Some of you might already have seen this on social media, but if you haven't - update your all your Apple devices ASAP. Citizen Lab was digging around the iPhone of a Saudi activist and found a particularly nasty 0-day 0-click iMessage exploit put there by old mate NSO Group. They're calling it FORCEDENTRY. According to Citizen Lab, "the exploit works by exploiting an integer overflow vulnerability in Apple's image rendering library (CoreGraphics)" and is kicked off when the attacker sends a bunch of malformed Adobe PSDs and PDFs disguised as GIFs.
Accenture has scored the task of replacing Australia's paper based passenger declaration forms (that slip you fill in on the plane when you fly into Australia) with a computerised system that will also collect incoming passenger's COVID-19 vaccination status. Apparently this will be an off-the-shelf Accenture product that they'll configure for the government, with the plan of it launching before the end of the year/Australia's international border re-opens. The digital passenger declaration will be completed by passengers via an app or website before they board the plane. The government plans on using this Accenture platform for "visas, import permits, personnel identity cards, licenses, registrations and other documents" at some point.
Queensland cops are trialing an "actuarial tool" (aka, dumb AI) to "develop a risk assessment of all potential domestic and family violence offenders". This new system will pull data from Qprime and try to find patterns of "offences related to risk-taking behaviour and a disregard for the safety of others". Superintendent Ben Martain said that "with this cohort of perpetrators, who our predictive analytical tools tell us are most likely to escalate into further DFV offending, we are proactively knocking on doors without any call for service". Lots of scope for this to go wrong and unfairly branding people as domestic violence abusers without having done anything of the sort. Queensland police aren't exactly the brightest sparks.
The price of Litecoin shot up 30% and then tanked 20% in less than an hour due to a totally fake press release claiming to be from Walmart said the retail giant would be accepting Litecoin in their stores. The press release was picked up by Reuters and published without any fact checking, leading to the spike in value. I guess this happens with stocks on the ASX or NASDAQ or whatever, but at least there's punishments (well, there's supposed to be punishments, in theory) for pulling that kind of stunt. The cryptocurrency market is so heavily manipulated that it's useless as a currency and as an asset class, makes the traditional stockmarket seem totally sane.
There's yet another sale featuring Afterpay for eBay Plus members. Get 15% off "eligible tech items" using the code PLUS10T & PXTRA5 and making payment with Afterpay. Ends at 23:59 tonight!
📻 Not Too Amused - Sebadoh
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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.