Network Support Blog

Tiare Tuuhia / Rest of World: How homegrown courier services in French Polynesia are building their own online shopping service to fill the gaps left by e-commerce giants in remote islands  —  E-commerce giants don't reliably deliver to the remote islands of French Polynesia, so locals made their own online shopping service. https://bit.ly/3tWQlQ5

Suzanne Smalley / CyberScoop: Sources: Biden administration considers changing a Trump-era policy which let DoD and Cyber Command authorize cyber operations without White House approval  —  The Biden administration is reviewing whether and how to change a Trump-era policy which gave unprecedented authority to the Department … https://bit.ly/3IRm5ud

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Researchers: an allegedly Russia-tied wiper malware, AcidRain, which shares similarities with the malware VPNFilter, was behind the attack on Viasat in February  —  AcidRain is the seventh wiper associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine  —  Viasat—the high-speed-satellite-broadband … https://bit.ly/3qRxjJ1

Alex Heath / The Verge: Internal report: a now-fixed Facebook bug led to a “massive ranking failure” that increased views of harmful content up to 30% over the past six months  —  A group of Facebook engineers identified a “massive ranking failure” that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to … https://bit.ly/38iWVbe

Tarush Bhalla / The Economic Times: Sources: a Competition Commission of India probe found Google's Play Store billing guidelines are “unfair and discriminatory”; further hearings are planned  —  In addition, the regulator also examined allegations that Google used “search manipulation' to push Google Pay. https://bit.ly/3LsLmfV

Keerthi Vedantam / dot.LA: VivoSense, which develops wearable biometric sensors to collect and organize data from patients for clinical drug trials, raises a $25M Series A  —  As the CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics from 2011 to 2015, Chris Garabedian led a biotech firm striving to find cures for rare diseases. https://bit.ly/3Lt1VIr

Steve Zurier / SC Media: IoT manufacturer Ubiquiti sues cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, claiming he falsely accused the company of covering up a cyberattack  —  Ubiquiti on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against industry blogger Brian Krebs for $425 million in damages for allegedly falsely accusing the company of “covering up” a cyberattack. https://bit.ly/3wNBj0H

Richard Lawler / The Verge: Apple updates its App Store rules in the Netherlands to let Dutch dating apps take payments through third-party processors, but a 27% commission still applies  —  But they can't avoid giving up a 27 percent commission  —  To help bring an end to wrangling with Dutch regulators that stretched … https://bit.ly/3tTJerw

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Dagger, a new DevOps service co-founded by Docker's Solomon Hykes, launches in public beta and announces a $20M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures  —  It's been almost exactly four years since Docker founder Solomon Hykes left the company that kickstarted the container revolution. https://bit.ly/3NBWlph

Kris Holt / Engadget: FedEx partners with Elroy Air to trial the Chaparral C1 autonomous drone, which can carry up to 500 pounds of packages, in Texas next year  —  FedEx plans to test a different method of moving goods between depots starting next year, which could speed up the delivery process. https://bit.ly/3qQmkPT

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Israel-based Kooply, still in stealth mode, raises an $18M seed led by Microsoft's M12, TPY Capital, and Playtika to build a mobile games development platform  —  Mobile dominates the world of gaming, with smartphone and tablet games generating $93.2 billion in revenues in 2021, more than console … https://bit.ly/3NxHtYU

Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat: BoostUp.ai, whose AI-based revenue operations and intelligence platform is used by companies like Cloudflare and Udemy, raises a $28.5M Series B led by NGP  —  Santa Clara, California headquartered BoostUp.ai, which provides a revenue operations and intelligence platform to enterprises … https://bit.ly/3iOT5J0

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Kuaishou reports Q4 revenue of $3.8B, up 35% YoY, with a ~$1B net loss, and MAUs up 21.5% YoY to 578M, as daily time spent per user rose 32% to 118.9 minutes  —  Kuaishou Technology's revenue beat estimates, defying China's economic slowdown despite intensifying competition with TikTok-owner ByteDance Ltd. https://bit.ly/36T5dG2

Shannon Liao / Washington Post: A judge approves an $18M settlement between Activision Blizzard and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ending the federal sexual harassment lawsuit  —  A judge approved an $18 million settlement between Activision Blizzard and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday … https://bit.ly/3Nvv7QS

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: TikTok partners with Giphy to launch TikTok Library, an in-app creator tool  —  TikTok today is announcing a new in-app creation tool called TikTok Library, which the company hopes will make it easier for creators to access entertainment content and participate in trends. https://bit.ly/3qGg39t

Chris Welch / The Verge: Many customers on Verizon and its MVNO Visible have reported receiving spam text messages from their own phone number over the last few days  —  Did you recently get a spam text... from yourself?  You're not alone  —  This morning, I received a very blatant spam text offering me “a little gift” for supposedly paying my phone bill. https://bit.ly/3tP8oHY

Laura Lovett / MobiHealthNews: UAE-based telehealth startup Altibbi raises a $44M Series B led by Foundation Holdings, Hikma Ventures, Global Ventures, and DASH Ventures  —  This new round of funding will go towards building the company's online pharmacy and its geographical footprint.  —  United Arab Emirates health … https://bit.ly/3Dl5Fcj

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: HR and payroll platform Papaya Global is acquiring Azimo, a London-based money transfer service; source: the deal is worth between $150M and $200M  —  Six months after raising $250 million, Papaya Global is making a key acquisition to expand its cloud-based HR and payroll platform globally on the heels of major surge in remote working. https://bit.ly/3JVsbLu

Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Q&A with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on integrating hardware and software, the company's full-stack approach, ML opportunities, attempting to buy Arm, and more  —  It took a few moments to realize what was striking about the opening video for Nvidia's GTC conference: the complete absence of humans. https://bit.ly/3tLYXJf

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: Huawei reports 2021 revenue dropped 28.5% YoY to $99.9B, its first-ever yearly revenue decline as US sanctions continue, but net income rose 75.9% YoY to $17.8B  —  - In 2021, Huawei brought in revenue of 636.8 billion Chinese yuan ($99.9 billion), a 28.5% year-on-year decline. https://bit.ly/3tJiiuz

Shannon Bond / NPR: Researchers identify thousands of computer-generated profile pictures being used on fake LinkedIn profiles for lead generation and product promotion  —  Loading...  At first glance, Renée DiResta thought the LinkedIn message seemed normal enough.  —  The sender, Keenan Ramsey … https://bit.ly/3wDSulr

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: How global supply chains are morphing into “supply webs”, as the pandemic, trade wars, and geopolitical conflicts force tech companies to become more resilient  —  Supply chains are designed to be cost-effective, but not necessarily resilient.  Companies are transforming … https://bit.ly/35h1ku1

Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post: Sources detail NHTSA's difficulties regulating Tesla as it rolls out self-driving features, resorting to threats and flattery in exchanges with Elon Musk  —  SAN FRANCISCO — The first time Washington regulators tried to investigate Tesla's Autopilot software, CEO Elon Musk was irate. https://bit.ly/3uus9nf

Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: Kuo: camera bump on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max smartphones will increase about five percent in each dimension due to a larger 48MP sensor  —  The increased size of the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max's rear camera array is due to all-new 48-megapixel Wide camera systems, according to reputable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. https://bit.ly/3wHY5qN

Bloomberg: Sources: Polish e-commerce locker service InPost is attracting takeover interest from CVC and others, as its stock is down 70%+ since its January 2021 IPO  —  InPost SA, the Polish operator of self-service lockers for e-commerce, is attracting potential takeover interest from private equity firms … https://bit.ly/36vOwk9

Pushkar / Bits and Bytes: A look at the symbiotic relationship between TSMC and Apple: TSMC gets a predictable, demanding, high volume customer and Apple gets cutting-edge chips at scale  —  The TSMC-Apple partnership has been one of the defining relationships of the mobile computing era. https://bit.ly/3pTL1uh

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Oslo-based Ardoq, which helps companies manage network architecture, raises a $125M Series D, sources say at a $300M valuation, led by EQT Growth  —  As organizations continue to build out their digital architecture, a new category of enterprise software has emerged to help them manage that process. https://bit.ly/3CpVGlA

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Better.com lays off 3,000+ employees in the US and India, citing “current market conditions”; some staff learned of layoffs after early rollout of severance pay  —  The mass layoffs at digital mortgage lender Better.com have reportedly started, according to employees and other sources … https://bit.ly/3I2jDAI

Mathew Di Salvo / Decrypt: The SEC charges two siblings with defrauding investors out of $124M through their Ormeus Coin offering, alleging they acted as “modern-day snake-oil salesmen”  —  The “ground-breaking digital money system” Ormeus Coin was actually a scam, the SEC alleges.  —  In brief https://bit.ly/364Bppi

Richard Lawler / The Verge: After experiencing outages on Tuesday, Spotify says it is back up, and Discord says its services are coming back online with some limitations  —  Unrelated issues disconnected both services this afternoon  —  If you can't connect to Spotify or Discord, then no, it's not just you or your internet connection. https://bit.ly/3tJnKwa

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors: Apple announces a green finish for the iPhone 13 and an Alpine Green finish for the iPhone 13 Pro, available for pre-order on March 11 and shipping on March 18  —  Get weekly top MacRumors stories in your inbox. https://bit.ly/360QDvy

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Linux developers fix Dirty Pipe, a high-severity vulnerability in the kernel that let hackers carry out a host of malicious actions, like installing backdoors  —  Dirty Pipe has the potential to smudge people using Linux and Linux derivitives.  —  Linux has yet another high-severity vulnerability … https://bit.ly/34n6nZp

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: London-based Thirdfort, which helps businesses reduce risk with ID verification, AML compliance, and anti-money laundering regulations, raises a $20M Series A  —  Money laundering has been a hot topic of late in the UK, which is facing pressure to not just make tighter rules to track … https://bit.ly/3sT799S

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Apple suspends Search Ads in Russia, putting current and future App Store advertising campaigns on hold in the country “until further notice”  —  Apple Inc. has suspended advertising on its App Store in Russia, a move that bars developers from placing ads in search results … https://bit.ly/35xhAY9

Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: The EU Parliament will vote on crypto rules on March 14, after the removal of wording that would have banned proof-of-work cryptocurrencies over energy concerns  —  Wording that would have banned proof-of-work cryptos like bitcoin has been removed.  —  After having previously been postponed thanks … https://bit.ly/3hKi8fC

Bloomberg: Samsung confirms a breach that exposed internal company data, including source code related to its Galaxy phones, but says users' personal data was not affected  —  Samsung Electronics Co. suffered a cybersecurity breach that exposed internal company data, including source code for the operation … https://bit.ly/35ZEVS8

Yang Jie / Wall Street Journal: A look at Apple's power over suppliers, which don't include its name in public filings and presentations to avoid accidentally revealing competitive information  —  A tech giant is known to billions, but suppliers hardly ever mention its name; ‘the honored North American customer’ https://bit.ly/35zhVJL

Kate Kaye / Protocol: Open-source data architectures like Iceberg and Hudi, incubated by Netflix and Uber, now form the foundation of products sold to enterprises as data lakehouses  —  The big data compute team at Netflix was dealing with some pesky data aggravations a few years ago. https://bit.ly/36XM7OW

Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer: The Lapsus$ group leaks ~190GB of alleged confidential Samsung files, including a suspected dump of source code and related device security and encryption data  —  The Lapsus$ data extortion group leaked today a huge collection of confidential data they claim to be from Samsung Electronics … https://bit.ly/3sKL0KT

Brent Lang / Variety: Netflix says it is shutting down its service in Russia, which operates through a joint venture with the country's National Media Group, and has 1M+ subscribers  —  Netflix has suspended its service in Russia to protest the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. https://bit.ly/3vI1Wni

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: What to expect from Apple's March 8 event: 5G iPhone SE, iPad Air, a new Mac, a possible “wild card” preview of a new display, smaller Mac Pro or iMac Pro  —  Apple will hold its first event of the year on Tuesday, and you can expect updates of the iPhone, iPad and Mac lines. https://bit.ly/3vJn4cN

Silicon Canals: Swiss investment management firm Partners Group buys Forterro, a provider of resource planning software and services for SMBs, from Battery Ventures for €1B  —  Partners Group, a Swiss investment management firm, announced that it has acquired Forterro from Battery Ventures at an enterprise value of €1B. https://bit.ly/3KkuwiJ

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: TikTok plans to start labeling videos from some state-controlled media outlets “over the coming days”, expediting its policy due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine  —  It's part of a broader state media policy  —  TikTok has announced that it'll start putting labels on videos from … https://bit.ly/3Mr7V64

Sebastian Tong / Bloomberg: Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia, a few hours after Ukraine's president asked them to do so in a video call with US lawmakers  —  Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are suspending their operations in Russia, a coordinated attempt that threatens to further isolate the economy … https://bit.ly/3hFYocX

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Lapsus$ says if Nvidia doesn't remove crypto mining limits on its graphic cards and open source its GPU drivers, the group will release the source code it stole  —  Chipmaker has until Friday to comply or see its crown-jewel source code released.  —  Data extortionists who stole up to 1 terabyte … https://bit.ly/3Ch7rul

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Q&A with Ukraine Deputy Minister for Information Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov on Ukraine's ‘IT Army’, cybersecurity, and betting on crypto donations  —  An interview with the country's deputy minister for Information Transformation on its digital resistance as it braces for more conflict https://bit.ly/3Kj7jNL

Rick Whiting / CRN: Software AG, a developer of business and application integration software, acquires DataOps software developer StreamSets for €524M  —  Software AG says StreamSets' technology is complementary to its application integration product portfolio and will provide a boost to the company's Helix transformation initiative. https://bit.ly/3toNfTq

Theo Wayt / New York Post: Grocery app Buyk, which was founded by two Russians and has sizable operations in New York and Chicago, furloughs ~98% of its employees amid sanctions on Russia  —  Russian-backed grocery app Buyk abruptly furloughed the vast majority of its staff on Friday as sanctions against Russia left the company without funding. https://bit.ly/3hCOZTy

Karissa Bell / Engadget: CrowdTangle: Facebook Gaming is overrun by spam and pirated content; the most popular “gaming creators” often post movie clips disguised as live gaming streams  —  The most popular ‘gaming creator’ content is movie clips masquerading as game streams.  — The CrowdTangle data https://bit.ly/3sImFW5

Emily Birnbaum / Politico: Wedbush: Apple, Google, Meta, and Netflix combined would lose 1%-2% of their revenue if they exited Russia; Amazon's presence in Russia involves limited AWS use  —  The U.S. tech giants are in an easier position than many other global businesses as pressure intensifies for corporations … https://bit.ly/3Cmyfth