Techmeme: Experts' findings suggest NSA is at least indirectly responsible for Juniper backdoor because of the weakness NSA embedded in the Dual_EC encryption algorithm (Kim Zetter/Wired)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

December 22, 2015, 12:30 PM

Top News

Kim Zetter / Wired:

Experts' findings suggest NSA is at least indirectly responsible for Juniper backdoor because of the weakness NSA embedded in the Dual_EC encryption algorithm — Researchers Solve Juniper Backdoor Mystery; Signs Point to NSA — Security researchers believe they have finally solved …

More: rpw.sh, Business Insider, SecurityWeek, The Next Web and SecurityWeek

Tweets: @0xabad1dea and @matthew_d_green

Thanks:@kimzetter

Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts …:

How hackers piggybacked on an existing backdoor in Juniper's ScreenOS software to create a backdoor of their own — On the Juniper backdoor — You might have heard that a few days ago, Juniper Systems announced the discovery of “unauthorized code” in the ScreenOS software that underlies the NetScreen line of devices.

More: Cisco Blog, The Verge, SANS ISC, InfoWorld, FierceCIO News, Security Affairs and Threatpost. Tweets: @aantonop

Yahoo:

Sources: Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles — Google Pairs With Ford To Build Self-Driving Cars — Justin Hyde and Sharon Carty, Yahoo Autos — Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google's technology …

Alex Hern / Guardian:

Apple calls on UK government to scale back investigatory powers bill, says it would “weaken security for hundreds of millions of law-abiding customers” — Apple calls on UK government to scale back snooper's charter — Tech company makes rare foray into British politics …

Katherine Noyes / PCWorld:

Oracle settles with the FTC after leaving insecure, older versions of Java SE installed on users' computers — Oracle settles with the FTC over ‘deceptive’ Java security promises — Once finalized, the order could impose a civil penalty of $16,000 per violation

More: Federal Trade Commission, Ars Technica, VentureBeat, Business Insider, BBC, HOTforSecurity, The Hacker News, SecurityWeek, Threatpost, The Register, Engadget, darkREADING, Benzinga, The Verge, Consumerist, Washington Post, NBC News, Krebs on Security and Federal Trade Commission

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:

FAA's drone registration site is now live: registrations are valid for 3 years, free for next 30 days or $5 afterwards — The FAA's Drone Registration Site Is Now Up And Running — As promised, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched its drone registry today.

More: TechCrunch, CNBC, Technabob, SlashGear, blog.chron.com, Tech Times, Ubergizmo, Business Insider, BGR, BuzzFeed, The Verge and PCWorld

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:

Microsoft temporarily disables “Hey Cortana” feature on Android in US due to voice search conflict with “Ok Google” feature — Microsoft disables ‘Hey Cortana’ feature on Android due to voice search conflict — Earlier this month, Microsoft launched Cortana for Android and iOS in the U.S. and China.

JC Torres / SlashGear:

Early build of final Oculus Rift hardware starts shipping to devs — Things might finally be really getting along for the company that rebooted the whole virtual reality hype. Perhaps taking advantage of the delay that HTC's and Valve's Vive VR headset will suffer in the next few months …

More: Developer Center, Road to VR, TechCrunch, Engadget, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Business Insider

Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:

Flywheel's TaxiOS, an Uber-like, no-surge-fee ride-hailing app for taxis, gets approval in California and launches, following its pilot program in San Francisco — Flywheel Launches Uber-Like Operating System For Taxi Cabs — Flywheel, the no-surge-fee taxi startup that hopes to challenge …

More: The Verge and GeekWire

Ryan Hoover / Medium:

Product Hunt's Ryan Hoover responds to app developer's criticism that called for more transparency about how products get promoted to its front page — Let's continue to build Product Hunt, together — Last week was difficult. — A Medium article was published, criticizing Product Hunt.

Tweets: @stevesi, @stevesi, @daveambrose, @lanewood, @joshdickson40, @sparkzilla, @joshdickson40 and @brantchoate

Greg Kumparak / TechCrunch:

Facebook Starts Rolling Out Support For Apple's Live Photos — It's been just under 3 months since Apple debuted “Live Photos” with the iPhone 6s and, slowly but surely, big third parties are finding ways to integrate them. Tumblr picked them up just days ago... and now Live Photos …

Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:

NetApp acquires flash storage vendor SolidFire for $870M — Publicly traded storage hardware company NetApp today announced that it has acquired SolidFire, a startup that made a name for itself selling fast all-flash storage hardware, for $870 million in cash.

More: Computerworld, PE Hub Blog, eWeek, Opptrends, Petri IT Knowledgebase, The Register, SiliconANGLE, Seeking Alpha, NetApp Data Management …, Fortune, Forbes, bizjournals, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters and Business Insider

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

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.

Grit:

The AI Race Has a Leaderboard | Arena CEO Anastasios Angelopoulos

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 12:30 PM ET, December 22, 2015.

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.