Convenience over security? I’ve got nothing to
hide?
Moneycontrol reports:
WeChat has confirmed what has been rumoured all along i.e. it gives all user information to the Chinese government. The popular app in a privacy statement is now informing the users that virtually all the private user information will be disclosed to the authorities.
WeChat, owned by the Chinese firm Tencent, is a messaging app similar to the WhatsApp. With over 662 million users, the app, besides being the dominant messaging app in China, it is one of the largest in the world.
Read more on moneycontrol.com.
Update.
What we
know about the 21 states targeted by Russian hackers
The Department of Homeland Security was short on
details when it said
Friday that it had notified 21 states of Russian efforts to hack
their election systems in 2016. For one thing, the department didn't
publicly identify the states. For another, it didn't say how many of
the hacking attempts were successful — or to what degree.
Based on reporting by The Washington Post,
Associated Press and other news outlets — plus statements issued by
some state officials — we now have a complete list of the affected
states. The Fix has mapped and categorized them, according to what
we know about the success or failure of the cyberattacks.
… Colorado
Secretary of State Wayne W. Williams downplayed
the hacking threat. “This was a scan, and many computer systems
are regularly scanned,” he said in a statement. “It happens
hundreds, if not thousands, of times per day. That's why we continue
to be vigilant and monitor our systems around the clock.”
Perspective. An effective way to counter “fake
news” on either side of the political spectrum? Is this really all
it takes?
The
mysterious group that’s picking Breitbart apart, one tweet at a
time
Hardly anyone paid attention last November when a
strangely named Twitter account, Sleeping
Giants, sent its first tweet into the digisphere. “Are you
aware that you’re advertising on Breitbart, the alt-right’s
biggest champion, today?” read
the tweet, aimed at a consumer lending outfit called Social
Finance. “Are you supporting them publicly?”
Within 30 minutes, Social Finance replied,
tweeting that it would stop running ads on Breitbart.
It was, it turns out, the start of an odd, and
oddly effective, social media campaign against Breitbart,
the influential conservative news site headed by Stephen K. Bannon,
President Trump’s former campaign chairman and ex-chief White House
strategist.
Sleeping Giants is a mysterious group that has no
address, no organizational structure and no officers. At least none
that are publicly known. All of its leaders are anonymous, and much
of what it claims is difficult to independently verify. A spokesman
for the group wouldn’t identify himself in interviews for this
article.
But the group does have a singular purpose,
pursued as relentlessly as Ahab chasing a whale: It aims to drive
advertisers away from Breitbart. “We’re trying to defund
bigotry,” the spokesman says.
Sleeping Giants’ basic approach is to make
Breitbart’s advertisers aware that they are, in fact, Breitbart
advertisers. Many apparently don’t know this, given that Web ads
are often bought through third-party brokers, such as Google and
Facebook. The brokers then distribute them to a network of websites
according to algorithms that seek a specific target audience (say,
young men) or a set number of impressions.
As a result of such “programmatic”
buying, advertisers often are in the dark about where their ads end
up. Advertisers can opt out of certain sites, of course, but only if
they affirmatively place them on a blacklist of sites.
Perspective.
The music
business is growing again — really growing — and it’s because
of streaming
Familiar song, new tempo:
Music streaming is big, and getting bigger fast. Digital downloads
are falling off a cliff.
Oh, and one more familiar
refrain: The music industry loves the money it’s getting from
subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music, but it wants
YouTube to pay them much more.
… More than 30 million people are now paying
for a subscription streaming service in the U.S., which pushed
streaming revenue up 48 percent, to $2.5 billion, in the first half
of the year. Streaming now accounts for 62 percent of the U.S. music
business.
… Retail sales were up 17
percent, to $4 billion, and wholesale shipments were up 14.6 percent,
to $2.7 billion.
Meanwhile, iTunes-style
digital download sales continue to fall. They’re down 24 percent.
Because why buy songs for a
dollar when you can legally stream (almost) anything you want for a
price that ranges between zero and $10 a month?
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