ON TUESDAY, A trifecta of tech companies announced that they had thwarted what appear to be significant cyber attacks from Russia and Iran. First, Microsoft CEO Brad Smith announced that the company had caught another round of phishing attacks on political groups in the United States, which it attributed to the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear. Then it was Facebook’s turn. On a call with reporters, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company had shut down 652 pages, accounts, and groups affiliated primarily with Iran, though some had ties to Russia. Twitter almost instantly followed suit, saying it too had taken 284 accounts offline, which appeared to have originated in Iran.
Category: News and Views
Why you should block big corporations on Twitter | Mashable
Nothing feels better than blocking an obnoxious branded Twitter account — whether you’re doing it to spite Alex Jones, to protect yourself from insidious marketing, or some combination of the two.
Look at what’s happening on Twitter, for example. As we reported earlier this month, #GrabYourWallet co-founder Shannon Coulter recently put pressure on the platform to remove Jones by creating a list of Fortune 500 companies on Twitter that people can block in protest.
How the motorcycle industry is attracting new riders | Money CNN
Motorcycling in America is getting a makeover. Industry stalwarts and upstart competitors are trying to attract new riders who want something different from Harley-Davidson’s big burbling cruisers or screaming Japanese and European performance bikes.
The changes are in response to younger riders who are attracted to the efficiency and fun of two-wheel travel, but who don’t want to buy into all the “biker” baggage.
The Jobs Numbers: Who’s Hiring in America—and Who’s Not | Bloomberg
U.S. employers added 157,000 jobs in July, and the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. Meanwhile, average hourly pay for workers rose 2.7 percent from a year earlier, to $27.05 from $26.34.
Below are the industries with the highest and lowest rates of employment growth for the most recent month. Additionally, monthly growth rates are shown for the prior year. The latest month’s figures are highlighted. Wage data are shown when available.
Dramatic Photos of the California Wildfires | The Atlantic
Dry conditions, high temperatures, and strong winds have once more spawned several large and destructive wildfires across the state of California. Thousands of firefighters are now battling multiple blazes that have burned hundreds of thousands of acres in the past few weeks, and recently claimed at least eight lives. Gathered below: a collection of images of those affected by these recent fires, and some of the dramatic scenes of destruction left in their wake.
What Does Cyberinsurance Actually Cover? | Slate.com
So it came as a shock to the bank when its insurer, Everest National Insurance Co., ultimately refused to pay out a significant portion of the bank’s claimed losses of $2.4 million, offering instead only $50,000 on the grounds that the breaches were not covered by National Bank’s computer and electronic crime insurance rider. In June, National Bank sued Everest for breach of contract and a larger portion of the breach costs in a lawsuit that highlights just how nebulous and unhelpful cyberinsurance policies can be, as well as how little the companies purchasing those policies typically understand about their coverage.
Facebook and Instagram now show how many minutes you use them | TechCrunch
It’s passive zombie feed scrolling, not active communication with friends that hurts our health, according to studies Facebook has been pointing to for the last seven months. Yet it’s treating all our social networking the same with today’s launch of its digital well being screentime management dashboards for Facebook and Instagram in the US before rolling them out to everyone in the coming weeks.
Playing Monopoly: What Facebook’s Mark Zuckergerg Can Learn From Bill Gates | WIRED
POP QUIZ: WHAT tech mogul dropped out of Harvard after two years to found a tech company that conquered the world? If you answered Mark Zuckerberg, congratulations! You are correct. And if you answered Bill Gates, congratulations: You are also correct!
And the interesting thing is, it’s not just Harvard. The more you compare the two, the more similar they seem. It’s as if they were cloned from the same DNA: They both were born the only boy into a wealthy family. They both have doting, indulgent mothers, who believed they could do no wrong and instilled in them both a preternatural self confidence.
Snapchat Is Shutting Down Snapcash, Its Peer-to-Peer Payment Service | Digital Trends
Snapchat’s woes show no sign of ending, and the latest casualty in the company is Snapcash, the peer-to-peer payment service. It’s likely that you’ve never heard of — much less used — the service, which makes its shuttering less of a surprise.
Part of Snapcash’s problem is that it wasn’t always used for the most innocent of purposes. Rather than splitting bills or sending back some money for the pizza you stole from your roommate, Snapcash tended to be used to pay adult entertainers for content on Snapchat. In short, it was probably more bane than boon to Snapchat proper.
Tesla surprises fans with $1,500 limited edition surfboards | Mashable
Is Tesla taking merch too far?
Elon Musk has a knack for selling weird branded merchandise that has nothing to do with what his companies actually do — remember The Boring Company’s flamethrowers? Or the $400 leather jackets made from the same automotive grade leather that adorns Tesla interiors?
Tesla added surfboards to its gift shop on Saturday. The surfboards, which were briefly available for the perfectly reasonable price of $1,500, is a collaboration between Tesla Design Studio and Lost Surfboards.
