Linked List: July 31, 2020

Friday, 31 July 2020

The Talk Show: ‘Algorithms, How Do They Work?’ ★

Nilay Patel returns to the show to discuss this week’s House antitrust hearing featuring testimony from Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg.

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HBO Drops Sick Trailer for Season 3 of ‘Succession’ ★

Wait, sorry, this is the reality show one, not the fictional one:

Once considered a potential successor to Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Murdoch on Friday resigned from the board of the newspaper publisher News Corp, severing his last corporate tie to his father’s global media empire.

“My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,” Mr. Murdoch, 47, wrote in his resignation letter, which News Corp disclosed in a filing shortly after the close of business on Friday.

Three People Have Been Charged for Twitter’s Hack, Including 17-Year-Old in Florida ★

Sean Hollister, reporting for The Verge:

Early on July 31st, the FBI, IRS, US Secret Service, and Florida law enforcement placed a 17-year-old in Tampa, Florida, under arrest. He’s accused of being the “mastermind” behind the biggest security and privacy breach in Twitter’s history, one that took over the accounts of President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Apple, and more to perpetrate a huge bitcoin scam on July 15th.

But apparently, he wasn’t alone: shortly after the Tampa arrest was revealed and after we published this story, two more individuals were formally charged by the US Department of Justice: 22-year-old Nima Fazeli in Orlando and 19-year-old Mason Sheppard in the UK. They go by the hacker aliases “Rolex” and “Chaewon,” respectively, according to the DOJ.

According to federal agents, Sheppard had used a personal driver’s license to verify himself with the Binance and Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges, and his accounts were found to have sent and received some of the scammed bitcoin. Fazeli also used a driver’s license to verify with Coinbase, where accounts controlled by “Rolex” allegedly received payments in exchange for stolen Twitter usernames.

It appears Twitter wasn’t the victim of anything vaguely approaching an expert caper. These kids are such dingbats they used Bitcoin accounts opened in their own names. This profoundly disturbing and dangerous hack was pulled off by unsophisticated pranksters.

Makes me wonder what actual expert hackers are getting away with on Twitter.

‘Microsoft Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok, as Trump Weighs Curtailing App’ ★

Mike Isaac, Ana Swanson, and Alan Rappeport, reporting for The New York Times:

TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration, is in talks to sell itself to Microsoft and other companies as President Trump prepares to force TikTok to divorce itself from its parent company, ByteDance, said people with knowledge of the discussions.

Mr. Trump, who said on Friday that he was considering “banning TikTok,” is expected to require ByteDance to sever ties with the popular app, according to a person familiar with the administration’s plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. White House officials have said TikTok may pose a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership.

Yes but what does the government of the Cayman Islands have to say?

Twitter Permanently Bans White Supremacist David Duke ★

CNet:

Duke’s account “has been permanently suspended for Twitter Rules on hateful conduct,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. Twitter’s policy, revised in March, prohibits posts that promote violence or threats of violence against people based on their religion, race or ethnic origin.

It wasn’t immediately clear what specific post or posts by Duke led to the account’s ban. The verified account for Duke, the founder and former Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was blank Thursday, replaced with a message that the account had been “permanently suspended.”

Imagine going back in time 30 years and explaining to someone that in the future, there are privately-owned computer networks for socializing and sharing your thoughts, observations, and opinions, and that David Duke got kicked off the one that is most popular in news media circles.

“Ha, probably happened the first day,” your circa 1990 friend might say.

“No, actually, it took more than 10 years.”

“What? Does David Duke repent in the future? Does he disavow white supremacy?”

“No he doesn’t change at all.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Wait until you find out who the president is. Sleep tight.”

Twitter Releases a Few More Details on Security Incident That Resulted in High Profile Account Hijackings ★

Twitter:

The social engineering that occurred on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear phishing attack. A successful attack required the attackers to obtain access to both our internal network as well as specific employee credentials that granted them access to our internal support tools. Not all of the employees that were initially targeted had permissions to use account management tools, but the attackers used their credentials to access our internal systems and gain information about our processes. This knowledge then enabled them to target additional employees who did have access to our account support tools. Using the credentials of employees with access to these tools, the attackers targeted 130 Twitter accounts, ultimately Tweeting from 45, accessing the DM inbox of 36, and downloading the Twitter Data of 7.

I don’t find the level of detail here satisfying at all. I don’t expect Twitter to reveal the exact details of what happened, but this just isn’t enough. My guess is that they’re saying that the attackers targeted low-level employees via the phone, tricked them into revealing details, and used those details to (here’s where the guessing starts) impersonate them on Twitter’s internal Slack. Then, impersonating them on Slack, they tricked other employees into giving them access to these incredibly sensitive account management tools?

What seems clear is that internally, Twitter was inexcusably sloppy with sharing access to incredibly sensitive account management tools.

Federalist Society Co-Founder Steven Calabresi: ‘Tweet Is Fascistic and Is Itself Grounds for the President’s Immediate Impeachment’ ★

Steven Calabresi, in a New York Times op-ed:

I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including voting for Donald Trump in 2016. I wrote op-eds and a law review article protesting what I believe was an unconstitutional investigation by Robert Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing President Trump’s impeachment.

But I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate.

Describing the Federalist Society as conservative and influential is like describing the ocean as large and salty. I truly never thought I’d be able to say I’m in complete agreement with Steven Calabresi, but here we are.

Apple Announces 4:1 Stock Split ★

Todd Haselton, CNBC:

Apple on Thursday announced in its fiscal third-quarter earnings that the Board of Directors has approved a four-for-one stock split. Since Apple stock currently trades above $380, it means investors should expect to again have a chance to buy a share of Apple for around $100, depending on where the stock trades at the end of August.

Matt Deatherage notes:

We’ve periodically reminded that Apple’s lowest stock price was 23 Dec 1997, when it closed at a currently-adjusted price of $0.40 per share.

After 31 Aug 2020 and the 4:1 split, the new adjusted record low price on that date will be $0.10/share.

TEN CENTS PER SHARE.

“Beleaguered” no more.

New iPhones Won’t Ship Until October ★

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

On Apple’s quarterly call with analysts Thursday, Apple CFO Luca Maestri made it official — the new iPhones won’t ship until October this year.

It’s unusual for Apple to say anything about future hardware, but they do like to set accurate expectations, and if they said nothing many would expect new iPhones in September.

Apple Q3 2020 Results ★

Apple:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2020 third quarter ended June 27, 2020. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $59.7 billion, an increase of 11 percent from the year-ago quarter, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.58, up 18 percent. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

A record third quarter — in the midst of a pandemic. Truly hard to believe even knowing that work-from-home has surely led to new hardware purchases.