Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, November 7th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough today.

Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia. Those weird text messages a whole bunch of people

received overnight, the most powerful desktop CPU in the world, Ghost Locomotion wants to turn

existing cars into autonomous vehicles.

Wrench will repair your car on demand and what smart speaker seems to be unhackable.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

The Department of Justice has charged two ex- Twitter employees and arrested one of them,

alleging they spied for Saudi Arabia by snooping on the accounts of people critical of that kingdom.

One of the individuals allegedly accessed 6,000 accounts in 2015.

Prosecutors also say a third individual acted as an intermediary between the Twitter employees and Saudi officials.

Quoting the Wall Street Journal,

the criminal complaint unsealed today alleges that Saudi agents mined Twitter's internal

systems for personal information about known Saudi critics and thousands of other Twitter

users, said U.S. Attorney General David L. Anderson.

We will not allow U.S. companies or U.S. technology to become tools of foreign repression

in violation of U.S. law, Twitter restricts access to sensitive account information, quote,

to a limited group of trained and vetted employees, said a spokesman who spoke

on the condition of anonymity,

quote, to protect the safety of Twitter personnel.

Quote, we understand the incredible risks

faced by many who use Twitter

to share their perspectives with the world

...