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December 21, 2020, 8:10 AM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| The Citizen Lab: |
Citizen Lab: NSO's zero-day, zero-click exploit chain, active in at least iOS 13.5.1, was used to hack ~36 Al Jazeera reporters via iMessage in summer of 2020 — Summary & Key Findings — In July and August 2020, government operatives used NSO Group's Pegasus spyware …
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The Guardian, TechCrunch, Business Insider, 9to5Mac, Associated Press, The Verge, The Hacker News, Forbes, TechRadar, Engadget, ZDNet, AppleInsider, iPhone Hacks, SlashGear, Neowin, and Philip Elmer‑DeWitt
Tweets: @jsrailton, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @dr_ulrichsen, @wokyleeks, @donie, @jsrailton, @farshadnayeri, @jsrailton, @zackwhittaker, @citizenlab, @pwnallthethings, @matthew_d_green, @robertjdenault, @evacide, @laurahuu, @matthew_d_green, @aaschapiro, @jsrailton, @jeffstone500, @pwnallthethings, @aaschapiro, @matthew_d_green, @osxreverser, @kenklippenstein, @dangillmor, @film_girl, and @shashj
| Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times: |
Profile of Dina Srinivasan, who is helping Texas AG's antitrust investigation of Google after her treatises on Facebook and Google reframed antitrust thinking — Regulators are relying on insiders like Dina Srinivasan, who left her digital ad job after concluding that “Facebook and Google … | Andrés Arrieta / Electronic Frontier Foundation: |
Facebook is attacking privacy with its anti-Apple campaign and has locked SMBs into a surveillance-powered advertising model that's invasive of customers — Facebook has recently launched a campaign touting itself as the protector of small businesses. This is a laughable attempt from Facebook …
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Business Insider, 9to5Mac, BGR, iLounge, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Daring Fireball, ZDNet, HotHardware.com News, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, MacRumors, Daring Fireball, and iPhone in Canada Blog
Tweets: @eff, @charlesarthur, @thisisarp, @eric_seufert, @tapbot_paul, @eff, @aidazzles, @counternotions, @moonalice, @hollyvalero, @eric_seufert, @counternotions, @jheydasch, @eff, @hypervisible, @jason_kint, @johnpaczkowski, @jpwp, @random_walker, @moonalice, @alexhern, @hillbrad, @pt, @hillbrad, @hillbrad, @pt, @seldo, @dakami, @ampyourgrowth, @willoremus, @benedictevans, @karaswisher, @jason_kint, @benedictevans, @ronwyden, and @can
| Matt Stoller / BIG: |
Google and Facebook may continue predatory behavior for years as antitrust cases play out, which can be deterred by filing criminal charges against their execs — Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai need to be indicted. — 1 hr ago — Welcome to BIG, a newsletter about the politics of monopoly and finance.| Dan Primack / Axios: |
Sources: SoftBank will file on Monday to raise between $500M and $600M via an IPO of its first SPAC and is preparing at least two additional SPACs — SoftBank on Monday will file to raise between $500 million and $600 million via an IPO of its first SPAC, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
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Bloomberg, TechCrunch, The Economic Times, SiliconANGLE, PYMNTS.com, equalocean.com, Tech in Asia, and Reuters. Tweets: @danprimack
| Owen Thomas / San Francisco Chronicle: |
Profile of Bret Taylor, Salesforce's new COO and the architect of its $27.7B acquisition of Slack, who might one day succeed Marc Benioff as CEO of the company — Everyone in Silicon Valley seems to know Bret Taylor. — Few outside do. — That's going to change, as the software engineer …
Tweets: @owenthomas, @sfchronicle, @louisgray, @martinsfp, @hbrucejohnson, @cherylszee, @jeffjarvis, @demianbulwa, @kfury, and @zlurie
| Lingling Wei / Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: in an early November meeting, Jack Ma offered concessions to Chinese regulators, including handing over parts of Ant Group if “the country needs it” — Trying to salvage his relationship with regulators in a Nov. 2 meeting, the Chinese billionaire said he was ready to do what the country needed
More:
PYMNTS.com and New York Times
Tweets: @kate_okeeffe, @stevelevine, @ajitpaifcc, @chadbown, @bobdavis187, @anuraag_saxena, @chorzempamartin, @carlminzner, @ruima, @jchengwsj, and @jmulvenon
| Michael Steeber / 9to5Mac: |
Apple has closed nearly 100 stores globally since December 14, including in London, California, and Tennessee, as COVID-19 cases surge — New COVID-19 restrictions and worsening outbreaks have compelled Apple to temporarily close nearly one fifth of its retail stores during one of the busiest shopping weeks of the holiday season.
More:
Engadget, USA Today, Bloomberg, The Verge, Cult of Mac, New York Times, Gizmodo, International Business Times, MacRumors, Newser, Pocketnow, Reuters, Apple Terminal, Los Angeles Times, and BBC
Tweets: @gartenberg, @xeni, @jeffmacke, @rickydlaw, and @markgurman
| Katie Bo Williams / Defense One: |
WH officials propose ending the “dual-hat” leadership arrangement of NSA and Cyber Command, renewing debate over splitting up the agencies amid recent attacks — An end to the “dual hat” arrangement has been debated for years — but the timing raises questions.| The Economic Times: |
Pine Labs, which makes POS software and provides last-mile retail transaction tech for merchants, raises $75M-$100M at a $2B valuation — Pine Labs is currently India's third largest fintech startup after Paytm and PhonePe. It counts Lone Pine Capital, Sequoia India, Temasek, Mastercard, Paypal and Actis LLP as among its investors.
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Livemint, Medianama, YourStory.com, and Inc42 Media
Tweets: @amrishrau, @strictlyvc, and @ettech
| Rene Ebersole / National Geographic: |
Black-market wildlife ads have increased on Facebook despite the company's steps to combat them, as experts say ad takedowns prematurely alert criminals — llegal wildlife ads have increased on Facebook despite its steps to combat animal trafficking. Crime watch groups are calling for broad legal reforms.| Aislinn Keely / The Block: |
Personal information of 270K+ customers of hardware wallet Ledger has been leaked online, including emails, home addresses, and phone numbers — A database containing the personal information of over 270,000 Ledger customers has been published on RaidForums, a marketplace for buying, selling, and sharing hacked information.
More:
Decrypt, Cointelegraph, Ledger Support, Crypto Briefing, Cryptonews, blockchain.news, and CoinDesk
Tweets: @ledger and @doncryptodraper
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.
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.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference — Stop preparing for agents. Start running them. 100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive — Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm. Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.
The 90-day recognition cliff: Why praise programs fade, and what keeps them alive — Recognition programs often start with enthusiasm. Employees participate, managers share shoutouts, and teams have a new way to celebrate achievements.
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.
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.Featured Podcasts
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
David George from a16z
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
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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.
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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.
Sources:
Factory CEO on why AGI is already here
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.
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.
Lenny's Podcast:
The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now | Molly Graham
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
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| ProPublica: |
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