Techmeme: Australian Apple iDevices hijacked, held to ransom (Ben Grubb/The Age)

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May 27, 2014, 11:40 AM

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Ben Grubb / The Age:

Australian Apple iDevices hijacked, held to ransom — Owners of Apple devices across Australia are having them digitally held for ransom by hackers demanding payment before they will relinquish control. — iPads, iPhone and Mac owners in Queensland, NSW, Western Australia …

Jessica E. Lessin / The Information:

Google considered acquiring connected camera maker Dropcam through its Nest division, in a push into home security — Google Eyes Home Security, Dropcam — Google's Nest division is plotting a move into the home-security market and has considered acquiring connected camera-maker Dropcam …

Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal:

Twitter and Omnicom Strike $230 Million Mobile Ad Deal — Omnicom Media Group announced a mobile-focused deal with Twitter on Tuesday, worth $230 million over the next two years. — The deal will integrate Omnicom's programmatic ad buying unit Accuen with Twitter's ad exchange MoPub …

More: Re/code

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Rap Genius Co-Founder Moghadam Fired Over Tasteless Comments on Santa Barbara Shooting — Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam has been fired from the annotation service after posting appalling comments on the memoir of mass murderer Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in a shooting spree earlier this week.

Reuters:

Foxconn to buy $390 million stake in Taiwan telecom operator in 4G push — (Reuters) - Apple Inc supplier Foxconn Technology Group will buy a stake in Taiwanese mobile telecoms operator Asia Pacific Telecom for T$11.6 billion ($390 million) in a deal that would expand its presence in Taiwan's fledgling 4G telecoms market.

More: VentureBeat, Gigaom, ZDNet, TechEye, Bloomberg and Electronista

Michael Jackson / CoinDesk:

Bitcoin and Regulation: Lessons from the Early Days of Skype — Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and current venture capital investor at Mangrove Capital Partners, explores how bitcoin companies can learn from the early struggles Skype had with regulators across the globe.

Tweets: @shak and @coindesk

Adam Auriemma / Wall Street Journal:

Zappos creates social media network “Zappos Insiders” to evaluate potential hires — Zappos Zaps Its Job Postings — Online Shoe Retailer Creates Social-Media Network to Evaluate Potential Hires — A few months ago, online shoe retailer Zappos did away with job titles for its 1,500 employees.

More: The Verge, LinkedIn Pulse and Washington Post. Tweets: @practicallyrad

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Google releases VirusTotal Uploader for OS X, hopes more malware submissions will beef up Mac security — Google today announced the release of VirusTotal Uploader for OS X, allowing Mac users to upload suspicious files for scanning. You can download it now directly for OS X 10.8 and 10.9 from VirusTotal (8.52MB).

More: VirusTotal, Computerworld, AppleInsider, BetaNews, Electronista, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, App Advice, iPhone Hacks, SecurityWeek, 9to5Mac, The Register, iMore, AmongTech, MacRumors and VentureBeat

Chris Welch / The Verge:

Spotify's been hacked, but only one user is affected so far — Spotify CTO Oskar Stål just published a blog post revealing that someone managed to gain unauthorized access to his company's systems and internal data. “As soon as we were aware of this issue we immediately launched an investigation,” Stål said.

More: ZDNet, iMore, TechCrunch, Spotify, Softpedia News, Pocket-lint, Android Authority and Android Central. See also Mediagazer

Mother Jones:

Inside Internet Archive: the “Library of Alexandria, version two” is now home to 15 PB of data — Meet the People Behind the Wayback Machine, One of Our Favorite Things About the Internet — The Internet Archive is home to more than 15 million gigabytes of free digital information—and it's just getting started.

More: Laughing Squid and TechPresident. Tweets: @motherjones. See also Mediagazer

MIT Technology Review:

Dating Mining Reddit Posts Reveals How to Ask For a Favor—And Get it — There's a secret to asking strangers for something and getting it. Now data scientists say they've discovered it by studying successful requests on the web — One of the more extraordinary phenomena on the internet …

Tweets: @kdnuggets

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