Techmeme: The person claiming responsibility for the FBI email server hack says they were able to send spam messages by abusing insecure code in the FBI's LEEP portal (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

November 15, 2021, 2:05 AM

Top News

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

The person claiming responsibility for the FBI email server hack says they were able to send spam messages by abusing insecure code in the FBI's LEEP portal — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed today that its fbi.gov domain name and Internet address were used to blast …

More: Federal Bureau …, CNN, Washington Post, The Register, Reuters, The Overspill, The Hacker News, Gizmodo, NBC News, PCMag, Bloomberg, Techaeris, iTnews, ZDNet, and Slashdot

Tweets: @snlyngaas, @briankrebs, @rvawonk, @gossithedog, @tylabs, @dinodaizovi, @cioontherun, @briankrebs, @spamhaus, @eyestray, @gossithedog, @sonofuhgunn, @campuscodi, @fabio_viggiani, @grufftech, @embryoresist, @jsrailton, and @rayredacted

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer:

FBI email servers were hacked to send spam warning of a “sophisticated chain attack”, with a likely goal to discredit security researcher Vinny Troia — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) email servers were hacked to distribute spam email impersonating FBI warnings …

John Koetsier / Forbes:

Some subscription app developers suspect Apple is buying Google ads that send users to their apps in the App Store, to protect its cut by decreasing web signups — Apple is secretly buying Google ads for high-value apps to collect potentially millions of dollars in subscription revenue, multiple app publishers have told me.

Taylor Locke / CNBC:

An overview of Bitcoin's Taproot upgrade, which makes transactions more private, less expensive, and will let bitcoin users execute more complex smart contracts — Taproot, a highly anticipated upgrade to bitcoin, went into effect on Sunday at block 709,632.

More: CNBC, Neowin, ZyCrypto, and CoinDesk

Tweets: @itstaylorlocke and @onrampinvest

Wolfie Zhao / The Block:

Taproot, the first major upgrade to Bitcoin's code since the introduction of Segregated Witness in 2017, goes live — Taproot, Bitcoin's long-anticipated code upgrade with a focus on enhancing the network's privacy and security, has been activated. — The upgrade went live …

More: CoinDesk, Bitcoin News, Engadget, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, and CoinDesk

Tweets: @pwuille, @gladstein, @steve_hanke, @kenziesigalos, @brain2jene, @ajtowns, @kennyflorian, @icodrops, @pwuille, and @thecryptoapp

CNBC:

Agreements between Apple and some states to offer digital IDs in Wallet show states covering the costs of issuing the IDs and Apple approving marketing efforts — - Apple requires states to maintain the systems needed to issue and service credentials at taxpayer expense, according to contracts signed by four states.

More: Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget, Fintech Business Weekly, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, and PCMag

Tweets: @herrmanndigital, @hugh_son, @jonfortt, @mattrosoff, @ploberman, @mikulaja, @hypervisible, @amtvmedia, and @karlmarxhd

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Pigment, a business planning and forecasting service that integrates data from many platforms including Snowflake and Salesforce, raises a $73M Series B — The last 20 months of living in the midst of Covid-19, with all its unexpected developments, have been a challenge for many organizations when it comes to planning for the future.

More: VentureBeat and SiliconANGLE

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:

A look at the brewing rivalry between Meta and Apple over VR and AR headsets, smartwatches, smart home devices, and digital services — Apple and Meta are heading toward a collision course around wearables, AR/VR headsets and home devices. Also: Netflix and Apple mend fences around billing …

More: AppleInsider. Tweets: @shonaghosh

New York Times:

Apple, Spotify, and other companies that distribute podcasts have done little to rein in COVID-19 misinformation, escaping the scrutiny social media giants face — False statements about vaccines have spread on the “Wild West” of media, even as some hosts die of virus complications.

More: iThinkDifferent. Tweets: @carnage4life, @elijahschaffer, @celinegounder, @derekwillis, @evelyndouek, @timobrien, @celinegounder, @peterhamby, @evan_greer, @jeffjarvis, @technollama, @ufjschool, @davewiner, @marcatracy, @tiffkhsu, and @shanoorseervai

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.

Zoho:

Labels that build themselves: Simplified Label Automation in Zoho Writer — Anyone who ships every day knows this feeling. Forty orders, each with a different number of items, and every item needs its own label.

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.

WebBrain:

WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:

How Ramp Built A $60B AI Product Factory Off A Corporate Card | Co-CEO Eric Glyman

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

Great Chat:

Would you let a robot do it?

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.

Training Data:

A Model For Everyone: How Ronak From Trajectory Is Building Products For Continual Learning

Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.

Subscribe to Training Data.

Big Technology Podcast:

Can AI Keep Going After The Democrats' Big Win? — With Teddy Schleifer

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.

Machine Gods:

Crypto's Biggest Heist Ever + The Spy Who Loved Nvidia + Hacktober's Unsolved Mysteries

The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.

Subscribe to Machine Gods.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Barry Diller on Big Bets, AI, and Knowing When to Walk Away

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:05 AM ET, November 15, 2021.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Salon:

Salon, launched in 1995 to cover politics, culture, and more, says it is closing: “business realities of independent digital journalism have changed profoundly”

Matthew Keys / TheDesk.net:

Nexstar reports Q3 net income up 285% YoY to $250M and net revenue up 78% YoY to $2.1B, as Q3 political ads brought in $317M; results include Tegna numbers

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

How Democrats' midterm wins may affect Hollywood and media: uncertainty over federal tax incentive bill, greater FCC oversight, restoring CPB funding, and more

More News

Bloomberg:

Sources: Huawei is planning to license its smartphone designs to third parties to bypass US sanctions and gain access to critical components

New York Times:

Ukraine's efforts to tackle corruption may be at odds with its aim to become a global crypto hub, as weak governance is part of Ukraine's allure

Tweets: @amacker, @delcrxpto, and @mariabustillos

Aisha Counts / Protocol:

Report finds that online child sexual abuse material is increasing in sheer volume, growing more complex, and capitalizing on tech's blind spots

Source: WeProtect Global Alliance. Tweets: @riana_crypto, @evacide, and @issielapowsky

Ted Alcorn / Bloomberg:

How Togo, a country where few possess a driver's license or national ID card, built a digital platform to rapidly disburse relief payments to millions of people

Tweets: @tfadell, @karenpeachey100, @christiegetman, @amandakhurley, @tori_crandall, @snolen, @bw, @cbodewig, @tedalcorn, @tedalcorn, @tedalcorn, @julienicmcc, @tedalcorn, @tedalcorn, and @unkyoka

Simon Sharwood / The Register:

AMD reveals 50 security flaws in its EPYC processors and its Windows 10 graphics driver; Intel discloses 25 vulnerabilities in its products including CPUs

More: Neowin, PC Gamer, TechSpot, BleepingComputer, TechRadar, TechRadar, Tom's Hardware, and Digital Trends. Tweets: @issaintl

Chris Prentice / Reuters:

US states led by Texas file an amended Google lawsuit, providing more details about “Project Bernanke”, which allegedly gave Google's own ad-buying an advantage

More: iTnews and Engadget. Tweets: @eric_seufert

Earlier Picks

Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:

WSO2, which offers low-code tools to help businesses, hospitals, schools, and public sector organizations build apps, raises $90M from Goldman Sachs

Source: WSO2. More: ReadMe, ZDNet, PE Hub, and SD Times. Tweets: @steve_rosenbush

Robert Burnson / Bloomberg:

Apple agrees to pay its CA store workers $29.9M, settling a 2013 lawsuit for time spent in required security bag checks; Apple dropped the policy in 2015

More: iThinkDifferent, Daily Mail, iPhone in Canada Blog, Gizchina, Gizmodo, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Benzinga, and iMore

Tweets: @patrickmcgee_, @jnbutlerart, and @akbarth3great

Agam Shah / The Register:

Mercury Research: ARM's market share in PC chips was about 8% in Q3 2021, up from 2% in Q3 2020 when Apple's ARM-based M1 Macs weren't on sale

Tweets: @tldtoday, @frederic_orange, @danielpunkass, @jonmasters, @lukemiani, @nixcraft, @natisho, @erikengheim, @haerwu, @blu51899890, and @nixcraft

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:

How US cities are deploying drones, robots, and AI to more affordably inspect, diagnose, and repair the country's aging sewer infrastructure

Tweets: @fmbutt, @mims, @briannawu, @kentindell, @mims, @wsj, @robenfarzad, @neorsd, @baiju_r_shah, and @wsj

Chris Stokel-Walker / Wired UK:

Substack touts itself as an alternative to toxic, ad-driven social media, but many of its top earners are polarizing figures who were deplatformed elsewhere

Tweets: @caseynewton, @counternotions, @kantrowitz, @aishagani, @carnage4life, @wired, @wired, @glennf, @rasmus_kleis, @jessesingal, and @ggreenwald