Techmeme: Inside the NSA's Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators (The Intercept)

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March 21, 2014, 12:15 PM

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John Frank / Microsoft on the Issues:

Microsoft says Hotmail case met standard for a court order, adds new safeguards to policy — Strengthening our policies for investigations — Deputy General Counsel & Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft — We believe that Outlook and Hotmail email are and should be private.

More: Computerworld, GeekWire, Re/code, Guardian, Gigaom, PC World, Inquirer, The Verge, VentureBeat, SlashGear, Help Net Security, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Business Cloud News, The Tech Report, Engadget and Wired.co.uk

Tweets: @csoghoian, @bbcrorycj, @dsilverman and @liberationtech

Thanks:@fxshaw

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

Microsoft scanned blogger's Hotmail account to find source of Windows 8 leak, cites TOS

More: ZDNet, CNET, Softpedia News, Computerworld, Associated Press, Re/code, Telegraph, New York Times, Ars Technica, TechEye, eWeek and PC Magazine

Tweets: @caseynewton and @inafried

See also Mediagazer

Chris Taylor / Mashable:

Twitter Blocked in Turkey as Prime Minister Pledges to ‘Eradicate’ it

Dan Rayburn / StreamingMediaBlog.com:

Netflix & Level 3 Only Telling Half The Story, Won't Detail What Changes They Want To Net Neutrality — Late yesterday, Netflix's CEO published a blog post making the argument that “stronger” net neutrality is needed and that Netflix will “fight for the Internet”.

More: Quartz, VoIP Watch, The Switch and Forbes. Thanks:@danrayburn

Reed Hastings / Netflix US & Canada Blog:

Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Netflix Says It Really Didn't Want to Cut That Traffic Deal With Comcast

Tweets: @gnagesh. See also Mediagazer

The Intercept:

Inside the NSA's Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators — A secret document reveals how the NSA tracks down system administrators for surveillance. Illustration: Josh Begley. — Across the world, people who work as system administrators keep computer networks in order …

More: Ars Technica, Help Net Security, Techdirt, Gizmodo, Softpedia News, The Register, Engadget and ZDNet

Tweets: @_defcon_, @dangillmor, @krinndnz, @jsnover, @benhuh, @the_intercept and @rj_gallagher

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Marissa Mayer meets with Satya Nadella, still wants out of Microsoft/Yahoo search pact — Field of Search Dreams: If Marissa Mayer Builds It, Will Microsoft Let Yahoo Leave? — Just after he was named CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella got a visit from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

More: TechCrunch. Tweets: @dannysullivan and @aaronwall

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Bitcoin software gets fix for weakness that helped bring down Mt. Gox — The software driving Bitcoin transactions on the Internet has been updated to fix a weakness that contributed to the downfall of Mt. Gox, once one of the biggest exchanges for the digital currency.

More: VentureBeat, GitHub, Gizmodo, Help Net Security, The Verge, InfoWorld, Softpedia News, Bitcoin Foundation, Bright Side Of News*, Geeky Gadgets and Slyck

Tony Romm / Politico:

Barack Obama to meet again with tech CEOs about NSA — President Barack Obama will huddle with “tech CEOs” on Friday to “continue his dialogue with them on the issues of privacy, technology, and intelligence,” according to a White House official. — The Obama administration declined …

More: bizjournals, The Verge, VentureBeat, Softpedia News, TechPresident, CNET and TheHill

Tweets: @kevinbankston, @stefanjbecket and @tonyromm

Sophie Knight / Reuters:

Mt. Gox says it found 200,000 bitcoins in ‘forgotten’ wallet — (Reuters) - Mt. Gox said on Friday it found 200,000 “forgotten” bitcoins on March 7, a week after the Tokyo-based digital currency exchange filed for bankruptcy protection saying it had lost about $500 million worth of bitcoin, nearly all its holdings.

More: Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, CNET, BBC, New York Times, BGR, Engadget, Guardian, Geeky Gadgets, Electronista, SocialTimes, SeekingAlpha.com, The Register, Tech in Asia, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Gizmodo, Wall Street Journal and CoinDesk

Tweets: @peteschroeder, @kishakishi and @bendoernberg

Will Connors / Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry Suffers Blow as White House Tests Samsung, LG Phones — The White House is testing smartphones from Samsung Electronics Corp. and LG Electronics Inc. for internal use, a person familiar with the matter said, threatening one of the last and most high-profile strongholds of BlackBerry Ltd.

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, Inquirer, Droid Life, Electronista, N4BB, SamMobile, Phones Review, SeekingAlpha.com, Digital Trends, Android Central, Mashable and Phandroid

Casey Newton / The Verge:

Pocket's prototype for Android Wear saves articles right from your wrist — Googled unveiled Android Wear this week and encouraged developers to build apps purpose-built for the wrist. Pocket is among the first companies to rise to the challenge, showing off a prototype version …

More: Pocket Blog, Gizmodo, Droid Life, Phandroid and Android Community. See also Mediagazer

Roger Cheng / CNET:

Sprint lays off 330 techs, shutters 55 stores as part of broader cuts — Sprint recently cut a significant chunk of its staff dedicated to repairing and refurbishing phones and shut down its slower-performing stores, part of a broader effort to reduce the company's costs in the face of continued financial struggles.

More: IntoMobile, Geeky Gadgets, TechnoBuffalo, Android Central, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Electronista, Engadget and Re/code

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

Medium Launches Simple iPhone App That's Just For Reading — Blogging platform Medium has released a simple app for the iPhone that allows users to read articles from the site. They're presented as a feed that's recommended for you automatically, though articles that have been recommended …

More: Medium, PC Magazine, 9to5Mac, Gigaom, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone in Canada Blog, AppleInsider, Engadget, The Verge, VentureBreak and The Next Web. See also Mediagazer

Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:

Neustar acquires .CO Internet S.A.S. registry with 1.6M domain names for $109 million — Breaking: Neustar acquires .CO for $109 million — Neustar pays $109 million for registry that runs .co domain name. — Domain name registry Neustar has acquired .CO Internet S.A.S and associated assets …

More: GO.CO Blog, Business Wire, DomainInvesting.com, DNJournal.com, NASDAQ.com, tech.co and SeekingAlpha.com

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Paypal's in-app ‘Pay at Table’ and ‘Order Ahead’ now available in UK and Australia — PayPal Expands Its In-App Pay At Table And Order Ahead Services In UK — It's still very early days for mobile payments, with the vast majority of consumers still not convinced …

More: Electronista and The Next Web. Tweets: @ingridlunden

Naomi Tajitsu / Reuters:

Megaupload's Dotcom loses case to access extradition evidence — (Reuters) - Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom on Friday suffered another blow to his fight against extradition to the United States to face online piracy charges after New Zealand's highest court rejected his appeal to access evidence to be presented at the hearing.

More: Electronista, Ars Technica, Bloomberg, New Zealand Herald, Associated Press and TorrentFreak. Tweets: @kimdotcom. See also Mediagazer

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Glassdoor: Employees rank LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner as CEO of the year; Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg loses top spot — Career website Glassdoor today released its latest report highlighting 2014′s top 50 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), and once again the tech world played a big role in the list.

More: AllFacebook, GeekWire, Computerworld, Business Insider, CNET, Mashable and blogs.salesforce.com

Daily Dot:

Hacked emails show what Microsoft charges the FBI for user data — Microsoft often charges the FBI's most secretive division hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to legally view customer information, according to documents allegedly hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army.

More: SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, TechSpot, The Hacker News, Gizmodo and The Daily Caller

Tweets: @felixsalmon, @runasand and @kegill

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