### Issue 1525 - Thursday 13th January, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- ABC pushing ahead with sharing iView user data with Google, Facebook & Apple
- Security researcher claims to have remote access to Teslas via one or more 3rd-party control apps
- Germany lightly contemplating shutting down Telegram to contain far-right groups
- Everyone needs a hobby and mine is digitising old magazines and books
- Cheap Amazon Fire TV 4K Max, Razer eGPU enclosure, Chromecast & Nest Mini bundle

## The News

### ABC pushing ahead with sharing iView user data with Google, Facebook & Apple

Despite delaying the introduction of mandatory accounts and sign-in to watch ABC iView, they're still going ahead with it. Even worse is a recent update to iView's privacy policy that says the ABC will share user data with Apple, Facebook and Google. Users can opt-out manually in the iView settings, but it's enabled by default (booooo). Look, I get it, everyone does this data collection crap and maybe people actually like the "sign-in with" feature so they don't have to register for Yet Another Service - but you'd hope that the ABC would be able to carve out a little section of the internet where the relentless harvesting and sharing of user data is unnecessary. If the ABC can't even avoid this shit, what hope do commercial entities have?

### Security researcher claims to have remote access to Teslas via one or more 3rd-party control apps

Teenage security researcher David Colombo claims to have "found a way to remotely interact with more than 25 Tesla electric vehicles in 13 countries". Apparently this is related to a flaw in third party Tesla apps that have extra features Tesla's official app doesn't. That said, via these apps old mate is able to "disable a car's remote camera system, unlock doors and open windows" along with showing the car's exact location. Kinda glad I never bothered with the 3rd-party Tesla apps, I'm skeptical of sharing my authentication details with them because Tesla doesn't have an official way for 3rd-party apps to interact with vehicles and I bet that's where the vulnerability lies. David hasn't revealed the full extent of his findings as he's waiting for one vendor to get their shit together.

### Germany lightly contemplating shutting down Telegram to contain far-right groups

Germany, like I think most liberal democracies, has a bit of an issue with "far-right groups and people opposed to pandemic-related restrictions" using Telegram to spread their particular flavour of bullshit. Unlike most other countries however, when asked if they'd block Telegram, the German interior minister said "we cannot rule this out" and that "a shutdown would be grave and clearly a last resort. All other options must be exhausted first". Hmmm, this is not cool. Also, I discovered via a Hacker News discussion on this topic that Telegram actually does block/filter certain types of content in their iOS and Android apps to appease Apple and Google's store policies. I had no idea.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Everyone needs a hobby and mine is digitising old magazines and books

Some people do normal things like gardening or cooking as a hobby. I like to scan old magazines and books for the Internet Archive. I've uploaded over 1,500 titles in the last 2 years, making it a nice distraction from the pandemic. Over the holidays I decided to upgrade my entire scanning workflow and I can now digitise about 1,300 pages per hour. A 50L tub of magazines can be scanned in a morning and appear on the Internet Archive for the world to see by the evening. I'm starting to run out of stuff to scan so if you have books or magazines taking up space you can't bare to throw out, let me know! I'll even do a road trip interstate if I can fill up the boot of my car with interesting stuff.

## Bargains

- Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max - $59 from Amazon
- Razer Core X eGPU enclosure - $450.32 from Amazon
- Chromecast + Nest Mini bundle or Google Pixel Buds A-series - $109/$129 from the Google Store

## The End

📻 The Magnificent Moon - Mildlife

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