### Issue 2119 - Friday 28th June, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- ID verification service used by social media companies gets popped
- NASA gets SpaceX to start deorbit mission for the ISS
- OpenAI makes CriticGPT to find errors in ChatGPT
- Telstra's mini underground phone exchanges
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap Witcher 3 & Disco Elysium PC games, Samsung 4TB 2.5" SSD, Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, Nothing Phone 2a

## The News

### ID verification service used by social media companies gets popped

404 Media is back with another banger, this time revealing a major security beach of AU10TIX - an ID Verification service provider that works with TikTok, Uber, and X. It looks like credentials linked to AU10TIX's logging platform were leaked and on that platform are loads of identity documents, along with data relating to the service someone was trying to get verified with. This is the kinda service that would be employed should Australia decide to mandate age verification for all social media users. Big juicy honeypots of PII run by opaque operators - what could go wrong?

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### NASA gets SpaceX to start deorbit mission for the ISS

NASA has enlisted SpaceX to build a deorbit vehicle that'll "dock to the International Space Station in 2029 and then ensure the large facility makes a controlled reentry through Earth's atmosphere before splashing into the ocean in 2030". It's sad to learn that the ISS will no longer exist soon, but it's pretty old and wasn't really designed to be in active use that long. NASA reckons having a plan and a date to deorbit the ISS will allow commercial space stations to raise funding. Would be awesome if SpaceX could find a way to bring back chunks of the ISS to Earth and place it in a museum.

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### OpenAI makes CriticGPT to find errors in ChatGPT

OpenAI released a research paper about a new model called CriticGPT that uses "Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)" to provide "critiques that highlight inaccuracies in ChatGPT answers". It's essentially an LLM checking the code output of an LLM. When CriticGPT's suggestions are reviewed by a human, they claim there's "more comprehensive critiques than when people work alone, and fewer hallucinated bugs than when the model works alone". When all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Telstra's mini underground phone exchanges

There's abandoned mini underground telephone exchanges across Australia according to the Nick vs Networking blog. Pre-NBN, when Telecom/Telstra wasn't allowed by a local council to put one of those big ugly green metal boxes (aka a RIM - remote integrated multiplexers) on a nature strip in order to meet demand for new phone lines on a budget in a new area, they would put the RIM underground. Seems complicated, but it was still cheaper than running cables back to the exchange I guess? Anyone know if NBN has taken over any of them to store their gear?

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## 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.

- Jusrus wonders if anyone is using Amazon Photos as an alternative to Flickr
- TinBane got something via eBay that was damaged in transit due to poor packaging and is investigating their options for a refund
- zuccs is after a company wide knowledge base solution as a step up from Notion
- John is going to Japan and wasn't sure how to charge their ThinkPad T460, but gunzel found a USB-C adapter for it which looks damn handy
- Over in the Buy & Sell area, Mitty is selling a Nintendo Switch, fish is selling a bunch of furniture & appliances, adamxweb is selling a 2019 Tesla Model 3

## Bargains

- The Witcher 3 Complete Edition for PC - $19.74 on Steam
- Disco Elysium The Final Cut for PC - $5.69 on Steam
- Samsung 870 EVO 4TB 2.5" SATA SSD - $284.10 from Amazon UK
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU - $324.37 from Amazon Germany
- Nothing Phone (2a) - $458.10 from PhoneX

## Image Of The Day

Andromeda Galaxy over the Swiss Alps: A Tribute to a Centenary of Edwin Hubble's Discovery. "I took this image over a year ago, on 12 January 2022. I used a Samyang 135 mm lens @ f/2.8 and a ZWO ASI 2600MC camera (gain 100, bin 1, -10 °C). The setup was mounted on an SW AZGTi mount operating in equatorial mode and was controlled by ASIAIR Pro. I had only about 20 minutes to capture the Andromeda Galaxy before it hid behind the mountain. The data (40x30 s) was collected between 22:40 and 23:02 UT. Once captured, I turned off the tracking and proceeded with capturing the foreground (10x10 s). The foreground mountain was conveniently illuminated by a waxing gibbous moon that night. Both the background sky and the foreground images were calibrated, stacked, and processed in PixInsight, followed by blending and final polishing in Adobe Photoshop. The final image was resized to 40% and cropped." (Dzmitry Kananovich)

## The End

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