Plus: Using your phone for atomic clock radio transmissions ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

January 28, 2026 | Read online
# Trump's ICE army is powered by Big Tech, myGov code FOI battle and Pornhub pulls out Plus: Using your phone for atomic clock radio transmissions
Edition 2489
"Apple II Plus, Museum of the Moving Image" by Marcin Wichary is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Mentioned in today’s edition: Palantir, Linus Torvalds, Meta, Fraser Tweedale, myGov, Pornhub, Android, Mastercard and Andrew Tate. Plus, deals on JVC TVs, Apple AirPods and mini-PCs.
# The News
### Big Tech is powering Trump 2.0's ICE army
What ICE is doing is a tech story. Killed protestor Alex Pretti's details had been recorded in ICE's "intel collection" systems a week before he was shot (CNN). This has prompted questions about whether this info influenced the agents' deadly actions. ICE is using facial recognition on immigrants and US citizens alike (Guardian). The agency also heavily relies on Palantir's technology (WIRED, $). Meta is blocking its users from sharing a URL to a list of ICE agents' identities (WIRED, $). The FBI is investigating the Signal chats used by Minnesota residents to track ICE (NBCNews). Some tech employees are starting to protest, but still most tech companies are not only doing nothing to oppose Trump 2.0, but most of them are actually courting his favour (NYMag, $).
The Sizzle: It seems like a lifetime ago, but a lot of Silicon Valley actually took a stand against Trump 1.0. The companies' employees flexed their muscles and opposed things like the Muslim travel ban. The companies' CEOs, who started off working with Trump, distanced themselves from the administration, fought it in court, cancelled government projects and criticised its actions. Now? They're all aboard. They're fully committed. Everything you're seeing in the news and in your social media feeds is made possible by Silicon Valley's compliance with — and in some cases, active participation in — the Trump regime.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### A developer is taking on the government in court because it won't prove myGov is secure
Australian developer Fraser Tweedale has been in a years-long battle to test the federal government's claims about myGov's security (Openmygov.au). He's been trying to FOI the source code of the myGov Code Generator from Services Australia. The agency has knocked it back, citing concerns it would compromise the app's security. Tweedale argues that releasing the code would in fact strengthen its claim to be secure, as well as having other benefits like opening up access for people who don't have Google or Apple devices. Tweedale has appealed it to the ART and has already crowdfunded $10k of his $20k target for legal representation (Pozible).
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Pornhub will stop taking new UK users because of its age check rules
Pornhub will stop accepting new UK users in protest against the Online Safety Act (Engadget). Starting February 2, UK users who haven't already created an account and verified their age will not be able to access its platform. Aylo, its parent company, says the age verification has only pushed traffic to dodgier websites who aren't doing age checks, while putting the privacy of those who do comply at risk.
Relatedly, Australia has similar porn site requirements coming into effect in March!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
NextDC boss says renewables alone cannot power Australia’s AI data centre boom (The Australian, $) Remember when I said I wasn't convinced that all of the tech companies wanted to build data centres in Australia because of our renewables? NSW gov to make AI risk assessments less "subjective" (iTnews) Apple Watch blood pressure alerts launch in Australia (Information Age) Andrew and Tristan Tate lose bid to sue Adelaide YouTuber (ABC News) "Researchers will develop a next generation multimodal AI foundation model designed for uniquely Australian contexts under a new research project backed by the nation’s defence research incubator." (InnovationAus) Aussie LLM Maincode powers Mastercard’s agent-led payments trial (SmartCompany)
Rest of World:
EU starts proceedings to assist Google in complying with tech rules (Reuters) Forcing Google to let other companies use its search data is exactly what Kagi said would help it compete Meta to test premium subscriptions on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp (TechCrunch) It's official – EVs just outsold gas-powered cars for the first time in Europe, here are 3 reasons why (TechRadar) Reddit lawyers force the founder of r/WallStreetBets to remove reference to it in a conference listing - the first time this has been done for a user-created community (Yahoo Finance) Succession: Linux kernel community gets continuity plan for post-Linus era (The Register) Android's full desktop interface leaks: New status bar, Chrome Extensions, more (9to5Google) This is an interesting tool that lets you audit websites to see how much they rely on US infrastructure (Lightwaves.io) France to ditch US platforms Microsoft Teams, Zoom for 'sovereign platform' amid security concerns (Euronews) Clawdbot changes name to Moltbot over Anthropic legal threat (GitHub)
hey if it works
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### Using your phone to transmit atomic clock radio transmissions
This is so freaking sick: Apparently, the normal radio signals used to synchronise many watches can barely get through urban areas. So Time Station (GitHub) turns just about any phone or tablet into "a low-frequency radio transmitter broadcasting a time signal that can synchronize most radio-controlled (“atomic”) clocks and watches". It uses the built-in speakers of devices, or even just headphones. So simple and cool.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
AIWA 58" 4K UHD Google TV - $274 at BIG W (Down from $549) Apple AirPods Pro 3 - $369 at Techinthebasket Polaroid 70" UHD TV - $399 at BIG W (Down from $799) JVC 55" 4K Mini LED Google TV - $419 at BIG W (Down from $599)
Computing
FANGOR 15.6" 1080p IPS Portable Monitor - $74.97 at Amazon (Down from $149.99) Aoostar WTR PRO 4 Bay NAS Ryzen 7 5825u - $568 at Amazon Gaming PC 26L mATX: AMD R7 7800X3D, RTX 5070 Ti, 850W PSU, 32GB 6000MHz CL36, 1TB 7400NVMe SSD - $3,139 at Evatech
# The End
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