Techmeme: Prestigious speaker Mikko Hypponen cancels RSA talk to protest NSA deal (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

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December 24, 2013, 11:00 AM

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Barton Gellman / Washington Post:

Snowden says “the mission's already accomplished”, and he first shared concerns with numerous NSA co-workers — Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission's accomplished — MOSCOW — The familiar voice on the hotel room phone did not waste words.

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

The National Security Agency's oversharing problem — The National Security Operations Center at NSA, photographed in 2012—the nerve center of the NSA's “signals intelligence” monitoring. — National Security Agency — In the days after the attacks on September 11, 2001 …

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Apple Mac Pro review (2013): small, fast and in a league of its own — It would be an understatement to say that Apple's Mac Pro workstation was getting a little long in the tooth. As of summer 2012, it was missing Apple's own Thunderbolt ports, not to mention 802.11n WiFi.

More: The Verge, New York Times, 9to5Mac, ZDNet, Cult of Mac, PC Magazine, iPhone in Canada Blog, TechCrunch, MacRumors and Business Insider

Bloomberg:

Italy Approves ‘Google Tax’ on Internet Companies — Italy's Parliament today passed a new measure on web advertising, the so-called “Google tax,” which will require Italian companies to purchase their Internet ads from locally registered companies, instead of from units based in havens such as Ireland, Luxembourg and Bermuda.

More: Forbes and SlashGear. Tweets: @jessedrucker

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Prestigious speaker Mikko Hypponen cancels RSA talk to protest NSA deal — Friday's report that RSA received $10 million to make an NSA-favored random number generator the default setting in its BSAFE crypto tool aren't yet creating any problems on Wall Street, with stock for parent company EMC rising 2 percent on Monday.

More: Gigaom, Business Insider, F-Secure Antivirus …, Network World, AllThingsD, The Next Web, SlashGear, The Register and CSO Blogs

Tweets: @mikko, @mikko, @panther_modern, @gcluley, @ioerror and @uvicjames

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:

Hulu must face privacy lawsuit, U.S. judge rules — (Reuters) - Hulu has failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the video streaming service of illegally sharing users' viewing history with Facebook Inc and business metrics company comScore Inc.

More: VentureBeat, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters, MediaPost, SlashGear, Electronista and The Next Web. Tweets: @samschech

Bloomberg:

Apple-Backed Rockstar Said to Hold Discussions to Sell Patents — A consortium created by Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. and other technology companies to acquire $4.5 billion of patents from Nortel Networks Corp. in 2011 is holding discussions to sell a portion of those patents, according to people with knowledge of the plans.

More: VentureBeat, Electronista, CNET, Cult of Mac, iDownloadBlog.com, The Mac Observer, iPhone in Canada Blog, iPhone Hacks, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and iClarified. Tweets: @jeffjohnroberts

BBC:

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing — Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon. — It overturns his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated. — The conviction meant he lost …

More: Guardian, New York Times, The Independent, Gigaom, TechEye, Mashable, NBCNews, rc3.org, Bloomberg, SlashGear, Associated Press, BuzzFeed, The Register, Telegraph, men, Mirror.co.uk, Scotsman and The Verge

Tweets: @bbctech, @stephenfry, @michaelklurfeld, @ahawkinson, @codinghorror, @dannyshawbbc, @jamesrbuk, @karaswisher, @moulinjules, @burnettedmond, @dawsepaul, @nchan and @doirekeenan

Dennis Fisher / Threatpost:

Stanford Researchers Find Connecting Metadata With User Names is Simple — One of the key tenets of the argument that the National Security Agency and some lawmakers have constructed to justify the agency's collection of phone metadata is that the information it's collecting …

More: Web Policy, DSLreports and TechEye

BBC:

Mariposa botnet ‘mastermind’ jailed in Slovenia — A hacker accused of masterminding one of the biggest ever botnets has been sentenced to just under 5 years in jail. — Matjaz Skorjanc was arrested in 2010 after a two-year investigation into malware that had hijacked about 12.7 million computers around the world.

More: Graham Cluley

Jeremy C. Owens / Mercury News:

Biz Break: Apple hits 2013 high after China Mobile deal, Facebook and Twitter reach records — A woman using a phone walks past Apple's logo near its retail outlet in Beijing Monday, Dec. 23, 2013. Apple and China Mobile announced a long-anticipated agreement Monday to bring the iPhone to the world's biggest phone company.

More: Fortune, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Associated Press, Cult of Mac, Bloomberg, The Mac Observer, Wall Street Journal, DailyFinance.com, Forbes and Tech Trader Daily. Tweets: @stocktwits

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