IT News Digest #20: Cloudflare outage broke large swathes of the internet, Bitcoin continues to plummet, dropping below $20K, Elon Musk hints at layoffs in first meeting with Twitter employees

Last week in news: Millions of iPhone users could get payouts in legal action; Authorities shut down Russian RSOCKS botnet that hacked millions of devices.

Development:

• Java News Roundup by InfoQ: NetBeans 14, End-of-Life for Spring Tool Suite 3, Hibernate 6.1, TornadoV.
• PostgreSQL 14 breaks the .NET and Java drivers for PostgreSQL.

Career and IT market:

• Elon Musk hints at layoffs in first meeting with Twitter employees. He also addressed topics like remote working, freedom of speech and potential extra-terrestrial life.
• Apple battery lawsuit: Millions of iPhone users could get payouts in legal action.
• Bitcoin continues to plummet, dropping below $20K. The popular cryptocurrency has lost 74% of its value from its record high in November.
• Union wins right to represent workers at an Apple store for the first time. Apple workers in Towson, Maryland, have voted to form the first-ever labor union at one of the tech giant's US stores.

Online Security:

• A Cloudflare outage broke large swathes of the internet. Discord, Shopify, Grindr, Fitbit, and Peleton users all reported issues.
• Authorities shut down Russian RSOCKS botnet that hacked millions of devices. The botnet is believed to have ensnared millions of internet-connected devices.