Kate Conger

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

1Password Helps You Find Out if Your Password Is Pwned

If your password winds up in a mega-breach like the ones at Yahoo, Dropbox, or Tumblr, it can be easy for a hacker to take over your account—especially if you reuse the same password across multiple services. But it’s not always easy to tell if your password has been stolen, and companies can sometimes take … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Bug Made It Possible to Take Over Tinder Accounts with Just a Phone Number

Vulnerabilities in Tinder and in Facebook’s Account Kit tool could have allowed a hacker to take over a user’s Tinder account—gaining access to their private messages—using only the victim’s phone number. The problem was discovered by Anand Prakash, a security researcher, and has been fixed by both Tinder and Facebook. Rather than requiring users to … Continued

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Google Fired and Disciplined Employees for Speaking Out About Diversity [Updated]

Last August, James Damore circulated a memo internally at Google in which he argued women were biologically less inclined to succeed in engineering roles at the company and that Google’s diversity efforts were misguided. In doing so, he set off heated debate among his co-workers—debate that, according to current and former employees who spoke to … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Facebook Admits Spam Texts to Two-Factor Authentication Users Were a Bug

Two-factor authentication, a security measure that requires a verification code as well as a password upon login, can help prevent phishing and account takeover. But at Facebook, two-factor authentication ended up being used as a way to pester its users with notifications. As Gizmodo reported earlier this week, users who gave Facebook their phone number … Continued

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Labor Board Found Google Was Within Its Rights to Fire James Damore

Google did not violate labor law by firing James Damore, the author of a memo that argued women were biologically less capable to work in software engineering than men, according to an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. Damore, who was fired last August after the memo he’d circulated internally at Google became public, … Continued

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The Mess at Meetup

Meetup was supposed to be different. While much of the tech industry struggled to create inclusive work environments and free itself from the kinds of workplace harassment allegations that have spewed out of major companies like Google and Uber, Meetup was mission-driven, diverse, profitable, and user-focused. But last year, facing increasing competition, Meetup started negotiating … Continued

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Food Service Workers at Airbnb Have Unionized

Workers in the tech industry are often split into two categories—the engineers who create a company’s products, and the staff of cafeteria workers, shuttle drivers, and security guards who help keep tech campuses running. Members of the latter group are often categorized as contractors rather than employees and miss out on the cushy salaries and … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Facebook Turned Its Two-Factor Security ‘Feature’ Into the Worst Kind of Spam

Facebook is bleeding users, with external researchers estimating that the social network lost 2.8 million US users under 25 last year. Those losses have prompted Facebook to get more aggressive in its efforts to win users back—and the company has started using security prompts to encourage users to log into their accounts. Sometimes, Facebook will … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Facebook Privacy Settings Aren’t Enough to Hide Your Photos From Court

It doesn’t matter if you have your Facebook profile set to private—you can still be required to hand over your photos and messages during a lawsuit, a New York appeals court ruled today. The seven-judge panel unanimously ruled that a woman who was injured in a horse riding accident and subsequently became a recluse has … Continued

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Patent Troll’s Dumb Lawsuit Against Cloudflare Gets Thrown Out

The typical patent troll scheme goes like this: buy silly patent; find big company using tech similar to patent; sue big company; get nice payout from big company that doesn’t want to waste time fighting a dumb patent case; repeat. That’s exactly the routine a Boston company called Blackbird Technologies has followed. For several years, … Continued

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Who Won and Who Got Totally Screwed in Waymo v. Uber

Halfway through a contentious trial, Waymo settled its high-profile lawsuit against Uber in a deal that gives Google’s parent company Alphabet $245 million in Uber equity—a slightly larger stake than Google already has—and allows Waymo to keep tabs on Uber’s self-driving car program. It’s a crazy twist that lets both companies off the hook and … Continued

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Waymo, Uber Settle Lawsuit Over Automated Vehicle Trade Secrets

Waymo attorney Charles Verhoeven on Friday announced the self-driving car company had settled its lawsuit against Uber over its alleged use of stolen trade secrets, bringing a sudden end to a year-long legal battle. Google’s parent company Alphabet, which owns Waymo, will receive a larger stake in Uber under the terms of the settlement, sources … Continued

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The Toxic Brotherhoods in the Fight for the Future of Autonomous Cars

Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski both believed that they were several moves ahead of everyone else involved in the autonomous vehicle revolution. Today, the pair loom large in a legal battle between Waymo, Google’s self-driving vehicle subsidiary, and Uber, which Kalanick ran as CEO until his ouster last June. The companies are currently fighting in … Continued

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Lyft Was in Talks to Buy Startup at Center of Google Lawsuit Before Uber Acquired It

The self-driving truck startup Otto sold to Uber in August 2016 in a deal valued at nearly $600 million. The deal set Uber on a collision course with Google: Google is currently suing Uber, claiming that Uber acquired trade secrets stolen by Anthony Levandowski, an Otto co-founder and former Google employee. But it could easily … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

For Survivors of Domestic Violence, Revenge Porn Is the Awful New Norm

It’s been three years since Google, Facebook, and other major tech platforms introduced ways for users to report and remove revenge porn, two years since a bill was introduced in Congress to criminalize the distribution of non-consensual pornography. And yet, advocates say the problem is just as bad, if not worse, for victims—and survivors of … Continued

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Waymo Attorney Says Uber’s Travis Kalanick Cheated to Win Self-Driving Car War (Updated)

The hotly anticipated trial between Waymo and Uber began on Monday with Waymo’s lawyer dragging out the embarrassing elements of Uber’s “hustle-hard” culture. In his opening statement, Waymo attorney Charles Verhoeven pointed out multiple references in messages and public statements by former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to what he viewed as an all-out war to … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Senator Demands FBI Director Explain His Encryption Backdoor Bullshit

One US senator is calling out the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for pushing the moronic notion that there is somehow a good way to add backdoors to encryption used to protect devices like Apple’s iPhone. In a speech earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray carried on the time-honored agency tradition of … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Google Will Let You Mute Annoying Ads That Stalk You

It’s one of the most obnoxious and common experiences on the internet—you check out a product online, let’s say a new mattress, and then for weeks afterward, ads for the mattress stalk you around the internet, showing up on every website you visit. Maybe you decided to buy another mattress, or maybe you even bought … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Alphabet Launched A Moonshot Cybersecurity Company That Sounds Like Every Other Cybersecurity Company

X, the moonshot wing of Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced today that a new cybersecurity project called Chronicle is “graduating” to become a fully-fledged company. X functions as an incubator for Alphabet’s more experimental endeavors, like self-driving cars or giant balloons that deliver internet connectivity, and Chronicle is the first cybersecurity company it has launched. … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy & Security

Senators Tell Twitter To Notify Users About More Russian Bot Meddling

During the government shutdown last weekend, the Alliance for Securing Democracy reported that the trending hashtag #SchumerShutdown, which blamed the impasse on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was being pushed by bot accounts from Russia. Now Senators Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse are asking Twitter for answers about the bot activity. According to the Alliance … Continued