Plus: Running a server off a floppy disk works about as well as you might suspect ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

February 02, 2026 | Read online
# Rent sites expose millions of Australian documents, Musk v Bezos in space and Nvidia's AI deal backdown Plus: Running a server off a floppy disk works about as well as you might suspect
Edition 2492
"Silicon chip from a computer laser mouse under a microscope 50х" by Original: Alexander Klepnev Derivative work: IamMM is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Hi all, hope you had a beautiful weekend! Thanks for all the nice and thoughtful replies to Friday's digression. I'm working my way through all of them.
Amazon, Waymo, Apple, Bill Gates, Motorola, Bitcoin, Jensen Huang, Google One and Snapchat. Plus, deals on Sennheiser headphones, Dreame robot vacuums and Xiaomi monitors.
# The News
### Who would've thought that real estate platforms wouldn't treat Australians' data with care?
Millions of documents given by Australians to real estate agents are exposed because of the platforms' shoddy security (Guardian). Friend of the Sizzle, Josh Taylor, was contacted by a researcher who found that seven online rental platforms were storing info like ID docs, lease agreements, payslips and more without even the most trivial amount of security. Some could even be scanned (and cached) by web crawlers. Before going to Josh, the researcher went to the companies behind the platforms which, in many cases, still haven't secured the files.
The Sizzle: Whenever I talk about why we need some kind of digital identification scheme, real estate agents are my go-to example of the problem. We have a broken system where every few years when you need to move house, you're required to give enough information to completely steal your identity (passport, pay information, character references, rights to your firstborn) to six real estate agencies just so a guy called Tyson can arbitrarily decide you're not the right "vibe" for the owners. And you think that guy is going to take good care of your data when platforms like this don't? Yeah, we need something better.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Elon Musk's space stuff is going better than Jeff Bezos' (which could be bad for the NBN)
After news of the SpaceX-xAI proposed merger broke, a follow-up report from Reuters says that Elon Musk's space company wants to launch solar-powered AI data centres. SpaceX has asked the US' Federal Communications Commission for approval for "1 million" satellites... something that even the fairly straight-laced news agency notes is unlikely considering that there are only 15,000 satellites, total, currently. Meanwhile, Amazon's Starlink competitor Leo seems to be experiencing some problems. Bloomberg reports that it is also asking the FCC for an extension on a deadline to have 1,600 satellites in orbit due to a rocket shortage until mid-2027. It only has 180 in space so far -- not great news for plans to start working with NBN from the middle of this year!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Nvidia backs away from weird circular OpenAI deal
Remember in September last year when a bunch of tech companies announced these bizarre circular AI deals that had everyone saying "bubble"? The headliner was Nvidia investing "as much as" US$100b into OpenAI so it could build data centres which meant buying billions of dollars of chips from... Nvidia? Well, if that wasn't weird enough, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang now says the agreement was never "finalized". Which is a nice way of saying "ha ha everyone we were crossing our fingers behind our back when we announced this". Extremely sketchy behaviour from these two companies and not a great sign for the economics of the AI industry ATM.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
Fake ‘Australian’ social media army is pushing Chinese propaganda using stolen X accounts and AI, report claims (Crikey, $) Snapchat offered to lock kids out of features. Government said no (Australian Financial Review, $) NSW inquiry to probe if govt ‘suckered in’ to data centre dream (InnovationAus) Apple Fix for Telstra issue on iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X now available (EFTM)
Rest of World:
We got another dump of Epstein files which included even more details about his links to Elon Musk and Bill Gates and also that he had a "private hacker". Waymo raises $16bn at $110bn valuation (Financial Times, $) Motorola’s new budget phone promises zero Android OS updates (9to5Google) There was a heap more Clawdbot/Moltbolt/now OpenClaw stories, pretty much all about security issues. Here's an analysis showing that it's very leaky, here's a specific simple hack and also here's how the bot-only social network allowed anyone to simply hack the bots. Sounds like everything is going well! Bitcoin’s Break Below $80,000 Signals New Crisis of Confidence (Yahoo Finance) New Apple privacy feature limits location tracking on iPhones, iPads (BleepingComputer) Apple has a margin of !! 76.5% !! on its services lmao (Asymco) Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot we caught telling businesses to break the law (The City)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### Running a server off a floppy disk works about as well as you might suspect
Here at the Sizzle, we love a "I ran [X] on a [Y]" story. The weirder or more ill-suited the Y is for X, the better. So, naturally, I was very excited to click on a link that promised to show "a website... served by a single floppy disk connected to a Pentium computer". Unfortunately, it didn't load for me because, well, you can probably imagine the capacity of such a set-up. Thankfully, here's an archived version which does feel a bit like cheating but it's still worth a look.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
TP-Link Tapo C211 Wi-Fi Security Cameras - $33 at Amazon (Down from $49) TP-Link Tapo C120 2K 4MP Indoor / Outdoor Wi-Fi Security Camera - $45 at Amazon (Down from $69) Fanco Fusion Air Purifier & Fan with HEPA Filter - $49 at Fansonline (Down from $99) Milwaukee M12 Rover LED Floodlight - $85.43 at Amazon (Down from $159) TP-Link Home Tapo Wire-Free Solar-Powered Security Camera Kit C425 - $128 at Amazon (Down from $199) Audio Technica ATH-R30x Professional Open Back Headphones - $164 at JB-Hifi (Down from $249) TP-Link Tapo H500 Smart HomeBase - $187 at Amazon (Down from $249) Sennheiser Momentum 4 - $287 at Sennheiser (Down from $499) Dreame L10s Ultra Gen2 Robot Vacuum and Mop - $599 at Amazon (Down from $1299) Hifiman Arya Stealth Magnet Version Headphones - $599 at Hifiman (Down from $1199) Sony A6700 - $1738 at Georges Cameras (Down from $2299)
Computing
Google One 2TB (Inc Gemini AI Plus) - $68 at Apple Store Turkey (Down from $329) K&F Concept 300000rpm Vacuum Air Duster Recharge 2-in-1 Suction & Blower - $81.97 at AliExpress (Down from $139) ASUS RT-BE57 TUF Gaming Router WiFi7 2.5G - $118 at AliExpress (Down from $299) TP-Link EAP723 BE3600 Ceiling Mount Wi-Fi 7 Access Point - $119 at PC LAN (Down from $249) GL.iNet Flint 3 (GL-BE9300) Tri-Band WiFi 7 Router - $153 at AliExpress (Down from $299) LG 27" UltraGear Full HD IPS 180Hz Gaming Monitor - $169 at LG (Down from $350) Asus TUF Gaming AX6000 Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 Gaming Router - $209 at Amazon (Down from $329) Xiaomi G34WQi 2026 34" 180Hz VA WQHD Curved Ultrawide Gaming Monitor - $399 at Xiaomi AU (Down from $549) HP EliteBook X360 1040 G9 Laptop: Intel i5-1235u, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Win11 Pro - $750 at CLS (Refurb) (Down from $2800) Apple Macbook Air 13": M4, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD - $1339 at Costco (Down from $1599) Gaming PC: R7 7800X3D, RX 9070, 1TB Gen5 SSD, TUF B650EM-E, 32GB CL30 RAM, 240mm AIO, 750W Gold PSU - $2588 at Nebula PC (Down from $3199) Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 Copilot+ PC 13.8" Snapdragon Elite/64GB/1TB) - $2925 at Microsoft Store (Down from $4179)
Mobile
360GB Data First 365 Days - OnePass Mobile - $179 at OnePass Mobile (Down from $300)
# The End
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