Doesn't count as it is not in America.

A lot of people get there phones on a plan or with a handset bundles in which requires a credit check, as the Telco is basically leasing you a phone with no residual.

In Australia for a credit check you need 100 points of ID which include a mixture of the above.

These are split into 30 categories where you need 1 with a photo ID.

Optus specific: https://www.optus.com.au/for-y...

Windows 11 has been such a boon to me with the ad-hoc 'improvements' and arbitrary changes to my configs after every update, I've decided to upgrade my experience and install Windows 10.

I've been a MS used since DOS 3.0, but Windows 11 has finally pushed me to install a Linux distro and seriously look and taking that leap, especially when they start forcing an upgrade.

Zoom, enhance, enhance more

LG and Samsung jamming crap down to their devices that you pay for is one of the reasons I stopped buying the phones from these two. Why are manufacturers so arrogant in this realm that they they this is okay?

Is it because there is a lack of competition at the level they are at so they can just do what ever they want?

Oh yeah!

I wonder if this was known before launch, or if it is a case of we didn't test it with real world users?

Broad as in wide or varied, not females

Well I hope NastyPhil got a grant from the Federal Government for his new venture.

Absolutely agree with this comment. But with any large organisation, it is a lumbering beast, and when asked to run it tends to fall over. Structured change is better than constant change, and with many sections of government 'decisions' it tends to be reactive rather than tempered pro-activity.

Firstly I love to kick the crap out of Aussie banks as much as the next person. It is a national past time down her under the rest of the world.
The Aussie banking system is regulated up the wazoo,with APRA and ASIC constantly moving the regulations around to protect people from the perceived 'predatory' ways of the 'Big' Banks, being NAB, Westpac, ANZ and CBA in recent time. Now firstly these banks make obscene amounts of profits, and in the past have made some monumental screw ups/crap decisions, as have most large business, but really a big chunk of this is protection is because people want to borrow more money than they can afford so they can keep up with the Jones'.
Which brings us to the point in question, when one of the regulators makes a change, it causes a lot of change to be made across the business which takes time and money to implement. The banks aren't actually receiving any benefit from these changes, in most cases are losing business and expending real dollars in meeting the needs, otherwise they have their license jeopardised. When you have rolling changes year on year that effect the entire business and the systems that support them shit it going to get missed.
Maybe the government should look inwards at the amount of fraud that exists in the welfare, tax and health systems before targeting the banks. After all they have just decided to tax the five biggest banks AU$1.6B a year just because they can.
Just to be clear I don't work for any financial industry, I actually work in health.

So if this was a private company, and one of the contractors decided to lock everyone one else out, would it have been different? Just because it is a public system doesn't make it right to 'protect the population from incompetent techs'.
I have contracted for a number of companies, and many time I have had to create 'god' accounts so they can check the system, knowing full well that they may screw it up. But they pay me to do a job, they own the system, and they have rights to the system.
Just because he thinks they will break it, doesn't give him the right to deny access. They may have wanted to give it to a more knowledgeable contractor.

Here in good old Australia we are held hostage to a legacy single infrastructure provider to the premise. This means artificially high ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2+ costs. Even if another provider builds a DSLAM in the exchange, the rental on the physical copper is a killer. Entry here (256Kbps/64Kbps with 2GB of bandwidth) is AU$30, on an often congested backhaul.

With the provider only now getting 100Mbps connections, with cable being upgraded to 30Mbps and for 200GB, counting up and down it is AU$179 a month.

Other providers are out there, but we are crippled by the last mile provider, who I might add has the worst call centre in a third world country, and books appointments between either 7am-12am or 12am-5pm blocks, and even then doesn't phone or turn up.