Notices by Techmeme (techmeme@techhub.social)

Infinite Reality, a metaverse startup that claims it is valued at $15.5B, faces questions about the legitimacy of its funding, investor identities, and more (Phoebe Liu/Forbes)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/04/24/infinite-reality-john-acunto-155-billion-metaverse-startup-biggest-fundraise/
http://www.techmeme.com/250424/p25#a250424p25

Boeing agrees to sell parts of its digital aviation unit, including software maker Jeppesen and navigation app ForeFlight, to Thoma Bravo for $10.55B in cash (Financial Times)

https://www.ft.com/content/68e4a5d1-12d8-4020-97fb-997b107e200b
http://www.techmeme.com/250422/p13#a250422p13

Paul Graham likened Palantir's ICE work to "infrastructure of the police state"; a Palantir exec said Paul's view is like Google's when it killed Project Maven (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/20/palantir-exec-defends-companys-immigration-surveillance-work/
http://www.techmeme.com/250420/p10#a250420p10

Sources: hackers intercepted ~100 bank regulators' emails, 150K+ in total, for over a year at the US Treasury's OCC, which disclosed a breach on February 26 (Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/hackers-spied-on-100-bank-regulators-emails-for-over-a-year
http://www.techmeme.com/250408/p26#a250408p26

Elon Musk's X and xAI all-stock merger broke Wall Street's usual rules, with the same advisers, Morgan Stanley and Sullivan & Cromwell, working on both sides (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/elon-musks-megadeal-between-x-and-xai-breaks-wall-streets-rulebook-191b2706?st=6qUe5s&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
http://www.techmeme.com/250402/p12#a250402p12

Source: hackers broke into Oracle's Cerner servers sometime after January 22 and stole patient data to extort US medical providers; the FBI is investigating (Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/oracle-warns-health-customers-of-patient-data-breach
http://www.techmeme.com/250328/p30#a250328p30

Source: the White House sent a "records retention policy" to DOGE staffers on Monday, reminding them to preserve their Signal messages and disable auto-delete (Kyle Cheney/Politico)

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/27/white-house-doge-signal-records-00254122
http://www.techmeme.com/250327/p37#a250327p37

Nielsen: YouTube was the #1 TV distributor in February, making up 11.6% of all US TV; viewers over age 50 accounted for 36% of time spent watching YouTube on TV (Rick Porter/The Hollywood Reporter)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/youtube-most-tv-use-us-february-2025-1236171731/
http://www.techmeme.com/250325/p32#a250325p32

Sources: the real closer for Wiz and Google executives was President Trump's election, which brought with it the prospect of a friendlier antitrust review (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/googles-32-billion-deal-wiz-accelerated-under-trump-sources-say-2025-03-19/
http://www.techmeme.com/250318/p51#a250318p51

OpenAI calls DeepSeek "state-controlled" and recommends that the US consider banning "PRC-produced" models that "violate user privacy and create security risks" (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/openai-calls-deepseek-state-controlled-calls-for-bans-on-prc-produced-models/
http://www.techmeme.com/250313/p44#a250313p44

Tech stocks lead a broad sell-off; the Nasdaq falls ~4%, with Apple dropping by ~6%, Meta by ~5%, Nvidia by ~5%, Google by ~5%, and Microsoft by 3%+ (Myles Udland/Yahoo Finance)

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-tesla-stocks-slide-as-magnificent-7-names-lead-markets-lower-142510967.html
http://www.techmeme.com/250310/p16#a250310p16

Sources describe the collapse of fintech middleman Synapse that left ~$200M in customer money frozen, with entities blaming each other for shoddy recordkeeping (Fortune)

https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/synapse-evolve-mercury-bankruptcy-lawsuits/
http://www.techmeme.com/250308/p15#a250308p15

An audit found that 10 top AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, repeated false claims from a pro-Kremlin disinformation network 33% of the time (NewsGuard's Reality Check)

https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/a-well-funded-moscow-based-global
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p42#a250306p42

A Brazilian judge gives Apple 90 days to allow sideloading on iOS in Brazil, saying the "limitations" imposed by Apple on developers could stifle competition (Filipe Espósito/9to5Mac)

https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/06/brazilian-court-apple-sideloading-ios/
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p37#a250306p37

The US Secret Service, Europol, and others take down Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of being associated with ransomware hackers (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/russian-crypto-exchange-garantex-seized-by-law-enforcement-operation/
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p31#a250306p31

Cybereason CEO Eric Gan resigns after a months-long feud with investors SoftBank and Steven Mnuchin; a source says the planned Trustwave merger is also canceled (Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-05/softbank-backed-cybereason-ceo-quits-after-boardroom-turmoil
http://www.techmeme.com/250305/p9#a250305p9

The Los Angeles Times removes its AI-powered "Insights" feature from a column after the tool tried to defend the Ku Klux Klan, just a day after its debut (Corbin Bolies/The Daily Beast)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-newspaper-owners-ai-bot-defends-kkk/
http://www.techmeme.com/250304/p32#a250304p32

The Trump admin has fired 130+ staff at CISA, replaced staff refusing DOGE access to networks, appointed a DOD CISO whose clearance was suspended in 2021, more (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/trump-2-0-brings-cuts-to-cyber-consumer-protections/
http://www.techmeme.com/250224/p19#a250224p19

Sources: the NHTSA is losing about 10% of its workforce through firings and buyout offers, including half of a small team that regulates autonomous vehicles (Ian Duncan/Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/21/musk-doge-tesla-autonomous-vehicles-nhtsa/
http://www.techmeme.com/250221/p11#a250221p11

How Breeze Liu, an advocate for digital abuse victims, got Microsoft to scrub 142 nonconsensual explicit images of her hosted on Azure after months of struggle (Wired)

https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-survivor-breeze-liu-microsoft/
http://www.techmeme.com/250221/p4#a250221p4