Plus: A hidden gift in Qantas’ ‘sorry we got hacked’ email ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

July 15, 2025 | Read online
# Ban card surcharges, AI email summaries and starting an ISP Plus: A hidden gift in Qantas’ ‘sorry we got hacked’ email
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Edition 2374
"Final score" (Flickr: martinjansen)
# The News
### Get rid of those stingy card surcharges and save money? Sounds good to me
The billion dollars spent by Aussies on credit and debit card surcharges could be a thing of the past, under the Reserve Bank’s proposed new rules (Guardian). Its review of the card system (RBA) has recommended getting rid of the ban on surcharges after payment providers said it would be simpler than doing it for just debit cards as promised by Labor. The bank’s modelling says this idea, paired with a proposed forced reduction in fees charged per transaction and mandatory reporting of fees, would mean that 9/10 businesses would be better off.
The Sizzle: Even as a fellow small business owner — the backbone of this economy, Australia’s true battlers — I’ll admit it’s bullshit when businesses whack some random surcharge on top of your transaction. Businesses are already legally prohibited from having “excessive” card surcharges but no one enforces that. And by slapping the charges on consumers, it means you don’t have any incentive to actually shop around for a good deal.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### AI email summaries are going to cause some big headaches
Since May this year, Gmail has been showing AI summaries for your emails by default (Engadget). Last week, German outlet t-online reported that Google’s summary of its editor-in-chief’s newsletter incorrectly translated them saying that “there’s a lot of travel these days” to something like “this day will be filled with ghosts/spirits” (t-online translated). Meanwhile, researchers found they could hijack the summaries to send users to phishing websites (Bleeping Computer).
The Sizzle: Email is one of those things that we expect to be free from intrusion by platforms. The deal that most people accept is tha Google can target me with ads using my email, but only if it doesn’t alter them. I fear that inserting AI between email recipients and senders is going to create a lot of problems.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Why complain about your ISP instead of just… making your own?
Two Midwest guys have launched their own local ISP because they were fed up with Comcast’s monopoly in the area (Ars Technica). The pair have already gotten 100 customers for their fiber-only ISP Prime-One, and are confident that they will get the 30% of the homes in the area that would mean they are profitable. The pair offer faster speeds, unlimited data, free installation and routers as well as having an actual store people can walk into for support — all for cheaper than Comcast.
Bet installing your own fibre would feel good ASF
The Sizzle: It’s not the first time that some guy in the US has built his own ISP to deal with the truly shithouse infrastructure they have in parts of the country (Ars Technica). Now, these guys aren’t ordinary guys; the Prime-One founders were already ISP construction contractors. Still, #goals. (One thing I’ve been wondering lately … surely it wouldn’t be that hard to set up a Sizzle MVNO? If you know, email me).
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Calls for guidelines after Greater Western Water documents reveal potential data centre water usage (ABC News) Consultation on new mandatory SMS ID Register rules (ACMA) Start-up dealmaking hits $2.9b this year, almost equal to entire 2024 (AFR, $) Optus-led consortium to launch and operate sovereign LEO satellite (ARNnet) Third time’s a charm: Gilmour readies another launch attempt (InnovationAus, $) “Last week, we responded to a security incident affecting an ASX Top 100 company… which originated from a broad, opportunistic malware distribution campaign targeting children through tampered Roblox game modifications” (Dvuln on LinkedIn) New ASIC rules mean insurance brokers need to get consent before getting commissions from product recommendations (Security Brief Australia) A Sober Australian Overview of the AI Value Chain (Raph Dixon) Hands-on with the Galaxy Z Fold7: Love it, but… (Gadget Guy) Five EU states to test age verification app to protect children (Reuters) iPhone 17 enters trial production in India (Apple Insider) Weekly subscriptions dominate iOS app revenue, report finds (TechCrunch) Google exec: ‘We’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android’ (TechRadar) Google Indonesia tangled up in $600 million Chromebook corruption probe (The Register) Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to $200 million for AI work from Defense Department (CNBC) Elon Musk’s AI bot adds a ridiculous anime companion with ‘NSFW’ mode (The Verge) AI ‘Nudify’ Websites Are Raking in Millions of Dollars (WIRED, $) If you’re wondering why half the internet broke tonight for a short period, TCS accidentally hijacked Cloudflare (Kevin Beaumont) Death by a thousand slops (Daniel Steinberg)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### A secret present in Qantas’ ‘sorry we got hacked’ email
Adam Kent was poking around the Qantas’ email to customers who were caught up in its privacy breach and noticed something unusual: the bullet points were a 717 kilobyte PNG file (Aus Social). Even weirder, gtch and jpwarren in the Sizzle Slack noticed that the metadata for the 717 kilobyte PNG file said it was created by OpenAI’s GPT-4o. Between this and the fact that Qantas’ hack support page is intentionally hidden from search engines (Zach Whittaker) — kinda feels like they’re taking the piss, hey?
worth EVERY kilobyte
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electrical & electronics
The Good Guys: 18% Cashback (Capped at $150) Dahua M6 Series 1296p Mini Dash Cam for $59.99 at Costco Philips Hue Light Strip Plus 2m Base Kit for $75.05 at Amazon AU Samsung HW-S61D AIO Soundbar 5.1 for $367 at Amazon AU Sigma 24mm F/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon for $599 at C.R. Kennedy Photo & Imaging Bambu Lab P1S 3D Printer for $669 at Bambu Lab Samsung Q800f Q Series 5.1.2 Channel Soundbar for $794 at Harvey Norman Samsung 75" QLED Q7F 4K Vision AI Smart TV (2025) for $1319 at Samsung EPP Rane One DJ Controller for $1649 at Derringers Music ViewSonic X2-4K LED Short Throw 4K Projector for $2399 at My Projectors
Computing
Lenovo: 15% Cashback Kamrui E2 Mini PC: Win11 Pro, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, N97 Wi-Fi White for $209.10 at KAMRUI Official AU eBay Lenovo Legion Y700 Gen 4 (CN ROM, 8.8" 3k, 165Hz, 12/256GB) for $608 at Lenovo Smart 3C Store AliExpress Apple MacBook Air 13" M2 16GB/256GB Space Grey for $1078.65 at CompNow Clearance Store eBay Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 AI 350, 16GB RAM (2x8 Sodimm), 16" 2880x1800 Oled, HDR True Black 1000 for $1292.98 at Lenovo Online Store Apple MacBook Air MC9D4X/A: 15", M3, 8-Core CPU, 10-Core GPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD (Space Grey) for $1399 at JB Hi-Fi Inno3d GeForce RTX 5070 Ti X3 16GB Graphics Card for $1399 at Umart Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16" OLED Laptop: U9 275HX, 5070Ti, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD for $4030 at Lenovo Edu
Mobile
Google Pixel 7 5G 128GB Obsidian for $388 at JB Hi-Fi
# The End
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