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Techmeme
May 17, 2023, 10:50 AM

Top News

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
A federal judge in the Ripple lawsuit rules the US SEC cannot seal docs tied to former official William Hinman, who said ether isn't a security in a 2018 speech  —  The order deals a blow to the SEC in its longstanding procedural fight against Ripple.  —  A federal judge ruled …
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
CNBC:
In an interview, Elon Musk discussed acquiring Twitter, defended his inflammatory tweets, called tech workers the “laptop class living in la-la-land”, and more  —  Tesla CEO Elon Musk sat down for a sprawling interview with CNBC anchor David Faber on Tuesday following .
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google updates its inactivity policy: accounts inactive for at least two years will be deleted, except for those with YouTube videos, starting in December 2023  —  In 2020, Google said it would remove content stored in an inactive account (but not the account itself) to preserve storage space.
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Cybersecurity researchers and IT admins raise concerns over Google's new .zip and .mov TLDs, warning that threat actors could use them for phishing and malware  —  Cybersecurity researchers and IT admins have raised concerns over Google's new ZIP and MOV Internet domains …
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Symantec says the advanced persistent threat Lancefly used custom malware to attack Asian governments, telcos, and other organizations from mid-2022 to Q1 2023  —  A government-backed hacking group known as “Lancefly” has been seen using custom-made malware to attack governments, telecoms and other organizations across Asia.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Researchers bought 228 phones from PropertyRoom.com, a top auction house for US police departments, and found many had not been wiped and had no PIN or passcode  —  Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without …
Tech Transparency Project:
Researchers find that YouTube recommends videos on guns and school shootings to young gamers, despite the platform's policies against “violent or gory content”  —  YouTube says it delivers ‘responsible’ video recommendations.  But its algorithms steered accounts …
Judith Bannermanquist / Cointelegraph:
Crypto wallet startup Ledger faces criticism after unveiling an optional seed phrase recovery subscription service that some security experts say is insecure  —  Many members of the crypto community believe Ledger's latest seed phrase recovery feature is a bad idea.  —  362 Total views
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
Belkin says the company won't patch a buffer overflow vulnerability in the Wemo Mini Smart Plug V2 disclosed on March 14 as the device is at the end of its life  —  Tricking a plug with a too-long name could lead to buffer overflows, injections.  —  I once co-owned a coworking space.
Financial Times:
Sources: Volkswagen held talks to use Huawei software in its cars in China, after its software unit Cariad missed its development goals and exceeded its budget  —  Turmoil at German carmaker's in-house software arm threatens to affect market share  —  Volkswagen has held talks …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple touts $2B+ in App Store fraud stopped in 2022, nearly 3.9M stolen credit cards blocked, 147M+ ratings/reviews removed, and 428K developer accounts closed  —  Apple is out with a new press release today touting the success of the App Store's ability to prevent fraud.
Richard Waters / Financial Times:
Tech companies are racing to run generative AI natively on mobile devices to reduce computing costs, but face hurdles like limited memory and processing power  —  Tech companies seek processing power in handsets to reduce computing costs and improve speed of AI chatbots
Rohan Goswami / CNBC:
The US DOJ alleges former Apple engineer Weibao Wang stole Apple's autonomous tech, including source code, for a Chinese company working on a self-driving car  —  - Weibao Wang was charged with six counts of theft or attempted theft by prosecutors, who allege he stole troves of source code …
CNBC:
Google Cloud launches two AI-powered tools that aim to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate drug discovery and advance precision medicine  —  - Google Cloud launched two new AI-powered solutions that aim to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate drug discovery and advance precision medicine.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds support for GIFs in comments on posts and Reels, plans to launch a lyrics feature for Reels, and will roll out Instagram Gifts in India  —  On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg held a chat with Instagram head Adam Mosseri as part of the company launching collaboration feature on broadcast channels.
Washington Post:
The US announces charges, sanctions, and a $10M reward for info leading to the arrest of Russian national Mikhail Matveev, a Babuk ransomware campaign suspect  —  The Justice, Treasury and State departments announced a crackdown on suspect Mikhail Matveev, with economic sanctions and a $10 million reward for his arrest
Reuters:
Since April 6, the Cyberspace Administration of China closed 107K online accounts of counterfeit news outlets and anchors and removed 835K pieces of content  —  China has intensified efforts to clean up the internet from false news and rumours, closing more than 100,000 online accounts …

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