Techmeme
December 21, 2019, 6:15 PM

Top News

Davey Alba / New York Times:
Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts using AI-generated faces to “masquerade” as Americans; Facebook links the network to Epoch Media Group  —  Researchers said the profiles, linked to the Epoch Media Group, used photos generated by artificial intelligence in a preview of an …
Reuters:
US Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices citing a cybersecurity threat, will block devices with the app from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet  —  (Reuters) - Earlier this week the United States Navy banned the social media app TikTok from government-issued mobile devices …
Sarah Nassauer / Wall Street Journal:
The Verge:
During T-Mobile-Sprint merger trial, the key arguments of both T-Mobile and merger-opposing AGs seemed to rest on whether Dish can create a viable competitor  —  For two weeks now, the future of the American mobile broadband industry has hinged on a small courtroom in lower Manhattan …
New York Times:
Text messages show how the head of DOJ antitrust division Makan Delrahim steered the T-Mobile-Sprint deal and played a crucial role in getting Dish involved  —  Text messages indicate that Makan Delrahim, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, worked behind the scenes to help the companies pull off a deal.
Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:
Sources detail FBI's IDLE program to help companies fight data theft by deploying decoy data to hide real data from hackers and insider threats  —  Newly surfaced doc outlines FBI's IDLE program—which teases thieves with “decoy data.”  —  The Federal Bureau of Investigations is in many ways …
Madeline Berg / Forbes:
Forbes estimates that the highest paid YouTube star of 2019 is Ryan Kaji, an eight-year-old with 23M subscribers, who has earned $26M this year  —  Anastasia Radzinskaya is an unlikely media star.  Born in southern Russia with cerebral palsy, her doctors feared she would never be able to speak.
Karen Weise / New York Times:
Interviews with current and former staff, sellers, and suppliers on how Amazon dictates and unpredictably changes rules, punishes and threatens businesses  —  Twenty years ago, Amazon opened its storefront to anyone who wanted to sell something.  Then it began demanding more out of them.
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Profile of Cliff Stoll, whose memoir The Cuckoo's Egg, which traces the first known case of state-sponsored hacking, inspired a generation of cybersecurity pros  —  Thirty years ago, Cliff Stoll published The Cuckoo's Egg, a book about his cat-and-mouse game with a KGB-sponsored hacker.

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Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Fortune:
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Kim Lyons / The Verge: