Election security — or lack thereof — dominated the headlines this week as social-media platforms moved to boot trolls and industry leaders met to discuss what to do with the U.S.midterms looming. Meanwhile, Walmart and Kobo teamed up on ebooks, rumors about Apple’s fall event popped up right on time, Samsung released its Galaxy Note9 and Google is trying to find regular doses of good news out there. All this and more on Episode 284!

Links to Stories Discussed in This Week’s Show

• Hackers Attempt a Repeat Performance at the D.N.C. (Vanity Fair)
• Hack attempt on DNC voter database was a false alarm, the national committee says (The Washington Post)
• Facebook Identifies New Influence Operations Spanning Globe (The New York Times)
• Taking Down More Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (Facebook Newsroom)
• An update on state-sponsored activity (Google Keyword blog)
• Tech Companies Are Gathering For A Secret Meeting To Prepare A 2018 Election Strategy (BuzzFeed)
• It’s Too Late to Protect the 2018 Elections. But Here’s How the U.S. Can Prepare for 2020. (Lawfare)
• A Note From Twitter Security
• Jack Dorsey On Deleting Tweets, Banning Trump, And Whether An Unbiased Twitter Can Exist (BuzzFeed)
• Tiny Doylestown Borough battled Verizon over 5G and won a big settlement (Philly.com)
• Here’s a first look at Facebook’s “Aloha” voice assistant that might power its smart speaker (BGR)
• Walmart and Kobo Launch Walmart eBooks, Including an Audiobook Subscription for $9.99 (Walmart News)
• Investigation Finds It’s Hard to Turn Off Google Location Tracking (eWeek)
• A Lawsuit Over Google’s Sneaky Location Tracking Could Be a Game-Changer (Gizmodo)
• The Right to not be Tracked: a Spotlight on Google Maps and Android Location Tracking (Rise Lab / UC Berkeley
• Manage or delete your Location History (Google Account Help)
• Yup, we know exactly when Apple’s 2018 iPhones will be released (BGR)
• Samsung’s Galaxy Note9: Too Much Phone for Most of Us (The New York Times)
• Samsung Galaxy Note S9
• Nikon mirrorless Z7 and Z6 full-frame cameras launch (BBC News)
• Xbox All Access: Xbox Live Gold, Game Pass, and consoles to be bundled in new plans (On MSFT)
• Hey Google, tell me something good (Google Keyword blog)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

• When Troubleshooters Run Into Trouble (The New York Times) 
• Decoding Windows Error Messages (The New York Times)