Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.
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In a tweet and blog post, George Kurtz says:
As this incident is resolved, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and the steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.
We are working on a technical update and root cause analysis that we will share with everyone as well.
Other updates from CrowdStrike about Friday’s global IT misadventure warn about threat actors impersonating it in phishing attempts and other attacks or advise automated methods (PDF) to track down systems that have been affected.
The State of Connecticut DMV reported a return to normal services this afternoon, while CyberScoop points out some of the other entities that have reported issues to varying degrees in NYC, Ohio, Pennsylvania — you name it.
That should just about cover the various federal agencies looking into this global problem, right? Even if it took them...12 hours to mention it, although maybe their systems were down too?
According to 404 Media, the list of directly impacted agencies included the Treasury and the Department of Energy.
Gadgets are getting weird — and so are iPhone homescreens
On The Vergecast: Trump, Apple betas, and a round of ‘is this anything?’
According to a new Bloomberg report, the FBI’s initial attempts to break into the phone belonging to Thomas Matthew Crooks were unsuccessful.
But that changed once Cellebrite provided the agency with an unreleased, still-in-development update to its software. From there, it took just 40 minutes to access Crooks’ phone, which is described as “a newer Samsung model.”
The country’s competition watchdog suspects Google may provide “incomplete and misleading” about how the company uses personal data when users link their accounts to other apps and services. In a statement to Bloomberg, Google says it will “examine the case and work with the authorities.”
Patrick Orlando, who once led Digital World Acquisition Corp, lied to the public when he said his SPAC didn’t have a target in its S-1 form. It definitely did: Trump Media, parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social. The SEC complaint is chock-full of his texts and emails. DWAC, incidentally, already settled a similar suit.
Apparently J. D. Vance didn’t read my PSA about Venmo. Among his contacts? The elites he claims to loathe, execs from Anthropic and AOL, lobbyists, Tucker Carlson, and the people pushing Project 2025.
Law enforcement agencies — including the FBI, which unlocked the Trump rally shooter’s phone — use these mobile forensics tools to break into suspects’ devices.
But despite Cellebrite claiming its premium tool can get the password for “nearly all of today’s mobile devices, including the latest iOS and Android versions,” leaked docs show that it has been unable to unlock many iPhones that run iOS 17.4 or newer.
Earlier this month, the country’s data protection authority (ANPD) issued a temporary measure banning Meta from training its AI models on Brazilian personal data over privacy and transparency concerns.
Like it did following similar constraints with the EU, Meta has now decided to suspend its generative AI tools in the region while it works to find a resolution with ANPD, according to Reuters.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says Biden is “experiencing mild symptoms,” according to CNBC. He will be leaving Las Vegas, where he was giving speeches, and return to Delaware to self-isolate.
Last night, the campaign sent an email about Musk’s planned donations in support of Trump. It urged supporters to prevent Musk from ruining democracy like he “already ruined Twitter.”
The EU’s General Court has ruled that TikTok parent company ByteDance meets the required user threshold to be a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act.
TikTok has claimed it wasn’t valuable enough, and failed to obtain interim measures to avoid having to comply with DMA rules while it appealed the designation. The decision can still be appealed to the European Court of Justice.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg, the former president once again expressed support for the Chinese-owned juggernaut facing a ban in the US:
“Now [that] I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition. If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram — and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
Bloomberg says he’s still stung by Facebook’s ban after the events on January 6th, 2021. “All of a sudden, I went from number 1 to having nobody,” said Trump, without feeling it necessary to challenge Zuck to a cage fight.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter to AT&T CEO John Stankey with several questions about the cybersecurity attack that resulted in customer data being downloaded from the company’s Snowflake workspace, The Record reports. The senators requested answers by July 29th, and AT&T will respond, according to Reuters.
The senators also sent a letter to Snowflake’s CEO.
The agency wants more information about Amazon’s maneuver to hire most of the Adept team and license its technology. Adept said its plans to build “useful general intelligence and an enterprise agent product” would have required “significant attention on fundraising.” The informal inquiry might not lead to an investigation or enforcement, but enforcers are keeping close watch of tech giants and AI.
Musk, who has been a resident of Texas since 2019, says he decided to move the companies because Gavin Newsom didn’t do what Musk told him to. Previously, Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin after local health officials closed the Fremont plant during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic; Musk has a history of political donations in Texas.
J.D. Vance is anti-Big Tech, pro-crypto
The former tech investor likes the FTC’s Lina Khan and wants to break up Google, citing its liberal bias.
Goodreads has temporarily disabled ratings on Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, after detecting “unusual behavior” from reviewers in the wake of Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate.
The book — a New York Times bestseller that was adapted into a film staring Amy Adams and Glenn Close — turned Vance into a household name. But some critics have called it “offensive and inauthentic.”
The Wall Street Journal put a number on Musk’s reported donation to a political action committee backing Donald Trump’s campaign and on the formation of America PAC. He’s not on the most recent list of contributors, but both Winklevoss twins, current SpaceX / former Tesla board director Antonio Gracias, and early PayPal exec Ken Howery are.