Techmeme
December 20, 2019, 10:40 PM

Top News

Davey Alba / New York Times:
Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts using AI-generated faces to “masquerade” as Americans; Facebook links the network to Epoch Media Group  —  Researchers said the profiles, linked to the Epoch Media Group, used photos generated by artificial intelligence in a preview of an …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has a secret team of ~12 engineers working on satellites and related wireless tech to beam data directly to its devices  —  Apple Inc. has a secret team working on satellites and related wireless technology, striving to find new ways to beam data such as internet connectivity directly …
Fortune:
Ripple raises $200M Series C led by global investment firm Tetragon at a $10B valuation  —  Ripple, a San Francisco-based company that uses cryptocurrency to move money across borders, announced a massive funding round on Thursday that values the company at $10 billion.
New York Times:
Reporters identified a Secret Service agent, his home address, family details, and tracked Trump's movements using the leaked dataset obtained by the NYT  —  IF YOU OWN A MOBILE PHONE, its every move is logged and tracked by dozens of companies.  No one is beyond the reach of this constant digital surveillance.
New York Times:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Sources: NBC's Peacock to integrate NBC News Now, have a free, limited-content tier, a limited-ads tier for $5/month, and an ad-free tier for $10/month  —  - NBCUniversal is looking to differentiate its streaming service Peacock from rivals through its pricing structure and user interface.
The Economic Times:
SoftBank Vision Fund 2 invests $231M in India-based eyewear ecommerce startup Lenskart's Series G, sources say at a valuation of $1.5B  —  The transaction values company at about $1.5 billion post the investment  —  SoftBank has invested about $231 million (Rs 1,645 crore) …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
France's competition authority fines Google €150M for mistreating advertisers by suspending them on its search engine in a random and unjustified fashion  —  Google has been accused of suspending keyword advertisers on its search engine in a random and unjustified fashion
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Profile of Cliff Stoll, whose memoir The Cuckoo's Egg, which traces the first known case of state-sponsored hacking, inspired a generation of cybersecurity pros  —  Thirty years ago, Cliff Stoll published The Cuckoo's Egg, a book about his cat-and-mouse game with a KGB-sponsored hacker.

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Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: