Apple unveiled plans to scan US iPhones for images of child abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.

Apple said its messaging app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls neuralMatch will detect known images of child sexual abuse without decrypting people’s messages. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.

But researchers say the tool could be put to other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.

Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins, a top cryptography researcher, was concerned that it could be used to frame innocent people by sending them harmless but malicious images designed designed to appear as matches for child porn, fooling Apple’s algorithm and alerting law enforcement — essentially framing people.

This is a thing that you can do, said Green. Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily.

Tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others have for years been sharing hash lists” of known images of child sexual abuse. Apple has also been scanning user files stored in its iCloud service, which is not as securely encrypted as its messages, for such images.

The company has been under pressure from governments and law enforcement to allow for surveillance of encrypted data. Coming up with the security measures required Apple to perform a delicate balancing act between cracking down on the exploitation of children while keeping its high-profile commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.

Apple believes it pulled off that feat with technology that it developed in consultation with several prominent cryptographers, including Stanford University professor Dan Boneh, whose work in the field has won a Turing Award, often called technology’s version of the Nobel Prize.

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Apple is reportedly planning to announce photo identification tools that would identify child abuse images in iOS photo libraries, the media reported.

Apple has previously removed individual apps from the App Store over child pornography concerns, but now it’s said to be about to introduce such a detection system widely. Using photo hashing, iPhones could identify Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on the device.

Apple has not confirmed this and so far the sole source is the security expert Matthew Green, a cryptographer and associate professor at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, AppleInsider reported on Thursday.

According to Green, the plan is initially to be client-side — that is, have all of the detection done on a user’s iPhone. He argues, however, that it’s possible that it’s the start of a process that leads to surveillance of data traffic sent and received from the phone.

“Eventually it could be a key ingredient in adding surveillance to encrypted messaging systems,” Green said.

“The ability to add scanning systems like this to E2E [end to end encryption] messaging systems has been a major ‘ask’ by law enforcement the world over,” he added.

According to Green, this sort of tool can be a boon for finding child pornography in people’s phones.

Green and Johns Hopkins University have also previously worked with Apple to fix a security bug in Messages.

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Smartphone brand realme on Thursday announced it has sold 100 million handsets globally, thus becoming the fastest global brand to ship these many devices in the history of smartphones.

“Thanks to the huge support from our young users, we have been able to reach our goal of shipping 100 million smartphones and have gained significant ground in the smartphone market,” said Sky Li, realme CEO.

Li also said realme’s next goal is to achieve a dual-100 million target — shipping another 100 million handsets by the end of 2022 and completing the same milestone within the 2023 calendar year.

realme was the fastest growing major smartphone brand globally in Q2 2021 with a year-over-year growth rate of 149 per cent, according to data from research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

The company captured more than 22 per cent share in Q2 2021 in India as per Counterpoint.

“realme always aims to become a No.1 smartphone brand with its Dare to Leap spirit. Our consumers have played an integral part in this achievement,” said Madhav Sheth, Vice President, realme and Chief Executive Officer, realme India and Europe.

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A non-practicing entity has filed a case against Apple in the US, claiming certain iPhone security features like user passcodes and other unlock methods infringe on owned patents.

Lodged in the patent holder-friendly US District Court for the Western District of Texas, the suit from Altpass LLC claims Apple’s iPhone infringes on a pair of patents that detail methods of creating digital signatures that can later be used for user authentication. This can include passcode and password creation, as well as Face ID technology, the complaint alleges.

According to a report in AppleInsider, Altpass is leveraging US Patent Nos. 7,725,725 and 8,429,415, intellectual property filed for in 2006 and 2010, respectively.

The IP covers a fairly broad method of creating a “signature” (passcode, alphanumeric code, Face ID) and storing it for later retrieval using that signature to unlock a device.

More specifically, claims in both patents detail generating a signature by recording a signal from a keyboard, camera or other input mechanism, noting measurable variations in input as dictated by the user and storing at least a part of that data. This reference signature is later matched with user input for authentication purposes.

As proof of the alleged infringement, Altpass directs the court to a section of Apple’s iPhone user guide for iOS 14 that covers setting or changing a passcode

The plaintiff seeks a finding of infringement and monetary damages in its lawsuit.

According to the report, not much is known about Altpass and the company fails to provide sufficient background in its filing, saying only that it operates out of an office in Austin, Texas.

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Samsung Electronics dropped to second place in the European smartphone market in the second quarter, a report showed on Wednesday, as Xiaomi rose to the top spot.

Samsung made up a market share of 24 percent in the April-June period after shipping 12 million smartphones to Europe, down 7 percent from a year earlier, according to a report from market researcher Strategy Analytics.

The South Korean tech giant was the only player among the top five smartphone suppliers in Europe to see an on-year decline in shipments.

“Samsung is performing well with new 5G models from the Galaxy A series, but it faces increasing competition from Apple in the high-end and the Chinese vendors in the low-end, and it failed to take advantage of Huawei’s demise in Europe,” said Neil Mawston, an executive director at Strategy Analytics.

Xiaomi overtook Samsung last quarter to become the leading smartphone vendor in Europe for the first time, reports Yonhap news agency.

The company shipped 12.7 million smartphones, up 67.1 percent from a year ago, to capture a market share of 25.3 percent.

“Xiaomi has seen great success in Russia, Ukraine, Spain and Italy among others, and found customers eager for its Mi and Redmi series of feature rich, value smartphones,” said Boris Metodiev, an associate director at Strategy Analytics.

Apple Inc. took the third spot with a market share of 19.2 percent after its iPhone shipments jumped 15.7 percent on-year to 9.6 million units.

Chinese brands Oppo came in fourth and fifth, respectively. Oppo had a 5.6 percent market share, while Realme posted a 1.9 percent share in the second quarter.

The European smartphone market grew 14 percent on-year to 50 million units in the second quarter.

“The smartphone market rebound was driven by the continued economic recovery, healthy demand from consumers with aging devices and appealing value priced 5G devices,” the report said.

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Digital assistant Amazon Alexa can now help users in India with COVID-19-related information, including details of nearest testing centres and vaccination points as well as answer queries about inoculation.

In 2020, Alexa was able to share information about COVID-19 related symptoms and cases in India, a statement said.

Amazon Alexa is now updated with the latest COVID-19 related features for users in India.

“Now, Alexa will be able to provide information about testing and vaccination centres, as well as information on vaccination availability, COVID-19 helpline numbers, details to contribute towards COVID-19 relief, and much more. The information is sourced from CoWIN portal, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website as well as MapmyIndia,” the statement said.

Amazon has teamed up with MapmyIndia to help users find the nearest COVID-19 testing centre along with the travel distance.

Users can ask questions such as “Alexa, where can I get a COVID-19 test?”

Alexa can also help users identify the closest COVID-19 vaccination centres where vaccines are available. Alexa recognizes the user’s location from their device registration and provides a list of all the nearby vaccination centres.

Using the Vaccine Info Alexa skill, users can help friends and family — who are in other PIN codes — to book appointments. In case of unavailability of the vaccine, Alexa can also set a reminder to check with the skill if the vaccine is available the next day. Skills are like apps for Alexa.

In a separate statement, location technology and digital maps company MapmyIndia said its location APIs will enable real-time data availability on Amazon Alexa.

Application program interface or API is a set of functions and procedures for building software.

“MapmyIndia moves a step ahead in its endeavour to deliver cutting edge, location-based cloud services.

“By making our Location APIs and hyperlocal content available on Amazon Alexa, we are not just offering our services but also assisting the Indian public, by providing hyperlocal search on Alexa, whether they are at home or on the go,” Rohan Verma, CEO and Executive Director of MapmyIndia, said.

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Karsten Warholm of Norway has beat his own world record to win the 400-meter hurdles gold medal on Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics.

The two-time world champion ran 45.94 seconds to win a final where six of the first seven finishers set either national or area records.

It’s the second time in just over a month that Warholm has lowered the record. He set the previous mark of 46.70 at Oslo on July 1.

Rai Benjamin of the United States took silver in 46.17 and Alison dos Santos of Brazil got bronze.

Earlier on Tuesday, Malaika Mihambo of Germany took the top spot in the women’s long jump with a 7-meter leap on her final attempt and edged U.S. veteran Brittney Reese for the Olympic gold medal.

Mihambo won the world championship title in 2019 and finished just off the podium in fourth place at the 2016 Olympics.

The 34-year-old Reese now has back-to-back Olympic silver medals at the Tokyo Games and from Rio de Janeiro after winning the title at London in 2012.

The four-time world champion had the chance to win with the final jump of the competition but couldn’t improve on her best mark of 6.97 meters.

Ese Brume of Nigeria, who led after the first round and was in top spot again after the fourth, also finished on 6.97-meters and took bronze on a countback.

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Chinese state-backed hacking groups compromised at least five global telecommunications companies and stole phone records and location data, according to cybersecurity researchers.

The hacking groups waged a campaign across Southeast Asia from 2017 to 2021, in some cases exploiting security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp.’s Exchange servers to gain access to telecommunication companies’ internal systems, according to a new report published Tuesday by US-based security firm Cybereason Inc.

Lior Div, the chief executive officer of Cybereason, said the hackers had obtained “the holy grail of espionage,” by gaining total control of the telecommunication networks they penetrated. Cybereason named the groups Soft Cell, Naikon and Group-3390.

“These state-sponsored espionage operations not only negatively impact the telcos’ customers and business partners, they also have the potential to threaten the national security of countries in the region and those who have a vested interest in the region’s stability,” Div said.

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. A government spokesperson previously denied allegations that Chinese hackers infiltrated Microsoft Exchange servers.

“The US ganged up with its allies and launched an unwarranted accusation against China on cybersecurity,” Zhao Lijian said at a press briefing on July 20 in Beijing. “It is purely a smear and suppression out of political motives. China will never accept this.”

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company hadn’t yet seen the report and therefore declined to comment.

Div declined to name specific companies or countries where the hackers carried out their intrusions, though the report said they targeted telecommunications providers in some Southeast Asian nations that had long-standing disputes with China. It also pointed to older research from the cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. that found one of the hacking groups had previously targeted government foreign affairs, science and technology ministries, as well as government-owned companies in countries including Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

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Google is making a bigger bet on smartphones by joining rivals Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in designing the device’s most critical component in-house: the main processor.

The Alphabet Inc. company said on Monday that its upcoming flagship phones, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, will include new Tensor chips when they go on sale later this year. Google had previously used Qualcomm Inc. processors in all of its Pixel phones since the first models launched in 2016. The new chip is designed to bolster artificial-intelligence technology and improve both speech recognition and the processing of photos and video.

The new component will be Google’s first system-on-a-chip — technology that integrates the device’s key elements. Designing these kinds of processors takes years and is a massive investment, financially and in terms of resources. In order for such an undertaking to yield returns, Google’s future Pixel phones will likely have to sell better than previous models.

Apple has been making chips for its iPhones since 2010, but the company sells over 100 million units per year. Samsung also handles massive volume. It’s the world’s second-largest chipmaker and sells more phones than Apple.

Google’s Android operating system is the most popular smartphone software, used by companies such as Samsung to run their devices. But Google’s own phones haven’t had as big an impact, even while earning praise for their designs and features.

The Pixel sales were lackluster for their first few years, before increasing in 2019 when the company focused more attention on lower-end handsets. But that growth sputtered. In the first half of 2021, Pixel market share decreased 7% year over year, according to Counterpoint Research. OnePlus, another small phone maker, saw sales increase over 400%. Motorola, Apple, Nokia and Samsung also grew.

Google plans to launch a new low-end 5a phone this month, but that device is expected to continue using a Qualcomm processor.

Google didn’t provide technical specifications for its new processor, but the company developed the component with several former Apple chip engineers on staff. It’s unclear how it will ultimately perform in its first iteration against more seasoned offerings from Qualcomm, Apple and others. The chip relies on an Arm Holdings instruction set, the same underlying technology used by most of the industry.

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Tech major Realme on Monday said it will begin exporting India-made smartphones to Nepal in the third quarter of 2021.

Realme Vice President and India and Europe Chief Executive Officer Madhav Sheth will spearhead the brand’s presence and business operations in Nepal while continuing to lead the India and Europe growth story for the company, a statement said

“With localisation and innovation at its core, Realme sees Nepal as a critical market and will expand its presence in the Nepal smartphone market in order to meet consumer needs. Realme wants to democratise the most cutting-edge technology of smartphones and AIOT products in Nepal and make them available in all price segments for consumers,” it added.

Realme is among the top four smartphone brands in markets like India, Czech Republic, and Greece.

In India, Realme – with a 14.6 per cent market share – ranked fourth in the tally of top smartphone companies in the June 2021 quarter, behind Xiaomi, Samsung, and Vivo. Over 33 million smartphones were shipped in India in the second quarter of 2021, according to research firm Counterpoint.

Realme was the top 5G smartphone brand with a 23 per cent share in the said quarter, the report had said.

“It is an immensely proud moment where Realme will be exporting ‘Made in India’ smartphones to our neighbour Nepal. Adding to this, we will also be exporting our AIOT products very soon. We have received great success in India and will look forward to receiving a similar achievement in Nepal,” Sheth said on Monday.

He added that the company aims to be among the top two smartphone brands in Nepal by 2022.

“As I embark on this newly added role to lead realme’s Nepal operations, I am really thrilled and looking forward to bringing fantastic realme products to Nepal users,” he said.

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