Friday news dumps: all the news companies hoped you wouldn’t notice

Friday: the day before the weekend, the last day of the school week or workweek, and the day when companies and people sometimes drop news out of the blue. The Friday news dump!

Sometimes, a news dump means an announcement that, for whatever reason, companies choose not to announce during the week. But often, the news reflects badly on the company or person that dumps it — like, say, confirming layoffs, explaining why you aren’t getting paid as much as you think, or a security breach at a cybersecurity company.

Every time Friday afternoon rolls around (or Wednesday or Thursday if it’s a holiday weekend), there’s a part of my brain that’s preparing for the worst; I’ve been through enough late-in-the-week surprises that they don’t shock me as much as they used to. But now, we’ll be using this storystream to keep track of some of the news dumps we at The Verge get to live through — you, reader, can also experience our pain.

Okta says hackers gained “unauthorized access” to its support system.

The identity and access management company says a hacker viewed files uploaded to its support system by “certain Okta customers.”

Okta says hackers gained access to its support using a stolen credential. However, the company notes that its authentication service was unaffected and is still “fully operational.”
Nikola recalls 209 trucks after determining a battery fire was due to a leak — not sabotage.

Theranos-adjacent trucking company Nikola Motors admitted late Friday night that “a coolant leak inside a single battery pack was found to be the probable cause of the truck fire” at its HQ on June 23rd. The company blames a supplier component for the leak and says it’s working on a fix for affected trucks, which can stay in service. (via Wall Street Journal).

Oh, and as for its initial claim that “foul play is suspected”? Here’s the explanation:

The company’s initial statement on June 23 alluded to foul play as a possible cause of the incident, based on video footage showing a vehicle parked next to the impacted trucks and quickly pulling away after a bright flash and the commencement of the fire. Extensive internal and third party-led hypothesis testing, employee and contractor interviews, and hours of video footage review has since suggested foul play or other external factors were unlikely to have caused the incident.
Newly appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai reversed a number of his predecessors’ actions this afternoon, including shutting down a series of inquiries into net neutrality violations.

While those were the more attention-grabbing changes, Pai also took actions that suggest he’s planning to alter Federal Communications Commission programs that subsidize broadband for schools and low-income families.

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Andrew Burton/Getty Images

As 2015 drew to a close, you might be forgiven for thinking the encryption debate was all talk. There had been a lot of speeches and it was clear the FBI didn’t like Apple’s default encryption system — but what could they actually do about it? They had been leaning on Congress all year and getting nowhere.

Then, everything changed. On February 16th, the FBI took Apple to court over an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers, putting encryption at the center of the largest terrorism-linked shooting in the US in years. A similar phone-unlocking order was already being argued in New York, and the two cases plunged Apple into a legal crisis, as the company faced the possibility that a single ruling might undo years of security work.

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The Justice Department has withdrawn from its legal dispute with Apple over a locked iPhone in New York, the government said in a court filing made late Friday. The department said the FBI no longer needs the company’s help unlocking the phone, involved in a drug-trafficking case, as it has obtained the passcode from someone else.

The withdrawal is the second high-profile case the FBI has stepped away from in recent weeks after finding alternative means to unlocking a phone without Apple’s help. Last month, the agency ended a similar case in San Bernardino after paying a third party for a way to hack into a phone. Recently, Director James Comey said the FBI paid more than $1 million for the help.

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