Linked List: August 4, 2015

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Hackers Exploit Adobe Flash Vulnerability in Yahoo Ads ★

Dino Grandoni, writing for the NYT Bits blog:

“Right now, the bad guys are really enjoying this,” said Jérôme Segura, a security researcher at Malwarebytes, the security company that uncovered the attack. “Flash for them was a godsend.”

The scheme, which Yahoo shut down on Monday, worked like this: A group of hackers bought ads across the Internet giant’s sports, news and finance sites. When a computer — in this case, one running Windows — visited a Yahoo site, it downloaded malware code.

The sooner we completely eliminate the use of Flash, the better. Just get rid of it.

Mark Bergen: ‘Three Reasons Why Google Is Unlikely to Buy Twitter’ ★

Mark Bergen, Google beat reporter for Recode:

As markets closed yesterday, Twitter’s stock sank to its lowest level ever — a drop that raised speculation, yet again, that another company would take it over. At only a $19 billion market valuation, that’s not a surprise.

Neither is the other company most often cited as its obvious buyer: Google.

“At some point, it is just simple math that Google grabs it,” said one person close to the situation. “Why they haven’t yet is a mystery.” […]

Still, that talk has gone nowhere, and there is good reason for that. Despite the seemingly natural fit, there is a just as strong if not stronger case that Google should not make the move.

Apple Denies It Plans to Launch MVNO ★

Reuters:

“We have not discussed nor do we have any plans to launch an MVNO,” said an Apple spokeswoman in a statement on Tuesday.

So much for that.

Why get out in front of this with a flat-out denial, instead of their usual policy of ignoring rumors? My guess is to keep things amicable with the various carriers around the world. That’s always been the problem with this “Apple running its own phone service”. Ostensibly, as a handset maker, Apple is a partner with all the carriers around the world that support iPhone. They can’t compete against them while partnering with them. So I’m guessing Apple wants to signal, clearly, that they aren’t conspiring against their carrier partners.