### Issue 1574 - Friday 25th March, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- The EU's Digital Markets Act will force chat messaging interoperability
- Most of the Lapsus$ "data extortion gang" are teenagers and just got arrested
- TikTok mods sue for psychological damage, ALP wants modest changes to anti-troll bill, Apple ironically removes IAP from Apple TV on Google platforms
- Dr. Ian Cutress may no longer be writing for Anandtech, but he's still alive on YouTube
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Kingston SSD, .au domain names, Fractal Design PC case, Minecraft for Switch, Belkin 3-in-1 charging stand

## The News

### The EU's Digital Markets Act will force chat messaging interoperability

The EU has dropped a massive piece of tech regulation - the Digital Markets Act. There's a lot of stuff in it, but the headline potential outcome of this law is "the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms". The DMA will also require "explicit consent" for combining personal data for targeted advertising and requirements for "users to freely choose their browser, virtual assistants or search engines". Non-compliance has severe penalties, like 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover (for Apple that's US$37b) and bans on mergers/acquisitions of other companies. About goddamn time.

### Most of the Lapsus$ "data extortion gang" are teenagers and just got arrested

Seven alleged members of the Lapsus$ "data extortion gang" have been arrested by the City of London Police. All seven are between the ages of 16 to 21, with the ringleader a 17 year old kid from Oxford going by the aliases White/Breachbase, who "is believed to have accumulated over 300 BTC - around US$13 million at today's value, from hacking activities, SIM swapping being one of them". Both Microsoft and Brian Krebs have published separate analysis of Lapsus$'s hacking style and modus operandi. For some reason Microsoft calls em DEV-0537 - to avoid giving them notoriety, I guess? Okta also revised their "nothing to see here" post to "oh actually 366 of our customers were impacted".

### TikTok mods sue for psychological damage, ALP wants modest changes to anti-troll bill, Apple ironically removes IAP from Apple TV on Google platforms

- People hired by TikTok to do content moderation are suing the social media behemoth for the psychological damage of seeing fucked up videos including "animal cruelty, torture and even the execution of children" regularly.
- The ALP has developed a spine and will oppose a bad tech-related bill entering Parliament! Oh wait, they just want minor changes to the "Anti-Trolling bill" that don't fix any of the problems everyone's outlined. Business as usual, sorry.
- Apple has removed in-app purchases from its Apple TV app on Google/Android TV because they were unable "to reach mutually agreeable terms on in-app payment commissions". Kettle, pot, black etc. etc.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Dr. Ian Cutress may no longer be writing for Anandtech, but he's still alive on YouTube

Dr. Ian Cutress has been my go-to guy for learning about CPUs for a few years now, pumping out in-depth, quality articles on Anandtech whenever a new chip comes out that I genuinely look forward to reading. He announced recently that he is leaving Anandtech, which sucks, but luckily, he is still active on YouTube as "TechTechPotato". Here's a video of Dr. Cutress explaining what makes Apple's M1 Ultra such a beefcake. I much prefer reading his work than listening to him, but at least he hasn't disappeared from public life like old mate Anand Lal Shimpi who is now property of Apple.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- coljac wants a new electric car, is considering a BYD Atto 3.
- funcitonretrun needs a KVM capable of switching between two PCs with DisplayPort at 4K and a USB keyboard and mouse
- andrewh's thread about school computing exploits has some great anecdotes.
- Jusrus wants to replace printed materials at a music fetival with tablets.
- hux wants to rebroadcast VHF marine broadcasts to the internet.

## Bargains

- Kingston A2000 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD - $128.65 from gg.tech365's eBay store
- .au domain names - $8.99/yr from Hosting Bee
- Fractal Design Meshify S2 glass side ATX case - $149 at CentreCom/Umart/Scorptec, etc
- Minecraft for Nintendo Switch - $22 from Harvey Norman
- Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with Magsafe 15W (Black) - $149 from Amazon

## The End

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