Techmeme: Joshua Schachter on inventing tags for bookmarks, selling Del.icio.us to Yahoo in 2005, and Yahoo's mismanagement of the service before its 2017 shutdown (Jake Swearingen/New York Magazine)

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October 21, 2018, 6:15 PM

Top News

Fred Wilson / AVC:

Recent news serves as a reminder that operators in startups and venture capital should work to ensure their investors are not bad actors — I got an email from the CEO of one of our portfolio companies last week. — It asked a very basic question, but one that I don't recall being asked before:

Tweets: @austinfish, @saraashleyo, @evanwolf, @avyfain, @aliasaria, @bobbierman, @nitashatiku, @mdudas, @anildash, @semil, and @semil

New York Times:

Sources: Saudis groomed a Twitter employee to spy on accounts of dissidents; he was investigated and fired in Dec. 2015 after Western intelligence warnings — Each morning, Jamal Khashoggi would check his phone to discover what fresh hell had been unleashed while he was sleeping.

More: Business Insider, CNET, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Mashable, Bloomberg, Engadget, The Verge, Vox, Deadline, The Hill, and Hit & Run

Tweets: @mckinsey, @oliverdarcy, @bakerluke, @aaschapiro, @awprokop, @glennkesslerwp, @mmasnick, @jayrosen_nyu, @robbystarbuck, @pinboard, @0xabad1dea, @tomgara, @akinunver, @ngrossman81, @onekade, @mollyjongfast, @ambdana, and @mikeisaac

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The Information:

Sources: Facebook is stepping up efforts to buy a major cybersecurity firm and has approached several companies about an acquisition — In an effort to repair its tattered reputation around data protection, Facebook is stepping up efforts to acquire a major cybersecurity firm, according to four people familiar with the matter.

More: CNET. Tweets: @joshconstine, @amir, and @coryweinberg

Robert Hackett / Fortune:

dYdX, a startup that develops decentralized financial derivative products on Ethereum blockchain, raises $10M Series A led by a16z crypto and Polychain Capital — A startup called dYdX has raised $10 million in funding from investors to develop financial software that allows people …

More: dydxprotocol, CryptoGlobe, and SludgeFeed. Tweets: @tochryp

Jake Swearingen / New York Magazine:

Joshua Schachter on inventing tags for bookmarks, selling Del.icio.us to Yahoo in 2005, and Yahoo's mismanagement of the service before its 2017 shutdown — As told to , Jake Swearingen @JakeSwearingen — Joshua Schachter's groundbreaking social-bookmarking site Del.icio.us, founded in 2003 …

Tweets: @mbeckett, @jenny8lee, @csertoglu, @simonowens, and @nymag

Wall Street Journal:

A look at traditional auto makers' attempts to reimagine themselves as software and service companies, in order to fend off rivals like Uber and Waymo — As IPO proposals value Uber at an eye-popping $120 billion, auto makers are racing to gain ground in everything from car sharing to driverless technology.

Tweets: @sub8u

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Broadband lobbying groups sue Vermont over its law that requires ISPs to follow net neutrality principles in order to qualify for government contracts — State law says ISPs must follow net neutrality to get government contracts. — The nation's largest broadband industry lobby groups …

More: The Hill, Associated Press, Channel NewsAsia, VTDigger, Vermont Business Magazine, courthousenews.com, Gizmodo, Reuters, and MeriTalk

Triplebyte Blog:

Interview with YC partner Paul Buchheit about how he got started with programming, joining Google and creating Gmail, becoming a great engineer, and more — On Becoming a Programmer … One moment I remember really getting into programming came while playing a fantasy RPG video game.

Tweets: @garrytan and @carnage4life

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

SoftBank Group COO Marcelo Claure and Arm CEO Simon Segers talk about the present and future of Arm, IoT growth, while trying to dodge Saudi-related questions — SoftBank, one of the world's biggest tech companies and startup investors, believes we'll have a trillion connected devices by 2025.

More: CNN

Giles Turner / Bloomberg:

Brazil-based Loggi, a fast delivery services platform matching couriers with shippers, is raising a $111M round, with SoftBank's Vision Fund contributing $100M — - Loggi notching up to 3 million deliveries a month: CEO — Sao Paulo-based startup to invest in engineers, robotics

More: Crunchbase News. Tweets: @baybrazil and @teddyschleifer

Issie Lapowsky / Wired:

Interview with Brian Amerige, the former Facebook employee whose memo accusing the company of being a political monoculture led to fierce internal debate — AT ONE POINT this summer, Brian Amerige seemed destined to become the next James Damore. — Like Damore, the Google engineer who wrote …

Tweets: @issielapowsky, @lizthegrey, @carnage4life, @caitlin__kelly, and @anildash

Lindsey O'Donnell / Threatpost:

Researcher discovers and helps patch 13 vulnerabilities in open source IoT OS FreeRTOS and Amazon's AWS secure connectivity modules using the OS — Researchers have found that a popular Internet of Things real-time operating system - FreeRTOS - is riddled with serious vulnerabilities.

More: Engadget and Zimperium Mobile Security Blog. Tweets: @zimperium

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:15 PM ET, October 21, 2018.

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.

From Mediagazer

Paul Glynn / BBC:

HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Ken Vogel / @kenvogel:

Politico ends its print edition after 19 years, as its early reliance on print ad revenue fades and its audience relies more on digital platforms

Nicholas Henriquez / New Yorker:

The New Yorker has digitized its full archive covering 100 years, including covers and adding upgraded search capabilities; subscribers get unlimited access

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More News

Ian Allison / CoinDesk:

South Africa-based Adhara, a startup that builds private blockchains for banks using privacy centric Ethereum fork Quorum, raises $15M from Consensys

Dami Lee / The Verge:

OnePlus 6T launch event in NYC moved up by a day to avoid overlap with Apple's October 30 event; OnePlus event is a ticketed event for fans as well as press

Sue Halpern / New Republic:

How political data firms continue to vacuum up psychological and personal data on people in order to sway voters, even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Tweets: @carnage4life and @profcarroll

Fast Company:

Many of the economists who testified at FTC hearings this week and dismissed or criticized the idea of tech monopolies received money from big tech in the past

More: Boing Boing. Tweets: @jason_kint, @epopppp, @eisingerj, and @matthewstoller

New York Times:

A look at apps like Cruz Crew, N.R.A., and Great America that offer conservatives safe spaces free from the content guidelines of big platforms like Facebook

More: CNBC. Tweets: @nytimes, @theglobalpov, @xamat, and @profcarroll

Earlier Picks

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

SEC filing: Microsoft now includes LinkedIn performance metrics, like the number of active users, in calculating stock awards to four top execs, including CEO

Tweets: @stevesi, @asanwal, @evanish, and @jordannovet

Adam Satariano / New York Times:

UK parliament report: an unknown firm spent an estimated £250K+ in the past 10 months on Facebook ads pushing for a hard Brexit and reaching 10M to 11M people

More: Engadget and Telegraph

Tweets: @jason_kint, @dancingthemind, @damiancollins, @jason_kint, and @profcarroll

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Real-time data analytics startup Incorta raises $15M Series B extension led by Microsoft's VC arm M12 and Telstra Ventures, closing the round at $30M

More: VatorNews and NewsCenter.io

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar / Associated Press:

Officials say a government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising sensitive data for ~75,000 people

More: CSO, Centers for Medicare …, TechCrunch, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, FierceHealthcare, and Reuters

Tweets: @zackwhittaker and @theregister

Washington Post:

DOJ charges Russian national involved in “Project Lakhta”, an alleged foreign influence operation to interfere in US midterms by pushing misinformation online