Christmas shipping snafus, the black market of stolen credit card numbers, Snowden claims “mission accomplished,” and more: it’s this week’s Tech Reads.
Laura Stevens, Serena Ng and Shelly Banjo do a post-mortem on UPS’s failure to deliver online shoppers’ gifts promised to arrive by Christmas Eve [The Wall St. Journal]
Dustin Volz examines the underground world where stolen credit card numbers — like those swiped at US Target stores last month — are traded [The National Journal]
Actor and “selfie king” James Franco explains the art and utility behind selfies, and why he’s less likely to follow folks who don’t use social media to display themselves. [The New York Times]
Dan Seifert looks at what it would take to provide in-flight cellphone service on US flights, and why it hasn’t happened already [The Verge]
In a lengthy conversation with Barton Gellman, Edward Snowden reflects on his acts that brought the NSA into the spotlight, and sees a victory in the war on surveillance. [The Washington Post]
Image: On Dec. 24, 2013, NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer, participates in the second of two U.S. spacewalks, spread over a four-day period, which were designed to allow the crew to change out a faulty water pump on the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. He was joined on both spacewalks by NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, whose image shows up in Hopkins’ helmet visor. Image via NASA on Instagram.
