Techmeme: Microsoft experiments with making Windows Live Tiles interactive (Mary Jo Foley/ZDNet)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

April 12, 2014, 12:00 PM

Top News

Michael Riley / Bloomberg:

NSA Said to Exploit Heartbleed Bug for Intelligence for Years — The U.S. National Security Agency knew for at least two years about a flaw in the way that many websites send sensitive information, now dubbed the Heartbleed bug, and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence, two people familiar with the matter said.

More: Guardian, USA Today, NPR, The Verge, Electronista, Computerworld, The Daily Caller, Salon, I4U News, Business Insider, TechnoBuffalo, Ubergizmo, Network World, SecurityWeek, The Mac Observer, Slate, Washington Post, Ars Technica, Los Angeles Times, Wired, BGR, TIME, Mashable, The Register, Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, Errata Security, Politico, SlashGear, Nextgov, PC Magazine, BGR, Techdirt, It's a Gadget, TechCrunch, Re/code, TechCrunch, Techvibes Global News, Gizmodo UK, Daily Dot, Mission Loc@l, US News, Gawker, Gotta Be Mobile, Engadget, ReadWrite, PandoDaily, Gigaom, VentureBeat, The Next Web and VentureBreak

Tweets: @clipperchip, @kallisti, @edbott, @glennf, @mattdpearce, @b_fung, @zeynep, @zeynep, @jimmy_wales, @sacca, @mathewi, @rohit_x_, @ethanklapper, @timkmak, @matthew_d_green, @xor, @tomgara and @passantino

See also Mediagazer

CloudFlare:

Two people independently obtained SSL private keys with Heartbleed exploits, solving CloudFlare's challenge — The Heartbleed Challenge — So far, two people have independently solved the Heartbleed Challenge. The first was submitted at 4:22:01PST by Fedor Indutny (@indutny).

More: Digital Trends, ZDNet, The Verge, Re/code, CloudFlare Blog, Softpedia News, Engadget, The Next Web, The Register, Wall Street Journal, PandoDaily and Schneier on Security

Tweets: @eastdakota, @mikko, @davidu, @indutny, @eff, @grittygrease, @timbray and @dinodaizovi

IC ON THE RECORD:

NSA and Federal government claim that they were not aware of Heartbleed vulnerability before April 2014 — Statement on Bloomberg News story that NSA knew about the “Heartbleed bug” flaw and regularly used it to gather critical intelligence — April 11, 2014

More: NBC News, SlashGear, Business Insider, Digital Trends, Re/code and Forbes

Tweets: @csoghoian, @timbray, @dannyyadron, @declanm, @eff, @csoghoian, @thegrugq, @ioerror, @alex, @declanm, @kashhill, @nsa_pao and @astepanovich

Paul Mutton / Netcraft:

Only 30K of the 500K+ SSL certificates affected by the Heartbleed bug have been reissued to date

More: Softpedia News, ZDNet, Bloomberg and SocialTimes

Tweets: @latentexistence and @netcraft

Boris Jabes / Meldium:

Agents that fetch URLs are vulnerable to “reverse” Heartbleed exploits, warns Meldium dev team

More: Computerworld, Veracode Blog, Crowdfund Insider, The PhoneBoy Blog, Security Watch, Global Nerdy, Daily Dot, InfoWorld, Shopify Blog, Freedom to Tinker and Nextgov

Tweets: @thomasfuchs and @jcoglan

The Boston Globe:

Massachusetts governor unveils sweeping legislation to eliminate noncompetes for tech workers — Patrick looks to eliminate tech noncompete agreements — Governor Deval Patrick on Thursday will propose sweeping legislation to make it easier for workers in technology, life sciences …

More: BostInno, Bijan Sabet, BetaBoston, Gigaom, VentureBeat and Feld Thoughts

Tweets: @cdixon, @hackerchick, @masseohed, @dittycheria and @danprimack

Wall Street Journal:

Amazon plans to announce a smartphone by the end of June, to ship by the end of September — Amazon Preparing to Release Smartphone — Retailer Has Plans to Announce Phone in June, Begin Shipping By End of September — Amazon.com Inc. is preparing to release a smartphone in the second half …

Re/code:

Amazon is wooing app developers for upcoming smartphone with money, Amazon Web Services, more — Amazon's Hard Sell: Gaining Developers for Its Coming Smartphones — As Amazon prepares for the launch of its first smartphones, the company faces a daunting task: Ensuring that the devices …

More: NEWS.com.au, Gigaom Research, Phones Review, Computerworld, TechSpot and Softpedia News

Yoree Koh / Wall Street Journal:

Report: 44% of Twitter Accounts Have Never Sent a Tweet — Twitter is having no trouble signing up users. But some new research provides an update on the size of an ongoing problem: getting people to tweet. — A report from Twopcharts, a website that monitors Twitter account activity …

More: Business Insider, Mashable, Gigaom, Forbes, TechSpot, Digital Trends, Business 2 Community, InvestorPlace and Consumerist

Tweets: @wsj, @bgurley and @wsjeurope

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft experiments with making Windows Live Tiles interactive — Summary: Microsoft researchers are looking at ways to allow Windows 8, Windows Phone and Xbox users able to interact directly with Live Tiles. — Microsoft researchers in Asia are experimenting with the usefulness …

More: I4U News, TechnoBuffalo, Softpedia News, Engadget, SlashGear, The Verge, PC World and Windows Phone Central

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

PayPal releases mobile payment app for the Samsung Galaxy S5 fingerprint reader — With the Samsung Galaxy S5 now available, PayPal is making good on its promise to use the handset's fingerprint reader. The company released mobile apps specifically for the Galaxy S5 and Samsung's latest wearables on Friday.

More: PayPal Forward, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, PC Magazine, SlashGear and SamMobile

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Sprint to offer carrier billing and free trials for Spotify service in planned partnership — Sprint and Spotify Plan to Partner Up — Sprint and Spotify are working to push the streaming music service out to the wireless carrier's customers. — A planned tie-up between the two companies …

More: Digital Trends, AndroidGuys, iMore, SlashGear and Engadget. Tweets: @pkafka

Joe Mullin / Ars Technica:

Another SF protest at the home of a Googler targets lawyer accused of evicting families — SF housing protests get personal as another Googler is confronted at home — There's an undeniable second boom underway in the tech sector, and the consequences, both positive and negative …

More: Mission Loc@l, The Technology Chronicles, Valleywag, sfbg.com, PandoDaily, Re/code, San Francisco Examiner …, SFist, Salon and Globe and Mail

Joshua Brustein / Businessweek:

Staples begins offering in-store 3D printing services in US, starting in LA and NY — Staples Wants to Bring 3D Printing to the Masses — Staples has been selling 3D printers for about a year. Now it wants to begin selling access to them. — The office supply retailer began offering …

More: Gigaom, TechCrunch, Electronista, Ubergizmo, SlashGear and Engadget. Tweets: @staples

Sponsor Posts

Soxton:

Fast, affordable law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Equals:

Stop vibe coding analytics — Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards. Build once, iterate for years.

Zoho:

Zoho Mail MCP: Make your inbox work for you — Maya is the head of operations at a 500-person B2B software company. She's sharp, she's busy, and she starts every morning the same way-with her coffee, laptop, inbox.Not to work.

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

Hard Fork:

'The Daily' and 'The Opinions': How A.I. Is Changing Loneliness and Taste

The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.

Subscribe to Hard Fork.

The Upstarts Podcast:

Writer's May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate 'Normal People' The Labs Leave Behind

Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.

Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.

The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:

A Nick, Dick, and Paul Buffet!

Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.

Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.

Big Technology Podcast:

Anthropic's Labs Lead On Fable's Capabilities + Building AI-Native Products — With Mike Krieger

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.

Great Chat:

How much data do we actually want about our bodies?

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

AI's Mythos Moment: Rishi Sunak on preparing governments for AI

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:00 PM ET, April 12, 2014.

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.