Techmeme
July 18, 2020, 9:10 AM

Top News

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.
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.
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 …
Adam Clark Estes / Vox:
A brief history of video chat, how it has evolved, and how the pandemic has forced big tech to develop new ways to make it feel more like real-life interactions  —  It looks like we're stuck with video chat.  Is that such a bad thing?  —  It's well over 100 days into the Covid-19 crisis …
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.
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
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.
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 …
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 …
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Current and former employees provide an inside look at Airbnb amid layoffs, as its warm and fuzzy office culture met with the business realities of a pandemic  —  What happens when a kumbaya office culture meets the business realities of a pandemic?  —  SAN FRANCISCO — On May 5 …
Tweets: @mdudas
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 …

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More News

Will Rinehart / Wired:
Colin Lecher / The Markup:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
More: NewserTweets: @lindoyle2, @ajb_sf, @sarafischer, and @baekdal
Dara Khosrowshahi / Uber Newsroom:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Bloomberg:
Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg:
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC: