### Issue 1819 - Tuesday 4th April, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- TikTok banned on all government devices in Australia & NZ
- eSafety Commissioner provides government with a secret roadmap to age verification for access to online porn
- Australia lacks a central register of websites blocked by government, Centrelink confirms use of Cellebrite tech to investigate clients, NLA's Trove secures ongoing funding at last
- Marvel Stadium to get Amazon's "Just Walk Out" tech for food and drinks
- Cheap Telstra 24m contract, 18TB Seagate HDD, Circles.Life plan, Lenovo Thinkpad E14, Apple store 8% cashback, Kingston 2TB SSD, TCN Kids gift card, Samsung portable SSD, Boost pre-paid SIM, OnePass subscription, Codeacademy Pro, Logitech MX Keys, 16" MBP M1 Max, random LEGO sets, 5% off Amazon gift cards, Pixel 7 Pro, clip on monitor LED

## The News

### TikTok banned on all government devices in Australia & NZ

After a seven month review by Home Affairs, TikTok is now banned from all Australian government and department issued devices operated by politicians and public servants. New Zealand banned TikTok on their government devices last week. Australian state governments are probably gonna do the same any day now. This article on The Conversation says the ban is because TikTok gives China (who we are in a "grey zone" conflict in??) the means would exist for foreign intelligence agencies to track the location of government officials, build dossiers of personal information, and conduct espionage". Sounds like TikTok should be banned entirely, along with any other apps that have the same capability, regardless of the nationality.

### eSafety Commissioner provides government with a secret roadmap to age verification for access to online porn

Late Friday arvo the eSafety Commissioner let loose that they have "provided an age verification roadmap to the Australian Government today for its consideration", exploring "if and how age verification and other measures could be used to prevent and mitigate harm to children from online pornography". We do not know what is in this roadmap as it isn't public, but they're trying to convince the government to update the Online Safety Act to include some form of mandatory ID to look at naked people on the internet - a scheme that's failing to be practically implemented in the UK (they're still trying!) but is becoming increasingly popular in some US states.

### Australia lacks a central register of websites blocked by government, Centrelink confirms use of Cellebrite tech to investigate clients, NLA's Trove secures ongoing funding at last

- According to this iTnews report, there are thousands of websites "informally" blocked by ISPs on the request of various Australian government agencies, bypassing section 313(3) of the Telecommunications Act that has a recommendation (not even a requirement, lol) to report the blocking to ACMA. Random agencies asking telcos to block sites without any oversight - this can't be good.
- iTnews is also reporting that Centrelink has confirmed that they use "both telecommunications metadata and password-bypassing technology from Israeli vendor Cellebrite" to investigate "people who receive payments as a single person while in a marriage-like relationship". They will literally receive devices obtained via AFP raids on individuals and crack the passcodes to view WhatsApp, Facebook, etc messages.
- The government has finally handed the National Library of Australia's amazing Trove digital archive database a couple of crumbs. It will give NLA $33m as a lump sum in "emergency funding" and will continue to fund it to the tune of $9.2m a year ongoing. It's good that this happened but the amount of bitching and moaning the NLA and the users of Trove (like me!) had to do to get a measly $9.2m is so disappointing.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Marvel Stadium to get Amazon's "Just Walk Out" tech for food and drinks

As part of Melbourne's Dockland (aka Marvel) Stadium's redevelopment, the AFL is gonna use Amazon's "Just Walk Out" tech in two food and beverage outlets and a bar. This is the same technology used at those Amazon Go convenience stores in the USA where you just walk in, grab what you want and walk out. At the stadium, "fans will simply use their credit or debit card, or mobile wallet payment option at entry, collect their items, and leave the store without having to wait in line to checkout". This is the first implementation of this technology in the Southern Hemisphere, but is in use at stadiums in Boston and Seattle.

## Bargains

- $600 JB gift card if you sign up for a $69/m 24m Telstra contract with 100GB data
- Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB 3.5" HDD - $468.11 (or 2x for $889.41) from Amazon USA
- Circles.Life (Optus MVNO) 50GB plan - $22/m for the first 12 months from Circles.Life
- Lenovo ThinkPad E14 (14" 1080p, Ryzen 7 5825U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1089 from Lenovo
- 8% cashback on a bunch of Apple stuff on the Apple Online Store via Cashrewards
- Kingston NV2 M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2TB SSD - $139 + delivery from BPC Tech
- 10% off TCN Kids (Lego, JB Hi-Fi, Roblox, Xbox, Toyworld, Timezone & more) gift cards at Target
- Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch 1TB - $104 from The Good Guys (in-store only)
- Boost $300 pre-paid SIM with 260GB data - $246 from OzTechBiz
- 1 Year OnePass Subscription - $30 for new & lapsed subscribers
- Codecademy Pro 1-Year Subscription - $270 from Codeacademy
- Logitech MX Keys Advanced wireless keyboard - $119.04 from Logitechshop's eBay store
- Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch 2021 M1 Max 32‑Core GPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD - $3599.99 from CompNowclearance's eBay store
- 20% off a bunch of various LEGO sets at Target
- 5% off Amazon AU Gift Cards at Card.Gift
- Google Pixel 7 Pro 128GB/256GB/512GB - $1049, $1199, $1349 from JB Hi-Fi
- Adjustable Computer Monitor Light 30cm/50cm - $15/$17 from Aliexpress

## Image Of The Day

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen were announced Monday, April 3 as the four astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The crew assignments are as follows: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Koch, Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen. (NASA Johnson / Flickr)

## The End

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