Techmeme: Researchers publish Snapchat code allowing phone number matching after exploit disclosures ignored (Violet Blue/ZDNet)

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December 25, 2013, 2:30 PM

Top News

Reuters:

Exclusive: Target hackers stole encrypted bank PINs - source — (Reuters) - The hackers who attacked Target Corp (TGT.N) and compromised up to 40 million credit cards and debit cards also managed to steal encrypted personal identification numbers (PINs), according to a senior payments executive familiar with the situation.

More: BGR, CBS New York, TwinCities.com and TIME

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Rescator.la, a major marketplace for cards stolen in Target hack, linked to Ukrainian man — Who's Selling Credit Cards from Target? — The previous two posts on this blog have featured stories about banks buying back credit and debit card accounts stolen in the Target hack and that ended …

More: Gigaom, NYT Bits, Computerworld, The Verge, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and WebProNews

Tweets: @0xali, @mattbraga and @briankrebs

Jenny W. Hsu / Wall Street Journal:

Taiwan Fines Apple for iPhone Price-Plan Meddling — Island's fair-trade body says Apple told mobile-service providers how to charge for handsets — TAIPEI— Apple Inc. has been fined 20 million New Taiwan dollars (US$670,000) and ordered to stop interfering with mobile service providers …

More: Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, AppleInsider, The Verge, BGR, Engadget and Forbes

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Google punishes Rap Genius in search ranking for SEO practices, founders seek resolution — Google Destroys Rap Genius' Search Rankings As Punishment For SEO Spam, But Resolution In Progress — Google hit back hard today after it learned lyrics site Rap Genius had been using dubious SEO tricks to attain top spots in search results.

More: Search Engine Land, The Verge, Valleywag, SEO Book, Rap Genius, Business Insider and VentureBeat

Tweets: @qthrul and @startupljackson

Violet Blue / ZDNet:

Researchers publish Snapchat code allowing phone number matching after exploit disclosures ignored — Summary: Snapchat's previously undocumented API and code for two exploits have been published, allowing mass name/phone number matching, and mass creation of bogus accounts. — Violet Blue

More: Business Insider. Tweets: @violetblue

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Google sues to protect Android device makers from Rockstar patent infringement suits — Google sues to protect Android device makers from Apple-backed patent hell — Google has filed a new lawsuit to challenge an Apple-backed consortium known as Rockstar that is using dubious patents …

More: FOSS Patents, The Verge, Engadget, PhoneArena, Forbes, SlashGear, BGR, Mashable, VentureBeat, MacNN, iDownloadBlog.com, Cult of Mac, iPhone in Canada Blog, Bloomberg and AppleInsider. Tweets: @paulg. See also Mediagazer

Donna Tam / CNET:

Sony drops music streaming service Gracenote — Sony has sold its ownership of Gracenote, a service that matches and streams music across multiple devices, the electronics company announced Monday. The company sold all of its shares to the Tribune Co. for $170 million.

Steven Sinofsky / Learning by Shipping:

Designing for exponential trends of 2014 — Rather than predict anything that will suddenly appear at the end of 2014, this post offers some trends that are likely to double by some measure this next year. — This will turn out to be an exponential year in many technologies …

More: BGR. Tweets: @stevesi, @mattrosoff, @mdudas, @marypcbuk and @cdixon

Ben Dummett / Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry co-founder Lazardis cuts stake to under 5%, won't pursue bid for company — BlackBerry Co-Founder Lazardis Cut Stake to Under 5% — Lazardis Indicated He Doesn't Plan To Pursue Bid for Company — TORONTO— BlackBerry Ltd. co-founder Michael Lazaridis disclosed …

More: Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, Tech Trader Daily, DealBook, Associated Press and Reuters

Jonathan Cheng / Wall Street Journal:

Samsung Phone Studied for Possible Security Gap — Israeli Researchers Point to Alleged Vulnerability in Galaxy S4 — SEOUL—The security platform for Samsung Electronics Co. 's best-selling Galaxy S4 smartphone suffers from a vulnerability that could allow malicious software to track emails …

More: SlashGear, Gizmodo, Business Insider, BerryReview, Los Angeles Times, TechHive, pocketnow.com, Yahoo! News, iClarified, BGR, 9to5Google and Android Community

Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:

U.S. Mobile Internet Traffic Nearly Doubled This Year — Two big shifts happened in the American cellphone industry over the past year: Cellular networks got faster, and smartphone screens got bigger. As a result, people's consumption of mobile data nearly doubled.

More: Always On Real-Time Access, BGR, MobileBurn.com, Los Angeles Times, DSLreports, TechHive, DSLreports and Business Insider. See also Mediagazer

Liana B. Baker / Reuters:

SoftBank gets closer to buying T-Mobile: report — (Reuters) - Japan-based SoftBank Corp (TYO:9984) is in final stages of talks with T-Mobile (TMUS.N)parent company Deutsche Telekom (DTE.DE)about acquiring the U.S.-based wireless carrier, the Nikkei news service reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources.

More: Nikkei Asian Review, Reuters, PC World, Digital Trends, BGR, PhoneArena, Los Angeles Times, Engadget, The Verge and TmoNews. Tweets: @zpower

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Justine Sacco And The Self-Inflicted Perils Of Twitter — A few weeks ago, I had a drink with my friend Justine Sacco and we talked about what makes for a good Tweet. — Justine is an easy person to like — frank, funny, quick to laugh. To a reporter, she's the kind of flack who's all too rare …

More: NYT Bits, Salon, CNN, msnbc.com, BuzzFeed, Mediaite, AdAge, Business Insider, Gigaom, The Wrap, Variety, PerezHilton, NPR, The Nation, The Huffington Post, The Technology Chronicles, Daily Mail and memeburn

Tweets: @gregacaldwell, @mattbuchanan, @tcarmody, @adrianchen, @kashhill and @pkafka

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