CTech’s Weekly Israeli Tech News Roundup

Alibaba’s Jack Ma plans to visit Israel in May. The founder and chairman of China’s largest ecommerce company plans to visit Israel in May to meet with local venture capital funds and startups. Read more

Jerusalem-based equity crowdfunding firm OurCrowd says it is on track to top $1 billion in assets managed in 2018. OurCrowd, one of the most active venture funds in Israel, offers private investors a way to take part in investments in pre-vetted Israeli startups. By the end of 2017 the company had 25,000 registered investors. Read more

Alibaba’s Jack Ma. Photo: Bloomberg

Trump’s statements on Jerusalem triggered cyberattacks on Israel, says former Israeli cybersecurity chief. Specific events, including the statement made by U.S. President Donald Trump in December, contributed to an overall increase in the number of attacks targeting Israel in 2017, Buki Carmeli, the former head of Israel’s National Cyber Security Authority, said. Read more

Baidu is tracking online behavior to assign credit score to users. Baidu has placed 10 million users on a new blacklist, rating them as risky borrowers based on their search history and navigation and social media habits, a company executive told Calcalist. Read more

Seeking to overturn a ruling forcing it to reinstate popular Israeli page, Facebook appeals to Israel’s Supreme Court. In December, Facebook reinstated the popular Israeli page “Twitting Posts,” which it had terminated in 2015 citing user agreement violations, following an Israeli court ruling. Now the company is taking the fight to the next level. Read more

Donald Trump is worth $180,000 (in this new crypto game). The exact net worth of U.S. President Donald Trump is a matter of intense debate and speculation, but, in a new blockchain game, the sitting U.S. president is worth exactly 151.4 ether, which comes out to about $181,700. Read more

Online games developer Playtika to invest up to $400 million in startups. The company is looking for digital entertainment and consumer internet startups in Israel, with a focus on companies that are already profitable or that have proven business model. Read more

Israeli military examining the use of fitness tracking social network Strava by troops. Following reports that the service’s “heatmaps” reveal the locations of military bases, the Israeli military will examine the use of Strava’s service by troops, “and will issue relevant directives to soldiers as it sees fit.” Read more