### Issue 1328 - Monday 22nd March, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Tim Cook & other Apple bigwigs to testify live in court over Epic's claims of App Store monopoly
- Telstra to split into 4 businesses, making it easier for them to eat up the NBN
- Auditor finds major government departments still failing to implement basic IT security
- An elaborate set of scripts to make a digital signature look printed
- Cheap Dell monitors, GTA games on Steam, Logitech MX3 mouse, Powerpal power meter, Samsung 860 EVO SSD, Sennheiser wireless earbuds, Belkin Qi charger, Cyberpunk 2077

## The News

### Tim Cook & other Apple bigwigs to testify live in court over Epic's claims of App Store monopoly

Apple and Epic have submitted to the court who will testify for each side in Epic's lawsuit against Apple. Some time in May, Apple's CEO Tim Cook, SVP Craig Federighi, App Store boss Phil Schiller and a bunch of other employees will front up the US District Court in San Franciso and spend weeks getting peppered with questions from lawyers about the App Store's unfairness. Apple's press release said they "look forward to sharing with the court the very positive impact the App Store has had on innovation, economies across the world and the customer experience over the last 12 years". Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney, plus Microsoft and Facebook VPs will also be grilled.

### Telstra to split into 4 businesses, making it easier for them to eat up the NBN

We've known for a while that Telstra was going to split itself up into 3 bits - InfraCo Fixed, InfraTowers and ServeCo - but that plan has changed, with Telstra deciding it'll put its international operations (mostly the networks it operates overseas to talk back to its Australian network) into a 4th subsidiary, called Telstra International. All 4 divisions will be owned by a holding company called Telstra HoldCo. This ASX announcement goes into more detail. It all sounds pretty boring, but it has huge implications on privatising the NBN and opening up Telstra's network to 3rd parties.

### Auditor finds major government departments still failing to implement basic IT security

The Australian National Audit Office has found that none of the nine government departments it audited fully implemented the mandatory cyber security risk mitigation strategies the Australian Signals Directorate heavily suggests businesses implement. These are pretty basic security measures like "application whitelisting, patching applications, restricting administrative privileges, and patching operating systems" - yet none of these departments (important ones, like Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Health, Austrade, etc) did all that stuff.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### An elaborate set of scripts to make a digital signature look printed

Ever had to sign a document and the place you send it back to whinges that the document needs to be printed, signed and scanned and that a digital signature isn't good enough? You might like falsisign - a script that can apply your signature to a PDF and uses ImageMagick filters to make the output document look like it was printed, scanned and signed with a pen. Genius! It's totally overkill and a bit fiddly to setup, but I love the premise. A smart person could take this idea, make it user friendly and chuck it on the App Store for $10.

## Bargains

- Dell S2721QS, S2721Q or S2721D monitors - $357.40/$324.84/$279.28 from Dell
- Grand Theft Auto: the Trilogy (GTA3, San Andreas & Vice City) for PC - $13.49 on Steam
- Grand Theft Auto V Premium Edition for PC - $23.27 on Steam
- Logitech MX Master 3 Advanced wireless mouse - $114 from Kogan
- Free Powerpal Power Meter for Melbourne, Geelong & Ballarat premises
- Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5" SATA SSD - $63 after cashback from Centrecom
- Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 earbuds - $249.90 from Amazon AU
- Belkin BOOST UP 10W Qi wireless charging pad (includes AC power adapter) - $25 from Harvey Norman
- Cyberpunk 2077 for PC - $31.79 from CDKeys

## The End

📻 Don't Go Away - Grinspoon

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.​