Plus: ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 18, 2025 | Read online
# Web inventor slag off Meta's 'walled garden', Amazon kills local Alexa and hacked company needed multi-factor authentication Plus: How emoji code was used to hack US Treasury
{{OPEN_TRACKING_PIXEL}}
Issue 2293 - Tuesday 18 March 2025
Hello! I wrote a short Behind the Sizzle re: the deals section, prompted by some feedback I got from Sizzler Phil yesterday. If you’re a deal demon 😈 make sure to weigh in — CW
# The News
### World Wide Web inventor slags off Meta, makes case for open social media standards
Governments should force social media platforms into being interoperable, Tim Berners-Lee reckons (FT). The inventor of the World Wide Web has “reservations” about the state of the internet, saying “a [social media] company whose bottom line is determined by the time that people spend on a platform” — no points for guessing who — has locked people into a toxic and polarised online walled garden. Berners-Lee, who is also spruiking his new start-up that is making a personal AI assistant trained on your data, says the solution is open social media standards (Solid Project). What I like about the essay is that he actually makes a positive case about things that could be better, rather than just (rightly) complaining about how broken everything is now. As you know, I’m a big open standards guy but, let’s be real: people just want stuff that works for them. Berners-Lee gets that convincing people to make the switch means being specific about how their lives would improve.
We did not insist that we could share our Facebook photos with our LinkedIn colleagues, for example. Nor did we insist that we could use the same identity and transfer the same friend list from Instagram to X and then to Reddit.
Tim Berners-Lee
### Amazon kills local Alexa feature
Relatedly, Amazon is killing a feature that let its Alexa assistant work locally and avoid sending voice recordings to the cloud (Gizmodo). The company has sent an email to Alexa owners essentially saying that they need to gobble up that data for their new Alexa AI project.
Imgur source
It sucks that they’re taking away this feature. I also think that there are a lot of cool things in technology that rely on externally sharing data, and that doing so isn’t unequivocally a bad idea. Like, if you want Alexa or Siri to be able to answer a request like “can you find out when my mum’s plane is going to land”, you are going to need to give it access to data including your messages, contacts, and online flight tracking data. The solution to the data hungry companies who are irresponsible with our data isn’t hoarding everything from them, but — in the spirit of what Berners-Lee is talking about — is having more information and granular control over what we are sharing and how.
### Hacked Australian company being sued didn’t use multi-factor authentication
Australia’s corporate watchdog is suing a finance firm for having truly dogshit cybersecurity that led to having 18,000 of its clients’ data stolen by hackers (Information Age). ASIC alleges FIIG Securities broke the terms of its financial services licence by failing to protect its clients from Russian ransomware gang AlphV, which stole “highly sensitive customer information” including drivers’ licences, passports, TFNs and bank account details. According to ASIC, the company failed to patch its software, properly use firewalls and lacked multi-factor authentication in some situations, lol. FIIG hasn’t publicly said much in response. Also in cybersecurity news, India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs allegedly left open an AWS bucket with 1.9 million people’s records (CyberNews). Oops.
#### Leftovers
"Reshaped" National AI Centre to be run by ex-Microsoft Australia CTO (IT News) Australian security officials based in China using WeChat to speak to family, colleagues despite surveillance fears (7 News) Late Immutable accounts a glimpse into crypto game developer’s health (AFR, $) RedNote: The Chinese app shaping the Australian election (The Saturday Paper, $) AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality (404 Media, $) Bluesky users debate plans around user data and AI training (TechCrunch) Google has a fix for all of the broken Chromecasts (The Verge) Trump plan to fund Musk’s Starlink over fiber called “betrayal” of rural US (Ars Technica) Roblox’s new AI model can generate 3D objects (The Verge) CommBank invests in $97b AI lab Anthropic (Capital Brief) Password reuse is rampant: nearly half of observed user logins are compromised (Cloudflare) Exclusive: Intel's new CEO plots overhaul of manufacturing and AI operations (Reuters) A Google-backed weapon to battle wildfires made it into orbit (TechCrunch) How Google's new anti-scraping measures are forcing an industry evolution (TechRadar) A sodium-ion portable power bank comes to market (The Verge)
# Oh, Also
### How emoji code was used to hack US Treasury
Remember when we found out those those Silk Typhoon attacks that pwned US Treasury (Cyber Daily). I came across this rather amusing newsletter that used a fun hook — emojis — to explain the details of how it happened (Slam Dunk Software). It’s a very accessible read but the TLDR is: an old bug in how some software processed Unicode, the standard for displaying characters ranging from alphanumeric symbols to the 💩 emoji, opened the door for a SQL injection attack which gave access to some of the most sensitive data in government. Bonus fun bit: the newsletter also alerted me to Unicode Consortium’s official character adoption program (Unicode). It is now my life’s goal to sponsor an emoji. But which one…..
# Bargains
Electrical & Electronics
CyberPower 8-Port Surge Protector w/2x USB Charging Ports - $24 at KS Computer via Amazon AU Kogan 120W 4-Port GaN Super Fast PD Phone Charger - $34 at Kogan NOVOO 3 Port 2C1A GaN Chargers RG120 120W- $44 at Amazon AU iVANKY 4 in 1 Wireless Charging Station Cube - $44 at iVANKY AU via Amazon AU Xiaomi 67W GaN Fast Charging Hub with HDMI & Data Transfer - $49 at Mostly Melbourne EarFun Air Pro 4 Wireless Earbuds - $79 at EarFun AU via Amazon AU Lenoxx Magivaac Robot Vacuum & Mop - $104 at Catch UGREEN NEXODE 200W USB C GaN II Charger - $116 at UGREEN via Amazon AU Samsung Galaxy Buds3 (White) - $118 at Skyradar via Amazon AU Yamaha YH-E700B Over Ear Noise Cancelling Headphones - $150 at Amazon AU Lubluelu Robot Vacuum and Mop at Lubluelu Robot AU via Amazon AU SL60D White for $169 Black for $179 Bose QuietComfort SC over-Ear Headphones - $249 at JB Hi-Fi Sony EarphonesWF-1000XM5 Earphones (Black/Silver) - $312 at Audioactive Technics EAH-AZ100 Premium Wireless Earbuds with Dolby Atmos Adaptive Noise Cancelling - $375 at Amazon DE via AU WiiM Ultra Wireless Audio Streamer - $478 at WestCoast HiFi Dyson WashG1 Wet Floor Cleaner - $749 at Amazon AU Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Sapphire Edition 51mm - Carbon Gray - $999 at Amazon AU
Computing
ASUS USB-AC53 Nano AC1200 Dual-Band USB Wi-Fi Adapter - $13 at Amazon AU SanDisk 256GB Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I Memory Card - $48 at Amazon AU Apple 140W USB-C Charger - $69 at Officeworks ZSUS 14" 2160x1440 IPS Portable Monitor - $81 at ZSUS Store AliExpress Crucial Pro DDR5 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz CL36 - $114 at Amazon UK via AU SanDisk 1TB Extreme PRO microSDXC Card + SD Adapter - $145 at Amazon AU ($137 via Officeworks Price Beat) SOYO M2 PLUS 2 Mini PC (Intel N100 512GB SSD 16GB RAM Win11 Pro) - $156 at SOYO Global AliExpress Creative Sound BlasterX G6 - $159 at Creative Labs Amazon AU Creative Sound BlasterX G6 7.1 HD External USB Sound Card - $159 at Creative Labs via Amazon AU Brother HL-L2464DW Wireless Duplex Mono Laser Printer (28ppm) with Scanner - $194 at Amazon AU Logitech Combo Touch iPad Pro 11-Inch (M4) (2024) Keyboard Case - $239 at Amazon AU ASUS RT-AX86U Pro AX5700 Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 Router - $299 ($289 with Targeted Prime Offer) at Amazon AU Western Digital Black 10TB Internal Hard Drive (Back Order) - $351 at Amazon US via AU ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX6000 Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 Router - $359 at Amazon AU Lenovo Legion Y700 2023 (8.8" 2.5k 144Hz 12/256GB) - $409 at 70mai-Goldway AliExpress AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU - $429 at SZCPU Store AliExpress AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU - $555 at Comet Crash Global Store AliExpress Beelink EQR6 Mini PC (AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX CPU 24GB DDR5 RAM 500GB M.2 SSD) - $559 at Beelink Official Store Amazon AU AOOSTAR WTR PRO 4 Bay NAS (Ryzen 7 5825U 3x NVMe 2x 2.5G LAN HDMI/DP/USB-C) - $564 at Aoostar AliExpress GL.iNet GL-XE3000 (Puli AX) Wi-Fi 6 5G Cellular Router - $580 at GL.iNet via AliExpress Lenovo Legion Y700 2025 (8.8" 165Hz 12GB/256GB SD8 Gen 3) - $600 at 70mai-Goldway AliExpress
Mobile
15% off Travel eSIM Card at Nesa Mobile
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply!
💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news.
🗣️ The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide.
## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land
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.
Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 The Sizzle PO Box 351 Bacchus Marsh, VIC 3340, Australia
Powered by beehiiv
Terms of Service