#5Recommended: The secret CIA operation, Inside Zuck's notebook & more
Selected best articles I have read this week.
This is a selection of the best five articles I have read the past week. I also send out a weekly newsletter on media, podcasting, technology, sign up 👇 and let’s keep in touch.
📷 by Tony Hand on Unsplash
#1 How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades
by Greg Miller / The Washington Post
I would bet one day some studio will turn this story into a TV series or maybe a movie.
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company (Crypto AG) to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers, and diplomats secret. The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages
#2 Finance on Instagram: what’s not to like?
by Katharine Gemmell / Financial Times
This is a surprising look at how financial topics are a not so niche content (as I thought) on the photo-sharing app. Whether you’re spending money, saving it, investing it or earning it, Instagram is set to have considerable influence over our finances in the future.
#3 How your laptop ruined your life
by Amanda Mull / The Atlantic
More than the smartphone, laptops ended 'work hours' as a concept. An office used to be a thing you went to for a certain number of hours a day; now, work is an entire plane of existence.
#4 The time I sabotaged my editor with ransomware from the dark web.
by Drake Bennett / Bloomberg
Encrypting data to extort payment is as easy as purchasing software—almost anyone can do it. This is the story of how a journalist and his editor tried to purchase ransomware from the internet and got kind of played.
#5 Inside Mark Zuckerberg's lost notebook
by Steven Levy / Wired
In the early days of Facebook, Zuck kept his plans for world domination in handwritten journals. He destroyed them. But a few revealing pages survived. Adapted from Facebook: the Inside Story, by Steven Levy, to be published February 25, 2020.
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