You may have heard a story going around social media that a large DDoS botnet made up of 3 million smart toothbrushes attacked a Swiss company. A handful of people even sent me links saying it would be a good story for The Sizzle! It was originally reported in a Swiss newspaper, quoting a cybersecurity expert that works for the Swiss division of Fortinet, but none of the Fortinet blogs mention it. When 404 Media asked Fortinet what the deal is, they replied with "the topic of toothbrushes being used for DDoS attacks was presented during an interview as an illustration of a given type of attack, and it is not based on research from Fortinet or FortiGuard Labs. It appears that due to translations the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred". It was widely reported by English-speaking outlets such as ZDNet and Tom's Hardware, but they didn't do any basic fact checking to see if it was true either and just repeated the suspicious claims in the Swiss newspaper. Shit's fucked yo.
The government has floated a "right to disconnect" as part of its big update to the Fair Work legislation. It's a reaction to shithead bosses expecting a response to emails, messages and phone calls outside the times you're being paid to work and is particularly annoying for people who work from home (like many of the people reading this). A few European countries have it already and even some EBAs in Australia have included similar rules. Bosses can still send messages and whatnot, but as the Minister for Workplace Relations says, "if you don't respond because it's not your paid time, you've got a guarantee that you can't be punished for it". Now that the Greens and some independent Senators have agreed with the ALP a right to disconnect is a good idea it's set to become law whenever the wider Fair Work updates are worked out and passed in the near future.
We all hear about the looming IPV4 address shortage, but how do you actually buy an IP address and what do they cost? This article on Low End Box lists that you can buy them pretty damn easily for not much coin. You can lease a /24 block of IPV4 space for just US$0.50-$2 per IP address per month. There's also marketplaces like IPXO that have offers between US$0.36-0.70 per IP address per month. If you wanna buy an IP address instead of leasing, IPv4.Global will sell ya a /24 block for US$10,000 - yours for life. For something supposedly in scarce supply, IPV4 addresses aren't that difficult or expensive. Might even be a decent investment just to buy a block of IPs, lease them out and see what happens in 10-20 years. An IP address landlord if you will.
Press Photos for the iPod Shuffle (Wilhelm4 / Internet Archive)
📻 Dogs Are The Best People - The Fauves
😎 The Sizzle is curated by Anthony "decryption" Agius and emailed every weekday afternoon.
💬 Checked out the paid subscriber only forum? It's a tidy little place to discuss tech with like minded Aussies.
👋 Forums not your thing? The Sizzle has a Slack group you can procrastinate in and chat with other nerds bored at work.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and buy them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
📚 Browse The Sizzle Archive. A few issues are missing and it's not searchable, but it's better than nothing.
🫂 Friends of The Sizzle is a small group of businesses or organisations operated by Sizzle subscribers. Support your fellow Sizzler!
💔 Tired of my bullshit? Unsubscribe and I'll never speak to you again.
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.
