### Issue 2164 - Friday 30th August, 2024

## In Today's Issue

- A US court goes against precedent in Section 230 case involving TikTok
- NIST to get AI models from Anthropic & OpenAI prior to public release for testing purposes
- FreeBSD gets cash injection from German govt, Sonos makes a public Trello board, Aussie battery company enters administration
- FUTO wants to save us from privacy compromised software
- Friday Forum Update
- Cheap 200W Ugreen battery, Alienware OLED 27" 360Hz monitor, Diablo IV for PS/XB, Lenovo 20% cashback

## The News

### A US court goes against precedent in Section 230 case involving TikTok

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a huge pillar upholding the internet as we know it. This piece of US legislation gives companies operating on the internet freedom to do things without worrying about how their users act. It allows them to make a comments section on a website without the fear of being sued for it, or in the case of this latest example, TikTok gets to host videos of kids doing the "Blackout Challenge" with no legal consequences - until now. The USA's Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit let loose that TikTok's algorithm is an "editorial judgement" because it decides what to show you, and becomes TikTok's own speech, not that of its users, so Section 230 doesn't apply. This is at odds with a number of cases involving Section 230 taken to court in the past, particularly a Supreme Court decision just last year.

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### NIST to get AI models from Anthropic & OpenAI prior to public release for testing purposes

A press release from the USA's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) explains that their AI Safety Institute entered "agreements that enable formal collaboration on AI safety research, testing and evaluation with both Anthropic and OpenAI". NIST will receive "access to major new models from each company prior to and following their public release. The agreements will enable collaborative research on how to evaluate capabilities and safety risks, as well as methods to mitigate those risks". I don't know enough about AI development to say if this is good or bad, but NIST has a history of being a pretty fair government department, so I hope they apply the same rigor to their AI investigations. Will it make a practical difference considering other LLMs/AI like Google's, Meta's and the wide array of open source ones floating around?

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### FreeBSD gets cash injection from German govt, Sonos makes a public Trello board, Aussie battery company enters administration

- I don't think about FreeBSD much these days, but it's nice to see that it received 686,400 euros from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund to "drive improvements in infrastructure, security, regulatory compliance, and developer experience". I wish Australia has a sovereign tech fund. Imagine a $10m pot of cash for various open source projects with Australian contributors and no strings attached. If I was rich I'd do that just to give back to the industry.
- Things are getting so bleak with Sonos' new app that they've resorted to releasing a public Trello board of what they're working on, lol. It was posted on Reddit by a Sonos employee, who said that "All the cards here are sourced from various posts and release notes communications (Future Feature Update, for example), including communications from Patrick directly" - Patrick being the Sonos CEO. I like the concept, but how embarrassing that this is still dragging on, goddamn.
- Simon Hackett's battery company Redflow ran out of juice this week. In a statement they said they were able to get "significant Government support", but that support required "matching funding" from Australian investors. They couldn't get Aussie investors to match the government funding, so the whole deal fell apart and the directors now reckon "Redflow is unable to continue as a going concern and have no option but to place the Redflow Group into voluntary administration". RIP another Australian green energy business.

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## Something I Saw On The Internet

### FUTO wants to save us from privacy compromised software

A Silicon Valley bloke called Eron Wolf started FUTO in 2021 after getting pissed off with Big Tech and wanting to do something about it, as he feels "the free market nor the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement have been able to stop these trends, nor even arrest their rapid acceleration". FUTO pledges to "never sell out", "never abuse our customers" and "always be transparently devoted to making delightful software". What is FUTO doing? Funding and supporting software projects themselves. Immich - a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos - is probably the highest profile project FUTO supports, along with FUTO Keyboard - a good Android keyboard with privacy in mind. FUTO also managed to enlist YouTuber Louis Rossman to be their director of community outreach. It all sounds very promising, fingers crossed it doesn't go to shit.

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## 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.

- Igneato wants opinions on DropBox vs OneDrive for storing out their parent's documents
- Wallamba is after a cheap but modern iPhone to give to some relos overseas where iPhones are a rip-off
- wezm's is investigating smart watches to pair with an Android phone running GrapheneOS
- Katzy's got an "old" 2012 iMac that still works, so they want to re-purpose it somehow instead of sending it to e-waste
- ash let us know what it's like to use those new self-checkouts at Woolworths that clip on to your trolley so you can scan as you shop

## Bargains

- 20% cashback at Lenovo's online store ($250 cap) via ShopBack
- Diablo IV for PS5, PS4 or Xbox - $29/$19 at JB Hi-Fi
- UGREEN 25Ah USB battery with 200W total output (dual 100W) - $135 from Amazon
- Refurb Alienware AW2725DF 27" 1440p QD-OLED 360Hz monitor - $899 from Dell

## Image Of The Day

Apple Marketing ToolKit November 1996 (Sketch the Cow / Internet Archive)

## The End

📻 Ovlov - Stick

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