Techmeme
December 15, 2020, 5:15 AM

Top News

Reuters:
SolarWinds: under 18,000 customers were compromised between March and June via an update to its Orion software, leading to DHS, Treasury, Commerce Dept. hacks  —  LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. IT company SolarWinds said on Monday that up to 18,000 of its customers had downloaded …
Reuters:
Sources: state-sponsored hackers accessed US DHS internal communications as part of the campaign that penetrated US Treasury and Commerce departments  —  A team of sophisticated hackers believed to be working for the Russian government won access to internal communications at the U.S. Department …
Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal:
Source: Treasury's hackers used a flaw in a SolarWinds product; SolarWinds, which touts 300K+ customers, says the flaw was the result of a “supply chain attack”  —  Russia's foreign intelligence service is suspected of being behind effort to breach government networks
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Volexity researchers say they noticed SolarWinds hackers bypass MFA protections at a think tank previously but were subsequently undetected for several years  —  Hackers who hit SolarWinds compromised a think tank three separate times.  —  The hackers behind the supply chain attack …
More: Volexity
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple releases iOS 14.3 and macOS Big Sur 11.1 and launches its app privacy labels across all of its App Stores  —  At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the company announced it would soon require developers to disclose their app's privacy practices to customers via new …
Nicole Nguyen / Wall Street Journal:
Review of Apple's Fitness+ subscription service: a relatively good deal compared to rivals, with plenty of workouts, but requiring a Watch might put people off  —  The $10-a-month app takes on at-home fitness for a competitive price but with an expensive catch
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple releases iOS 14.3 with ProRAW for iPhone 12 Pro, Fitness+, support for AirPods Max and launching App Clips by scanning Apple's App Clip Codes, and more  —  Apple will release iOS 14.3 and iPadOS 14.3 to all users today.  The update includes new features such as Apple ProRAW for iPhone 12 Pro users …
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Pinterest to pay $22.5M to settle a gender discrimination suit brought by ex-COO Françoise Brougher, who said she was fired after speaking up about mistreatment  —  The suit had been brought by Françoise Brougher, Pinterest's former chief operating officer, who said she was fired after speaking up about mistreatment.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
FTC orders Amazon, ByteDance, Discord, Facebook and WhatsApp, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, and YouTube to share info on how they collect and use their users' data  —  - The Federal Trade Commission is requiring nine tech companies to share information about how they collect and use data from their users, the agency announced Monday.
Samantha Cole / VICE:
Brandon Russell / XDA Developers:
Signal updates its iOS and Android apps with support for encrypted group video calls with up to five participants  —  Signal on Monday announced the launch of group calls which, like everything else on the platform, is end-to-end encrypted.  The new feature, which builds …
Sean O'Kane / The Verge:
California regulators fine Uber $59M for failing to give info on sexual assault cases, will cancel license if Uber fails to pay and provide info within 30 days  —  It has 30 days to pay — and answer — or risk suspension in California  —  Uber has 30 days to pay a $59 million fine …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Zoho:
What's new in Zoho Tables with Apple's latest OS updates  —  Your work shouldn't slow you down when you're on the move.With our latest updates for iOS 27, we're bringing more of Apple Intelligence …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Soxton:
Fast, affordable law for startups  —  Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better.  We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts.  Join the waitlist for early access!

Featured Podcasts

Sources:
OpenAI's Dots lead on the future of ChatGPT
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Great Chat:
What does the tech industry owe San Francisco?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
David George from a16z
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Big Technology Podcast:
SAP CEO: AI Won't Kill Software, But It Will Change Your Job — With Christian Klein
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
David Ellison's Paramount-Warner Empire & The Fight That Comes Next
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:15 AM ET, December 15, 2020.

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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
New York Times:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: