Techmeme
December 21, 2020, 8:40 PM

Top News

Reuters:
Sources: Apple is planning to manufacture a car by 2024 which may include self-driving tech, internally developed lidar sensors, and “breakthrough” battery tech  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
The omnibus funding bill Congress is set to vote on contains the controversial CASE Act, which may ratchet up copyright trolling, and the Felony Streaming Bill  —  from the but-why?  dept  —  As we warned about earlier this month, it appears that Congress has in fact put …
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.
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco, LinkedIn, GitHub, VMware, and the Internet Association file an amicus brief in support of WhatsApp in the WhatsApp v. NSO Group case  —  (Reuters) - Tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet , Cisco, and VMware on Monday joined Facebook's legal battle against hacking company NSO …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Personal info including emails, home addresses, and phone numbers of 272K+ users of hardware cryptocurrency wallet Ledger are freely available on hacker forums  —  A threat actor has leaked the stolen email and mailing addresses for Ledger cryptocurrency wallet users on a hacker forum for free.
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
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Zach Dorfman / Foreign Policy:
Interviews with 36+ current and former US officials describe China's strategy of analyzing vast quantities of stolen US personal data to identify CIA operatives  —  Around 2013, U.S. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa …
BBC:
Facebook says it had to remove some features in EU, including some child abuse detection tools, due to new rules banning automatic scanning of private messages  —  Facebook has switched off some of its child abuse detection tools in Europe in response to new rules from the EU.
The Information:
Sources: Ironclad, which helps companies create and manage business contracts, raises $100M+ Series D led by Bond Capital, valuing it at $950M+  —  Ironclad, which develops software that helps companies such as Dropbox and Mastercard create and manage business contracts …
More: TechCrunch
Nandita Bose / Reuters:
Sources: executives and employees at Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and others are seeking to place allies in senior roles at government agencies under Biden  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Silicon Valley is working behind the scenes to secure senior roles for tech allies in lesser-known …
Sam Biddle / The Intercept:
Despite complaints from pro-democracy activists and celebrities in Vietnam, Facebook allows groups focused on harassing dissidents and getting them arrested  —  For the past two years, Do Nguyen Mai Khoi has been trying painfully, futilely, to get Facebook to care about Vietnam.
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.

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More News

Pranshu Verma / New York Times:
Nico Grant / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Rene Ebersole / National Geographic:
Rob Copeland / Wall Street Journal:
Andrés Arrieta / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Bill Marczak / The Citizen Lab: