advertisers away from X, he said "I hope they stop. Don't advertise", further elaborating that "if somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is". He reckons "what this advertising boycott is gonna do is it's gonna kill the company" and that "we'll be gone, and it'll be gone because of an advertiser boycott". I know whenever I tell the people I want money from to fuck themselves, they love it and actually end up giving me more money than I asked for! As Ryan over at Garbage Day says in today's issue, Musk "has always pandered to what he thinks is cool and — more importantly — what he thinks will distract people from the fact he's just a rich guy LARPing as a dumb guy's idea of a smart guy".

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### Google Drive's File Stream feature potentially broken, reports of data loss

A non-insignificant amount of users on have noticed missing data on Google Drive the last few days, with Google acknowledging this with a vague "we are investigating" statement. The issue seems to be around the File Stream feature, which doesn't keep files on your local disk and keeps them cloud-only, downloading the files only when needed. It appears that maybe, for some users using Google Drive for desktop v84.0.0.0 - 84.0.4.0, files were removed from the disk but not uploaded to the cloud, so they're gone forever. Oops. A handy reminder that the cloud is just someone else's computer and that data you don't back up in 3 different places, on 2 different mediums and at least 1 copy off-site, is data you don't care about. Read up on the 3-2-1 strategy.

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### Okta reveals last month's data breach more significant than first thought

You know how Okta was popped a months ago and they said it only impacted 1% of their users? Yeah, well, it was actually all customers of their "Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) and Customer Identity Solution (CIS)" product. Unlike the previously announced 1% of impacted customers, this data doesn't include "HAR files with cookies and session tokens", but is rather a dump of names and addresses of all the customers. Doesn't sound that bad, but as the linked article mentions, "names and emails are enough for a threat actor to launch phishing or social engineering attacks that could serve them in reconnaissance stages or could help them obtain more details to prepare a more sophisticated attack". It's dangerous out there in cyberspace folks, stay frosty.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Ubiquiti's new UniFi Express looks fantastic

It's been a while since Ubiquiti made a product that's worth mentioning here, but the day has come and it is the UniFi Express. It's a little white box the size of an Apple TV that acts as a router, 2x2 wi-fi 6 access point, mesh node with or without Ethernet backhaul and a UniFi controller - no need for any other devices. The Express is essentially Ubiquiti's offering of an Eero, Google Wifi or Netgear Orbi. Can be powered via USB-C (5V, 3A), has a little screen on the front, gigabit LAN port, gigabit WAN port and costs US$149 (so around A$250). Buy one of these, get a couple of Ubiquiti APs, maybe a small 8-port switch for your hardwired gear and you're set. Crosstalk Solutions (of course) has a video first look/review.

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## Bargains

- Denon AVR-S770H home theater receiver - $729 from Home Audio Sales' eBay store
- SVS PB-1000 subwoofer - $899 from CHT Solutions
- Dell OptiPlex 7070 Micro PC (i5-9500T, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $241.80 from BNE ACT Trader's eBay store
- Fitbit Versa 4 - $239 from Bing Lee's eBay store

## Image Of The Day

The sun's first rays burst through the Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 264 miles above the Pacific Ocean northwest of New Zealand. (NASA Johnson / Flickr)

## The End

📻 Wet Blanket - Metz

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