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 …

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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: