Techmeme
July 19, 2021, 8:20 AM

Top News

Dana Priest / Washington Post:
Investigation: Israel-based NSO Group's malware infected 23 phones belonging to government officials, reporters, execs, and activists, out of 67 checked  —  Dana Priest, a reporter at The Washington Post for 30 years, covers national security issues.  Recently, she has investigated Russian …
More: The Guardian, The Guardian, The Guardian, Amnesty International, The Guardian, The Citizen Lab, The Guardian, Forbidden Stories, Washington Post, Washington Post, CNET, Silicon Republic, Haaretz, BBC, Insider, ZDNet, Associated Press, The Hacker News, Washington Post, iThinkDifferent, The Verge, Washington Post, New York Times, Engadget, The Register, Bloomberg, Access Now, MediaNama, Reuters, HackRead, The Week, SiliconANGLE, Gizmodo, New York Post, news.com.au, The Overspill, TNW, phonearena.com, Financial Times, Slashdot, CyberNews, AppleInsider, Mashable, CNBC, The Hill, and HotHardware.com News
Bill Marczak / @billmarczak:
[Thread] Amnesty International and Citizen Lab found zero-click iMessage exploits being deployed against iPhones, even with iOS 14.6, to install malware  —  THREAD with a couple of interesting bits from @AmnestyTech's new report on what they learned from looking for NSO Group's spyware on phones https://www.amnesty.org/...
Washington Post:
Of the 67 phones Amnesty's Security Lab probed, 34 were iPhones, of which 23 showed signs of a successful Pegasus infection and 11 showed attempts at infection  —  The text delivered last month to the iPhone 11 of Claude Mangin, the French wife of a political activist jailed in Morocco, made no sound.
Ina Fried / Axios:
US, NATO, and other allies collectively blame China for malicious cyberattacks, including a March attack that exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Exchange Server  —  The U.S., NATO and other allies are collectively calling out China for malicious cyberattacks, including a March attack that exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Exchange Server.
GlobeNewswire News Room:
Zoom says it will acquire Five9, which makes cloud-based call center software for sales, marketing, and support, in an all-stock deal valued at ~$14.7B  —  The combination of Zoom's robust communications platform with Five9's intelligent cloud contact center will enable organizations …
Carl T. Bergstrom / @ct_bergstrom:
[Thread] The response to Biden from Facebook's VP of Integrity is a textbook example of bluster and obfuscation  —  After Biden's criticism of @Facebook for their inaction on antivax propaganda, @fbnewsroom is going on the offensive. They issued a press release that is a textbook example of bluster, obfuscation, and agnatogenesis. Here's the link. Let's take a look. https://about.fb.com/...
Guy Rosen / About Facebook:
Facebook says their data shows a 50% decline in vaccine hesitancy among US users, refuting Biden's claim that it's “killing people” by allowing COVID-19 misinfo  —  At a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.
Muvija M / Reuters:
Tencent to buy British video game developer Sumo Games for $1.27B, a 43% premium on Sumo's Friday closing price  —  Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) will buy video game company Sumo Group (SUMO.L) in a deal that values the British firm at 919 million pounds ($1.27 billion), the companies said on Monday.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Overview of short-form audio apps like Racket, Beams, and Quest that let users record and share voice clips, as Facebook aims to enter the space with Soundbites  —  “So I've identified a few metrics and KPIs that I'm going to start tracking in order to better my overall life experience,” …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: LiveU, an Israel-based developer of live broadcasting and streaming tech used by 3K+ media organizations, to be acquired by PE firm Carlyle for $400M  —  Streaming is the name of the content game these days, and now one of the companies that builds tech to do this from anywhere in the world is getting acquired.

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:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
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:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 8:20 AM ET, July 19, 2021.

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

Helen Rosner / New Yorker:

Earlier Picks

Flavia Rotondi / Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal: