### Issue 1556 - Monday 28th February, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Heaps of tech related stuff happening around the Ukraine-Russia war
- ACCC wants to extend ACL to digital platforms in latest discussion paper
- UK's Online Safety Bill tells social media companies to filter out users that aren't real-world ID verified
- Ericsson busted again paying bribes, this time to ISIS in Iraq
- Cheap refurb ASUS ROG Phone 3, Samsung 980 Pro SSD, AT2020 XLR mic, Ryzen 5600X CPU, Logitech keyboard covers for iPad Pro, RTX3080 GPU, Anker noise cancelling headphones, Edifer bookshelf speakers

## The News

### Heaps of tech related stuff happening around the Ukraine-Russia war

- Ukraine set up the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine so foreigners can join their fight against Russia. The Vice President. Part of that includes an IT Army that needs "digital talents".
- YouTube banned ads on RT and other Russian state media channels and will "recommend Russian state-run media to users less often", but is still letting them stream.
- Facebook is "prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world", but like YouTube, is still allowing them on their platform. They're also blocking some Russian media accounts for Ukrainians.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay are out of action for most people in Russia as most of their banks are on the west's shitlist, so Apple and Google aren't allowed to transact with them.
- Twitter is "proactively reviewing tweets to detect platform manipulation" and "actively monitoring vulnerable high-profile accounts" to "mitigate any attempts at a targeted takeover or manipulation".
- Russia has restricted Twitter and Facebook access. They didn't give an excuse for limiting Twitter, but for Facebook they said the platform was violating "the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens" by "censoring" Russian media outlets.
- The Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine wrote to Tim Cook and asked him to "stop supplying Apple services and products to the Russian Federation" and block access to the App Store.
- Elon Musk is sending a bunch of Starlink devices to Ukraine. Hope it goes better than the submarine he sent to Thailand and the ventilators he sent to US hospitals.
- US companies must now get permission to export "computers, sensors, lasers, navigation tools, and telecommunications, aerospace, and marine equipment". Companies globally making products with US tools will also need permission to sell the goods made with those tools to Russia.
- Cryptocurrency might actually be useful for once, as the Ukrainian government is accepting donations via BTC, USDT and ETH. Almost US$10m has been sent so far.

### ACCC wants to extend ACL to digital platforms in latest discussion paper

The ACCC has published a discussion paper titled "Updating Competition and Consumer Law For Digital Platform Services". The aim here is to beef up our old friend, the Competition and Consumer Act, which sets out Australian Consumer Law, to better handle digital platforms. Some ideas the ACCC is floating include, "legislative prohibitions and obligations; codes of practice; giving a legislative authority rule-making powers; pro-competition or pro-consumer measures, if the inquiry identifies harm to either; and third-party data access regimes". This stuff would apply to all kinds of things like Telegram and Whatsapp, along with the usual suspects of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

### UK's Online Safety Bill tells social media companies to filter out users that aren't real-world ID verified

The UK is forging ahead with an Online Safety Bill (where have I heard that name before???) and make it so "the biggest social media platforms will be legally required to offer ways for users to verify their own identities and control who can interact with them, including being able to block anyone who has not verified their identity or anonymous accounts". Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms might have to "ask users to verify their profile picture to ensure it is a true likeness, use two-factor authentication where a prompt is sent to a user's mobile phone to verify them or require a government-issued ID in order to create an account". Kinda creating two internets - an imaginary one where everyone uses their real name, ID and picture that's safe, and an anonymous one that's full of filth.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Ericsson busted again paying bribes, this time to ISIS in Iraq

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists got their hands on documents from an internal review of giant telco infrastructure company Ericsson's activities in Iraq. These documents how "tens of millions of dollars in suspicious payments over nearly a decade to sustain its business in Iraq, financing slush funds, trips abroad for defense officials and payoffs through middlemen to corporate executives and possibly terrorists". The report also revealed similar dodgy tactics in Lebanon, Spain, Portugal and Egypt, which are all new to the public and in addition to the bribes paid in Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait that got it into deep shit with the US DoJ back in 2019.

## Bargains

- Refurb ASUS ROG Phone 3 12GB 512GB - $749 from Treasure PC Online's eBay store (affiliate link)
- Samsung 980 Pro 1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe M.2 SSD (no heatsink, no good for PS5) - $218.25 from Amazon
- Audio-Technica AT2020 XLR condenser microphone - $98.48 from Amazon
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU - $345 plus shipping from Shopping Express
- Logitech Combo Touch for iPad Pro - $174.97 for the 12.9" or $149.97 for the 11" from JB Hi-Fi
- Gainward Phoenix RTX 3080 10GB LHR GPU - $1588 plus delivery from TechFast
- Anker Life Q30 Hybrid noise cancelling headphones - $108 from Anker's AliExpress
- Edifier R1010BT or R1280DBs active bookshelf speakers - $79/$141.75 from Amazon

## The End

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