Canadian Charged as U.S. Blames Russia for Yahoo Data Breach: Here’s What We’re Reading

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Here’s what we’re reading today.

1. This 22-year-old Canadian is, allegedly, part of a hacking ring responsible for one of the world’s largest data breaches

“One of the alleged perpetrators involved in the massive Yahoo hack that compromised as many as 500 million user accounts purported to be a luxury car aficionado and claimed to have made his first million at the tender age of 15.

“According to a federal indictment, 22-year-old Karim Baratov — a Canadian citizen born in Kazakhstan — was used by Russian intelligence officers to gain “access to individual user accounts at Google and other providers (but not Yahoo)” and paid a bounty for providing them with the account passwords. The information was then allegedly used to hack into the email accounts of various political and business leaders in Russia and the United States.”

Vice News

+1: Russian agents were behind Yahoo hack, U.S. says – New York Times

2. ‘We are all doing it’: Employees at Canada’s 5 big banks speak out about pressure to dupe customers

“Employees from all five of Canada’s big banks have flooded Go Public with stories of how they feel pressured to upsell, trick and even lie to customers to meet unrealistic sales targets and keep their jobs. The deluge is fuelling multiple calls for a parliamentary inquiry, even as the banks claim they’re acting in customers’ best interests.”

CBC News

3. Rachel Maddow had a decent scoop. Here’s what she did wrong with it.

“In journalism, it’s called ‘burying the lede.’ And Rachel Maddow gave a master class in just that on her MSNBC show Tuesday night.”

Washington Post

+1: How Palm Beach media is capitalizing on Trump – Buzzfeed 

4. How Dominos atoned for its sins and built a $9 billion empire

“As much as tech, what buoyed Domino’s was a once-in-an-industry strategy: In 2009 it admitted that its foundational product was … bad.”

Bloomberg

5. Humans made the banana perfect — but soon, it’ll be gone

“Industry, we learn from the story of the Cavendish banana, will plant the crop that grows most easily and supply it to us whenever we want. It will encourage us to want it all the time. It will tend to plant crops in ways that produce the greatest yield, even if that mode of production has costs; even if it also puts the very crop the industry depends on at risk.”

Wired