GoGet emailed all their customers (around 90,000) this morning, saying they were hacked back in June 2017. A 37 year old man from Illawarra managed to get in to their system and score himself about 30 free rides before getting busted by the cops. Whilst he was rummaging around, he also came into contact with customer details, hence the email warning everyone. It apparently took so long for GoGet to contact everyone because the police advised against it, as revealing the hack could have undone their investigation into who did it.
Facebook has decided to ban advertising of ICOs on its platform, using the appropriate reasoning that ICOs are "financial products and services frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices". Even if your ICO is legitimate and you don't intend on ripping people off, too bad, Facebook doesn't want your dirty money. Meanwhile, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating the Bitfinex exchange for not having anywhere near the cash reserves it's supposed to.
On the topic of investigations into dodgy companies - Apple is getting a going over from the Department of Justice and the SEC regarding "disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models". The main concern isn't so much that people's phones were running slow, but that the stock market wasn't told about this and the fact it was happening could have mislead investors who would have used this info to decide if they want to invest in Apple shares or not. So now Apple is getting investigated over this in France, Italy, the USA and probably some other countries I forgot about.
The federal government finally responded to the 2016 inquiry about the Australian video game industry and it couldn't be any less enthusiastic about the sector if it tried. Here's a link to the full response document. There were 8 recommendations in the report - the government "noted" 5 of them, "did not support" 2 of them and "did support" 1, but refuses to do anything about it. Everyone already knew it, but this weak response confirms that the government doesn't give a rats arse about the video game industry and the benefits to the economy it could bring.
ABC journalists found a filing cabinet full of top secret government documents at an ex-lease furniture shop and posted some of them online. Inside those documents is stuff about the NBN. Back in 2009, the government wanted Telstra to invest in the NBN and make decisions about the network's direction. It also assumed wholesalers like Nextgen and Vocus would sell their assets or rent them to NBN in return for a slice of NBN. None of that happened. It's an amazing collection of policy on the run, made by people with no clue and not a single bit of consultation with the industry they wanted to radically change.
Queensland's Electric Super Highway is complete and ready for the handful of EV owners to use on their next trip up the QLD east coast. You can go all the way from Coolangatta to Cairns in your EV! Announced in July last year, the project was actually completed on time and within budget by Tritium, who provided most of the 17 fast charging stations. I'd love to link you to a map and provide info on how much it costs to charge once the 12-month trial period is over, but the QLD government's website is cooked right now. Luckily the Renew Economy article has all the details you need.
Sharp has released what I think, is a very interesting Android phone over in Japan. The Sharp Android One S3 is part of Google's wonderful AndroidOne program (Android with no bloat & regular updates for 2 years), is IP68 rated (dust & waterproof), MIL-spec rated (so it can survive a 1.2m drop), microSD card slot, decent camera and a sane-sized 5" screen. All for JPY 32,400 (approx A$365). I've been tooling around with a Xiaomi Mi A1, which is also part of the AndroidOne program and it's very, very good - a proper review of that will go up on The Sizzle's blog when I get around to it.
Someone on Whirlpool has uploaded pics of what an NBN fibre to the curb (FTTC/FTTdp) install looks like. The best pics are deeper in the thread, of the Netcomm unit that takes the NBN fibre and splits it out to the existing copper connections that go to the homes, sitting in the pit. Apparently the fibre to copper units support G.Fast, but only offer VDSL2 for now. For those in an FTTC area, the box you get in your home that you connect your router to, looks like this, and provides power to that box in the street pit. Thanks to cwd, who posted this in The Sizzle's Slack channel afternoon!
That's it, see ya tomorrow!
--Anthony
The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon. Join us on Slack and chat with other Sizzle subscribers.
The Sizzle acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.
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