Techmeme
March 31, 2024, 8:35 PM

Top News

Mike Larkin / Security Boulevard:
Microsoft engineer Andres Freund accidentally found the malicious code in versions of the XZ Utils compression tool, likely preventing thousands of infections  —  Yesterday's discovery of the xz backdoor was an accident.  But what a fortunate accident it was.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
AT&T confirms data dumped online appears to be from 2019 or earlier and has personal data of 7.6M current and 65.4M former account holders, resets passcodes  —  US telco giant takes action after 2019 data breach  —  Phone giant AT&T is reseting customer account passcodes after a huge cache …
Heather Knight / New York Times:
A profile of YC's Garry Tan, whose combative online persona has sparked controversies as he tries to shift SF politics from idealistic progressivism to centrism  —  The tech investor Garry Tan has courted San Francisco's moderate Democrats and angered its progressives.Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times
Pranav Dixit / Engadget:
How WhatsApp became the world's default communication app, including as a political propaganda tool, a business tool, and a private social network  —  What was once a texting platform now runs the lives, businesses and political machinery of billions.  —  In 2014, WIRED asked me to write …
Wall Street Journal:
Discord plans to start showing gaming ads from next week, called Sponsored Quests and offering rewards for in-game tasks; users can turn them off in settings  —  The chat platform, which has long avoided advertising, is latest tech company to lean into paid promotions
Katie Hafner / New York Times:
Dan Lynch, founder of Interop, a computer networking equipment exhibition that helped accelerate TCP/IP adoption and internet commercialization, dies at age 82  —  After working on the earliest version of the internet, he saw its potential and founded a conference on computer networking equipment.
More: The VergeForums: Hacker News
Mariella Moon / Engadget:
X says it is funding a lawsuit filed by Chloe Happe against her ex-employer Block, after being allegedly fired for her X posts about refugees and trans people  —  Happe accused Block of terminating her for expressing views Block didn't agree with.  —  X is funding a lawsuit filed by Chloe Happe …

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More News

Podnews:
Washington Post:
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal:
Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
Victoria Song / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Knowing Machines:
Candice L. Odgers / Nature:
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Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Frank Landymore / Futurism:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: