Techmeme
February 8, 2019, 12:15 PM

Top News

Jeff Bezos:
Jeff Bezos publishes letters from National Enquirer owner AMI that he says show threats to publish his nude photos unless he stops probing AMI's reporting  —  Something unusual happened to me yesterday.  Actually, for me it wasn't just unusual—it was a first.  I was made an offer I couldn't refuse.
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Sprint sues AT&T over its “5G Evolution” branding, claims it is false and deceptive advertising that is damaging the reputation of actual 5G  —  After AT&T decided to start rolling out “5G Evolution” branding on phones and networks that use 4G LTE Advanced technology …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Google warns about two iOS zero-day vulnerabilities that hackers have been actively exploiting; the vulnerabilities have been fixed in iOS 12.1.4 update  —  iOS users are advised to update to iOS 12.1.4; release which also fixes infamous FaceTime bug.  —  A Google top security engineer …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases iOS 12.1.4 with a fix for the Group FaceTime bug, says a security audit of FaceTime revealed a bug in Live Photos on FaceTime, which it has fixed  —  Apple has turned its Group FaceTime feature back on following the release of iOS 12.1.4 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
The Moscow Times:
Report: Google pulls government-banned sites from Russian search results, blocking ~70% of sites blacklisted by Russia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor  —  Google has started to remove certain entries from its search results in Russia in compliance with long-standing demands from the authorities …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple says it has notified app developers to remove code that lets them record how a user interacts with their apps without explicit user consent  —  Apple is telling app developers to remove code that allows them to effectively record how a user interacts with their iPhone apps …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Google unveils Adiantum, a new form of encryption for data on lower-end smartphones and other devices with insufficient processing power  —  Google officially unveiled a new form of encryption today, designed to secure data stored on lower-end smartphones and other devices with insufficient processing power.
Dami Lee / The Verge:
Spotify's new Terms of Service, which go into effect on March 1, will give Spotify the authority to immediately terminate accounts that use ad blockers  —  Cracking down on ad blockers  —  Spotify is now explicitly banning ad blockers, as stated in an updated Terms of Service policy sent out today.
Brendan Nyhan / Medium:
Research comparing 2016 and 2018 suggests Facebook's efforts to limit the reach of fake news are working, but the platform's scale remains an alluring target  —  After the shock of the 2016 presidential election, many Americans found psychological refuge in a simple explanation for why Donald Trump won: “fake news.”
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
Facebook says it has restructured its “youth team” of 100+, will increase its investment in Messenger Kids, and that the meme app LOL will be shuttered  —  Facebook is restructuring its “youth team,” shutting down its new teen meme app LOL, and doubling down on Messenger Kids.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
After Twitter lost monthly active users for the past three quarters, the company will stop disclosing the number from Q2, will report daily active users instead  —  Twitter's monthly user count has fallen for three quarters in a row, so to address the issue, Twitter has decided to stop announcing how many users it keeps losing.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Jason Hiner / CNET:
Google Fiber to shut down in Louisville on April 15 after an experimental “nanotrenching” technique to deploy fiber in trenches only two inches deep, failed  —  Google's trick to more rapidly and cheaply deploy its super-speedy Google Fiber project has hit a wall …
Securelist:
Kaspersky Lab's DDoS trends report: number of DDoS attacks dropped 13% YoY in 2018, but the average duration of attacks grew from 95 min in Q1 to 218 min in Q4  —  News overview  —  In Q4 2018, security researchers detected a number of new botnets, which included not only Mirai clones for a change.
Google Open Source Blog:
Google says it is open sourcing ClusterFuzz, a tool it developed to automate bug detection in software via fuzzing, which has found 16K+ bugs in Chrome  —  Fuzzing is an automated method for detecting bugs in software that works by feeding unexpected inputs to a target program.
BBC:
Germany orders Facebook to stop combining data from WhatsApp, Instagram, and third-party sites with data in a user's main Facebook account without their consent  —  Germany's competition authority has told Facebook it can only continue gathering so much data about users from beyond its app and website if it gets individuals' consent.

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