Plus: This Norwegian researcher is not "Havana" good time ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

February 17, 2026 | Read online
# Court data offshoring breach, AI lawyers don't get client confidentiality and lost boy search tech Plus: This Norwegian researcher is not "Havana" good time
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Edition 2503
"ORACLE computer at Oak Ridge National Lab" by US Atomic Energy Commission is licensed under Public domain
Mentioned in today’s edition: Claude, Federal Court, Palantir, Joanna Stern, RCS messages, SA Police, VIQ Solutions, and Linux. Plus, deals on Sony headphones, Samsung Galaxy tablets and Google Pixel phones.
# The News
### Court transcript breach debacle reminds us sometimes cybersecurity is not handing data to shady subcontractors
The Australian company that does the transcription for Federal Court cases is accused of illegally handing over data to an offshore transcription automation company (ABC News). Staff at VIQ Solutions have been blowing the whistle about how Indian-based employees had access to — and in some cases were responsible for transcribing — highly sensitive court documents without the court's knowledge. Staff said transcription was happening too fast for humans and the output contained serious errors.
The Sizzle: Typing up court docs might seem not seem like an important topic, but the Federal Court hears some of the most sensitive and important information: Australian spy operations, child sexual abuse, high-profile corporate cases etc. It's also fundamentally a tech story because matters of data privacy and cybersecurity rely on understanding people's behaviour and creating oversight. We can build the most technically secure systems in the world, but as long as there's someone in the chain who is willing to bend the rules to save a buck — well, bad actors, there's your in.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Your AI lawyer does not get client-lawyer confidentiality
A US judge has rejected a bid to treat someone's conversation with an AI chatbot about their legal matters as legally privileged (Business Insider). Brad Heppner, a startup founder accused of $150m of fraud, received a subpoena for his discussions with Claude — including logs showing him game planning his legal strategy. After his lawyers claimed Heppner's chats were protected, Judge Jed Rakoff said lol no they're not and actually speaking to an AI chatbot counts as disclosing it to a third party.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### How drones, thermal sensors and AI helped with missing boy search
When Gus Lamont went missing in September last year, SA Police used some interesting tech to assist their search (Information Age). Police flew helicopters with infrared sensors, planes with specialised cameras and drones around the area where Gus disappeared to capture high-density data on the area. They then relied on AI to help analyse the data. This tech was able to immediately identify thousands of sheep, goats and kangaroos, but sadly no Gus. Still, pretty cool to be able to visually search hundreds of square kilometres in short order.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
A lesson in unintended consequences: a new tribunal set up to give Uber drivers the ability to appeal unfair account bans has led to the reinstatement of a number of drivers repeatedly accused of bad behaviour (The Sydney Morning Herald, $) Atlassian freezes hiring amid global software sell-off (AFR, $) Defence’s ‘Cyber Warfare’ unit signs biggest ever contract with Palantir(Crikey, $) LaunchVic’s Kate Cornick to join Tech Council as new CEO (Capital Brief) ‘Bullet dodged’: Aussie investors spared as US crypto giant freezes funds (The Sydney Morning Herald, $) Tony Hawk, anime and… Celeste? The many inspirations behind DENSHATTACK! (Sifter) An incredible post by someone claiming to be the sysadmin for an island (Reddit) Australia rises second globally on OECD Digital Government Index (Digital Transformation Agency)
Rest of World:
US DoD is considering declaring Anthropic a "supply chain risk" which means that no one could do business with them AND the Department (Axios) Apple, responsible for mainstreaming the podcast, has now added video podcast features just 10 years late (The Verge) A wrap of news from the ongoing India AI Summit (TechCrunch) Apple brings end-to-end encryption to RCS messages between iPhone and Android (The Verge) Amazon actively promotes some really shitty laptops (Wired, $) I Tried Running Linux on an Apple Silicon Mac and Regretted It (MSN) The EU’s Online Safety Moonshot Is Losing Altitude (Tech Policy Press) WSJ's Joanna Stern, my favourite consumer tech columnist, is signing off after 12 years (The Wall Street Journal, $) A blog comparing vibecoding to using a slot machine — and how some people are developing "token anxiety" (jkap.io)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### This Norwegian researcher is not "Havana" good time
For a few years, there's been a debate in the national security and science circles whether US diplomatic staff have been suffering from "Havana Syndrome" — a collection of symptoms purportedly created by hypersonic weapons.
The Washington Post has a super interesting article on it (archived), centred around the story of one Norwegian researcher who thought Havana Syndrome is bullshit. He set out to prove this by creating his own hypersonic weapon and testing it on himself. Unfortunately for him (in two ways) it worked and he reportedly suffered "neurological symptoms similar ... [to] hundreds of US spies and diplomats around the world." Oops!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
JB Hi-Fi $10 off with $100 spend Sangean DT800 Pocket Sized Rechargeable AM/FM Radio - $109 at Anaconda (Down from $149) Sony Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones WH-1000XM4S - $289 at Costco (Down from $549)
Computing
Samsung Galaxy tablets at Samsung S10 Lite Wi-Fi Silver 128GB for $389 S11 Wi-Fi 128GB for $1099 S10+ Wi-Fi 256GB for $1499 AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU - $393 at Rising Global Store AliExpress (Down from ~$600) MacBook Air 15" (M3) 8 Core CPU 10 Core GPU 24/512 Space Grey - $1994 at Officeworks (Down from ~$2499)
Mobile
50% off Unlimited 5G (40Mb/s Cap) SIM Plan - $20 at Felix Mobile Refurbished Google Pixel 10 Pro XL 256GB - $1262 at Green Gadgets (Down from $1998) iPhone Air 256GB - $1499 at JB Hi-Fi (Down from $1799)
# The End
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