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December 21, 2020, 10:15 AM
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| The Citizen Lab: |
Citizen Lab: NSO's zero-day, zero-click exploit chain, active in at least iOS 13.5.1, was used to hack ~36 Al Jazeera reporters via iMessage in summer of 2020 — Summary & Key Findings — In July and August 2020, government operatives used NSO Group's Pegasus spyware …
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The Guardian, TechCrunch, BBC, Business Insider, The Hacker News, 9to5Mac, The Verge, Forbes, MacDailyNews, Patently Apple, TechRadar, Engadget, Associated Press, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, Neowin, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, ZDNet, and AppleInsider
Tweets: @jsrailton, @matthew_d_green, @jsrailton, @matthew_d_green, @charlesarthur, @dr_ulrichsen, @wokyleeks, @farshadnayeri, @jsrailton, @zackwhittaker, @pwnallthethings, @matthew_d_green, @robertjdenault, @laurahuu, @matthew_d_green, @aaschapiro, @jsrailton, @pwnallthethings, @aaschapiro, @matthew_d_green, @osxreverser, @kenklippenstein, @dangillmor, @film_girl, @shashj, @jeffstone500, @donie, @citizenlab, and @evacide
| Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times: |
Profile of Dina Srinivasan, who is helping Texas AG's antitrust investigation of Google after her treatises on Facebook and Google reframed antitrust thinking — Regulators are relying on insiders like Dina Srinivasan, who left her digital ad job after concluding that “Facebook and Google …
More:
Fast Company and Slate
Tweets: @nytimesbusiness, @ashkan, @lutherlowe, @annmlipton, @fboversight, @seemay, and @daiwaka
| Andrés Arrieta / Electronic Frontier Foundation: |
| Matt Stoller / BIG: |
| Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired: |
Cyberpunk 2077's developer hamstrung reviewers by forcing NDAs and sending copies just days before launch to prevent players from seeing the buggy mess — Video game companies are increasingly putting restrictions on what reviewers can show, widening the gap between expectations and reality.
More:
Defector, International Business Times, Tom's Guide, The Verge, IGN, and Forbes
Tweets: @jordantcarlson, @navalang, @acvalens, @cecianasta, @papapishu, @cecianasta, @william_partin, @cecianasta, @cecianasta, and @laurakbuzz
| Wall Street Journal: |
Analysis finds 24+ organizations that installed SolarWinds code, including Cisco, Intel, Nvidia, VMware, Belkin, a CA hospital, and Kent State university — A Wall Street Journal analysis identified at least 24 organizations that installed software laced with malicious code by Russian hackers
More:
Axios, ZDNet, BleepingComputer, TechRadar, and Microsoft Security
Tweets: @dnvolz, @ericgeller, @ryanaraine, @algotrdr, @blackorbird, and @luispatino92
| Jacob Knutson / Axios: |
More:
Protocol, SecurityWeek, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, Federal Computer Week, Fortune, and Associated Press
Tweets: @realdonaldtrump, @realdonaldtrump, @thomaswright08, @govctw, @richardgrenell, @ellenychang, @john_sipher, @httech, @caseyjohnellis, @kyledcheney, @carlquintanilla, @debramessing, @normative, @politicalshort, @nicoleperlroth, @nytpolitics, @brianstelter, @jimsciutto, @c_c_krebs, @jimsciutto, @senwarren, @levie, @ophirgottlieb, @brento, @file411, @gossithedog, @jonathanvswan, @stengel, @andrewsolender, @peterbakernyt, @brianbeutler, @tackettdc, @geoffrbennett, @briankrebs, @jonathanvswan, @homelanddems, @repadamschiff, @tedlieu, @wesball, @jonathanvswan, @alivelshi, @asemota, @rubengallego, @margbrennan, @gregpmiller, @oliverdarcy, @pwnallthethings, @jimsciutto, @atrupar, @kaitlancollins, @laurenwern, @aghamilton29, @b_fung, and @nicoleperlroth
| Aislinn Keely / The Block: |
Personal information of 270K+ customers of hardware wallet Ledger has been leaked online, including emails, home addresses, and phone numbers — A database containing the personal information of over 270,000 Ledger customers has been published on RaidForums, a marketplace for buying, selling, and sharing hacked information.
More:
Decrypt, Ledger Support, InsideBitcoins.com, BleepingComputer, Cointelegraph, Crypto Briefing, blockchain.news, CoinDesk, and Cryptonews
Tweets: @ledger, @yellowblock_io, @ourielohayon, @isafepal, and @doncryptodraper
| Margins: |
Cultural taboos around porn have led to blind spots in Silicon Valley, with VCs missing out on many of the industry's breakout hits like OnlyFans — It always was, it always will be. … One of the biggest and most interesting things happening in the consumer web right now is running almost completely under the radar.
Tweets: @arvidkahl, @hkanji, @ericzawo, and @cathyreisenwitz
| Nico Grant / Bloomberg: |
Zoom says it is under investigation by the SEC and two US attorney offices over security and privacy issues and interactions with China and other governments — - Company says data security, privacy actions under review — Videoconferencing firm's contacts with China spur scrutiny
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AppleInsider, Washington Examiner, infosecurity-magazine.com, and ZDNet
Tweets: @pingroma, @sophiehrw, @jchengwsj, @mollylambert, and @dhh
| Isabel Woodford / Sifted: |
Study: the number of neobanks worldwide has tripled since 2017, climbing to nearly 300; in 2019, more than 70 neobanks went live — The number of neobanks worldwide has tripled since 2017, climbing from 100 to nearly 300 worldwide. — That means, over the last three years … | The Economic Times: |
Pine Labs, which makes POS software and provides last-mile retail transaction tech for merchants, raises $75M-$100M at a $2B valuation — Pine Labs is currently India's third largest fintech startup after Paytm and PhonePe. It counts Lone Pine Capital, Sequoia India, Temasek, Mastercard, Paypal and Actis LLP as among its investors.
More:
Livemint, Medianama, YourStory.com, and Inc42 Media
Tweets: @amrishrau, @strictlyvc, and @ettech
| Margaret Harding McGill / Axios: |
Congress' COVID-19 relief deal includes $7B in broadband funding, with $1.9B to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment, $3.2B to low-income families, and more — The coronavirus relief package deal that Congressional leaders reached Sunday includes $7 billion in funding for broadband internet access.| Owen Thomas / San Francisco Chronicle: |
Profile of Bret Taylor, Salesforce's new COO and the architect of its $27.7B acquisition of Slack, who might one day succeed Marc Benioff as CEO of the company — Everyone in Silicon Valley seems to know Bret Taylor. — Few outside do. — That's going to change, as the software engineer …
Tweets: @owenthomas, @martinsfp, @cherylszee, @jeffjarvis, @zlurie, @sfchronicle, @louisgray, @hbrucejohnson, @demianbulwa, and @kfury
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
OneTrust, which offers privacy management and marketing compliance tools, raises $300M Series C at a $5.1B valuation, bringing its total raised to $710M — Atlanta, Georgia-based privacy and marketing solutions firm OneTrust today announced it raised $300 million at a $5.1 billion valuation.
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Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Crunchbase News, and PR Newswire
Sponsor Posts
Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Beyond productivity: Why live captions belong in every meeting — You join a meeting, someone starts talking, and within a minute, there are names, numbers, ideas, and unfamiliar terms flying around. You could ask them to repeat it.
Beyond productivity: Why live captions belong in every meeting — You join a meeting, someone starts talking, and within a minute, there are names, numbers, ideas, and unfamiliar terms flying around. You could ask them to repeat it.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Meta's Muse Revival, Frontier AI Under Threat, The Rise Of Dopamine Sites
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Meta's New $1300 Glasses and the Fight to Control AI
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Great Chat:
Doomers at Dreamforce
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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