Techmeme
December 17, 2020, 8:25 PM

Top News

Politico:
Sources: Energy Dept. and NNSA, which maintains the US nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that their networks were accessed as part of the SolarWinds hack  —  The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile …
Washington Post:
CISA issues an alert that says evidence suggests attackers used malware to access US systems, beyond SolarWinds vulnerabilities, but offers no other details  —  Federal investigators reported Thursday on evidence of previously unknown tactics for penetrating government computer networks …
The Intercept:
Microsoft Threat Intel docs suggest state-sponsored hackers, likely from Russia, breached Austin, TX's city network in Oct. and used it to stage other attacks  —  State-sponsored hackers believed to be from Russia have breached the city network of Austin, Texas, The Intercept has learned.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Thomas P. Bossert / New York Times:
Washington Post:
Twitter:
Twitter says it will start its new verification policy on January 21 and is developing profile labels to designate bots and memorial accounts  —  A couple of weeks ago, we announced that we're planning to bring back our public verification program in 2021, shared a draft of our new policy …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter launches Spaces, its Clubhouse-like service, in private beta on iOS, limited to select individuals, largely from under-represented backgrounds  —  Last month, Twitter announced it would soon begin testing a new social experience on its platforms involving audio-only chat rooms …
Jack Morse / Mashable:
Twitter is testing “humanization prompts” which will show users' shared interest and mutual followers when replying to another user's tweet  —  Twitter wants you to remember that there are actual people on the other side of your replies.  —  The company began testing a new feature …
New York Times:
A bipartisan group of 38 AGs sues Google for alleged antitrust violations in search, its third antitrust suit, including exclusionary contracts with Apple  —  More than 30 states said that the company downplayed websites that let users search for information in specialized areas.
Gilad Edelman / Wired:
A look at allegations in Texas AG's antitrust suit, accusing Google of giving Facebook special privileges in exchange for not supporting a competing ad system  —  A new antitrust case against Google alleges that the two companies made a deal to reduce competition in online advertising.
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Coinbase says it has confidentially filed for an IPO  —  Cryptocurrency giant Coinbase announced on Thursday that is has confidentially filed for a public offering, becoming the latest in a parade of high-profile startups to pursue an IPO in 2020.  —  Founded in 2012 as a simple way for consumers …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
GitHub says it is doing away with all non-essential cookies and will no longer feature “irritating” cookie banners on GitHub.com and its subdomains  —  Microsoft -owned GitHub today announced that it is doing away with all non-essential cookies on its platform.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Facebook rolls back a post-election change that boosted news from authoritative outlets, even as some staff asked for the “nicer news feed” to be made permanent  —  Facebook confirmed that it has in the past few days rolled back a change that lifted news from authoritative outlets …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Facebook hits back at Apple with a second full-page newspaper ad, saying upcoming iOS 14 changes will “change the internet as we know it - for the worse”  —  Facebook isn't done criticizing Apple just yet  —  Facebook is stepping up its campaign against Apple's privacy changes with a second full-page newspaper ad today.
Bloomberg:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Avast found 28 malicious Chrome and Edge extensions with 3M+ downloads, many posing as third-party add-ons for Instagram and Facebook; 25 still remain in stores  —  Extensions could redirect users to ads, phishing sites, collect user data, or download malware on infected systems.
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
Robinhood agrees to pay $65M to settle SEC charges that the company deceived customers between 2015 and late 2018 about its source of revenue  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Robinhood with the deceiving customers about how the stock trading app makes money and failing to deliver best execution of trades.
CNBC:
The European Commission approves Google's $2.1B acquisition of Fitbit, on condition of compliance with a set of commitments related to privacy and user consent  —  - The Commission on Thursday set out a number of commitments that Google must follow over the next 10 years.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Walmart partners with TikTok to test live-streamed video shopping, during which users will be able to shop Walmart fashion without leaving the app  —  Walmart and TikTok announced this morning they will be partnering on the first pilot test of a new shoppable product experience on TikTok's social video app.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Discord raises $100M led by Greenoaks Capital, bringing its total raised to $479.3M, and says it now has 140M MAUs  —  Discord has raised another $100 million in funding as the instant messaging app popularized by gamers has now hit 140 million monthly active users.
More: TechCrunchTweets: @deantak
Associated Press:
Switzerland says Uber Eats must register as a postal service provider before Jan. 30 and by doing so will become subject to postal regulations; Uber can contest  —  GENEVA (AP) — Swiss authorities say food delivery service Uber Eats counts as a postal service provider — and needs to be regulated as such.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Rubrik, a data management startup last valued at $3.3B in 2019, acquires tech and IP assets from Igneous, which provides unstructured data management services  —  Rubrik, a Palo Alto, Calif-based cloud data management startup valued at more than $3 billion, has acquired technology and IP assets from Igneous …

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:25 PM ET, December 17, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Sara Fischer / Axios: