Network Support Blog

Wired: Gebru's firing reveals tech's ability to co-opt and minimize criticism of its AI systems, highlighting the need for tech unions, research protection, regulation  —  The situation has made clear that the field needs to change.  Here's where to start, according to a current and a former Googler. https://bit.ly/3hxgqgJ

Adi Robertson / The Verge: Ticketmaster agrees to pay a $10M fine after admitting to hiring an ex-CrowdSurge staffer and using his credentials to access the rival ticket seller's systems  —  It used stolen login credentials at a company summit  —  Ticketmaster has agreed to pay $10 million for breaking into a competitors' network. https://bit.ly/3aZp5Ye

Shakeel Hashim / Protocol: Over 66 SPACs were raised in 2020, according to PitchBook, up from 30 in 2019, amid a year of uncertainty that opened tech companies' eyes to an IPO alternative  —  For many in the tech industry, 2020 was a year of two acronyms.  There was COVID, obviously.  And then there were SPACs. https://bit.ly/3hukDBV

Todd Spangler / Variety: ESPN+ is raising its annual fee for new subscribers from $49.99 to $59.99; renewals for existing subscribers will remain $49.99 through March 2, 2021  —  UFC fans are going to pay more to catch the promoter's premiere fights on Disney's ESPN Plus streaming sports package next year. https://bit.ly/3htQgLT

Wall Street Journal: France says it has resumed collecting its digital services tax, as the UK and Italy prepare to collect their own; France's 3% levy brought in €400M in 2019  —  Dispute centers on cross-border revenue at Google, Facebook, Amazon and other tech firms  —  Detente is ending in the global fight over tech taxes. https://bit.ly/381cKAU

Stephanie Chan / Sensor Tower Blog: Consumers worldwide spent $407.6M across the App Store and Google Play on Christmas, up 34.5% YoY; mobile games rose 27% YoY to $295.6M, led by Honor of Kings  —  2020 has been a record-setting year for worldwide spending on mobile apps and games, which passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November. https://bit.ly/2KQ1sqf

Jaewon Kang / Wall Street Journal: Some US supermarkets say they aren't making money through Instacart due to the service's 10% commission on each order  —  Some supermarkets plan to stick with delivery service despite fees; Instacart says it lets grocers expand e-commerce without building their own infrastructure https://bit.ly/2X1u2ap

Kristin Robinson / Variety: A loophole in Spotify's copyright infringement detection tactics is allowing unauthorized remixes and bootlegs of songs to be uploaded as podcasts  —  Spotify has joined the ranks of streaming services like SoundCloud and YouTube as a hub for bootlegs of popular songs. https://bit.ly/37YmFXW

Olivia Solon / NBC News: Police rely heavily on car sensor and infotainment system data, including GPS and call records, to challenge alibis, thanks to looser privacy standards for cars  —  On June 26, 2017, the lifeless body of Ronald French, a bearded auto mechanic with once-twinkling eyes, was mysteriously found in a cornfield in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. https://bit.ly/38Hbodr

CoinDesk: Coinbase says it will suspend trading of XRP on January 19, 2021, following the SEC's suit against Ripple  —  Coinbase said it will suspend trading of XRP, the cryptocurrency the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claimed last week is really a security. https://bit.ly/3aTT7fJ

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A look at the worst hacks of 2020: SolarWinds, Twitter, Blueleaks, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Vastaamo, and Garmin  —  From ransomware schemes to supply chain attacks, this year melded classic hacks with extraordinary circumstances.  —  WHAT A WAY to kick off a new decade. https://bit.ly/37WQDeS

Sam Richards / The Intercept: Documents detail CellHawk, a little-known surveillance tool used widely by law enforcement, which can visualize large amounts of data collected by cell towers  —  Until now, the Bartonville, Texas, company Hawk Analytics and its product CellHawk have largely escaped public scrutiny. https://bit.ly/2JohUx6

Kevin Randall / Wired: With traffic to Chatroulette booming amid COVID, the team is testing AI tools to moderate content; it now offers a filtered channel designed to exclude nudity  —  The hottest app of early 2010 faded quickly when it was flooded with unwanted nudity.  Smarter content moderation is helping to revive it. https://bit.ly/34OyCgH

Miles Kruppa / Financial Times: Study: the median valuation for SaaS companies raising their Series C rose by 40% to $210M this year, while their median revenue grew 20%  —  Valuations soar in Silicon Valley with venture capitalists racing to find next big thing  —  The surging value of cloud software companies … https://bit.ly/3ruJeLn

Lars Eidnes / ITNEXT: Analysis of the top 1M pages on the web finds that HTTP/2 is now more common than HTTP/1.1; jQuery, Google Analytics were the top JavaScript libraries by usage  —  We rendered the top 1 million pages on the web, tracking every conceivable performance metric, logging every error, noting every requested URL. https://bit.ly/3aH7uUF

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Apple's system status webpage indicates that the company has resolved an outage affecting iCloud Account and Sign In services  —  Apple's system status webpage indicates that the company has resolved an outage affecting “iCloud Account and Sign In” services. https://bit.ly/38SfAaD

MacRumors: Apple's system status page is showing issues with “iCloud Account and Sign In” since Christmas morning, as users complain about problems with device activation  —  Apple's status page shows an ongoing issue with “iCloud Account and Sign In” since early Christmas morning. https://bit.ly/2WL6tm6

Sarah Fallon / Wired: Profile of Ray Holt, who in the 1960s jointly developed the F-14 Tomcat's Central Air Data Computer, considered by some to be the first microprocessor  —  In a weird way, I've known Ray Holt all my life, but I never knew what he had accomplished—or how his inventions wove their way into my own family. https://bit.ly/2WPcWMQ

Julia Alexander / The Verge: 2020 has been the beginning of major streaming exclusivity plays, forcing users to pay for four or five services as big studios prioritize their own platforms  —  End-of-year turnover is always rough, and it's going to get worse  —  Two of the biggest movies people want to talk about this week … https://bit.ly/38D0YeS

Yuan Yang / Financial Times: European tech executives and diplomats privately complain US sanctions on Huawei shut them out of the Chinese market while offering exceptions for US companies  —  Business says EU groups are losing out on licences to sell to blacklisted Chinese companies  —  European tech executives … https://bit.ly/3nOazpy

Washington Post: A study using 96K searches found that Google News put far more national news outlets than local outlets at the top of search results, even for local queries  —  Our audit reveals that Google News sends readers — and advertising dollars — away from local news outlets. https://bit.ly/3pkVoVe

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Bloomberg has acquired Second Measure, a data analytics firm offering consumer behavior and company performance insights; Second Measure previously raised ~$25M  —  Bloomberg today announced that it has acquired data analytics platform Second Measure, a San Mateo-based startup that leverages big data … https://bit.ly/3mLhzlL

South China Morning Post: The Alibaba antitrust probe was likely triggered by online merchants being forced to pick only one platform as their distribution channel, a widespread practice  —  Chinese regulators will look into the ‘picking one from two’ practice as part of their probe into Alibaba Group Holding … https://bit.ly/38zMM6n

Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic: A look at the growing online movement against multilevel-marketing companies, as TikTok becomes the first major platform to explicitly ban multilevel marketing  —  This week, when TikTok announced an updated version of its community guidelines, one small addition was more surprising than the others. https://bit.ly/3nR1ht8

Martha C. White / New York Times: Experts say demand for data centers has been a bright spot for US commercial real estate this year; REITs focused on data centers had returns of 19% in H1 2020  —  Developers and investors see more opportunities in commercial real estate as businesses and consumers gobble up more data. https://bit.ly/3aEWMy0

Leo Kelion / BBC: DeepMind details MuZero, revealed in 2019 and following AlphaZero, which can master games without knowing the rules and is working on YouTube video compression  —  DeepMind's latest AI program can attain “superhuman performance” in tasks without needing to be given the rules. https://bit.ly/3nXTGIY

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica: Certificate authority Let's Encrypt says it has found a workaround that will extend older Android phones' compatibility with its certificates by three years  —  When you haven't been updated since 2016, expiring certificates are a problem.  —  Things were touch-and-go for a while … https://bit.ly/2KyFNTl

Zach Dorfman / Foreign Policy: US intelligence officials have struggled to respond to China's hacking efforts over the past decade, finding themselves one step behind China  —  It was a radically mistaken assessment.  But even inside the U.S. government, knowledge of China—and its intensions—was at a low point. https://bit.ly/2LR5lv5

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Facebook's small advertisers say that the company's inflexible account blocking tools and lack of customer assistance is hurting their businesses  —  - Marketers find ads still running after losing account access  — Social network's automated tools ‘not perfect,’ company says https://bit.ly/37FzO7N

Simon Parkin / New Yorker: Q&A with Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto on what excites him about his work, his strengths and weaknesses as a boss, not abusing power, ambitions, and more  —  The legendary designer on rejecting violence in games, trying to be a good boss, and building Nintendo's Disneyland. https://bit.ly/3haXYuj

Jesse Pound / CNBC: SoftBank files to launch its SPAC, planning to raise $525M in the IPO  —  - SoftBank filed for an initial public offering for its special purpose acquisition company on Monday.  — The firm plans to raise $525 million to invest in a technology company.  —  SoftBank Group filed to launch … https://bit.ly/2WD7mNC

Nandita Bose / Reuters: Sources: executives and employees at Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and others are seeking to place allies in senior roles at government agencies under Biden  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Silicon Valley is working behind the scenes to secure senior roles for tech allies in lesser-known … https://bit.ly/34ApoV7

New York Times: A look at some of the designers, competitors, streamers, voice actors, and labor activists working to shift the insular gaming world culture towards inclusivity  —  Designers, competitors, streamers, voice actors and labor activists have been working to make gaming more inclusive. https://bit.ly/3nD7J6F

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 … https://bit.ly/3pdQmdk

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. https://bit.ly/3h693Nd

Microsoft Security: Microsoft details the Solorigate DLL file that was used to install a backdoor in SolarWinds Orion and reveals it discovered additional malware affecting Orion  —  - Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team  — Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC)  —  We, along with the security industry … https://bit.ly/34sMRaK

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: Experts say the SolarWinds hack shows that the US still has no good answers to combat “supply chain” attacks, which are “ridiculously difficult” to detect  —  Despite years of warning, the US still has no good answer for the sort of “supply chain” attack that let Russia run wild. https://bit.ly/34uuYZn

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post: Mike Pompeo says Russia is “pretty clearly” behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign, the first Trump administration official to publicly blame the country  —  Russia is behind the massive, ongoing cyber spy campaign against the federal government and private sector … https://bit.ly/2WC8XTL

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Facebook reports its 2020 election response to US lawmakers, says it took action on 265K posts and 3.3M ad submissions for violating voter interference policies  —  - Company again urges Congress to better regulate the internet  — Report outlines actions taken against voter misinformation https://bit.ly/3p8gjeg

Sriram Krishnan / The Observer Effect: Q&A with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke on his typical day, time management, culture, product creation, organizational design, meetings, and working from home  —  Welcome to the third interview on ‘The Observer Effect’.  We are lucky to have one of the most interesting founders in technology and commerce … https://bit.ly/3nDrL0Y

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Indian food delivery giant Zomato has raised a total of $660M in the Series J it kicked off last year, at a $3.9B post-money valuation  —  Zomato has raised $660 million in a financing round — Series J — that it kicked off last year as the Indian food delivery startup prepares to go public next year. https://bit.ly/2KlZOw9

Reuters: Sources: US to add ~80 more Chinese companies and affiliates, including SMIC, to the trade blacklist on Friday  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is set to add dozens of Chinese companies, including the country's top chipmaker SMIC, to a trade blacklist on Friday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. https://bit.ly/38jLqg3

The Intercept: Microsoft Threat Intel docs suggest state-sponsored hackers, likely from Russia, breached Austin, TX's city network in Oct. and used it to stage other attacks  —  State-sponsored hackers believed to be from Russia have breached the city network of Austin, Texas, The Intercept has learned. https://bit.ly/3raemQj

Niel S / MyHealthyApple: Alphabet's life sciences division Verily raises $700M from Alphabet, Silver Lake, Temasek, and others and says it will expand commercial businesses  —  Verily Lifesciences received the approval for their new Verily Patch product and the associated app.  —  Verily Patch is the wearable vital … https://bit.ly/2LNpBOj

Thomas P. Bossert / New York Times: Ex-Homeland Security Adviser: the magnitude of the Solarwinds breach is hard to overstate and the remediation effort alone will be staggering  —  The magnitude of this national security breach is hard to overstate.  —  Mr. Bossert was the homeland security adviser to President Trump … https://bit.ly/2IWWDdI

FinSMEs: BigID, which helps monitor and protect enterprise customers' data, raises $70M Series D led by Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1B+  —  BigID, a NYC-based leader in data discovery and intelligence for privacy, protection and perspective, raised $70Mm in series D financing … https://bit.ly/3aiEXo9

Washington Post: CISA's Einstein, which cost billions and monitors US agencies' networks for bad actors, missed the SolarWinds hack, which now counts the NIH among its victims  —  When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring … https://bit.ly/3mtTNKS

Kathryn Dill / Wall Street Journal: Many students say they found virtual campus career fairs this year technically challenging, but less intimidating and more efficient than those held in-person  —  Screen-based meetings demand patience and new break-the-ice protocols, but you can wear gym shorts https://bit.ly/3qWBphn

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Microsoft plans to forcibly block and isolate malware-infected versions of the SolarWinds Orion app via Microsoft Defender, starting on Wednesday  —  After only showing detection alerts, Microsoft moves to block trojanized SolarWinds apps from running, opening the door for some IT issues for some of its customers. https://bit.ly/2LGcnCZ

Theodore Schleifer / Vox: Alloy, a Reid Hoffman-backed political data startup for Democrats, imploded after four senior employees, who had all complained about a colleague, were fired  —  Alloy was once seen as Democrats' next great hope.  But chaos awaited.  —  Just two weeks after Election Day … https://bit.ly/37k4efS

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Zenoti, which makes spa and salon management SaaS, has raised $160M Series D at a $1B+ valuation led by Advent International  —  Zenoti, a 10-year-old startup that develops services for the spa and salon industry, is the latest entrant to the coveted unicorn list. https://bit.ly/34a0Oub

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. https://bit.ly/34dbk3D

Natasha Singer / New York Times: COVID-19 health pass apps could help reopen businesses by showing if users are vaccinated but could also unfairly exclude people from travel and offices  —  Covid-19 health pass apps could help reopen businesses and restore the economy.  They could also unfairly exclude people from travel and workplaces. https://bit.ly/2WfPCba