Meta is launching paid verification for users in Australia and New Zealand this week. We are first in the world to be blessed with the ability to give Zuck US$11.99/m (or $14.99/m via Android/iOS app) and receive in return "a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support". You'll need government ID that matches the name and photo you use on either Facebook or Instagram, be over the age of 18 and meet "minimum activity requirements". Sounds like an extortion racket to me. Pay up or if something bad happens to your account, stiff shit.
Sizzle subscriber Brad let me know about some nasty shit going on at APNIC, the entity responsible for IP addresses and AS numbers in our part of the world. The Register has a proper article, but at its core there's a group of wankers called LARUS that infiltrated AfriNIC (the African equivalent of APNIC) and assigned themselves millions of IP addresses under false pretenses that they then resell and lease at a huge profit. LARUS is now looking to do the same thing with APNIC and has managed to befriend a handful of people on APNIC's executive council. Hopefully APNIC can reform their bylaws to prevent LARUS pillaging our precious IP addresses for their own personal gain.
There's a Tetris movie coming to Apple TV+ on March 31st that's pitching itself as an "80s Cold War techno-thriller", telling the true story of how Tetris was exfiltrated out of the USSR and become a worldwide hit that's still played to this day (I got stuck on the couch Sunday arvo playing Tetris 99 on the Switch - couldn't get past 25th place!!). Tetris not your thing? What about "BlackBerry", a movie that "re-creates the excitement that followed the invention of the first smartphone, amplifying the atmosphere of chaos that surrounds an industry run by brilliant but immature young men"? It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival last week, dunno when it will get a wider release. I'd like to watch it.
Quietly tucked away in a few unassuming buildings in lower Manhattan, massive flows of data pulse through some of the world's largest and most heavily guarded hubs of global internet infrastructure. (Peter Garritano)
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