Author: Tech Support

Facebook is attacking privacy with its anti-Apple campaign and has locked SMBs into a surveillance-powered advertising model that's invasive of customers (Andrés Arrieta/Electronic Frontier …)

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 … Facebook is attacking privacy with

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Hackaday Links: December 20, 2020

If development platforms were people, Google would be one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Android Things, Google’s attempt at an OS for IoT devices, will officially start shutting down on January 5, 2021, and the plug will be pulled for good a year later. Android Things, which was basically a stripped-down version

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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 (Owen Thomas/San Francisco Chronicle)

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

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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 (Dan Primack/Axios)

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

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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 (The Citizen Lab)

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 … Citizen Lab: NSO's zero-day, zero-click exploit

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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 (Matt Stoller/BIG)

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

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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" (Lingling Wei/Wall Street Journal)

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

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Stanford algorithm decided to vaccinate only seven of its frontline COVID-19 workers, out of 5,000 doses

Photo by Hugh Hastings/Getty Images An algorithm determining which Stanford Medicine employees would receive its 5,000 initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine included just seven medical residents / fellows on the list, according to a December 17th letter sent from Stanford Medicine’s chief resident council. Stanford Medicine leadership has since apologized and promised to re-evaluate

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