Techmeme: The NSA and the Corrosion of Silicon Valley (Michael Dearing/Harrison Metal)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 31, 2013, 7:55 AM

Top News

Jay Hathaway / Daily Dot:

The NSA has nearly complete backdoor access to Apple's iPhone — The U.S. National Security Agency has the ability to snoop on nearly every communication sent from an Apple iPhone, according to leaked documents shared by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and German news magazine Der Spiegel.

More: Forbes, 9to5Mac, SiliconANGLE, Gigaom, Gizmodo, The Next Web, Why PrivacySOS.org?, Zero Hedge, SlashGear, MacRumors, Engadget, AppleInsider, iPhone Hacks, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, App Advice, FITSNews, Business Insider, iMore and Cult of Mac

Tweets: @chris_coltrane, @dailydot, @mattetti, @patr1ck and @ashk4n

Michael Dearing / Harrison Metal:

The NSA and the Corrosion of Silicon Valley — I believe the people who work at the NSA are patriots. They devote their considerable intellects to preserve, protect, and defend the people of the United States. I wish their patriotism + brainpower would do the same for the US Constitution.

Tweets: @ryanspoon, @semil, @erickschonfeld and @ceciliakang

Russell Brandom / The Verge:

The NSA's elite hackers can hijack your Wi-Fi from 8 miles away

More: LeakSource, Engadget, Threatpost, The Register, ExtremeTech, dailywireless.org, Techdirt, Spiegel Online and Spiegel Online. Tweets: @pbump

Eric P. Newcomer / The Information:

YC's Paul Graham: The Complete Interview — Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham isn't your typical startup guru. For eight years he's been at the helm of what's now the industry's most prominent accelerator and a lightning rod for frustrations with entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley.

More: Nibletz and Inc.com. Tweets: @evelynrusli and @ericnewcomer

Paul Graham:

What I Didn't Say — A quote from an “interview” with me …

More: Uncrunched, the build, SAMBIDDLE, VentureBeat, Daring Fireball, Lost Control and TechCrunch

Tweets: @dalmaer, @qhardy, @danprimack, @mathewi, @jessicalessin, @vosmek, @binarybits, @stevenlevy, @jason, @mathewi, @mattyglesias, @mathewi, @mat and @arrington

See also Mediagazer

jessica lessin:

On The Information and How We Operate

Sam Thielman / Adweek:

Netflix Knocks a Dollar Off Its SD Streaming Service for New Users — Netflix has cracked down on password sharing this year (the streaming service has a $12-per-month plan if you want to stream on four devices simultaneously), but it looks like there's a new tier to its pricing plan …

More: The Verge, Mashable, Engadget, GeekWire, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Pulse 2.0, TechnoBuffalo, BestTechie, SlashGear, Lifehacker, The Next Web, Gotta Be Mobile, Business Insider and Yahoo! News. See also Mediagazer

Mat Honan / Wired:

I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass — An anecdote: I wanted to wear Google Glass during the birth of our second child. My wife was extremely unreceptive to this idea when I suggested it. Angry, even. But as we got a bit closer to the date, she began to warm to it and eventually landed somewhere …

More: Daring Fireball, Guardian, CNET and Yahoo! News

Tweets: @counternotions, @benbajarin, @karaswisher and @benthepcguy

Thanks:@mat

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

73% Of U.S. Adults Use Social Networks, Pinterest Passes Twitter In Popularity, Facebook Stays On Top — Facebook may be currently facing question marks over how well it's faring with younger users, but among those over 18 in the U.S. it remains the social network king.

More: Pew Internet, CNET, SlashGear, The Technology Chronicles, Reuters, BuzzFeed, AllTwitter, Marketing Pilgrim, Nextgov, VentureBeat, Ubergizmo, NBCNews, Gigaom, The Switch, Marketing Land, The Next Web, Forbes, Business Insider and Inc.com

Leo Mirani / Quartz:

Social media is not a zero-sum game and Facebook isn't going anywhere so get used to it

More: The Conversation, Forbes, UCL Social Networking …, Gigaom, Washington Post, BBC, Pew Internet, Business Insider and We Are Social. See also Mediagazer

John Chen / CNBC:

BlackBerry CEO: we're focused on enterprise services, messaging, growing QNX adoption — BlackBerry CEO: Here's our new strategy — By: John Chen, executive chair and CEO of BlackBerry — It's been easy for competitors to promote negative stories about BlackBerry, focusing on the business of the past.

Chris Vallance / BBC:

Cash machines raided with infected USB sticks — The thieves focused on high value notes to minimise the time they were exposed — Researchers have revealed how cyber-thieves sliced into cash machines in order to infect them with malware earlier this year.

More: Gizmodo and Daily Dot. Tweets: @fraserspeirs

Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:

Schemer, Google's invite-only service for sharing goals, to be discontinued — Schemer to Be Discontinued — Schemer was launched two years ago as an invite-only service for sharing goals and discussing them with other people. “A scheme is ‘a secret or devious plan’ (American Heritage Dictionary) …

More: Softpedia News

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Nokia wins German patent injunction against all HTC Android devices including the One series — The New Year's Eve fireworks kicked off a day early at the Munich I Regional Court, where Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann just handed Nokia a Germany-wide patent injunction against all HTC Android devices …

More: focustaiwan.tw, Engadget, Android Beat, AndroidHeadlines.com, PhoneArena, Phandroid, Electronista, My Nokia Blog, TechSpot, Android Central, WMPoweruser, pocketnow.com and Windows Phone Central

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

All jacked in and nothing to play: chasing the perfect VR game — A little over a year after appearing on Kickstarter, Oculus has turned the far-fetched '90s science fiction of virtual reality into a wildly successful prototype device: the Oculus Rift. As of this writing, you can snipe enemies in virtual reality with Team Fortress 2.

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Virtual reality check: why controllers haven't caught up to the Oculus Rift

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Eric Schmidt makes 2014 predictions, says mobile has won — While he's not busy writing instructions on how to lead a tech company or guides for switching from iPhone to Android, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has taken some time out to provide Bloomberg TV with his predictions for 2014.

More: Engadget, GeekWire, VentureBeat, BetaNews, Mashable, 9to5Google, BGR, Ubergizmo, the build, SlashGear and 9to5Google. Tweets: @jasonwstein

Anne Eisenberg / New York Times:

As the use of biometric data for identification grows, security experts worry about data theft — Reading Your Palm for Security's Sake — They aren't taking any chances at Barclays Bank in Britain. Stating an account number and other bona fides isn't enough to get to your money …

Tweets: @pippa_king

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning — SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds. Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.

Cloudflare:

Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.

Zoho:

App Spotlight: Google Sheets Magic Lookup for Zoho CRM — Our App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools. Visit Zoho Marketplace to explore all apps, integrations …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Acquired:

Home Depot

Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.

Subscribe to Acquired.

Big Technology Podcast:

Special Report: Will AI Wipe Out Humanity? (And Who Profits)

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.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

The Atlantic's CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator

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.

Sources:

Mark Zuckerberg on Muse, Meta's biggest AI bet yet

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Lenny's Podcast:

How we built Grok Bot in a month | Roman Ugarte (SpaceXAI)

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Invest Like the Best:

Walter Russell Mead - How America Keeps Winning

The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.

Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:55 AM ET, December 31, 2013.

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.