The what but not the why. What websites? How big a deal was this?
Google
finds 'indiscriminate iPhone attack lasting years'
Security researchers at Google have found evidence
of a “sustained effort” to hack iPhones over a period of at least
two years.
The attack was said to be carried out using
websites which would discreetly implant malicious software to gather
contacts, images and other data.
Google’s analysis suggested the booby-trapped
websites were said to have been visited thousands of times per week.
… "There was no target discrimination,”
Mr Beer wrote.
“Simply visiting the hacked site was enough for
the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful,
install a monitoring implant."
… Once on a person’s iPhone, the implant
could access an enormous amount of data, including (though not
limited to) contacts, images and GPS location data. It would relay
this information back to an external server every 60 seconds, Mr Beer
noted.
The implant also was able to scoop up data from
apps a person was using, such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram.
Mr Beer’s list of examples also included Google products such as
Gmail and Hangouts, the firm's group video chat app.
… Google’s
team notified Apple of the vulnerabilities on 1 February this year.
A
patch was subsequently released six
days later to close the vulnerability. Apple’s patch notes refer
to fixing an issue whereby “an application may be able to gain
elevated privileges” and “an application may be able to execute
arbitrary code with kernel privileges”.
Let’s not
get too far ahead of ourselves.
Can
AIs Hold Patents? Experts Answer USPTO's Questions About Artificial
Intelligence
Academics
have been debating for a while whether machines can be inventors for
the purposes of patent law. Earlier this month, University
of Surrey IP professor Ryan Abbott
and
others upped
the ante,
forming the Artificial Inventor Project and filing patents around the
world that list an AI machine as the inventor.
The
USPTO, which convened a conference earlier this year on AI and IP, is
now formally
requesting comments from
the public on patenting artificial intelligence inventions. PTO
Deputy Director Laura Peter
publicized
the request in
a blog post Monday,
highlighting four sample questions the agency intends to address.
… For
further reading, check out Abbott’s articles on AI
inventorship and
on the level
of ordinary skill in
an AI world.
PTO QUESTION 1: Do current patent laws and regulations regarding inventorship need to be revised to take into account inventions where an entity or entities other than a natural person contributed to the conception of an AI invention or any other invention?
PTO QUESTION 2: Are there any patent eligibility considerations unique to AI inventions?
PTO QUESTION 3: Does AI impact the level of a person of ordinary skill in the art?
PTO QUESTION 4: Do the disclosure rules (enablement, specification, etc.) need to be altered for AI-related patent applications?
Soon, this may be the only place to learn Latin.
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