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2243. US spills on China telecom hack, crypto's big 2025 and tech in Aussie election firing line

Plus: is Elon Musk's #1 fanboy actually a Musk alt?

Author

Cam Wilson
January 06, 2025

Issue 2243 - Monday 6th January, 2025

Heya!

If everything has gone to plan, you will be reading me, Cam Wilson, in your inbox. Other than replacing the bloke behind the keyboard and a few tiny tweaks, it’s business as usual at The Sizzle HQ. (If there any teething issues, please contact me but also blame Anthony who is probably somewhere tropical drinking a mimosa).

I hope you had a good holiday break and look forward to Sizzling with you this year.

In Today’s Issue

  • US government spills on China’s telecom hack

  • Crypto is, sigh, so back

  • Tech in the firing line for the Australian election

  • Cheap OnePass subscription, Dyson air purifying headphones, Samsung Odyssey G91SD 49’’ screen, ANKO power pack, Apple Watch Series 10, Coles prepaid mobile deal & more

The News

US government spills on China’s telecom hack

Remember how the US started telling senior bureaucrats and politicians last year to use encrypted messaging because China had gotten inside its telcos? The Wall Street Journal just dropped a big piece (gift link) about the mind-blowing extent of the “intrusions”. According to American government sources raising the alarm ahead of potential conflict with China — so keep in mind their angle — Chinese hacking groups got into everything from infrastructure, like hacking the Port of Houston in 31 seconds, to AT&T’s networks where they swiped data from a million users including audio of Trump calls and from people in Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. While some hacks were sophisticated, others happened simply because sites used old routers that were no longer supported for security updates lol. Relatedly, Akamai is getting out of the China business because it all seems pretty complicated.

Crypto is, sigh, so back

After a brief reprieve, the election of US President Donald Trump is probably going to force us to start paying attention to cryptocurrency again. During the election campaign lobbyists poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Trump and “crypto-friendly” candidates. Now, the crypto industry is being rewarded with their goblins of choice being appointed to senior government roles. Our treasurer Jim Chalmers put his finger to the wind and is now credulously saying that cryptocurrency — which is still mostly used by people for wild speculation, buying drugs, other crimes, or some combination of the three — will be “important” to the financial system. Cool. Anyway, there’s an Australian start-up that raised $35 million last year to give out crypto-backed loans. And new research suggests nearly AU$800million was drained from crypto wallets by scammers last year. Let’s see if we can pump those numbers!

Tech in the firing line for the Australian election

If you thought the teen social media ban would be the end of the populist Australian political war on technology, you were sorely mistaken! Opposition leader Peter Dutton continued the “tough guy on tech” shtick in a podcast where he reportedly told its Olympic diver host that “Facebook and Meta … basically just gave us the middle finger” when the Australian Centre to Child Exploitation asked for help to stop online pedophile networks. This seems a little out of character, considering there were 17 million referrals by Facebook to the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in 2023 alone, but presumably this has something to do with Meta’s move to end-to-end encrypted messaging which admittedly will hamstring CSAM detection. Dutton also talked up the teen social media ban which the UK government has gone from embracing to now walking away from. Probably not top of mind for Dutton but the federal government’s Digital Transformation Agency will start reporting gifts from tech giants too which seems to be a good idea. 

Oh, Also

Is Elon Musk super fanboy “Adrian Dittmann” actually Musk?

For a while, people have been wondering whether the world’s richest man Elon Musk secretly runs a Musk fanboy X (formerly Twitter) account under the name of Adrian Dittmann. The evidence for Dittmann being a Musk alt was pretty much that “he” posted and spoke like him; as well as the fact that he was so pro-Musk that it was hard to believe it was a real dude. Then, last week a post purportedly by Dittmann on 4chan appeared to show that the account had X admin privileges, suggesting that he wasn’t just some rando. But, as it turns out, that screenshot was fake and Dittmann is probably a German guy living in Fiji who just really loves Musk. Anyway, X, the free speech platform, started suspending users for sharing links with publicly available evidence about the “real” Dittmann.

Bargains

The End

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal 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.

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