### Issue 1562 - Tuesday 8th March, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Samsung's Galaxy phone skin/theme/whatever they call it source code leaked
- Telstra to sell OneWeb LEO satellite internet because SkyMuster blows
- Apple's Peek Performance event might give us a monitor that costs less than a small car
- Russia considering ignoring copyright and IP law so they can use modern software again
- Cheap iPhone 13 Pro, Rode mic arm, Poco F3 5G, AirPods Pro, ThinkPad E14

## The News

### Samsung's Galaxy phone skin/theme/whatever they call it source code leaked

Samsung's having a bad time lately. Last week they got busted optimising benchmarks without telling people. Over the weekend researchers found a big flaw in how Samsung implements ARM's TrustZone secure area by re-using the same encryption keys allowing for easy decryption of what is supposed to be highly secure data and what experts are calling "a cardinal cryptographic sin". Today, the same hackers that hit Nvidia a few weeks ago have posted "Galaxy smartphone source code, exposing device security mechanisms like Samsung's biometric authentication for unlocking its smartphones" online.

### Telstra to sell OneWeb LEO satellite internet because SkyMuster blows

Telstra is hooking up with OneWeb to resell its low earth orbit (i.e: like Starlink) satellite internet service to Australians. Service is due to kick off in late 2022 and they have 428 satellites already in orbit. This further takes a shit on NBN's SkyMuster satellite service, which is slow as piss (25-50mbit vs. 80mbit-200mbit), has high latency (~600ms vs. 30ms) and is often congested. SkyMuster is so bad, Telstra said to the ABC that they stopped selling it because customers would complain so much and it's not worth the headache. NBN is gonna lose so many customers as soon as Telstra and Starlink ramp up promoting their services.

### Apple's Peek Performance event might give us a monitor that costs less than a small car

Apple's "Peek Performance" product launch is happening tomorrow morning, 5AM AEDT to be exact. The rumour mill has been in overdrive the past few days, predicting all kinds of stuff. On the hypothetical list is a new iPhone SE and iPad Air (IMHO two of Apple's best value products) getting 5G and SoC upgrades. More exciting to me personally is the prospect of a new "Apple Studio Display". If Apple can manage to shit out a 32" 6K monitor that's around the $2k-$3k mark (the Pro Display XDR is 8500 fucken dollars), I'd be very tempted to buy one. A new Mac Mini "Pro" might appear, featuring a new iteration of the M1 SoC with more grunt.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Russia considering ignoring copyright and IP law so they can use modern software again

The extent of Russia's ex-communication to the western world is so great, that they're thinking about "a compulsory licensing mechanism for software, databases, and technology for integrated microcircuits" - in effect, state sponsored piracy. It would be legal in Russia to copy/clone/whatever the hardware and software of any technology company that's not playing in Russia anymore, like Microsoft and Oracle for example. Not that disregarding intellectual property is something new in Russia, but it's interesting none the less to see the government tell people to go nuts and do what you need to do.

## Bargains

- iPhone 13 Pro 128GB - $1627 from Amazon (get Officeworks to price match for an extra 5% off)
- Rode PSA1 mic boom arm - $118.15 from digiDIRECT
- Xiaomi Poco F3 5G (8GB + 256GB) - $421.29 from Amazon UK
- Apple AirPods Pro with Magsafe Wireless Charging Case - $295 from MyDeal (another Officeworks price match opportunity)
- Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 (Ryzen 7 4700U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $1129 from Lenovo

## The End

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