### Issue 1642 - Tuesday 5th July, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Data on practically every Chinese citizen is up for sale on the dark web
- Workforce Australia is the latest government IT shitheap service
- Xiaomi's fancy camera phone, Chevy couldn't sell a Corvette NFT, Airservices Australia complains about 5G
- Popcorn Time gets a mysterious new Android app release
- Cheap Ryzen CPU, Boost prepaid SIM, Samsung SSDs, Intel NUC laptop, Nintendo Switch, PS5 controllers, Xbox Series S, iPhone 13 Pro Max, Sennheiser headphones, Amazon Fire Sticks, Echo Dots, Kindles

## The News

### Data on practically every Chinese citizen is up for sale on the dark web

There's a new world record data breach, yay! A cache of "billions of records stolen from police in Shanghai, containing data on one billion Chinese citizens", verified as legit by a few outlets, is currently for sale on the dark web. The collection of "individuals’ personal names, national ID numbers, phone numbers, birthdays and birthplaces, as well as detailed summaries of crimes and incidents reported to the police" can be yours for 10 Bitcoin (~A$300,000). Imagine all the blackmailing you could do with this treasure trove!

### Workforce Australia is the latest government IT shitheap service

Australian government IT has done it again, ushering in a new series of pain and anguish upon our fellow innocent citizens. Workforce Australia is the latest abomination and introduces a points based system for people to receive government payments and to use it you have to visit a website to receive the debasing tasks Centrelink hands out. The website didn't work for many people and still continues to time out at various time using the website or smartphone app. If people can't submit their reports, they don't get paid. If they don't get paid, they can't pay rent or buy food. Robodebt 2.0 in the making.

### Xiaomi's fancy camera phone, Chevy couldn't sell a Corvette NFT, Airservices Australia complains about 5G

- Xiaomi's got a new smartphone called the Mi 12S Ultra and it has a massive 50MP 1-inch camera sensor. This is the same size sensor as high-end point and shoot cameras, which when paired with the smartphone's image enhancement stuff should look fantastic. It'll go on sale in China July 8th and pricing starts at around US$900.
- Chevrolet decided to get into the NFT game by flogging off an imagine of "a lime green Corvette Z06 blasting through a cyberpunk landscape" that came with a real Corvette Z06 in a unique one-off colour, factory option code and binary VIN. The auction lasted 3 days and nobody bothered to bid despite the real car on offer with the NFT. Oof.
- It's now Australia's turn to worry about the impacts on airports of new 5G radio spectrum getting turned on. ACMA wants to rejig how the 3.4GHz and 3.7-4.2GHz spectrum and sell it to telcos for 5G, but Airservices Australia is telling ACMA that any radio activity in that spectrum can interfere with radio altimeters fitted to planes.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Popcorn Time gets a mysterious new Android app release

Hands up who remembers Popcorn Time? It streamed pirated TV shows and movies over BitTorrent and put a Netflix style interface over the top. You installed the Popcorn Time app on your device, opened the app, browsed the content, pressed play and it played. No configuration or setup needed. It was the best example of piracy I have ever seen and would easily be worth billions of dollars if the source of the content was from the owners of that content instead of BitTorrent. The creator of Popcorn Time and its many forks eventually got found out and punished by the criminal system. Today a new Android binary suddenly appeared on GitHub. Caveat emptor and enjoy.

## Bargains

- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X - $439.20 from ggtech's eBay store
- Boost 365-day pre-paid SIM with 140GB or 280GB of data - $143.10/$214.20 from Auditech's eBay store
- 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD - $350.10 from Computer Alliance
- Intel NUC M15 laptop (15.6" 1080p touch screen, i7-1165G7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1125 from ggtech's eBay store
- Nintendo Switch OLED Console - $404.10 from Big W's eBay store
- PS5 DualSense Controller - $71.10 from Big W's eBay store
- Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD - $142.20 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- Xbox Series S - $404.10 from Big W's eBay store
- iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB - $1549 from Telstra
- Sennheiser HD 599 open back headphones - $149 from Amazon
- Sennheiser HD 300 over ear headphones - $54 from Amazon
- 2x Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max - $69 (for two) from Amazon
- Echo Dot 3rd Gen, Kindle Paperwhite, Echo Show 8 2nd Gen - $19.47/$167.30/$99.50 from Amazon

## The End

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