Mentioned in today’s edition: The FBI, Paragon, Palantir, Apple, Infosys, Discord and VPNs. Plus, deals on Sony TVs, Logitech mice and Samsung tablets.

The News

High profile kidnapping reveals that Google can still get back your “deleted” footage

There has been an odd tech twist in a high profile US kidnapping case: Nancy Guthrie, the mother of well-known TV anchor Savannah Guthrie (who btw is Australian by birth), went missing from her house two weeks ago. The FBI has just released eerie footage of a masked invader caught on her home's Google Nest doorbell camera (ABC News). Interestingly, when police first spoke about the kidnapping, they said the house's door cam had been removed by the intruder and that it didn't have cloud storage. But now Google has been able to "retrieve" the footage (The Verge). 

The Sizzle: Google says it automatically retains up to three hours of video from this type of door cams, but promises to delete it afterwards. Cybersecurity experts are saying that the footage was able to be retrieved because it wasn’t overwritten on their servers (CBS News). Admittedly, this is one of those times when you're glad that a company was keeping more data than they said... but I do find this pretty concerning! Even if the process for retrieving the footage was onerous, I think it's fundamentally dishonest to suggest that this footage is "gone" if it's only technically deleted. And if Google can retrieve it for this purpose, they can retrieve it for any other purpose, too. 

It's pretty clear that we're in a world of personal surveillance, now powered by AI, of each other (see the backlash over Amazon Ring's Super Bowl advertisement). I guess people prefer the comfort of being able to monitor this stuff. But if that's the case, at the very least do this stuff locally and don't give Big Tech a 4K stream of everything you and everyone within eyesight are doing. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

The end of the Blu-ray creeps closer

Sony will ship its final ever Blu-ray recorder this month (Toms Hardware). The company cited "the widespread availability of streaming services" as killing demand for the device (Kyodo News). Sony had been making Blu-ray recorders since 2003, and will continue making Blu-ray players for the "time being" which seems ominous. I don't think I've personally used a Blu-ray in 10+ years but I'm not ready for the end of physical media releases... 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

The AI people are being a bit dramatic

I'm putting this down the bottom because I know some of you are sick of AI news, but it really seems like Silicon Valley is on edge. Here are some of the recent stories:

Taking a step back from the tech at the moment, I cannot remember a time when there was a greater divide between the tech industry and the public's views on something. I don't think either side is completely right but it does make for a very weird dynamic right now. 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of World:

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Oh, Also

You'd think a spyware maker would be a bit more clandestine than this

Spyware maker Paragon is one of the most notorious, sophisticated and secretive professional labs selling its tech for big bucks to states. It has been involved in illegally surveilling journalists, activists, and others around the world using zero-click exploits, despite projecting a buttoned-up vibe and claiming to be more responsible than other competitors. So, you'd think its people would have pretty good opsec. Well, X users are sharing what appears to be a real photograph posted on LinkedIn by Paragon's General Counsel that shows a demo of its tech in the background.

Oops! But hey, nothing we couldn't have found out if we simply hacked into their phones ;) 

Discuss in Slack or Forum.

Bargains

Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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