In the tunnel. Somewhere.
Iām seeing some of my contract workload slow down right now. Some other parts are picking up. And freelance journalism is slooooooow. So overall, itās not entirely balancing itself out. But I know Iām still far luckier than many.
My best guess is that weāre past the beginning and now weāre in the thick of the tunnel. But no one is quite sure how long the tunnel is. So a lot of businesses are tightening the belts a little harder. Until the other end is a little clearer, things are going to be pretty quiet.
Iām happy to live in a regional town. Iām happy to live in Australia. Iām happy I have a very good NBN connection. Iām happy my wife and kids are safe. Iām happy I live a rich digital life.
Iām hopeful for our situation, especially compared to many parts of the world. Slow and steady from here.
I hope you can find some hope too. Take care, stay safe, stay sane.
On Byteside
Marc Rogers on CTI-League's "Hackers without borders"
Jetpacks Are Overrated podcast: A fascinating chat with Marc Rogers, head of cybersecurity at Okta and long-time SecOps lead for legendary hacker conference DEFCON.
byteside.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
A tracking app is just fancy contact tracing
Byteside podcast: This weekās podcast features a look at Australiaās contact tracing app plans, Minecraft RTX, playing digital boardgames and Fortniteās next virtual concert!
byteside.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Esports aggregation with Ben Goldhaber, CEO of Juked.gg
High Resolution podcast: Ben Goldhaber, co-founder and CEO of Juked.gg, talks about his esports aggregation site, why theyāve created it, and where it all goes next.
byteside.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
iPhone SE Review: a powerful new iPhone just like your old iPhone
Alice Clarkeās review of the new iPhone SE is published on Byteside! If you want to stick to that familiar, comfortable old physical design, then the iPhone SE will be that next device to cling to for another 4-5 years to come.
byteside.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
'Rona roundup
Newly unemployed, and labeling photos for pennies
People whoāve lost jobs and are stuck indoors are turning to crowd workāfilling out online surveys and transcribing audio for less than the minimum wage.
www.wired.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Coronavirus is driving celebrities to Cameo in droves
A mixture of boredom and cashflow has a lot more celebrities heading to Cameo, where you can buy short video messages. We might end up with a special Cameo on next weekās Bytesideā¦
www.vice.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Netflix releases 10 educational films and series free on YouTube
Netflix offers some films and series for free on YouTube as a way to help teachers during the COVID-19 quarantine.
variety.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Meetings from a galaxy far, far away
Thereās been a lot of these doing the rounds. But this one was simply the best. Youāll now see me appearing live from a Rebel base or sometimes the Falcon.
www.starwars.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Big news
Facebook and Google to face mandatory code of conduct
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says a mandatory code will help level the playing field by requiring digital platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay news media businesses for the content they produce.
www.abc.net.au Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Ransomware is now the biggest online menace you need to worry about
Ransomware attacks have overtaken credit card theft as the top form of cybercrime according to new data.
www.zdnet.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Sonos launches streaming radio service
Sonos has announced Sonos Radio, a free new service that offers access to local stations on TuneIn and iHeartRadio, plus original programming like artist-curated and genre-based stations.
www.theverge.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Fascinating
The stockbrokers of Magic: The Gathering play for keeps
The market for the popular strategy gameās cards has started to resemble Wall Street, complete with speculation, arbitrage, and yes, insider trading.
www.wired.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Want to find a misinformed public? Facebookās already done it
While vowing to police COVID-19 misinformation on its platform, Facebook let advertisers target users interested in āpseudoscienceā.
themarkup.org Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Facebookās ad tech helps Trump win
This great article is about a lot more than Trump. Itās about the machinery of AI-powered message targeting online. Well worth a read. Example:
āA āFacebook adā is less an ad and more a machine for producing ads. Instead of paying to put particular media in front of a specific audience, an advertiser now pays Facebook to deliver a selected outcome from a certain stripe of people.ā
www.theatlantic.com Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Gems from the archives
I found a few links to interesting stories from last year lurking in a folder. Hereās some useful / interesting reads that arenāt so new!
Why 'ji32k7au4a83' is a remarkably common password
An interesting dissection of one seemingly-strong password leads to some fun insights into how things flow back and forth across international boundaries.
www.gizmodo.com.au Ā ā¢ Ā Share
Find and delete old email addresses
Weāve all got them. Weird old email addresses lurking in the recesses of the internet. Cleaning them up is good for your security and privacy so go do it.
www.lifehacker.com.au Ā ā¢ Ā Share