Today’s Tech Sightings:
Activist plans to Air Drop ‘The Interview’ into North Korea
South Korean activist Park Sang-hak reportedly plans to carpet bomb North Korea with DVD and USB copies of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s “The Interview.” But South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo notes that a North Korean three-star general and a dozen other officials have been tasked with stopping the activist’s mission.
Report: UK Police Arrest Hacker Behind Sony, Xbox Attacks
UK police reportedly arrested a member of hacker group Lizard Squad, which claimed responsibility for the devastating attack on Sony and subsequent attacks on its PlayStation servers and on Microsoft’s Xbox Live servers on Christmas Day.
How Our Tech Can (and Will) Kill Us
Writer John Dvorak argues the dangers of technology do not lurk in the future but are here now, and they often go unnoticed right before our very eyes.
Amid Hacks, Leaks, Will We Actually Be Sedated by Transparency?
Writer Emily Yoshida argues that hack attacks are providing new sources of information via the material they leak to the public. But she wonders if the overflow of privileged information is making people filter things out rather than pay more attention.
Nine Maps Dissect Internet Usage, Governance in 2014
Several maps that show how the Internet worked and how people used it in 2014 also reflect attempts in some countries around the world to govern the Internet and limit freedoms.
Police Suspect Fraud Behind Most of Mt. Gox’s Missing Bitcoins
Remember the colossal failure of Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox? Sources close to a Tokyo police probe suggest fraudulent transactions siphoned an estimated $370 million in bitcoins that vanished in 2014 following the collapse of Mt. Gox, while hackers probably took only one percent of the prize.
Twitter Rolls Out ‘While You Were Away’ Recap Feature
The new feature is not yet live, but it will be available to a large number of Twitter users in the interim. “While you were away” is similar to Facebook’s Timeline feature, and what it does is place the “best” tweets at the top of your timeline that arrived in your absence.
