After being the target of a typically vile Kiwi Farms harassment campaign and managing to get Cloudflare to drop Kiwi Farms as a customer, Liz Fong-Jones investigated Kiwi's new host, discovering that the IP addresses used by 1776 Solutions LLC (Kiwi Farms) are part of APNIC's range and currently owned by a company called Flow Chemical, run by Brisbane man Vincent Zhen. Liz let the eSafety Commissioner know, but they did nothing, so Liz sued Flow Chemical for defamation a year ago. Today she won the case, mostly because Vincent ignored the lawsuit and didn't show up to defend themselves in the Victorian supreme court. Liz gets $455,000 plus legal costs for their trouble, but it's still a bit of a grey area if the owner of an Australian IP address can be liable for the defamatory content they host due to the default judgement.
The ACCC's regional mobile infrastructure inquiry has finally been made public and in it is a recommendation that the federal government get the telcos together to create a framework that'll force them to allow temporary network roaming during emergencies. So for example, there's a flood and you're on Vodafone but you have no coverage, you can use Telstra or Optus because they might have coverage where you are. Or a fire knocks out a Telstra tower but Optus still have coverage everyone can use. The good news is that Telstra and Optus and the communication's minister are all for it. The minister asked a bunch of agencies to come up with something for the government to look at further by March.
Apple has shitcanned "The Problem With Jon Stewart" after two seasons due to "creative differences" between Jon and Apple. According to the New York Times, "Mr. Stewart and Apple executives had disagreements over some of the topics and guests on 'The Problem,' two of the people said. Mr. Stewart told members of his staff on Thursday that potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence were causing concern among Apple executives, a person with knowledge of the meeting said. As the 2024 presidential campaign begins to heat up, there was potential for further creative disagreements, one of the people said". I always find it interesting what lines Apple will and won't cross. Not surprised disparaging China is one of them.
Jason Koebler has a story in 404 Media about how Mastodon is good and to not be afraid of it. It's not difficult to use, people will not be angry with you for using it wrong and it's the best Twitter replacement there is. Threads is yet another bland Zuck hell hole, Bluesky is literally the brain fart of Jack Dorsey and Twitter gets worse every day as Musk pisses all over it. I use Mastodon regularly and it's my go-to for "I want to post something short and sweet, probably with a photo or two, to the internet". All you gotta do is visit aus.social and sign up. If you need people to follow, there's a thread on The Sizzle forums listing subscribers to this newsletter who are also on Mastodon. Ivory is a great app on Mac & iOS and Elk is a great web interface.
In the relatively short history of computer science, Ada Lovelace stands out as one of the early female pioneers of this emerging technology in the nineteenth century. Through her incredible intellect and mathematical genius, Lovelace played a key role in interpreting and publicising Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, earning her the nickname "The Enchantress of Numbers from Babbage himself. A true innovator who was ahead of her time, the legacy of Lovelace serves as an inspiration for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to this day. (@voltagex got me this coin as a gift, but you can get one from the Royal Mint)
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