Chinese developer leaks drone encryption keys; Verizon to sell Tumblr; Google automatically deletes your location data.
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It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Friday, May 3rd, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
If you messed up at work yesterday, then you may find some comfort in this story. After all, misery loves company. Trending on Google, a Chinese developer for the drone maker DJI had accidentally posted the company’s private encryption keys to Github in plain text. The key allowed a party to decrypt DJI’s encrypted flight control firmware, which enabled hackers to modify performance limits set by the manufacturer, causing over US$172,000 in damages. In addition to a hefty US$30,000 fine, the unfortunate dev is also facing a six-month jail sentence.
Trending on Reddit, Verizon is reportedly looking to sell Tumblr, the image hosting site that came bundled with its purchase of Yahoo in June 2017. Just last year, Tumblr had nearly 600 million monthly users, but saw that number decline sharply after it had decided to ban adult content. In February, its user base has dwindled to 369 million — still significant, but wasn’t the direction Verizon had in mind. Despite the traffic decline, Verizon was adamant in retaining its policy. Evidently, it didn’t work out too well.
In its on-going effort to be more transparent and giving users more controls to their information, Google is adding an option to automatically delete location history. Now, users can choose to have their location data automatically disappear after three to 18 months. If you’re really paranoid about Google tracking your every move, you can manually delete your location data through Google’s My Activities panel or disable location tracking completely.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Tom Li, thanks for listening.
