Tech Roundup: ECC Controversy, Data Deletion Sentences, GitHub Lifts Iran Ban, and More
This roundup covers Linus Torvalds' criticism of Intel's ECC memory policies, a Chinese real‑estate employee sentenced for deleting 9 TB of data, Pinduoduo's apology over a controversial Zhihu comment, Xiaohongshu's service outage, GitHub restoring access for Iranian developers, the latest TIOBE language rankings, average programmer salaries in China, a UK engineer discarding 7 500 bitcoins, and David Recordon's appointment as White House technology director.
Linus Torvalds slams Intel for killing the ECC memory market
At the start of the new year, Linus Torvalds posted about the importance of ECC (Error‑Checking and‑Correcting) memory and condemned Intel’s market‑segmentation policies as detrimental to the ECC industry.
Chainjia employee sentenced to 7 years for deleting 9 TB of data
A Beijing court sentenced a Chainjia employee to seven years in prison after he deleted 9 TB of company data, refused to cooperate, and withheld passwords. The company spent 180,000 CNY to recover the data.
The employee, who had root access to the financial system, used his privileges to erase financial records, rendering the system inaccessible.
Pinduoduo apologises for a controversial Zhihu comment posted by a supplier employee
On January 4, Zhihu clarified that the account “Pinduoduo” was a verified user. The user posted a critical comment about societal issues, which was later deleted. Pinduoduo apologized, stating the comment was made by a marketing‑partner employee using a personal phone and does not reflect the company’s stance.
Xiaohongshu outage sparks jokes about cutting programmers' salaries
On January 6, users reported that the Xiaohongshu app was down and could not be opened, trending on Weibo. No official explanation has been given yet.
GitHub lifts the “wall” for Iranian developers
After more than two years, GitHub obtained U.S. government permission to restore full services to developers in Iran, including both personal and organizational accounts.
TIOBE January rankings: Python wins fourth consecutive year, C reclaims top spot
The TIOBE index shows Python as the most popular language for the fourth year in a row, with a 2.01 % growth in 2020. C overtook Java to become the number‑one language this month.
Average programmer salary in China reaches 14 915 CNY in January 2021
National data shows the average monthly salary for programmers is 14 915 CNY, with a median of 12 500 CNY; 96 % earn between 3 500 CNY and 85 000 CNY.
UK engineer discards hard drive containing 7 500 bitcoins, losing an estimated $240 million
An IT engineer in the UK mistakenly threw away a hard drive holding the private keys to 7 500 bitcoins, valued at roughly $240 million. Analysts estimate millions of bitcoins have been lost forever.
Open‑source developer David Recordon appointed White House technology director
David Recordon, former Facebook tech lead and key contributor to OpenID and OAuth, has been named the technology director for the White House, where he will address large‑scale tech policy, broadband expansion, and emerging technologies such as AI and facial recognition.
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