Amazon Picks Crystal City and New York City to House Its HQ2

Following much speculation and political lobbying, Amazon revealed on Tuesday that it will open its second headquarters in Crystal City in Virginia and New York City. Furthermore, Amazon announced that Nashville will be the base for its new Center of Excellence for its Operations business. The center will be responsible for the company’s customer fulfillment, transportation, supply chain and related tasks. The Washington Post outlined the significance of the decision for the places that the online retail behemoth has selected:

The choice of Crystal City in Arlington County as one of the winners cements Northern Virginia’s reputation as a magnet for business and potentially reshape the Washington region into an eastern outpost of Silicon Valley over the next decade.

 

Remembering Stan Lee: An App Store Story

Legendary comic book writer Stan Lee passed away yesterday. Apple is featuring a story in the Today section of the App Store called Remembering Stan Lee. Today Apple celebrates Mr. Lee’s legacy with apps and games featuring his iconic crimefighters in all their masked glory. On the app side, we see Marvel Unlimited, Marvel: Color Your Own, comiXology, and Olli by Tinrocket. In the game section we see Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Strike Force, Marvel Battle Lines, and Marvel Avengers Academy. Finally, the story notes that Mr. Lee served in the Army during WWI, and two apps in this section include Sandboxx, to send a letter to service members, and Apple Books.

Yet Another Facebook Vulnerability Found

Another Facebook vulnerability has been found that could have exposed information about users and their friends.

The security company Imperva has released new details on a Facebook vulnerability that could have exposed user data. The bug allowed websites to obtain private information about Facebook users and their friends through unauthorized access to a company API, playing off a specific behavior in the Chrome browser. The bug was disclosed to Facebook and resolved in May.

At this point Facebook is a giant dumpster fire. Get out while you still can.

Google Traffic Was Hijacked, Routed Through Russia, China

In another BGP hijack, Google traffic was rerouted yesterday through Russia and China. This included Google Cloud, YouTube, and other services.

Specifically, network connectivity to Google was instead routed through TransTelekom in Russia (mskn17ra-lo1.transtelecom.net), and into a China Telecom gateway (ChinaTelecom-gw.transtelecom.net) that black-holed the packets. Both hostnames have since stopped resolving to IP addresses.

Hijack me once, shame on you. Hijack me twice, shame on me.