News

iPhone Attack Lasting More Than 2 Years Discovered

Posted on by Andy Miller

A Google security researcher has discovered a sustained and indiscriminate hacking attack on iPhones that is believed to have been going on for more than two years.

Google Project Zero

Details of the attack are outlined on Google’s ‘Project Zero’ blog (https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com) by security researcher Ian Beer.

Using Hacked Websites For The Attack

On the blog, Mr Beer highlights how Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) discovered a small collection of hacked websites that were being used in indiscriminate ‘watering hole’ attacks against their visitors, using iPhone 0-day.  Watering hole attacks are where the browsing patterns of particular groups are observed in order to lay a trap e.g. hack a website that the particular group visits and 0-day vulnerabilities in software are those that are either unknown or known and not patched.

Mr Beer’s TAG team noted that there has been no target discrimination for the attack but a simple visit to a hacked website appears to be enough for the exploit server to attack a person’s device, leading to the installation of a monitoring implant.

How Many iPhone Users Have Been Affected?

Mr Beer’s team estimate that the hacked websites receive thousands of visitors per week.  Also, given that the hack has been operating for more than two years, and that TAG was able to identify five separate, complete and unique iPhone exploit chains that cover almost every version from iOS 10 through to the latest version of iOS 12, large numbers of iPhone users could potentially be affected.

12 Security Flaws

Mr Beer’s team identified 12 separate security flaws (mostly bugs within the Safari default web browser on Apple products) that could be used to compromise the Apple devices.

Reported To Apple – Patch Released

The TAG researchers reported the issues to Apple with a 7-day deadline on 1 February 2019 and shared the complete details of the research with Apple.  This led to the release of the security update iOS 12.1.4 on 7 Feb 2019.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It is worrying to think that this kind of hack has been going on for years before it was discovered, and owners of Apple devices may be particularly surprised given the security features of their phones and Apple’s reputation for offering relative safety from concerns about viruses and hacking.

If you have an iPhone, the advice is to make sure that it is running the latest version of iOS. Go to ‘Settings’, tap ‘General’, and under ‘Software Update’ check that you are be running iOS 12.4.1. which has the fix.

Tesla Owners Locked Out

Posted on by Andy Miller

Some Tesla Model 3 car owners found themselves decidedly locked out in the cold due to a vital Phone Key app being down for maintenance.

Labor Day Dismay

On US Labor Day, some owners of Tesla Model 3 cars who tried to use their Phone Key app, the smartphone app that will open a Model 3 without the owner having to take the phone out of their pocket, found themselves locked out when the app didn’t work, and they hadn’t brought a physical key fob/card with them.

Net Fret

Some of the immobilized owners took to social media platforms to highlight their plight, voice their frustration and seek information.  For example, some Tesla owners on Twitter claimed to have been locked out of their cars for up to four hours whereas others reported being stranded at Supercharger stations and plugged in longer than was necessary.

No App Trapped

The reasons why some owners of Tesla Model 3 cars were locked out appears to be the fact that they had logged out of their app, may not have been able to get a phone signal, and that the app was undergoing maintenance at the other end.

Under normal circumstances, the Phone Key should be able to operate on Bluetooth Low Energy frequencies rather than a network connection in order to communicate with the Model 3 vehicle.

Pain Again

This is not the first time that Tesla owners have experienced a lack of mobility due to being locked out by apps.  Back in 2018, after media control unit replacements and a problem with digital certificate transferral, some owners found themselves in the same frustrating situation of being temporarily refused entry to their own cars.

Not Hard If You Bring Your Card

The Tesla Manual states that the Model 3 comes with two physical key cards for entry and operation that can be used when a phone is not accessible, out of battery, or if someone else needs temporary access to the Model 3 e.g. a valet. Those owners who were temporarily stranded by the app failure appear not to have brought either of their key cards with them.

Electric Blues

All this comes at a time when Tesla is facing competition from the likes of Harley-Davidson which has just announced that it’s taking pre-orders for its first all-electric motorcycle, the LiveWire.  The LiveWire can cover 110 miles on a single charge and can go from zero to 60 in just 3.5 seconds.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is clearly an embarrassing incident for a company that has a technological focus for its vehicles, and where the price reflects the early-curve electronic vehicle development – Model 3s starting at around £37,000.

This story is also an example of the potential dangers of relying too much on technology and apps to run every aspect of our lives going forward.  Even though Tesla does provide physical key cards that could have helped those stranded drivers, human error (not reading the manual and / or forgetting to bring one) played a part, as it often does, in errors involving the human and technology combination.  Also, the use of interconnected technologies i.e. the reliance upon some kind of Internet/Bluetooth connection to enable the app to work correctly shows how today’s newest smart services still have a heavy reliance upon the existing communications infrastructure.

BBC to Launch Own ‘Beeb’ Digital Voice Assistant Next Year

Posted on by Andy Miller

The BBC has announced that it will be launching its own digital voice assistant ‘Beeb’ next year to work on all smart speakers, TVs, and mobile devices.

Accents

The new digital (AI) voice assistant, which is being developed by an in-house team, will be trained to have a good understanding of the many different UK regional accents.  This has meant that BBC staff from around the UK have been invited to record their voices to help train the programme.

Competing?

Even though the BBC has not said that ‘Beeb’ will be sold with its own hardware device (smart speaker), as an AI digital voice assistant it will essentially be in broad competition with Amazon, Google and Apple, all of which have already been in the market for some time with their own voice assistants.

That said, in addition to not being released in a bundle with a home smart speakers to compete on the shelves with other general smart speakers, Beeb is different because it has been designed, rather like the iPlayer, as a means to provide easier access to the BBC’s own content, programmes and services.  It is thought that ‘Beeb’, being a BBC product that’s specifically designed with the purpose of accessing BBC content, will mean that it is trusted and used by BBC customers.

Voice-Activated Future

As a public services broadcaster, the BBC sees ‘Beeb’ as an important step to keep up with the times in what it describes as a “voice-enabled future”.  For example, 20% of British households already use voice assistants (Guardian).

Criticism

Some critics have pointed out that having a single syllable word such as ‘Beeb’ as the wake-word could lead to mistakes being made by the assistant, but the BBC says that ‘Beeb’ is still just a working title.

No More BBC on TuneIn

From the end of September, the BBC’s radio stations will no longer be available through the TuneIn radio app (as used by Alexa) because it has been reported that Amazon will not share information about listeners of BBC stations.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The new digital voice assistant is a way in which the BBC can give its customers a more convenient and modern way to access its content, in the same way that some competitors are using  Netflix uses Amazon voice controls on Fire TVs, and at a time when people are used to using other voice assistants. Also, Beeb is a part of the BBC’s move to push users towards its own products, and crucially, to find out more information about its users.  This has been shown, for example, by the need to sign-up to view programmes on iPlayer, and by the impending removal of BBC stations from TuneIn app over a lack of information-sharing.  The BBC’s own digital assistant will mean that it can have information-gathering systems built-in.  This, in turn, helps the BBC to better target its services and to compete more effectively in the wider marketplace, while at the same time, help it to improve and add value to its public service broadcasting.

London Gets 10 Million New Landline Numbers

Posted on by Andy Miller

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced the introduction of 10 million new 0204 landline numbers for London in a move to keep up with a growing demand fuelled by Broadband connections.

Running Out

There are only 500,000 of the 30 million (020)3, (020)7 and (020)8 numbers left to be handed out and Ofcom says that these remaining numbers are being allocated at a rate of 30,000 each week!

Broadband

In addition to the fact that numbers from the existing groups will be used up within the year, the new numbers have been created to help feed demand for fixed-line broadband.

For example, an ISPreview survey from last year showed that only 14.5% of respondents still used a landline phone service for making most of their calls and 67.2% said they’d get rid of it if the service if it wasn’t still needed by ISPs for home broadband.

It is still very difficult in the UK to avoid paying for line rental as part of a broadband service. This is because most broadband connections are ADSL which requires the use of Openreach phone lines to transmit data.

Full fibre broadband, however, does not require a phone line but it is not widely available, and some providers will still ask you to take a landline as part of the package.

Data Usage

Landlines have been used more in recent times for data.  For example, Ofcom figures show that in 2018, the average household used 240GB of data through fixed broadband, compared to 23GB in 2012.

Landline Calls In Decline

Even though landline calls are in decline, Ofcom says that UK customers still spend 44 billion minutes making landline calls every year.

Growth

Allocating new numbers for London is not new.  For example, the 01 code for London, which lasted from 1958 to 1990 was replaced by 071 (inner London) and 081 (outer), which then became 0171 and 0181 five years later.  In 2000 the inner and outer codes for London were replaced by the number 020 for both.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

London is the commercial centre, as well as the capital of the UK and its continuous growth coupled with the advance of communications technology, has necessitated the addition of several different codes over the years.  With the current speed of allocation of the existing number business and households need news codes soon, and the first blocks of ‘(020) 4’ numbers will be allocated to telecoms providers in the autumn, after which the new numbers will be issued to other customers by the end of next year.

Tech Tip – Office Lens

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you would like a handy way to make copies of work documents for future reference, the Office Lens app lets you turn your smartphone into a whiteboard and document scanner.

The Office Lens app means that you never need to lose a receipt or important document or lose any of the ideas sketched onto a whiteboard at meetings or courses.  Snap a picture of your chosen document with the app and Office Lens allows you to save the output as images, PDFs or Word documents, and save to OneNote, OneDrive, or to your local device.

Office Lens is available from the Google Play store.

Four-Year Lifespan For Self-Driving Cars

Posted on by Andy Miller

As large car manufacturers seek to reinvent themselves as ‘mobility companies’ in an effort to compete for global leadership in the growing autonomous driving sector, a Ford Executive has predicted that self-driving cars will only last four years.

Only Four Years?

The prediction of four-year lifespan for self-driving cars came from John Rich, the operations chief of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, in a recent interview with the Telegraph.

Why Four Years?

The idea that a driverless car will only last four years stems from the fact that these cars will be part of fleets that have continuous use and will, therefore, wear out more quickly.  Even though this may appear to indicate that car companies could make more money by selling new car replacements after only four years, this is not necessarily so because car manufacturers appear to envisage a future where they will become fleet operators that sell us fewer cars.

Mobility Company

Mr Rich’s prediction fits in with the idea that traditional car manufacturers such as Ford and Toyota say that they’re aiming to become ‘mobility companies’ that operate fleets of autonomous/driverless vehicles for other companies to use.  This could include the car manufacturers hiring the fleets out themselves, supplying the fleets for other companies to hire out, and getting involved in ventures with other operators.  For example, Toyota and Chinese autonomous driving company Pony.ai have recently teamed up in a US$600 million joint venture to explore mobility services and to help Toyota to become a major mobility company in China. Also, Pittsburgh start-up Argo AI is reported to be developing driverless cars for Ford and is testing the technology in five cities in the US.

The move by Ford and other manufacturers towards becoming mobility companies with autonomous fleets will see them compete directly with operators such as Uber.

Decline In Private Ownership

The prediction and vision from market analysts is that there will be a decline in private car ownership and the costs associated with that as consumers will prefer to use the widely available fleets of autonomous vehicles operated by the new mobility companies.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Traditional car manufacturers appear to see their future as mobility companies in a world where they and other businesses operate fleet services of widely available autonomous vehicles to business and individual users who will no longer need to own a car themselves. This is all part of today’s car manufacturers trying to get significant peace of global (in the developed world) market for autonomous transport.  If this future vision plays out as the car manufacturers and analysts predict, this will have a dramatic effect on businesses and markets along the car supply chain as well as the private hire and public transport markets.

No Leather, Jeans, Hard Surfaces, Other Cards or Magnets – Warning for Apple Card

Posted on by Andy Miller

Just as the new ‘Apple Card’ is launched in the US, Apple has listed several surfaces and materials that could damage and discolour the coated titanium card – including denim and leather.

Apple Card

The newly launched (in the US) no fees, instant cash-back Apple Card is a partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs with processing by Mastercard.  The Apple Card is operated through the Wallet app on iPhone (iPhone 6 and later) and is accompanied by a physical laser-etched card, made of coated titanium and with no card number, no CVV security code, and no expiration date or signature on it.

Soft Materials Are Best

Unfortunately for Apple, just as the Card’s online blurb was unveiled to the world some of the media’s attention was diverted to Apple’s advice about how to “safely” store and carry the card rather than to its security features.

Some online commentators couldn’t fail to notice that for a sleek looking, titanium card, it appears to be vulnerable to damage and discolouration from some of the ways that customers may expect to carry and store a normal plastic credit card.

For example, according to Apple’s own card-care advice, the Apple Card may be vulnerable to discolouration and damage from:

  • Storing the card in the card in a slot in a wallet or billfold touching another credit card.
  • Coming into contact with fabrics, like leather and denim, which may cause permanent discolouration that will not wash off.
  • Placing the card in a pocket or bag that contains loose change, keys, or other potentially abrasive objects.
  • Placing the Apple Card near magnets (which could de-magnetize the strip).

The Coating

Apple says on its website that it is the multi-layered coating on the card that gives the card its white finish that could be damaged or discoloured, and not the titanium card beneath.  Although titanium is a very reactive metal, it is known for its strength and its corrosion resistance in oxidising acid environments.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Some commentators see this as a gaffe by Apple as the launch of something that sees Apple make a major move into services has been slightly tarnished itself by what appears to be either a problem with the coating of the Apple Card, or Apple giving out a bit too much information about the care of the card, or a bit of both.

Expecting customers to keep the Apple Card in its own separate bag made of only soft materials may be a little unrealistic and impractical, and it remains to be seen how the card fares in the real world and what stories come from the first users of the card, and whether the card is as susceptible to damage as the Apple website appears to indicate.

This story is also an example to businesses of how attempts to differentiate products and services and to add value should be carefully thought through and tested before public launches, and products that customers are familiar with need to be at least as convenient and practical to use as competing products.

Video Labelling Causes Problems

Posted on by Andy Miller

Google has already been criticised by some for not calling out China over disinformation about Hong Kong, but despite disabling 210 YouTube channels with suspected Chinese state links, Google’s new move to label Hong Kong YouTube videos hasn’t gone down well.

Big Social Media Platforms Act

Facebook and Twitter recently announced that they have banned a number accounts on their platforms due to what the popular social media platforms are calling “coordinated influence operations”. In other words, Chinese state-sponsored communications designed to influence opinion (pro-Beijing viewpoints) and to spread disinformation.  Twitter and Facebook are both blocked in mainland China anyway by the country’s notorious firewall but both platforms can be accessed in Hong King and Twitter recently suspended over 900 accounts believed to originate in China. The reasons for the suspensions included spam, fake accounts and ban evasion.

Google Labels Videos

Google’s response, which some critics have seen as being late anyway has been to add information panels to videos on its Hong Kong-facing site saying whether the video has been uploaded by media organisations that receive government funding or public funding.  The panels, which are live in 10 regions, were intended to give viewers an insight into whether the videos are state-funded or not.

Problem

Unfortunately, Google did not consider the fact that some media receives government funding, but are editorially independent, and the labelling has effectively put them in the same category as media that purely spreads government information.

Google and China

Many commentators have noted an apparent reluctance by Google to distance itself from the more repressive side of the Chinese state.  For example, Google has been criticised for not publicly criticising China over the state’s disinformation campaign about the Hong Kong protests.  Also, Google was recently reported to have a secret plan (Project Dragonfly) to develop a censored search engine for the Chinese market and it’s been reported that Google has an A.I research division in China.

Disinformation By Bot? Not

There have been fears that just as bots can be a time and cost-saving way of writing and distributing information, they could also be used to write disinformation and could even reach the point soon where they are equal in ability to human writers.  For example, the text generator, built by the research firm OpenAI, has (until recently) been considered to be too dangerous to make (the ‘trained’ version) public because of the potential for abuse in terms of using it to write disinformation.  In tests (the BBC, AI experts, and a Sheffield University professor) however, it proved to be relatively ineffective at generating meaningful text from input headlines, although it did appear able to reflect news bias in its writing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The influence via social media in the last US presidential election campaign and the UK referendum (with the help of Cambridge Analytica) brought the whole subject of disinformation into sharp focus, and the Chinese state media’s response to the Hong King demonstrations has given more fuel to the narrative coming from the current US administration (Huawei accusations and trade war) that China should be considered a threat.  Google’s apparent lack of public criticism of Chinese state media disinformation efforts is in contrast to the response of social media giants Facebook and Twitter, and this coupled with reports of the company trying to develop a censored search engine for China to allow it to get back into the market over there means that Google is likely to be scrutinised and criticised by US state voices.

It is difficult for many users of social media channels to spot bias and disinformation, and although Google may have tried to do the right thing by labelling videos, its failure to take account of the media structure in China has meant more criticism for Google.  As an advertising platform for businesses, Google needs to take care of its public image, and this kind of bad publicity is unlikely to help.

Audible’s ‘Captions’ Subtitles Feature Attracts Lawsuit From Publishers

Posted on by Andy Miller

The Amazon-owned producer of spoken audio entertainment ‘Audible’ is facing a lawsuit from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) on the grounds that its new “Audible Captions” speech-to-text subtitles feature may violate copyright law.

Audible Captions 

Audible Captions, which was announced by the largest producer of audiobooks via a YouTube video back in July, is a feature that allows text captions to appear on-screen and progressively highlights the words as a novel is narrated. The feature also highlights and gives definitions for certain words in the captions and allows the user to translate text into other languages.

Objections – Lawsuit 

Audible’s plans to roll-out the Captions feature attracted almost immediate complaints and concerns by authors, publishers and literary agents on social media over possible copyright law violations, along with accusations that Captions appears to make quite a few mistakes per book. Eventually, a lawsuit was filed at the District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) which includes seven of the top US publishing companies, such as Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins Publishers.

Injunction

The lawsuit, which seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the September launch of Audible Captions argues that the feature could give Audible a competitive advantage over other audio-book providers who aren’t in a position to utilise speech-to-text technology, and that displaying the text of Audible books may amount to illegal reproduction and distribution of those books, thereby potentially breaching copyright laws and adversely affecting publishers’ profits. The AAP members also appear to be angry that the mistakes (transcription errors) made by the AI aspect of Captions could add up to the equivalent of 18 pages of inaccuracies in 300-page book. The AAP’s legal action has also attracted the support of the US Authors Guild. Executive Director, Mary Rasenberger, makes the point that “Text and audio are different book markets, and Audible is licensed only for audio. It has chosen to use its market power to force publishers’ hands by proceeding without permission in clear violation of copyright in the titles.”

What Does Audible Say? 

Amazon-owned Audible has argued that Audible Captions are an educational and accessibility innovation, and that the Captions, which allow listeners to simply follow along with a few lines of machine-generated text as they listen to the audio are not and were never intended to be a book, and therefore, can’t be judged like one (with copyright law).

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

In addition to their anger over allegedly not being consulted by Audible about using the feature, the big publishers and Authors Guild appear to see Captions as a competitive advantage that represents a threat to their existing benefits, profits, and market positions. For Amazon, a company that has grown and diversified and made major inroads into multiple markets, the lawsuit is not only another dose of bad publicity e.g. following recent concerns by China Labour Watch (CLW) about possible child labour being used in the manufacture of the Amazon Echo, but it’s a reminder that there are still other powerful players in the publishing market and that laws regarding copyright need to be studied and adhered to, no matter how big the market player. It is not clear when Captions will be released but it is unlikely that Amazon’s Audible would want to be delayed too long in releasing a value-adding feature that could provide a competitive advantage.

Grammar Correction Capabilities For Gmail and G Suite

Posted on by Andy Miller

Google has announced that it is rolling out new real-time, AI-powered spelling and grammar correction capabilities for G Suite users and personal Gmail accounts.

Real-Time, As-You-Type

The real-time, as-you-type spelling autocorrection is now available to all G Suite users and personal Gmail accounts, but the Grammar suggestion feature is only available to G Suite users.

Autocorrection Spelling

The new features use AI to spot and highlight mistakes with spelling and grammar, and even the use of tenses.

The autocorrection spelling feature uses coloured (red) squiggly underlines to highlight spelling mistakes, the mistakes can be auto-corrected, and the changes are temporarily underlined in grey so that you can see the difference between the two.

Grammar

The AI-powered grammar correction feature, which has previously been available in Google Docs, uses a squiggly blue line to highlight errors in grammar, and pop-ups appear to help make changes to the grammar and allow the user to mark them as correct or switch them back to how they were.

Default

The autocorrect spell-check feature has been added as a default and if users want to turn it off, they can do so by going to Gmail’s Settings > General and then turn off Grammar, Spelling, and Autocorrect.

Benefits

The benefits to users could be the ability to work smarter and faster, make a better impression with their communications, and learn more about correct spelling and grammar and use the knowledge to feel more confident in their writing over time.

Competition

These new features are, however, in competition with, and could affect profits for other third-party spelling and grammar services e.g. Grammarly which relies upon users opting to use an upgrade to a freemium service.

Texting To Blame?

Ofcom figures showing that teenagers, young adults and adults chose text-based communications as their preferred way of communication highlight one of the reasons why many people believe that mobile phone usage, with its reliance on auto-correct, is partly to blame for a decline in the standards of spelling and grammar that has necessitated a further need for more sophisticated AI-based tools.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For third-party spelling and grammar apps such as Grammarly, this move by Google could reduce the value of (and the perceived need for) their services.

For business users of Google’s services (G Suite and Gmail) these kinds of tools could help save time and improve the quality and consistency of their communications which in turn could positively reflect on their brands.

For Google, these new features could provide an improved experience for their users and add more loyalty and perceived value to Google’s range of services.

Some critics have, however, noted that these features could homogenise the way that we write, could raise privacy concerns, and that the AI technology could also be subject to bias in its suggestions.