Techmeme
October 20, 2019, 3:33 AM

Top News

Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
How TikTok is making inroads into US schools, as students create TikTok clubs to riff on the latest memes, and shoot videos on Newton's Laws for extra credit  —  Teens love the app, and now it's getting the stamp of approval with teacher-approved clubs.  Did school just get ... fun?
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Researchers find malware operators are now using steganography techniques to hide malicious code in WAV audio files  —  Steganography malware trend moving from PNG and JPG to WAV files.  —  Two reports published in the last few months show that malware operators are experimenting with using WAV audio files to hide malicious code.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
A behind-the-scenes account of a cyberattack that disrupted the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics, which was tied to a specific unit of Russia's GRU  —  How digital detectives unraveled the mystery of Olympic Destroyer—and why the next big attack will be even harder to crack.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
ESET details a hacking campaign, active for the past 6 years, by the Russia-linked group the Dukes or Cozy Bear, which was thought to be dormant since DNC hack  —  Largely out of the spotlight since 2016, Cozy Bear hackers have been caught perpetrating a years-long campaign.
Bloomberg:
Seven US lawmakers, including Wyden, Cruz, Ocasio-Cortez, and Rubio accuse Apple of “censorship of apps” at the “behest of the Chinese government”, in a letter  —  - Cruz, AOC, others ask Apple to reinstate HK map app it pulled  — Apple CEO discussed consumer rights with Chinese regulator
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Samsung says fingerprint bug on Galaxy devices is due to the sensor reading 3D patterns in screen protectors as fingerprints, will patch it as soon as next week  —  And advises removing silicone screen protecting cases for now  —  Samsung says that it plans to release a patch for its phones …
FinSMEs:
Radius Networks, which enables location-based transactions like curbside and in-store pickup, raises $15M Series A  —  Radius Networks, a Washington, DC-based technology company that uses its machine learning location platform to allow businesses to conduct location-based transactions with their customers …
MIT Technology Review:
A game made with a real world dataset of defendants shows the shortcomings of COMPAS, an AI-powered risk assessment tool used in the US criminal legal system  —  The US criminal legal system uses predictive algorithms to try to make the judicial process less biased.  But there's a deeper problem.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
MediaLab, a holding company that owns the Whisper app, buys Kik messenger from Kik Interactive, which now focuses on development of Kin cryptocurrency  —  The Kik messaging platform has been bought by MediaLab, a holding company which operates Whisper and a number of other apps, the company announced Friday.

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Earlier Picks

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Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
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