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Up first on Reddit, After The New York Times published a report claiming Chinese spies have been eavesdropping on calls made on U.S. President Donald Trump’s unsecured iPhone, China has responded by suggesting the president switch to a Huawei phone. Hua Chunying, the deputy director of the Chinese foreign ministry’s information department said: “If they are very worried about iPhones being tapped, they can use Huawei.” He went on to say the report was fake news. If you didn’t know, the U.S. government has essentially banned the Chinese smartphone giant from doing business in America. Earlier this year the CIA, FBI, and the NSA all warned U.S. citizens from using Huawei, and AT&T also pulled a planned launch of the company’s flagship phone the Mate 10 because of political pressure.
Next on LinkedIn, After a nearly 10-month investigation, Italy has fined Apple and Samsung for deliberately slowing down phones. Local authorities fined the companies $11.5 million and $5.7 million respectively over planned obsolescence in smartphones. Italy’s competition bureau says new software updates are slowing down older phones, which are forcing citizens to upgrade to newer devices. This is the first time such a ruling has been made against smartphones.
Finally on Twitter, a hacker accessed personal information of 9.4 million Cathay Pacific Airlines’ customers, becoming the target of the world’s biggest airline data breach. The hack includes access to 403 expired credit card numbers, 27 credit card numbers with no CVV or security code, 860,000 passport numbers, and 245,000 Hong Kong IDs. Reporting indicated that the Hong Kong-based carrier knew about the breach in March and confirmed it in May, but only just announced it publicly on Wednesday. Cathay Pacific is offering free ID monitoring to those who request it.