Bits: A Breach That Ripples Far Beyond Facebook

Catch up on everything you missed from the world of tech this week. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, September 21, 2018 [For the latest updates, go to nytimes.com/bits »]( A Breach That Ripples Far Beyond Facebook [A Facebook user in India, where the social network is a far more essential part of the internet than it is in the United States.] A Facebook user in India, where the social network is a far more essential part of the internet than it is in the United States. Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Each week, technology reporters and columnists from The New York Times review [the week’s news]( offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. This week, the newsletter is written by Vindu Goel, who covers technology from India. If I did not need Facebook to do my job, I would be deleting it right now. While everyone was riveted by the drama over Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s potential confirmation to the Supreme Court, Facebook dropped a bombshell: [Hackers had broken into at least 50 million of its accounts](. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and his deputy, Sheryl Sandberg, were among the victims, according to my colleagues Mike Isaac and Sheera Frenkel. For the past year, I have been covering technology in India, which has more Facebook users than any other country. Before that, I was a reporter in our San Francisco bureau, where, among other things, I wrote a lot about both Facebook and security breaches, including two separate heists of Yahoo data that left all three billion of its accounts compromised. In this breach, I was one of the 90 million people who were suddenly logged out of their accounts by Facebook — the company’s far-too-subtle way of letting me know that my account might have been compromised. (Facebook, you could at least have sent me a message along with all the spammy ads you send me on Messenger.) This breach is more troubling than the typical hack. The stolen Facebook login information — essentially a master key — could have been used to impersonate the victims at [hundreds of other sites]( and apps that allow people to sign in using their Facebook credentials. Although Facebook says it has invalidated those keys, known as tokens, no one knows what damage has already been done. And the breach occurred for the most trivial of reasons: Facebook introduced one of the security flaws as part of an effort to make it easier to post “happy birthday” videos. All this comes during a year when Facebook has been constantly apologizing for its failures — for [sharing user information with Cambridge Analytica]( without permission, for allowing foreign entities to manipulate the service to influence elections and for the [murder by mob of more than two dozen people in India]( due to the false information that runs rampant on its WhatsApp service. My colleague Farhad Manjoo wrote in a column during the week that he [no longer trusts Facebook enough]( to use it to log in to other sites. I wonder whether to still trust Facebook at all. (Sheera goes even further: she trusts no one and [expects that she will hacked]( no matter what she does.) Here in India, Facebook is a far more essential part of the internet than it is in the United States. Many companies and organizations have no websites, just a Facebook page. Small businesses sell their wares on the social network as well as the company’s Instagram photo site and WhatsApp. To #deletefacebook — as WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton [recently recommended]( — would be to cut yourself off from much of the digital life of this country. There is no real substitute. Indians are generally less concerned about privacy than Americans, blithely disclosing birth dates, their mother’s maiden name and their cellphone numbers. Late last month, the country’s Supreme Court [limited the government’s efforts to enroll Indians]( in a digital ID program that captured their fingerprints, iris scans and photographs and used them as a key to unlock government benefits. The program had sparked stiff challenges from privacy advocates. But most Indians had already signed up, and their biggest complaint was that the ID system failed to work as intended, not that it asked for too much information. Here is some other tech news of the week that you might have missed amid the barrage of Kavanaugh developments and the [Times’s blockbuster investigation into President Trump’s finances]( ■Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, [settled securities fraud charges]( over tweets he made claiming that he had lined up financing for a buyout of the company. He agreed to pay a $20 million fine and step down as chairman of the company. But another mystery emerged: Why are [hundreds of Tesla’s Model 3 electric cars parked in industrial lots]( instead of going to customers? ■The newest Apple Watch collects a vast amount of personal health information. As Apple talks to insurance companies and others about sharing the information, the device could become “[the handmaiden to another data-hungry industry]( John Hermann wrote in a column for the Sunday magazine. ■Or perhaps the smartwatch will become a witness to crimes. Police in San Jose, Calif., charged a 90-year-old man [with killing his stepdaughter]( in part based on evidence from her Fitbit fitness tracker. ■Amazon decided to [raise the minimum wage]( it pays its 250,000 workers, including warehouse staff and Whole Foods clerks, to $15 an hour. “We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do and decided we want to lead,” said Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, whose $165 billion fortune makes him the richest person in the world. ■Another billionaire, the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, [lost a long battle to ba]( the public]( from using an access road to a California beach that passes through property he owns. The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal, which argued that the state law forcing him to offer access violated his property rights. ■My colleague Jeff Sommer [explained how to extend the useful life of older iPhones]( such as the iPhone 6, with a new battery and the latest Apple operating system. ■Arthur Ashkin of the United States, Gérard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada [won the Nobel Prize in Physics]( for their work turning laser light into miniature tools. Dr. Strickland is only the third woman to win the prize. ■And one final little bit of news of special interest to our South Asian readers: The Indian actress Priyanka Chopra, star of the American TV show “Quantico,” is the [latest celebrity to become a tech investor](. Ms. Chopra, who works closely with another investor of South Asian descent, Anjula Acharia, has put money into just two start-ups so far. But she is looking for more, particularly companies that are run by women. Vindu Goel covers technology and business in South Asia. You can follow him on Twitter here: [@vindugoel](. ADVERTISEMENT In Case You Missed It [Rifts Break Open at Facebook Over Kavanaugh Hearing]( By MIKE ISAAC A prominent show of support from a Facebook executive for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as he faced assault claims has brought new turmoil to the company. [Facebook Hack Puts Thousands of Other Sites at Risk]( By MIKE ISAAC AND KATE CONGER Ten years ago, the social network introduced a password system that connected it to a broad swath of the internet. Now we are seeing the downside. State of the Art [Silicon Valley’s Keystone Problem: ‘A Monoculture of Thought’]( By FARHAD MANJOO In a satirical new novel, a former Google executive identifies the technology industry’s chief issue: its narrow engineering-focused bubble. [Justice Department Sues to Stop California Net Neutrality Law]( By CECILIA KANG The agency filed its suit shortly after the state’s bill, meant to guarantee equal access to the internet, was signed into law. [Priyanka Chopra Is a Tech Investor, Too]( By ERIN GRIFFITH The actor just made her second start-up investment, in dating app Bumble. Her investments will skew heavily toward companies with an element of social impact, and companies founded by women. [With a Murdoch in Charge, a Start-Up Leads the Way on Mobile Video]( By BROOKS BARNES Vertical Networks, founded by Elisabeth Murdoch, has become a major supplier of app-centric video series that are drawing young viewers on Snapchat, Facebook and YouTube. [Billionaire’s Fight to Close Path to a California Beach Comes to a Dead End]( By NELLIE BOWLES The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose belief in property rights outweighed his affinity for a state access law. [Amazon to Raise Minimum Wage to $15 for All U.S. Workers]( By KAREN WEISE The company also said it would lobby the federal government for a higher minimum wage. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [bits_newsletter@nytimes.com](mailto:bits_newsletter@nytimes.com?subject=Bits%20Newsletter%20Feedback%20223). ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. FOLLOW BITS [Twitter] [@nytimesbits]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Bits newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018