### Issue 2023 - Thursday 8th February, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- Toothbrush DDoS story a hypothetical scenario journo and/or translator misinterpreted
- Right to disconnect law coming as part of wider workplace relations reform
- New Hideo Kojima game teaser, Beeper Mini quits iMessage entirely, Android eSIM swapping is a thing
- IPV4 addresses aren't as expensive as I thought
- Cheap Moto G84, PIxel 8, CatchConnect 365-day prepaid SIM, Motorola MA1 wireless Android Audio adapter, Diablo IV

## The News

### Toothbrush DDoS story a hypothetical scenario journo and/or translator misinterpreted

You may have heard a story going around social media that a large DDoS botnet made up of 3 million smart toothbrushes attacked a Swiss company. A handful of people even sent me links saying it would be a good story for The Sizzle! It was originally reported in a Swiss newspaper, quoting a cybersecurity expert that works for the Swiss division of Fortinet, but none of the Fortinet blogs mention it. When 404 Media asked Fortinet what the deal is, they replied with "the topic of toothbrushes being used for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview as an illustration of a given type of attack, and it is not based on research from Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. It appears that due to translations the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred". It was widely reported by English-speaking outlets such as ZDNet and Tom's Hardware, but they didn't do any basic fact checking to see if it was true either and just repeated the suspicious claims in the Swiss newspaper. Shit's fucked yo.

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### Right to disconnect law coming as part of wider workplace relations reform

The government has floated a "right to disconnect" as part of its big update to the Fair Work legislation. It's a reaction to shithead bosses expecting a response to emails, messages and phone calls outside the times you're being paid to work and is particularly annoying for people who work from home (like many of the people reading this). A few European countries have it already and even some EBAs in Australia have included similar rules. Bosses can still send messages and whatnot, but as the Minister for Workplace Relations says, "if you don't respond because it's not your paid time, you've got a guarantee that you can't be punished for it". Now that the Greens and some independent Senators have agreed with the ALP a right to disconnect is a good idea it's set to become law whenever the wider Fair Work updates are worked out and passed in the near future.

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### New Hideo Kojima game teaser, Beeper Mini quits iMessage entirely, Android eSIM swapping is a thing

- Sony held a "State of Play" event to build hype for what's new in the PlayStation world in 2024. We got a look at Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and an all new game from Hideo Kojima that is currently untitled but will be an "action espionage game" that "will attempt to blur the line between video game and film".
- Beeper Mini has disabled iMessage entirely from its multi-platform messaging app as Apple has started to ban individual user's Macs for connecting to Beeper so they can send and receive messages using their own iCloud account. Can't blame them for having a shot. Let's see what Apple does with RCS this year, probably as part of iOS 18.
- Good news for Android fans using eSIMs in their phones - there's now an eSIM transfer tool. This allows you to move an eSIM from one Android phone to another without having to involve the damn telco. It's appeared on the Pixel 8 and Galaxy S24 Ultra, dunno about other phones just yet.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### IPV4 addresses aren't as expensive as I thought

We all hear about the looming IPV4 address shortage, but how do you actually buy an IP address and what do they cost? This article on Low End Box lists that you can buy them pretty damn easily for not much coin. You can lease a /24 block of IPV4 space for just US$0.50-$2 per IP address per month. There's also marketplaces like IPXO that have offers between US$0.36-0.70 per IP address per month. If you wanna buy an IP address instead of leasing, IPv4.Global will sell ya a /24 block for US$10,000 - yours for life. For something supposedly in scarce supply, IPV4 addresses aren't that difficult or expensive. Might even be a decent investment just to buy a block of IPs, lease them out and see what happens in 10-20 years. An IP address landlord if you will.

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## Bargains

- Motorola Moto G84 smartphone (12GB RAM, 256GB storage, Snapdragon 695 5G SoC, NFC, microSD) - $300.14 from Mobileciti
- Google Pixel 8 128GB - $999 from JB Hi-Fi
- Catch Connect (Optus MVNO) 365-day pre-paid 60GB/120GB/200GB with unlimited calls & SMS - $99/$119/$150 from Catch
- Motorola MA1 Android Auto Wireless Adapter - $128 from Amazon
- Diablo IV Standard, Deluxe or Ultimate editions for PC - $65.95/$83.95/$92.95 from Battle.net

## Image Of The Day

Press Photos for the iPod Shuffle (Wilhelm4 / Internet Archive)

## The End

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