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6:40 PM ET, December 30, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
Steve Jobs' Health Declining Rapidly, Reason for Macworld Cancellation  —  According to a previously reliable source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind Macworld and Jobs' keynote cancellation.  Allegedly, the real cause is his rapidly declining health.  In fact, it may be even worse than we imagined:
RELATED:
Jim Goldman / CNBC.com:
Apple's Jobs is (Still) Fine  —  You want to know how skittish Apple investors are and how little conviction they have in the company, or trust in its message, look no further than today's Gizmodo rumor fiasco.  —  The blog reports a serious decline in Steve Jobs' health as the real reason …
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Steve Jobs' Health ‘Totally Fine’ — CNBC (AAPL)  —  Conflicting reports about Apple (AAPL) boss Steve Jobs' health: A “solid” Gizmodo source says Jobs' health, not politics, is the reason why Jobs is skipping his annual Macworld Expo keynote.  CNBC's Jim Goldman follows up saying that's not true …
win.tue.nl:
MD5 considered harmful today  —  Creating a rogue CA certificate  —  Jacob Appelbaum, Arjen Lenstra, David Molnar, Dag Arne Osvik, Benne de Weger  —  We have identified a vulnerability in the Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used to issue digital certificates for secure websites.
RELATED:
Jonathan Stray / CNET News:
Web browser flaw could put e-commerce security at risk  —  But the SSL certificate is issued by MD5 Collisions Inc.  —  BERLIN—A key piece of Internet technology that banks, e-commerce sites, and financial institutions rely on to keep transactions safe suffers from a serious security vulnerability …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Security Advisory (961509)  —  Research proves feasibility of collision attacks against MD5  —  Microsoft is aware that research was published at a security conference proving a successful attack against X.509 digital certificates signed using the MD5 hashing algorithm.
Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
Consumers Union to Buy a Blog From Gawker  —  Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, planned to announce Wednesday that it had acquired Consumerist.com, a popular blog formerly owned by Gawker Media.  —  Consumerist is one of several sites Gawker has sold this year …
Discussion: Technologizer and Consumerist
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Gawker Media's Nick Denton Sells Another Blog and Puts Another One on the Block  —  Gawker Media's Nick Denton continues to shrink his blog empire: He has sold off Consumerist.com to Consumers Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports.  And he is in talks to sell Defamer.com.
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Martin drops porn filtering from FCC free wireless broadband plan  —  Kevin Martin, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, called Ars Technica today to let us know that he has revised his proposal to roll out a free (and smut-free) wireless broadband service.
APC:
Apple prepping a quad-core MacBook Pro? … Apple's mid-October refresh of its notebook line left a curious gap at the top end of the card, with the 17 inch MacBook Pro missing the make-over of its 15 inch cousin and the 13.3 inch MacBook.  —  That could be about to change next week …
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Piper sees dull Macworld, new form factor iPhone by spring  —  With Apple chief executive Steve Jobs skipping out on this year's Macworld Expo, investment bank Piper Jaffray isn't holding high hopes for new product announcements outside a pair of refreshed Macs, but said in a report Tuesday …
Discussion: NEWSFACTOR, iPhone Savior and TUAW
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Brightkite Integrates with Facebook  —  Do you want your Facebook friends to know where you are and what you're doing at all times?  That's now possible thanks to mobile social network Brightkite and its recent integration with Facebook.  Through the addition of Facebook Connect …
Robin Goad / Hitwise Intelligence:
Social Xmas: Facebook's busiest day ever, YouTube overtakes Hotmail, Social networks = 10% of UK Internet traffic  —  With all of the focus on the economic downturn and the troubles in the retail sector, it's easy to forget the continued growth of social networking in the UK.
Discussion: Mashable! and WebProNews
Wall Street Journal:
Musician Finds a Following Online  —  Word-of-Mouth on Blogs and Other Sites Attracts Fans — and a Record Deal  —  In late 2006, Justin Vernon, a musician in Eau Claire, Wis., recorded nine songs while staying at his parents' hunting cabin in northern Wisconsin after a breakup with a girlfriend and his long-time band.
Jack Loechner / MediaPost:
Most Media To Suffer Retrenchment in 2009  —  According to a new report by FitchRatings, the company forecasts that the contraction in output among the major advanced economies will represent the steepest decline since the Second World War, with GDP in the U.S. to decline approximately 1.2%, while inflation is forecast to be 2.7%.
Discussion: VentureBeat
Michael Thompson / Ars Technica:
Downloading your games?  Get ready for extra fees  —  The business of selling games has rapidly changed over the past few years, mainly because online services have allowed developers to bypass the middleman that is retail stores.  There are major advantages to purchasing a game via digital distribution …
Discussion: GamePolitics News and digg.com
Ben Kunz / Business Week:
A Modest Blogging Proposal  —  If “pay per post” lets online writers shill for cash, why not go all the way and sell real-life opinions, too?  —  It all started with a simple question from Forrester Research (FORR) analyst Jeremiah Owyang late in the afternoon on Friday, Dec. 12.
Discussion: The Noisy Channel
Jason Green / Mercury News:
Thieves steal $10,000 in equipment from Palo Alto Apple Store, later hit Los Gatos site  —  Two men broke into the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto early Sunday morning and made off with $10,000 in high-tech gear, police reported.  —  The thieves triggered an alarm at the University Avenue store …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Tough Love For Microsoft Search  —  Back in June, I spoke at Microsoft as part of a regular series for those involved with its webmaster tools group and anyone generally interested in search.  My talk was called “Tough Love For Microsoft Search,” and I covered various reasons why I felt …
Discussion: TechFlash and Network World
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Your Google Docs May Be Open to Hijacking  —  In July of this year, Google finally gave webmail users a way to make sure that Gmail always used SSL - the protocol that encrypts connections to prevent hijacking.  Through a flip of switch in Gmail's settings, users could rest assured …
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Netflix, Adobe, Google Rated Best Places To Work.  AT&T, eBay, RadioShack Among the Worst.  —  Where are the best and worst places to work?  Glassdoor, the site that surveys employees about workplace conditions in great detail, has issued lists of the best and worst 50 companies as rated …
Chris Dannen / Fast Company:
How 2009 Will Spur The Rebirth Of Cyber Squatting  —  Call it the end of the dot-com world.  Next year ICANN, the non-profit that oversees domain name and IP address registration, will start taking applications for new domain name suffixes, creating the potential for billions of new addresses ending …
Discussion: TechCrunch
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
DFJ Raising Another $600 Million, Just as Forbes Shines an Unflattering Light on Its Performance  —  Draper Fisher Jurvetson has begun raising for its tenth venture capital fund, just one year after scoring $650 million for its ninth.  According to a regulatory filing, the firm is targeting $600 million.
Discussion: Clickety Clack
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
AOL's web-wide chat plans for AIM still in Powerpoint  —  AOL is thinking about launching a service that integrates AIM, its instant message service, into other sites, as we reported earlier this month.  However, sources close to the company are saying the plans are still in Powerpoint …
 
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 More Items: 
John Leyden / The Register:
Google Calendar phishing scam surfaces
Discussion: Sophos and WebProNews
Jill Lawrence / USA Today:
First U.S. tech officer will have hands full
Discussion: Technology Live
Rachel Kremen / Technology Review:
Broadband on Rails  —  A compact lens could make high-speed …
Discussion: DSLreports
Robert X. Cringely / PC World:
Apple's Holiday Headache
Nathan Eddy / eWeek:
Sprint Bolsters Network for New Year's Texting Frenzy
Discussion: Epicenter and VentureBeat
Ian Shapira / Washington Post:
Get-Rich Offers Swell on Facebook
 Earlier Items: 
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
Digg's Ad-Targeting Improves
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
AT&T's YellowPages Paid $3.85 Million In Cash For YP.com
Discussion: EDGAR Online, Webware.com and Pulse2
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Content Sites Bracing For 50% Revenue Slowdown
Discussion: PR 2.0 and HipMojo.com