Things got loud last week down in Dallas, but it wasn’t just at a Mavericks game as hackers managed to set off every public-safety alarm in the city and freak out a lot of people. Meanwhile, a Russian spam king got collared, a new version of Windows 10 rolled out and Google confronted accusations about a gender pay gap at the company. This week’s episode also features the welcome return of journalist Laura M. Holson to the Pop Tech Jam recording table as she offers insight on her recent story about John Dean, the White House counsel back in Richard Nixon’s Watergate days — and a discussion on how some things never change.
Links to Stories in This Week’s News Segment
- Spain arrests Russian thought to be kingpin of computer spam (The New York Times)
- Alleged spam king Pyotr Levashov arrested (Krebs on Security)
- Hacking attack woke up Dallas with emergency sirens, officials say (The New York Times)
- That Dallas siren hack wasn’t novel—it was just really loud (Wired)
- Aviation officials warn: Don’t fly drones over US military bases (Ars Technica)
- Airplane cell phone calls won’t be allowed in US any time soon (Ars Technica)
- Microsoft’s Minecraft set to launch its own currency (Bloomberg)
- Comcast is planning a Netflix rival using NBC shows (Bloomberg)
- Introducing the New Instagram Direct (Instagram blog)
- Google accused of ‘extreme’ gender pay discrimination by US labor department (The Guardian)
- Our focus on pay equity (Google)
- Similar items: Rich products feature on Google Image Search (Google Webmaster blog)
- Microsoft finally says goodbye to Windows Vista (The Verge)
- Yes, another Windows Update 10 is here (The New York Times)
- John Dean, who worked for Nixon, sizes up Trump (The New York Times)
- Watergate in a Minute (YouTube)
- The Watergate Scandal: Timeline and Background (WatchMojo.com)