Techmeme
July 18, 2020, 2:40 AM

Top News

Twitter:
Twitter provides an overview about what it knows about Wednesday's hack so far: how it happened, what the attackers accessed, its actions, and the next steps  —  As we've been informing via the @TwitterSupport account, on Wednesday, July 15, 2020, we detected a security incident at Twitter and took immediate action.
New York Times:
A person involved in Twitter hack may have gained access to Twitter's internal dashboard using credentials pinned in one of the company's Slack channels  —  Several people involved in the events that took down Twitter this week spoke with The Times.  What might have been a pursuit of Bitcoin spun out of control.
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Twitter says around 130 accounts were affected in Wednesday's hack, and the attackers gained control of and sent tweets from a subset of those accounts  —  - “We believe approximately 130 accounts were targeted by the attackers in some way as part of the incident," Twitter said Thursday.
Tae Kim / Bloomberg:
The hack on Twitter provides more ammunition for critics who question Twitter's engineering prowess, poor management practices, and anemic financial performance  —  The breach revealed Twitter's engineering prowess and management practices as subpar.  Hedge fund Elliott Management can't be happy about its investment.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the FTC is considering deposing top Facebook executives, including Zuckerberg and Sandberg, as part of its anti-trust probe  —  Facebook officials have prepared for potential depositions  —  The Federal Trade Commission is considering taking sworn testimony from Facebook Inc. Chief …
Kate Clark / The Information:
Coursera, the online learning startup founded by Andrew Ng, raises $130M Series F led by NEA, at a valuation of around $2.5B  —  Another education technology company is flourishing amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people stuck at home flock to online classes.
New York Times:
Personal assistant arrested in the NYC killing of Fahim Saleh, founder of prank call app PrankDial and motorcycle ride-sharing apps in Bangladesh and Nigeria  —  Mr. Saleh, 33, was found dismembered and decapitated inside his Manhattan apartment.  —  The former personal assistant …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon settles with Brian Hall, the former AWS VP it had sued for allegedly violating the non-compete clause after taking a VP job with Google Cloud  —  Amazon has reached a confidential legal settlement with Brian Hall, a former Amazon Web Services vice president of product marketing …
Sarah Emerson / OneZero :
Lyft, which gave some drivers free PPE, launches a PPE store for drivers; it's unlikely it can give away PPE regularly without conceding drivers are employees  —  The company can't easily give away materials without conceding that its drivers are employees  —  Lyft has launched a marketplace …
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
How tech companies place favorable newspaper op-eds, purportedly from small business owners, think tanks, and academics, without disclosing their involvement  —  Why you should probably read opinion pieces supporting the tech giants with skepticism.  —  7 hr
Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC unanimously approves rules that let carriers block calls from “bad-actor” phone companies that profit from robocalls  —  Safe harbor lets phone companies block all calls from “bad-actor” telecoms.  —  “Bad-actor” phone companies that profit from robocalls could be blocked …
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
The FBI is using Sabre, the biggest of three firms that store a majority of the world's travel info, to spy on suspects' movements through sealed court orders  —  American border patrol already has significant surveillance powers and collects vast amounts of data on who is flying into and out of the country.
Will Rinehart / Wired:
Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project would force social media companies to compensate users, but the plan underestimates difficulty of valuing data  —  He wants social media companies to pay you for the data you produce.  But loopholes abound, it's too expensive, and other plans like it have failed.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q2 revenue of $6.15B, up 24.9% YoY, and expects 2.5M net subscriber additions for Q3 vs analyst estimates of 5.27M  —  - Analysts counted Netflix among the safer bets during stay-at-home orders in the U.S. and the company showed substantial subscriber growth last quarter.
Colin Lecher / The Markup:
Companies like Deloitte and IBM have made millions building state unemployment websites that didn't work, yet keep getting contracts to fix them  —  In at least one case, that same company is now getting pandemic-relatedcontracts  —  In 2010, California hired the consulting firm Deloitte …

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
What you need to know about fine-tuning LLMs  —  Success with generative AI hinges on honing a pretrained LLM to be a specialist at your intended domain or application.  Learn how to fine-tune for four key characteristics.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Introducing: The Zoho One Impact Makers Program  —  Beyond likes and shares: How creators can help businesses thrive A few years ago, creators had two choices: chase brand deals or hope for ad revenue—thankfully …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
CoreWeave's Weak IPO
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
The Tech Behind Signalgate + Dwarkesh Patel's "Scaling Era" + Is A.I. Making Our Listeners Dumb?
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Aaron Levie (CEO, Box) on Enterprise AI Trends No One is Talking About Yet
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Invest Like the Best:
Josh Kushner - Building Thrive Capital
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Great Chat:
Does anyone care about bad behavior anymore?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Capitalism vs. the bird flu
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:40 AM ET, July 18, 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

Sara Fischer / Axios:
More: NewserTweets: @ajb_sf, @sarafischer, @baekdal, and @lindoyle2
Dara Khosrowshahi / Uber Newsroom:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

The Intercept:
Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg:
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Andy Greenberg / Wired: