Issue 2255 - Wednesday 22 January, 2025

In Today’s Issue

The News

Trump’s tech takeover begins

The Trump administration has wasted no time in shaping the world under its tech-takes-all agenda (ArsTechnica). Gone is a requirement for AI companies to share testing data if their product presents a risk to things like national security or public safety (Archive.is, dead original White House link). Instead, AI and other tech leaders stood alongside Trump to launch a supposedly AU$800 billion AI tech company partnership called the “Stargate Project” (The Verge) which OpenAI’s Sam Altman claimed only would have happened under Trump. Hate to give it to them but it’s a cool name. Gone, too, are pro-EV initiatives (Reuters). Trump ordered an extension of TikTok’s sale deadline, and people seem to be mostly going along with it even though it’s seemingly unconstitutional (CNN). DOGE — Elon Musk’s beloved Department of Government Efficiency — has come into existence by taking over a minor, boring department called the US Digital Service (The Register), but, in a classic Trump bait-and-switch, DOGE looks on paper like it’s going to end up doing digital transformation rather than supposedly finding trillions of dollars of government wastage. The Department of Homeland Security immediately cleared out all its advisory boards, meaning that the review into China’s systematic hacking of US telecoms has been killed (Bluesky). Even a government app that let asylum seekers apply to enter the US legally was shut down (NBC News).

I promised in last edition that there wouldn’t be too much more coverage of political intrigue by itself. We didn’t have to wait long to see how it would play out and impact tech. This is only the beginning.

ACMA gets stick to whack telcos, but spare a thought for Optus MVNOs

The Albanese government wants to give regulator ACMA the power to penalise telcos for up to $10 million for breaching the industry’s codes and standards (Department of Communications). They’re also introducing a registration scheme for telcos which would “empower the ACMA to stop CSP [Carriage Service Providers] operating in the market where they’ve been found to pose unacceptable risk to consumer” but I’m a little unclear how this will work. I’ll chase up.

On this topic, MVNO provider Circles.Life has passed over all of its customers Amaysim (EFTM), but Catch Connect, another MVNO, will not be affected by the decision to shut down Catch.com.au (WhistleOut). Even still, as flagged with me by reader Dave Hall, not a great time to be an Optus MVNO!

Australia’s election at risk of cyberattacks and misinfo

Cybersecurity and online misinformation are listed as potential threats to the upcoming Australian federal election in a report from our electoral commission’s integrity taskforce (AEC). I’m glad to see they’re not over-egging the threat of deepfakes because, despite fears — including my own at one point — the huge number of 2024 elections showed that AI-created fake video and audio didn’t end up playing a huge role (The Conversation). Much like people fear-mongering about social media “bots” that are supposedly manipulating elections, the real threat is how real people are convincing people of sensationalist or false narratives like they always have, albeit sometimes aided with new technology. We don’t need AI when many of us have already generated worldviews of each other based on bullshit and fear. Anyway, the best thing a politician could do to stop tech threatening our elections is to turn on software updates and use a password manager.

Oh, Also

What were the best self-hosted apps launched last year?

I’d been meaning to share this one for a while: here’s a great blog post that collates some very cool self-hosted apps that were released in 2024.

I haven’t had a chance to install any yet, but I’ve got my eyes on the YouTube downloader Pinchflat and the RSS+Reddit+everything reader Glance.

Bargains

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday afternoon. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.