It's the Labour Day public holiday in Victoria on Monday the 13th of March. Next issue of The Sizzle will go out on Tuesday the 14th of March.
The boss of WhatsApp has joined Signal in telling the BBC that if the UK's Online Safety Bill passes, "we won't lower the security of WhatsApp. We have never done that - and we have accepted being blocked in other parts of the world". If you've forgotten, the Online Safety Bill will make it so WhatsApp has to use "accredited technology" to scan every message for child-abuse material, even the end-to-end encrypted ones. This obviously breaks the entire concept of end-to-end encryption. Unlike Signal which is kinda niche in its use, WhatsApp is used by 70% of UK adults according to Ofcom. Pulling out of the world's 6th largest economy is a strong statement. Let's see who blinks first.
If you needed a sign that data collection has gone way too far, then news that the FBI has purchased data on people for use in a project, has to be that sign. In a US Senate Hearing, the FBI Director was asked "does the FBI purchase US phone-geolocation information?" and he replied with "I understand that we previously — as in the past — purchased some such information for a specific national security pilot project. But that's not been active for some time". Meanwhile, "a group of conservative Colorado Catholics" spent US$4m to buy data sourced from Grindr and other gay dating apps to out gay preists. With both the FBI and the Church it's unknown if the data they got was useful, but the fact they're able to do and think it might be useful is bad enough.
I reckon most of the people reading this absolutely loved playing SimCity at some point in their lives, so why hasn't there been a follow up to SimCity in the last 11 years? PC Gamer argues that the launch of that game was such a shitshow that it ruined the franchise. EA initially required users to be connected to the internet to play and there just wasn't enough server capacity for the huge demand. The press dumped on it, users left scathing reviews, but EA refused to remove the online requirement because they wanted to push its Origin platform and as a way to prevent piracy (both of which didn't work). After a few months the servers caught up and the game was okay, but then Cities Skylines happened and the rest is history. I hope they make a new SimCity one day.
Here's five interesting discussions over on The Sizzle's paid subscriber forum for you to enjoy over the weekend. If you are not a paid subscriber but want to get involved, visit https://thesizzle.com.au/payme to get onboard.
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American seasonal publication of technical information and articles, many of which are written and submitted by the readership, on a variety of subjects including hacking, telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer 'underground'. (JSEHV / Internet Archive)
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