### Issue 1584 - Friday 8th April, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Australian Border Force can't force you to hand over your phone's PIN, unless they think you're a "risk"
- Berkshire Hathaway now owns 11% of HP Inc
- Crypto is the scammer's choice, Senate wants COVIDSafe shut down, new SIM-swap ID rules, Play Store to clear out old unsupported apps, Apple tries to prove it doesn't have an App Store advantage
- Jeff Atwood and John Carmack have a bet going about driverless cars being a thing by 2030
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap kids online coding & robotics classes, Far Cry 6 for PS5, Vodafone pre-paid SIM, WD & Seagate 2TB portable HDDs, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for Switch, Denon soundbar, Asus RX6600 XT OC graphics card

## The News

### Australian Border Force can't force you to hand over your phone's PIN, unless they think you're a "risk"

Australian Border Force managed to pry their way into 822 traveler's mobile phones in 2021 by demanding the device's passcode at the border, taking it away, connecting it to "examination equipment" and returning the device 30 minutes later. A Senate committee asked ABF if they're actually allowed to do this as it sounds pretty harsh to do to someone that isn't under arrest. ABF responded with, "there is no legal compulsion for a traveler to provide a password/passcode or provide assistance to an electronic device at the border". So technically you can refuse, however if you don't comply and the officer thinks there is "a risk to the border", they can then seize the device and stick their snouts in it so you're fucked either way.

### Berkshire Hathaway now owns 11% of HP Inc

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway needs no explanation, but I would love an explanation for their massive investment in HP. Not HP Enterprise (aka HPE) with the servers and business stuff, but HP Inc (aka HPQ), the crappy laptops and printers division. Berkshire now owns 11% of HPQ, valued at around US$4.2b. The share price jumped almost 15% simply based on the fact Warren Buffett is involved. This article on Yahoo! Finance tries to highlight HP's upsides, arguing sales have grown lately (IMHO probably due to the work from home boom that's relatively temporary) but I'm not convinced. Looking forward to the next Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder letter more than usual now.

### Crypto is the scammer's choice, Senate wants COVIDSafe shut down, new SIM-swap ID rules, Play Store to clear out old unsupported apps, Apple tries to prove it doesn't have an App Store advantage

- ACCC reckons that cryptocurrency is now the most popular way for rubes to pay scammers. People say cryptocurrency has no use case, but criminals extracting money from innocent people seems to be a big one.
- A Senate committee has released a report on the effectiveness of COVIDSafe and wants it shut down because of "its high cost and significant limitations as a practical measure for contact tracing".
- New rules that come into effect June 30th will require "multi-factor authentication of your identity" before a number can be ported from one SIM to another as a way to stop SIM-swap fraud.
- As of November 1st 2022, Google's gonna start hiding apps in the Play Store that don't target at least Android 11. The aim is to clear out unsupported apps with security vulnerabilities.
- Apple released a study they funded that shows 3rd party apps often more successful on the App Store than Apple's own competing apps, so there's absolutely no reason for governments to keep asking questions and to leave them alone.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Jeff Atwood and John Carmack have a bet going about driverless cars being a thing by 2030

Two giant nerds, Jeff Atwood (you know him as the father of Stack Overflow) and John Carmack (Doom & Quake), have placed a "friendly bet" of US$10,000 donated to a charity of the winner's choice that "by January 1st, 2030, completely autonomous self-driving cars meeting SAE J3016 level 5 will be commercially available for passenger use in major cities". Jeff reckons this won't happen, John reckons it will happen. If you're unfamiliar with what SAE J3016 level 5 entails, that's basically the ability to fall asleep at the wheel, in "all conditions". I'm on Jeff's side here and agree that lots of people under estimate the difficulty of level 5 driving, but I'll be happy to be wrong.

## Friday Forum Update

Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.

- newformula's NBN has crapped out and won't be fixed for a while, so needs ideas for fast, temporary internet
- brett started a discussion about how infuriating Windows 11 is
- Josh is thinking about their death and what happens to their "digital life" when the inevitable happens
- functionreturn is thinking about blank DVDs and wondering who uses them in 2022
- mvyrmnd is thoroughly enjoying Apple's Universal Control feature and wanted to tell us about it

## Bargains

- 20% off online kids coding & robotics classes - $20 per class at Robofun
- Far Cry 6 for PS5 - $29 from Amazon
- Vodafone pre-paid SIM with 80GB of data for 28 days - $10 at Coles
- Seagate 2TB portable HDD - $65.55 from Bing Lee's eBay store
- WD 2TB portable HDD - $64.50 at Big W
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition for Nintendo Switch - $15.75 on the eShop
- Denon DHT-S216 soundbar - $229 from Amazon
- Asus Dual RX6600 XT OC 8GB graphics card - $549 at CentreCom

## The End

📻 Bruce Lee - Underworld

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