September 11, 2023
In this Episode:
Marcel Brown: September 11th, 1985. The International Cometary Explorer passes through the gas tail of comet P/Giacobini-Zinner, the first ever man-made object to pass through the tail of a comet.
Edwin Kwan: A notorious ransomware gang has compromised a number of Australian companies and are extorting them. They have claimed responsibility over attacks of several Australian companies in the health, real estate, and law sectors, and have stolen at least 4.95 terabytes of data.
Katy Craig:  Google Cloud and Vertex AI are rolling out SynthID, a groundbreaking tool designed to watermark and identify AI-generated images. As the landscape of AI-generated content expands, tools like SynthID are becoming crucial in the fight for digital authenticity.
Hillary Coover: 40 percent of Americans who have a smartphone believe that their phone is listening to them without their permission. They’re not entirely wrong. Why should you care? The more identifiable data corporations collect on you, the larger your susceptibility to a cybersecurity incident.
The Stories Behind the Cybersecurity Headlines
Edwin Kwan
Australian Companies Suffers Data Breach Due to Third Party Compromise
A notorious ransomware gang has compromised a number of Australian companies and are extorting them.
This is Edwin Kwan from Sydney, Australia.
The group was responsible for the June breach of Australia’s largest law firm, HWL Ebsworth. They have claimed responsibility over attacks of several Australian companies in the health, real estate, and law sectors, and have stolen at least 4.95 terabytes of data. The ransomware gang is threatening to reach out directly to the victims to offer them the option to pay to prevent the public disclosure of their information if the organizations refuse to negotiate.
A number of the compromises are connected to a Melbourne IT Managed Service Provider. Investigations are still ongoing, along with validation of the attacker’s claims. Initial suggestion is indicating that the origins of entry was a targeted client-side phishing attack.
Katy Craig
Can You Trust That Picture?
Ever wondered if that too-perfect image on your screen was cooked up by a computer? Well, Google Cloud and Vertex AI are rolling out SynthID, a groundbreaking tool designed to watermark and identify AI-generated images.
This is Katy Craig in San Diego, California.
Today we delve into the launch of SynthID, a tool developed by Google Cloud in partnership with Vertex AI. As AI-generated images become increasingly sophisticated, the need for reliable identification methods has never been greater. This is especially pertinent given that China is using AI-generated images in influence campaigns. SynthID aims to address this by embedding an imperceptible but detectable digital watermark directly into the pixels of an image.
Traditional watermarking methods have proven inadequate for the challenges posed by AI-generated content, often being easily edited out or lost through simple manipulations. SynthID’s watermark, however, remains detectable even after common image modifications, such as adding filters or changing colors. The tool employs dual deep learning models optimized for both watermarking and identification.
While SynthID is not foolproof against extreme manipulations, it offers a promising technical approach for responsible content creation and identification. Currently available to a limited number of Vertex AI customers using the text-to-image model Imagen, the technology has the potential to evolve and include other AI models and modalities, such as audio and video.
As the landscape of AI-generated content expands, tools like SynthID are becoming crucial in the fight for digital authenticity.
This is Katy Craig. Stay safe out there.
Resources
– https://www.deepmind.com/blog/identifying-ai-generated-images-with-synthid
Hillary Coover
Is Your Phone Listening To You
40 percent of Americans who have a smartphone believe that their phone is listening to them without their permission. They’re not entirely wrong– just a little bit misguided. Research by David Choffnes, a computer science professor, found no evidence of Android apps covertly activating a phone’s microphone to collect audio recordings, and his team reviewed over 17, 000 different apps.
Hi, this is Hillary Coover in Washington, DC.
Choffnes explains that although it’s possible for apps to do this, there are far more effective ways for companies to collect data on users- primarily through tracking technologies that record various online activities like screen views, web searches, interests, clicks, likes, and purchases.
Why should you care? The more identifiable data corporations collect on you, the larger your susceptibility to a cybersecurity incident. This concept is really hard to swallow. Technology offers so much convenience, but it also poses risks.
In 2021, middle-aged and older adults accounted for 60 percent of Internet crime victims, losing over $4 billion to hackers and scammers, according to the FBI. The risk of the sheer amount of identifiable data out there collected is significant. Hackers continually find innovative ways to steal data from our digital footprint. A 2019 Pew Research Center study reveals that eight out of 10 people are worried about the amount of data companies collect on them and believe that the risks outweigh the benefits.
Individuals should have default settings that give them control over their data and meaningful consent over its collection and use. For now, it’s up to individuals to adjust settings and choose apps, products, and browsers that offer protection against digital surveillance. The good news is you don’t really have to be a tech expert to manage this.
Visit 505updates.com for a complete transcript and a link to the article with more information on how you are being watched and for recommendations on safeguarding your privacy.
Resources
– https://www.aol.com/phone-really-listening-cybersecurity-experts-210200836.html
Marcel Brown
This Day, September 10, 11 in Tech History
This is Marcel Brown dropping some technology history for September 10th and 11th.
September 10th, 1990. The first Internet search engine, Archie, is launched. It was used to index FTP archives to make finding files easier. However, as the technology for the World Wide Web was not invented until later in the year, it was not the first web search engine.
September 11th, 1977. Atari releases their video computer system, known as the VCS, and later as the Atari 2600. It took two years for the VCS to gain traction, but by 1979, it was the best selling gift of the Christmas season. Once it was established, the Atari VCS took the market by storm, popularized home video gaming, and helped cement the video game movement into mainstream culture.
September 11th, 1985. The International Cometary Explorer passes through the gas tail of comet P/Giacobini-Zinner, the first ever man-made object to pass through the tail of a comet.
That’s your technology history for today. For more, tune in tomorrow and visit my website, thisdayintechhistory.com.
Resources
– http://thisdayintechhistory.com/09/10
– http://thisdayintechhistory.com/09/11
