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.

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From Mediagazer

Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times:

60 Minutes' 59th season will debut September 13 with an in-depth look at the LA Rams, the first edition of the remade show under Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton

New York Times:

North America's 2026 summer box office revenue of $4.76B is 17% below 2019, adjusted for inflation; est. Jan. 1-Aug. 16 tickets fell 30% vs. same period in 2019

Matt Donnelly / Variety:

Sources: Netflix will report box office grosses for six upcoming movies with theatrical releases, including La Bola Negra, which will have 46 days in theaters

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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