### Issue 1305 - Tuesday 16th February, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Microsoft says SolarWinds hack was "the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen"
- Good news for conspiracy theorists, Parler is back online
- Jaguar Land Rover to go "electric only" by 2025 thanks to UK govt banning ICE cars by 2030
- Ever dreamed of running your own dial-up ISP? It's still possible in 2021!
- Cheap Catch Connect plan, Logitech mouse, Sennheiser headphones, Tetris 99 for Switch & 12m online membership combo, ThinkPad X13, Anko/Kmart gamer kit, Xiaomi powerbanks

## The News

### Microsoft says SolarWinds hack was "the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen"

Microsoft's President Brad Smith has gone on 60 Minutes in the US and called the massive hacking campaign likely orchestrated by Russia via a flaw found in SolarWinds' Orion network monitoring software, "the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen". He went on to say that "certainly more than 1,000" engineers worked on developing the attack. Meanwhile, Microsoft is objecting to our government's proposed Critical Infrastructure Bill, which would make data centres and telecommunications "critical infrastructure" and allow the Australian Signals Directorate to install third party software in those facilities for national security purposes.

### Good news for conspiracy theorists, Parler is back online

Months after getting shitlisted from every reputable cloud hosting business, QAnon dickhead factory, Parler, is back online. Google and Apple haven't let the app back on and probably won't unless Pichai and Cook fall off a balcony, but you can visit parler.com to spread all the disinformation and start all the insurrections you want! Parler is also still suing Amazon for its ejection, has no CEO as it sacked its founding a few weeks ago and old posts prior to the takedown haven't been restored. Fox News wingnut Sean Hannity signed up though, old mate knows which way his bread is buttered.

### Jaguar Land Rover to go "electric only" by 2025 thanks to UK govt banning ICE cars by 2030

Jaguar Land Rover will stop selling pure internal combustion engine cars and make their brands "electric-only" by 2025. Bit of a cop-out as they will still sell hybrids until 2036, but I guess that's fair considering Land Rover products. One of the big reasons for JLR doing this is the UK government's 2030 ban on pure ICE vehicles. Also in EV news, the federal government has given a token $16.5m to fund rapid (i.e: 50kW+) chargers across Australia and the first of 17 rapid chargers funded by the Victorian state government last year has gone online in beautiful Maryborough.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Ever dreamed of running your own dial-up ISP? It's still possible in 2021!

This crazy bastard set up their own dial-up ISP in the year of our lord 2020. It runs off a Raspberry Pi with a four of 56k modems attached over USB. To emulate multiple phone lines they used SIP VoIP and four Linksys SPA-2102 ATA's. Running on the Pi is Asterisk for all the phone stuff and a PPP server to get an IP network going over the modems. Up to 4 people can dial in at once and connect to the internet via that little Raspberry Pi, just like the good old days when you'd dial in to your local backyard ISP to surf the web.

## Bargains

- Catch Connect (Optus MVNO) has a new $9/30 day pre-paid plan with 4GB of data
- Logitech M171 wireless mouse - $5 at JB Hi-Fi (in store only)
- Sennheiser HD 450BT noise canceling headphones - $179 from Amazon
- Tetris 99 & 1 year of Nintendo Switch Online membership - $29.95 at EB Games
- Lenovo ThinkPad X13 (AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1301.82 from Lenovo's eBay Store for eBay Plus members
- Anko 4-in-1 gaming combo (kb, mouse, pad & headset) - $35 at Kmart
- Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 in-ear headphones - $249 on Amazon Prime
- Xiaomi 20,000mAh powerbanks 18W or 27W output max output - $23.99/$29 from Kogan

## The End

📻 Where's Your Head At - Basement Jaxx

😎 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.​