Business News Roundup, Dec. 14

More details

on Uber hack

A cybersecurity firm hired by Uber after a huge data theft found no evidence that rider credit card, bank account or Social Security numbers were downloaded by two hackers, the company said in a response to demands for information from U.S. senators.

But the San Francisco ride-hailing company disclosed that in some cases, the hackers got location information from the place where people signed up for Uber, as well as encoded user passwords.

On Nov. 21, Uber disclosed that names, email addresses and mobile-phone numbers of 57 million drivers and riders had been stolen. In a letter to four Republican senators led by Commerce committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota, the company says that Mandiant, the security firm, found 32 million of those are outside the U.S. and 25 million are inside. Of the total, 7.7 million are drivers, mostly in the U.S., and hackers got driver’s license numbers for 600,000 of them, according to the letter from new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

The company also said it has not seen evidence of fraud or misuse of data taken in the breach, which lasted more than a year before being disclosed. Two employees were fired for not disclosing the theft to “appropriate parties,” the letter said.

The hackers emailed Uber’s U.S. security team anonymously on Nov. 14, 2016, telling them about the breach and demanding a payment. Uber tracked down the breach in private data stored on Amazon’s Web services and shut down access, which came through a “compromised credential,” the letter said.

The security team agreed to pay $100,000 to the hackers for an agreement to delete the data, and later tracked down the hackers’ real names. Both signed documents assuring that the stolen data was destroyed, Khosrowshahi wrote. Team members found that the hackers first gained access on Oct. 13, 2016, and there was no further access after Nov. 15, 2016, the letter said.

China

Google to add

center for AI

Google pulled some of its core businesses out of China seven years ago, after concluding that government controls and surveillance ran counter to its commitment to a free and open Internet.

On Wednesday, it tiptoed back in, unveiling a China center devoted to artificial intelligence. The move nods to the country’s growing strength in AI, thanks to government funding prompted by Beijing’s ambition of having a say in the technologies of the future.

Google said the center would have a team of experts in Beijing, where the company has hundreds of employees in research and development, as well as other roles. The center will be led by Fei-Fei Li, who runs Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab and leads the artificial intelligence arm of Google’s Cloud business, and Jia Li, the head of research and development for the AI division of Google Cloud.

The Mountain View company, which announced the center’s opening at a software developer conference in Shanghai, cited China’s growing academic and technical contributions to the AI field, and said the new center would be “working closely with the vibrant Chinese AI research community.”

Missiles

NASA, SpaceX

delay mission

NASA and SpaceX’s planned resupply services mission to the International Space Station got delayed from Wednesday until at least Friday, the space agency said in a blog post. Particles were detected in the second-stage fuel system, and SpaceX is taking extra time so its team members can conduct full inspections and cleanings.

If the launch can’t take place Friday, it would be postponed until at least late December.

Wireless

T-Mobile TV

set for 2018

T-Mobile will start a TV service next year, becoming the latest company to marry wireless and video.

The service will target people who aren’t interested in traditional cable and satellite TV packages. T-Mobile promises to address consumer complaints such as “sky-high bills” and “exploding bundles.” The company wouldn’t provide details on its upcoming offering, including how it would differ from existing online TV alternatives from Hulu, YouTube, Sony, AT&T and Dish.

The nation’s No. 3 wireless carrier said Wednesday that it bought cable-TV startup Layer3 TV to help it roll out the service. T-Mobile didn’t disclose how much it paid for Layer3, which is available in five U.S. cities.

Net neutrality

FCC may vote

on Thursday

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on Thursday to dismantle net neutrality rules, which prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or charging websites for higher quality delivery to consumers. It would also dial back the government’s stance that broadband should be regulated like a utility. The three Republican commissioners, including Chairman Ajit Pai, have said they will vote for the proposal, which would secure a majority over the two Democratic commissioners.

In recent days, government officials — including 18 state attorneys generals and dozens of Democratic members of Congress — have asked the FCC to delay the vote. On Wednesday, the attorneys general said that many of the 23 million public comments that had been filed to the agency about net neutrality appeared to be fraudulent. Pai has ignored the delay requests.

Chronicle News Services