Techmeme: Sony says ‘The Interview’ was rented or purchased more than 2M times, generated over $15M in online sales; Apple starts offering the movie on iTunes (Steve Kovach/Business Insider)

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December 29, 2014, 3:00 AM

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Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

Sony says ‘The Interview’ was rented or purchased more than 2M times, generated over $15M in online sales; Apple starts offering the movie on iTunes — ‘The Interview’ Generated Over $15 Million In Online Sales — Sony announced Sunday night that “The Interview” …

More: The Verge, TorrentFreak, Vox, Reuters, GeekWire, TechCrunch, The Wrap, New York Times, Engadget, The Verge, Gigaom, NevilleHobson.com, SlashGear, Fortune, VentureBeat, BGR, Electronista, Polygon, CNNMoney.com, Mashable and Digital Trends

Tweets: @pkafka, @stevekovach, @reckless, @mikeisaac, @drew, @pkafka and @pkafka

See also Mediagazer

Spiegel Online:

Snowden documents reveal the NSA routinely intercepted SSL/TLS traffic, decrypted VPN connections, struggled with PGP, Truecrypt, Tor, CSpace, OTR, ZRTP in 2012 — Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security — US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack …

More: Engadget, Slashdot, Errata Security, The Verge and Schneier on Security

Tweets: @yashalevine, @glynmoody, @ggreenwald, @csoghoian, @dangillmor, @glynmoody, @mikko and @gwern

Mark Gilbert / Bloomberg View:

Bitcoin was the worst-performing currency of 2014, dropping more than 56% to under $330 — And 2014's Worst Currency Was...Bitcoin — It's been a bad year for the Russian ruble and a terrible 12 months for the Ukrainian hryvnia. But it's been a catastrophic 2014 for Bitcoin, the virtual currency.

More: Re/code, adafruit industries blog, NEWSBTC, PC Magazine, sputniknews.com, Times of India, Vox and SiliconANGLE

Tweets: @chrismaddern, @steve_hanke and @zackwhittaker

William Turton / The Daily Dot:

Meet Lizard Squad, the group whose DDoS attack crippled Xbox Live and PlayStation Network — Meet Lizard Squad, the hackers who ruined Christmas for gamers worldwide — Vinnie Omari was still a bit drunk when he initiated what could be the biggest distributed denial-of-service attack in history.

More: Gawker, PlayStation LifeStyle, Engadget, Business Insider, The Inquisitr News, Kotaku, Polygon, PC Magazine, Gizmodo, PandoDaily, PlayStation Knowledge Center, Forbes, The Register and bizjournals. Tweets: @jaberman

Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:

PlayStation Network back online after three-day outage due to DDoS attack; Sony says some users may still experience intermittent issues — PSN is still down for some as Sony gets service back online — Sony says that its online service is back up and running, but many people are still having issues playing games.

More: PlayStation Blog, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, The Verge, BetaNews, Digital Trends, CIO.com, PlayStation LifeStyle, Forbes, CNNMoney.com, Business Insider, The Register, Polygon, VentureBeat and New York Times

Tweets: @askplaystation, @askplaystation and @jeffgerstmann

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Tor network flooded with new relays by Lizard Squad, group allegedly behind Xbox Live and PSN attacks

More: ZDNet, VentureBeat, NEWS.com.au, Associated Press, Gizmodo, Business Insider, PC Magazine, Washington Post, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, The Register, Engadget, ReadWrite, Gigaom and Business Insider

Tweets: @lizardmafia, @lizardmafia, @torproject, @kaepora, @kaepora, @lizardmafia and @fredericjacobs

Jack Kim / Reuters:

North Korea blames U.S. for Internet outages, calls Obama a ‘monkey’ — (Reuters) - North Korea called U.S. President Barack Obama a “monkey” as it blamed Washington Saturday for Internet outages that it has experienced amid a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures.

Arik Hesseldahl / Re/code:

North Korean Internet experienced a 5+ hour outage after its only wireless carrier went down

More: ITworld.com, ABC News, The Verge, CircleID, Ars Technica, USA Today, The Wrap, CNBC, NEWS.com.au, TechCrunch, NBC News, Mashable and CNET. Tweets: @dynresearch

Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:

As competition among VCs increases, some founders sell shares in early funding rounds — Investors Are ‘Fighting Like Drunken Sailors’ Over Hot Startups And Letting Founders Get Rich Too Early — Venture Capitalists used to invest in startups so founders could build businesses.

More: Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch. Tweets: @ajs, @abrams, @fazz and @alex

Fred B. Campbell Jr / New York Times:

W3C to recommend allowing companies with whom users show an “intention to interact”, like a Facebook login, to track them, weakening “Do Not Track” efforts — The Slow Death of ‘Do Not Track’ — HAYMARKET, Va. — FOUR years ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced …

More: Tommy Collison's blog. Tweets: @darylsurat, @stevesi and @caseynewton

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Yahoo Directory Closes, Five Days Early — The Yahoo Directory, the core part of how Yahoo itself began in 1994, officially closed today, five days ahead of when Yahoo had said the end would come. — If you try to reach the Yahoo Directory at its long-standing address of http …

Thanks:@nethistorypod

Megan Geuss / Ars Technica:

Warrant for raid on Kim Dotcom legal, New Zealand Supreme Court rules — New Zealand's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday (PDF) that warrants granted by the Court of Aukland in 2012 to search Kim Dotcom were legal. Warrants to search Dotcom compatriots Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann, and Bram van der Kolk were also upheld.

More: New Zealand Herald, TorrentFreak, Stuff.co.nz and The Register

Kevin C. Tofel / Gigaom:

Windows Phone apps downloaded most on low-cost, low-memory phones — Mobile app developers considering Windows Phone support for their apps, take note: Based on data released by Microsoft on Tuesday, you may want to target low-end devices. Why? Because most of the apps downloaded …

More: Building Apps for Windows, PC Magazine, WinBeta, Windows Phone Central, The Register, MobileSyrup.com, WMPoweruser and WinBeta

Reuters:

Court allows Aereo to auction TV streaming technology assets — A bankruptcy court has allowed defunct video streaming company Aereo Inc to auction its TV streaming technology assets, according to court papers published on Friday. — The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday …

More: Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Engadget, Electronista, Gizmodo, VatorNews and Deadline

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