Techmeme
August 12, 2018, 11:45 PM

Top News

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Dealing with the likes of Infowars on internet platforms is not a binary choice to keep or ban them; many other options exist, and they should all be explored  —  from the deplatforming-and-denialism dept  —  Warning 1: I'm about to talk about an issue that has a lot of nuance in it and no clear …
Oliver Darcy / CNNMoney:
New York Times:
Jeff Jarvis / The Atlantic:
Kevin Collier / BuzzFeed News:
As attendees of Defcon's Voting Village, including an 11-year-old, successfully hack voting machines, vendors and officials try to downplay the problems  —  Veteran hackers have tried for years to get the world to notice flaws in voting machines.  Now that they've got it, they have to wrestle with scaring people away from voting.
George P. Slefo / Ad Age:
Spotify is running a test in Australia that lets users skip audio and video ads any time they want, says it may help company train its ad targeting algorithms  —  Spotify is hoping to deliver another blow at rival Pandora, all in an effort to dominate the fast growing, $1.6 billion market that is digital audio advertising.
Michael H. Keller / New York Times:
A look at the fake YouTube views ecosystem where sites like Devumi.com and 500Views.com sell millions of bot-generated views and how YouTube is fighting it  —  Plays can be bought for pennies and delivered in bulk, inflating videos' popularity and creating an environment ripe for manipulation.
CoinDesk:
Overstock.com says its subsidiary tZero raised $134M in an ICO, announces up to $270M investment in tZero by Chinese private equity firm GSR at $1.5B valuation  —  Overstock.com subsidiary tZero raised $134 million in its security token offering, the company said Thursday.
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
RiskRecon, a SaaS platform providing cybersecurity assessments of third-party vendors, raises $25M Series B led by Accel Partners  —  In June of this year, Chinese hackers managed to install software into the networks of a contractor for the U.S. Navy and steal information on a roughly $300 million top-secret submarine program.
Daniil Turovsky / Meduza.io:
A look at the loose alliance between Russia's criminal hackers and intelligence services that has been attacking Russia's perceived enemies since around 2005  —  On the night of August 8, 2008, Georgian troops started shelling Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and then began their assault on the city.

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Earlier Picks

Cory Fields: