Two Victorian hospital systems hit with cryptolocker
You can subscribe to Apple News+ in Australia now
ACCC wants NBN to reimburse customers for missed appointments & congestion
Child pornography is still running wild across the internet
Cheap iPhone 11, Nokia 9 Pureview, Nokia 7.1, Xiaomi Mi A3, HP Elitedesk 800 G2 Mini, 2015 Mac Mini
We all read of ransomware cryptolockers going wild over in the US, infecting and disabling local governments and hospitals - well it's finally happened in Victoria. A statement from the Department of Premier and Cabinet is how the public found out that Gippsland Health Alliance and the South West Alliance of Rural Health got owned, which lead to the "shutdown of some patient record, booking and management systems, which may impact on patient contact and scheduling". The hospitals have to "reschedule some services where they donโt have computer access to patient histories, charts, images and other information". Fun times for everyone involved.
Apple News+ is now live in Australia (and the UK, but who cares). It costs $14.99/m and the first month is free. There's family sharing too, so up to 6 people in your family account can share the same subscription. The content selection is unfortunately not as rich as the US and misses many Australian publications I thought would get involved. Apple News+ in Australia basically just News Corp (Herald Sun, the Australian) and Bauer Media publications. Nothing from Conde Nast or Future unfortunately, nor is there the New York Times or anything from Nine/Fairfax. I've taken up the free trial, let's see how it goes.
The ACCC has put out a draft decision to fine NBN for missing appointments and congestion. Under the proposed service standards, "the rebate for missed appointments by the NBN would increase from AU$25 to AU$75, the rebate charged for late connections and fault repairs would move to accrue daily, and a AU$20 rebate would be introduced for users of fixed wireless connected to a congested cell". The telcos are in favour of it too, as they're the ones who cop abuse when NBN drops the ball. Glad to see the ACCC elevate the importance of having an internet connection to a similar level as water or electricity.
The New York Times has a disturbing story about the rampant growth in child porn across the internet. Despite community consensus that child porn is bad and everything should be done to stop it proliferating, the amount of content being reported is growing exponentially. According to the article, the rise of easy to use strong encryption is emboldening perverts to create and share child porn, but even when it oozes out into the "regular" internet, companies like Facebook, Microsoft and in particular Tumblr are slow to react. Even government agencies tasked with fighting child porn are woefully underfunded, poorly run and unable to keep up with the latest tech. It's a mess at every level.
JB is selling the iPhone 11 64GB for $94/m and $0 up front on a 24m contract with 80GB/m of Telstra data
Nokia 9 Pureview $799, Nokia 7.1 $399, Xiaomi Mi A3 $399, all at JB Hi-Fi
Refurbished HP Elitedesk 800 G2 Mini (i5-6500T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $399 from Recompute's eBay store
2015 Mac Mini (2.6GHz i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD) - $548 at Harvey Norman
๐ถ Anxiety - Gold Minds
๐ 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 is created on Wathaurong 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.โ