Issue 1465 - Tuesday 5th October, 2021

In Today's Issue

The News

Everything Facebook owns was down for multiple hours due to a BGP routing error

Unless you've been doing something productive all morning, you probably know by now that Facebook shit the bed. Like most "wahhh I can't access the website", it was a combination of DNS and BGP errors, which is kinda boring and happens all the time - what is unique about this scenario is the vast swathe of stuff taken down because nobody's ISP could find a route to Facebook's servers. Whatsapp, Instagram, Messenger, everything Facebook related died, including access to physical buildings because their fancy IoT locks use Facebook's DNS servers. It even caused problems for other DNS servers as all the Facebook apps kept trying to resolve Facebook's domains constantly. Cloudflare have a technical explanation for what happened that I recommend reading if you're interested in how the sausage is made.

Windows 11 is ready for the general public, reviewers have lukewarm response

Windows 11 is now out of beta and ready for the early adopters to install on their computers (here's how to grab an ISO if the upgrade doesn't appear in Windows Update). Lots of hot takes from ArsTechnica, The Verge, Anandtech and PCWorld. Reviewers like the new window management stuff, find the touch screen and pen support great on tablets and appreciate the slight UI overhaul. They don't like how much of a hassle it is to set a default browser other than Edge, the fact you can't move the taskbar to the side/top anymore, the UI changes are still not consistent with remnants of Windows 8 & 10 still lurking and the fact that if your PC doesn't support TPM 2.0 you won't get security updates. I'm gonna try and install Windows 11 on my PCs tonight. I don't even know if they have TPM 2.0, so that'll be fun.

Big telecommunications company you've never heard of with fingers in many pies has been hacked

Syniverse, "a common exchange hub for carriers around the world passing billing info back and forth to each other" and "carries sensitive info like call records, data usage records, text messages, etc", told the SEC that an unknown "individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers" - customers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Vodafone and China Mobile - since May 2016. Dunno what was pilfered exactly, but that level of access, for that long, to that type of system, can't be good. One researcher quoted in the article reckons things like 2FA SMS could have been intercepted.

Something I Saw On The Internet

S7 Apple Watch sale date, Bezos taking Shatner to space, 10 years of Siri, iPad mini jelly scrolling, GTHO Phase III NFTs

Bargains

eBay's got a chunky 15% off selected tech items sale on for Plus members. Here's some good stuff:

The End

📻 Too Many - Moaning Lisa

😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "@decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.

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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.​