Weekly Roundup 19th July 2020
Interesting reads for the week.
1. Twitter was hacked and biggest celebrity accounts were compromised.
This week major breaking news was the news of Twitter being hacked and biggest celebrity accounts were compromised in the process. The security incident seems to be have been perpetuated by social engineering Twitter employees and then accessing Twitter’s internal account management tools. What was scarier is that some of the biggest names have their account password reset and changed successfully. It is not very clear how 2-factor authentication was bypassed. However, the claims of the hack was just for bitcoins by posting from celebrity accounts seems to be rather churlish. The hack may have been for something else and is this incident is just acting as a cover? That is the question a lot of political analysts have been asking as well. Twitter has given a brief update on what has happened, but it is not entirely clear. Whether this would have some ramifications on the upcoming elections is something to watch out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/16/twitter-security-breach-response/
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/an-update-on-our-security-incident.html
2. Google 10 Billion $ India digitization fund and Jio investment
Next on the chart is Google’s 10 billion $ long term investment in India.
https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/investing-in-indias-digital-future
But a good 4.5 billion $ goes to investment on Jio’s platform.
https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-asia/bringing-internet-access-millions-more-indians-jio
When a big company that has to answer investors every quarter wants to invest for the benefit of poor, it is a given there is more to it. First with Facebook and now Google , it is becoming fairly obvious that this investment for getting access to the Indian market and easy regulation and the gatekeepers being Ambani and Jio. This is nothing but a high way toll to do business in India. And in the process both Amazon and Walmart - Flipkart has every reason to be worried.
3. Remote work and the aftermath on Silicon Valley
The tech industry is built on serendipity. If workers flee the Bay Area, what’s left? Some of the famous companies were built by chance encounters and through the randomness of serendipity. If remote work catches up, will Silicon Valley retain its same magic?
https://marker.medium.com/what-silicon-valley-loses-if-everyone-goes-remote-761b398dc9fb
4. Talent is over-rated. Focus on Grit and Perseverance
Grit by Angela Duckworth discusses how Talent is over-rated and focus on grit and perseverance over a sustained period of time can help to do wonders. This book review covers the main gist of the central idea around Grit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NquuITL9-ZA
5. Why the NSA Called Me After Midnight and Requested My Source Code
A very interesting read about the author’s experience of working with NSA on a case and his experience around the same. And the NSA coffee mug as a reward for his help.