Issue 1996 - Friday 15th December, 2023

In Today's Issue

The News

Ubiquiti had a UniFi notification & dashboard access oopsie

Users of Ubiquiti's UniFi products have posted on Reddit and on the Ubiquiti forums that they've been getting push notifications from security cameras destined for other users and getting logged in to other user's UniFi dashboards. It's not widespread (at least my UniFi account seems to be acting normally) but it's more than zero and that is bad. Uniquiti has responded saying this "bug allowing access to other customers' devices was caused by a misconfiguration in an upgrade to the UniFi cloud infrastructure" and is now fixed. They are "still investigating the incident but believes that only twelve accounts were improperly accessed by other Ubiquiti customers. Account holders whose accounts were accessed by mistake will be notified via email".

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SMS Sender ID Registry trial begins & School Student Broadband Initiative extended

Two interesting press releases from the comms minister today. First up is the start of an SMS Sender ID Registry trial. The Registry "will help stop scammers from spoofing trusted brand names – like Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank – and slipping into legitimate text exchanges to deceive Australians". Still don't know the technical details of this, but good to see something done about it. The other announcement is an extension of the School Student Broadband Initiative. The government is giving NBN more money so they can give more families with school aged kids free internet access via community organisations for those in need. Maybe if the NBN wasn't so fucking expensive in the first place it wouldn't be needed, alas.

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Consolidated Industry Codes of Practice for the Online Industry are now enforceable

The eSafety Commissioner will start enforcing the Consolidated Industry Codes of Practice for the Online Industry (Class 1A and Class 1B Material) as of tomorrow (16th Dec 2023). This means if you see any of the following practically anywhere on the internet: "unlawful material (such as child sexual abuse material) on the service, could not find sufficient safety features, tools, or acceptable use policies or terms of service could not find safety information on the use of the service, made a complaint to the service in relation to unlawful material or possible non-compliance with an industry code and it was not resolved, and/or responded to and were unable to make a complaint, or report content and/or misuse to the service" you can dob that service in to the eSafety Commissioner via this form.

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Something I Saw On The Internet

Wikipedia has a decent chunk of cash in its pocket

I love Wikipedia and use it daily, so it makes sense to give them a few bucks when they ask for it yeah? Maybe not! The Wikimedia Foundation (which owns and operates Wikipedia) is flush with cash and hardly spends it on anything except more fundraising - a stark contrast to the desperate messages splashed across Wikipedia with co-founder Jimmy Wales begging for your money like Wikipedia's life depended on it. The site itself "only" costs around US$10m/yr to operate and they currently have a US$300m endowment. That's not to say Wikimedia doesn't deserve your money - give them some bucks if you like their work! But if your donation budget is limited, that cash is probably better off elsewhere in my opinion. Wikipedia is just fine and has enough cash on hand for decades without having to raise a single cent. If it dies or enshittifies, it's not due to a lack of funds.

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Friday Forum Update

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.

Bargains

Image Of The Day

The More, the Better, alternatively referred to as Dadaikseon is a video sculpture created by Nam June Paik for the purpose of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art during the 1988 Summer Olympics. The sculpture consists of a tower measuring 8.5 meters (60.7 feet) in height and 11 meters in diameter, adorned entirely with an impressive arrangement of 1,003 cathode ray tube (CRT) television monitors. The work still stands in the rotunda of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The artwork incorporates a collection of Samsung televisions of various sizes and ages, showcasing the diversity and rapid advancements in television technology. (Wikipedia)

The End

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