### Issue 2231 - Thursday 5th December, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- FBI tells everyone to use encrypted apps now that the entire US telco industry got owned by China
- Meta plans to invest so there's up to 4GW of new nuclear energy in the US grid
- Threads users can follow Mastodon users in-app now
- Redflow's batteries had promise but they just couldn't make em reliable
- Cheap Audio Technica turntable, refurb iPhone SE, Starlink, Kayo/Binge, Apple gift cards

## The News

### FBI tells everyone to use encrypted apps now that the entire US telco industry got owned by China

The FBI's executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has gone on the record in various news outlets telling Americans that "encryption is your friend, whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible" - in the wake of Salt Typhoon, "one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history". T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and other telcos had Chinese hackers living in their networks for months who were able to exfiltrate data using wiretap backdoors put there by the NSA/FBI/CIA/etc. First of all, wow, what a hack from the Chinese, congrats to everyone involved! Second, lol at the FBI for telling us encryption is awesome while going behind our backs begging politicians for backdoors into that encryption ya fucken hypocrites.

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### Meta plans to invest so there's up to 4GW of new nuclear energy in the US grid

Meta joins Amazon, Google and Microsoft in throwing money at nuclear power to fuel the incredible demand for electricity generated by their data centres. In a press release, Meta said that "our aim is to add 1-4 GW of new nuclear generation capacity in the U.S. to be delivered starting in the early 2030s. We are looking to identify developers that can help accelerate the availability of new nuclear generators and create sufficient scale to achieve material cost reductions by deploying multiple units, both to provide for Meta's future energy needs and to advance broader industry decarbonization". They haven't said how much they'll invest, but as we know, nuclear power isn't cheap.

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### Threads users can follow Mastodon users in-app now

Good news for you freaks hanging out on Threads - you can follow Mastodon users now. Adam Mosseri, Instagram boss, posted this on Threads a few hours ago: "Exciting update for those of you following our fediverse journey – starting today, you can follow people from other fediverse servers who have interacted with federated users or posts on Threads. You can see their posts by navigating to their profile, and you can also choose to be notified when they post on their server. More interop features are on the way, stay tuned", along with a video of what the process looks like. The Verge notes that "new Threads features have picked up the pace in recent weeks. Maybe that’s got something to do with all the attention Bluesky’s been getting lately?". Mmmhmmmm.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Redflow's batteries had promise but they just couldn't make em reliable

The ABC has a detailed story about Redflow's demise. They were an Australian company manufacturing innovative batteries using technology researched in Australian universities, with loads of orders from overseas businesses. You'd think it's a recipe for success, but what the ABC article outlines is a typical story of Aussie investors not having deep enough pockets (or guts) to ride out the bumps. The batteries had a massive failure rate that ended up costing more to replace than they got in revenue. They thought they could eventually iron out all the manufacturing process defects as they got more experience and bigger scales, but it just didn't happen. They join Tritium on the heap of "well, we tried!" Aussie clean-tech businesses.

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## Bargains

- Audio Technica AT-LP60X turntable - $189 at JB Hi-Fi
- Refurb iPhone SE 2020 256GB - $259 from Phonebot
- Starlink Mini kit - $299 + $30 delivery from SpaceX
- Starlink Standard kit - $349 + $30 delivery from SpaceX
- 15% off Hubbl (Kayo, Binge, etc) gift cards via Amazon
- 10x Qantas points when buying Apple gift cards via the Qantas marketplace
- 12 months of Kayo One (1 screen, 1080p) for $214.50 via the Illawarra Hawks or Kayo Basic (2 screens, 4K) for $350 via the North Melbourne Kangaroos

## Image Of The Day

Protesters gather outside the Leichhardt town hall to demonstrate against the construction of a Telstra mobile phone tower, New South Wales, May 2004 (Karl Sharp / National Library of Australia)

## The End

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