Techmeme: How North Korea's cyber warfare unit grew from a joke in 2009 into a major and active threat today, backed by 6,000+ hackers (New York Times)

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October 16, 2017, 9:15 AM

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Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

US CERT advisory: severe flaw in popular WiFi security protocol WPA2 leaves WiFi traffic open to eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and malicious injection — An air of unease set into the security circles on Sunday as they prepared for the disclosure of high-severe vulnerabilities …

New York Times:

How North Korea's cyber warfare unit grew from a joke in 2009 into a major and active threat today, backed by 6,000+ hackers — When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them.

Tweets: @josephfcox, @hatr, @lexanderjmartin, @con_agius, @jessepesta, @chrisfralic, @cauchon, @breakersall, @mattocko, @mattwaxman1, @fryan, and @dnvolz

Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:

IBM rolls out blockchain network for cross-border payments, currently supporting 12 “currency corridors” including Australia, New Zealand, UK, Pacific islands — The promise of digital currency is finally coming to maturity, IBM says, with its unique international payments network.

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, IBM, International Business Times, SiliconANGLE, Fortune, CoinDesk, Silicon Republic, Computerworld, and IT ProPortal

Bloomberg:

How Google's meandering, secretive, non-committal robotics efforts since 2013 slowed progress in the field — Its scattered, ambiguous, frequently abandoned objectives for its string of big acquisitions have hurt the whole field. — In 1982, Blade Runner introduced the world to replicants …

More: Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check. Tweets: @business, @chrismaddern, and @manukumar

Derek Thompson / The Atlantic:

Inside Alphabet's moonshot division, X, which wants to build the next Google by nurturing invention and innovation, finding radical but feasible solutions

More: ZDNet. Tweets: @suchisaria, @pacoid, @chris_ciaccia, and @theteamatx

Matt Rosoff / CNBC:

Despite the backlash from politicians and the press, most Americans view big tech favorably — - Despite a growing chorus of anti-tech sentiment from the press and Washington, people still view tech companies favorably. — That's because most people are choosing to use these products because they make their lives better.

More: New York Times. Tweets: @cnbc

Regina R. Clewlow / Planetizen:

Survey: ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have most likely reduced mass transit use and added to traffic in major US cities — Useable data of the effects of ride-hailing service on travel behavior is sorely lacking, but a new study sheds light on critical questions about what companies …

More: New York Times, The Verge, Axios, Curbed, San Francisco Chronicle, Fortune, and Wired

Tweets: @yoda, @theoverheadwire, @transbay, @cityobs, and @mrapptech

Rani Molla / Recode:

Survey of 6,100 US teens: 47% say Snapchat is their preferred social network, up from 39% this spring, 24% say Instagram, 9% Facebook, 7% Twitter — Snaps > tweets. — Snapchat is more popular among U.S. teens than ever, according to new research from investment firm Piper Jaffray.

More: LJ infoDOCKET, Business Insider, eMarketer and Newsroom Posts, and International Business Times

Tweets: @bdsams and @sbyrnes

Andy Greenberg / Wired:

The difficulty of the three steps required to hack power grids explains why actual disruptions are so rare — IN 2017, IT can sometimes seem like power grids are practically crawling with digital intruders. Over just the last four months, news has emerged that Russian hackers penetrated …

Tweets: @robertmlee

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:

Surreptitious cryptocurrency miners hide on PolitiFact and hundreds of other sites — Politifact is the latest and perhaps most high-profile website to have hosted code that secretly hijacks visitors' CPUs to mine cryptocurrency. Driven by a boom in cryptocoin value and a lack of protections …

More: SiliconANGLE, Adguard Blog, TechSpot, Engadget, iAfrikan, The Register, Newsweek, ZDNet, Neowin, HackRead, Neowin, and Tom's Guide

Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch:

Coinbase has launched instant cryptocurrency purchases of up to $25K from US bank accounts, dropping the typical wait period of 3-5 days — Coinbase just announced that users can instantly purchase cryptocurrency and have it be funded from a U.S. bank account.

More: Investopedia, Engadget, and CNBC. Thanks:@fitztepper

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Flaw in widely used RSA code library undermines security of millions of high-security RSA crypto keys used in high-stakes scenarios — Factorization weakness lets attackers impersonate key holders and decrypt their data. — A crippling flaw in a widely used code library has fatally undermined …

More: CRoCS wiki, politsei.ee, and BleepingComputer.com. Tweets: @dangoodin001

Boyd Chan / Neowin:

After outcry over excessive data collection, OnePlus says it will add an opt-out of usage analytics to the OxygenOS setup process — OnePlus once again found itself in hot water earlier this week after an eagle-eyed developer, Chris Moore, discovered that his OnePlus smartphone was uploading a raft of information back to the company.

More: Business Insider, OnePlus Forums, The Verge, SlashGear, Phandroid, Engadget, EOTO Tech, and Android Police

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

The dream of USB-C being one port and cable to replace all others is mired in confusion because of Alternate Modes and inconsistent backwards compatibility — I love the idea of USB-C: one port and one cable that can replace all other ports and cables. It sounds so simple, straightforward, and unified.

More: Boing Boing, Boing Boing, and mjtsai.com

Tweets: @dhh, @dannysullivan, @patrickmoorhead, and @stroughtonsmith

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