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Artificial Intelligence And Subject Matter Eligibility In U.S. Patent Office Appeals – Part Three Of Three – Lexology

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

Note: First published in The Intellectual Property Strategist and Law.com.

This article is Part Three of a Three-Part Article Series

Artificial intelligence is changing industry and society, and metrics at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reflect its impact. In a recent publication, the USPTO indicated that from 2002 to 2018 the share of all patent applications relating to artificial intelligence grew from 9% to approximately 16%. See Inventing AI, Tracing the diffusion of artificial intelligence with U.S. patents, Office of the Chief Economist, IP Data Highlights (October 2020). For the foreseeable future, patent applications involving artificial intelligence technologies, including machine learning, will increase with the continued proliferation of such technologies. However, subject matter eligibility can be a significant challenge in securing patents on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

This three-part article series explores USPTO handling of Alice issues involving artificial intelligence and machine learning through a sampling of recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions. See Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Intl, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014). Some decisions dutifully applied USPTO guidelines on subject matter eligibility, including Example 39 thereof, to resolve appeal issues brought to the PTAB. In one case, the PTAB sua sponte offered eligibility guidance even with no Alice appeal issue before it. These decisions inform strategies to optimize patent drafting and prosecution for artificial intelligence and machine learning related inventions.

Part One can be viewed here.

Part Two can be viewed here.

Part Three

Machine Learning Is Little More Than Just Another, Known, Data Processing Technique

The PTAB can provide subject matter eligibility guidance on artificial intelligence related inventions even when not asked. Ex parte Kneuper, Appeal 2020-005835 (PTAB April 28, 2021) is a reminder to patent applicants about inherent unpredictability and risk in PTAB appeal, especially in relation to Alice. In Kneuper, the sole issue on appeal before the PTAB was whether the claims were properly rejected during examination under section 103. The independent claim at issue recited:

1. An aircraft flight planning apparatus comprising:a database including

a plurality of forecasting models configured to

generate predictions of a predetermined characteristic onwhich at least a portion of an aircraft flight plan is based,where the predetermined characteristic includes at least aportion of a weather forecast, and

at least one data matrix of test predictions for the

predetermined characteristic generated by each of theplurality of forecasting models, each of the at least onedata matrix of test prediction includes a plurality of testprediction data points; and

an aircraft flight planning controller coupled to thedatabase, the aircraft flight planning controller being configured

to receive analysis forecast data having at least one

analysis data point,

select a forecasting model, from the plurality of

forecasting models, based on a comparison between theat least one analysis data point and the plurality of testprediction data points of a respective forecasting model,and

provide a prediction of the predetermined

characteristic generated with the forecasting model,selected from the plurality of forecasting models, thatcorresponds to a test prediction data point that isrepresentative of the at least one analysis data point.

Id. at 2. Claim 4 in Kneuper depended from claim 1, and added the following limitation: wherein each of the plurality of forecasting models are machine learning models. Thus, claim 4 specifically covered machine learning models that generate predictions of a predetermined characteristic, including a portion of a weather forecast, on which at least a portion of an aircraft flight plan is based.

Prior to discussing the prior art issue on appeal, the PTAB warned:

Before delving into the merits of the art rejection, we would be remissif we failed to mention that Appellants claims appear to recite little morethan using computer software for data collection, analysis, and display.Such is generally considered an abstract idea in the form of a mental processunder our Guidelines for analysis under 35 U.S.C. 101 . . .

Id. at 3. The first three paragraphs of the decision reflect the PTABs uninvited, albeit active, skepticism regarding eligibility, a non-issue up to that point. Of note, that skepticism was not supported by any discussion of, for example, an abstract idea, specific limitations, additional limitations, prong one, prong two, an inventive concept, or Example 39. Without regard to the analytical framework that typically supports an Alice decision, or an opportunity for the patent applicant to make its case, the PTAB likely sealed the fate of the claims at issue with this directive to the examiner: In the event that Appellant continues prosecution after resolution of this appeal, the Examiner may want to evaluate the eligibility of this application under Section 101. This admonishment as to eligibility was signaled by the PTABs later observation in relation to section 103 that [a]t the end of the day, machine learning is little more than just another, known, data processing technique. The PTAB acknowledged but dismissed the fact that the specification in Kneuper referenced decision trees, random forest algorithms, polynomial fit, and k-nearest neighbors as suitable machine learning models.

Kneuper is not surprising. Experienced practitioners know that the PTAB is not shy raising issues without invitation. While there should be no doubt that such risk also applies to artificial intelligence and machine learning related inventions, the added unpredictability of Alice issues in particular exacerbates risk. In this regard, patent applicants should remember that claim limitations involving artificial intelligence and machine learning may be deemed so deficient in terms of eligibility as to warrant preemptive PTAB refusals.

Key Takeaways

Patent strategy on artificial intelligence and machine learning inventions should account for recent PTAB decisions. The decisions explored in this three-part article series show that claims reciting predictive capabilities of machine learning models, even when relatively detailed, may not satisfy USPTO guidelines on subject matter eligibility. Drafters accordingly should prepare patent applications to support claims that recite detail about implementation and training of the models. In addition, discussion in the specification about technological difficulties overcome by machine learning claim limitations may strengthen eligibility positions.

Other considerations addressed by the PTAB decisions are also relevant to patent strategy. As the decisions reflect variation regarding PTAB focus on the first prong versus the second prong of Step 2A, patent applicants should seize opportunities to present arguments under both. When machine learning claim limitations regarding implementation are detailed, the first prong and Example 39 more easily support eligibility. Such detailed claim limitations likewise may bolster arguments establishing a technical improvement under the second prong, especially when complemented with strong distinctions over prior art. Further, before appealing even non-Alice issues, patent applicants should be prepared for the PTAB proactively questioning the eligibility of claims relating to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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It switches itself on and off again – ITWeb

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

Lucien de Voux

Machine learning (ML) is defined by McKinsey as the gaggle of algorithms that learn from data without relying on rules-based programming and that have the endless patience and capacity to munch through vast, unimaginable quantities of data to find significance, insight and information. Its also an opportunity estimated to be worth nearly $6 trillion, with IDC claiming the market to be worth around $500 billion by 2024. ML is making inroads into every industry and sector and changing them in ways that many people dont realise.

One of the most unexpected ways is in spamfiltering. Yes, all that intelligence and algorithmic wonder channelled intothe mundane task of ensuring that spam is classified properly and thatpotentially risky emails are removed. Considering that the average personreceives around 83.6 emails a day, according to EmailAnalytics, thats a staggering sum of just over 30 000 emails a year. Global spam volumes accounted for 45.1% of email traffic as of March 2021, so ML that removes spam from the inbox is a welcome gift.

Its equally of value in autocorrect, virtual assistants, intelligent facial recognition, financial market management and fraud detection, and in the ubiquitous chatbots that have helpfully replaced humans on the Q&A frontlines. ML has also transformed how certain healthcare practices and processes have evolved, shifting patient care even further into the forefront while helping physicians to reduce their admin workloads and minimise potential errors. In fact, its in radiology where AI and ML have excelled catching fragments and potential problems in scans and alerting physicians at speed, helping them to prioritise patients accordingly.

Machine learning has inserted itself into almost every area of the business and has proven its value across most sectors. In retail, machine learning is emerging as a tentative chatbot success story, but a definitive value-add in improving customer experiences and relationships. In the industrial sector, it has helped organisations to make granular changes to systems and approaches that have saved money and improved success parameters over the long and the short term. And the use cases evolve with need, sector and application.

Moving towards a more data-driven organisation and leveraging the power of ML can be expensive if done haphazardly.

Jon Jacobson, Omnisient

The value of ML lies not just in its ability to learn patterns of behaviour, or to deep dive into data, but in helping organisations to actually discover the value hidden with their data. Yes, this is a tired old data trope thats trotted out with AI and analytics, but its a tired old clich for a reason around 80% of data is lost to the average business, says McKinsey. This means that theyre not even close to knowing what data they have or how to use it. ML can be a business ally, as useful as the latest investor or smart stakeholder. But, theres a caveat: its just a technology and its value lies in its implementation, use case, capability and relevance.

Leveraging machine learning for value.

Brainstorm: How can the organisationfully leverage ML to achieve more today and in the future?

Jon Jacobson, co-founder, CEO and CTO, Omnisient: They need to understand the problem theyre trying to solve and whether they have the correct data for it. Moving towards a more data-driven organisation and leveraging the power of ML can be expensive if done haphazardly.

Hanno Brink, machine learning engineer, Synthesis Technologies: Selecting the right tools can be a huge challenge, so its important to keep flexibility in mind.

Sarthak Rohal, VP: IT Services, AlphaCodes: Organisations need to embed AI methodology in their end-to-end business model, which combines the human capacities for learning, perception, and interaction, all at a level of complexity that ultimately supersedes our own abilities.

Fred Senekal, head of R&D, Learning Machines: In order to fully leverage machine learning, organisations need to become significantly more data-driven. Very often, this requires a culture of empowered employees with the right access, knowledge and tools and a leadership that makes it a reality.

Brett St Clair, CEO, Teraflow: Ask the right question and then find out what data you want to use to answer that question. All of this is about data that informs decisions.

Brainstorm: What are some of the standout ML solutions, approaches and developments right now?

Chris Cooper, general manager: ISG MEA, Lenovo: In the past decade, the cost of full genome sequencing has become more affordable as high-performance computing has become more attainable. Scientists previously could only sequence about 2% of genomic data, but they can now look at the entire genomic sequence of thousands of families at once. This progress can be the key to more effective discovery of genes that cause disease or the development of precision medicine.

Yaron Assabi, CEO, Digital Solutions Group: While some sectors, like retail, had to evolve or be disrupted given the pressure to digitally transform at a rapid pace, others had to adopt a defensive strategy, as consumers changed their buying behaviour and migrated online. Its here that machine learning has played a critical role over the past year alone as it has enabled improved processes, enhanced customer experiences and enabled intrinsic personalisation.

Shakeel Jhazbhay, general manager: Digital Business Solutions, Datacentrix: Cybersecurity applications: these have become hugely important in terms of remote working, particularly in terms of managing the volume of transactions and the accuracy of incident reporting. Business forecasting and reporting: analysing data to help reduce uncertainty, anticipate changes in the market and predict future developments, and improve business decision-making.

Reven Singh, sales engineer, InterSystems: Everyone is already experiencing ML in their everyday life, from helping virtual personal assistants understand our speech, such as with Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, to spam filters and malware detectors. Think of how Facebook suggests new friends and new groups to you; thats using ML.

Riaan Devilliers, business analyst, LAWtrust Information Security: Netflix is the world's leading internet stream service with 160 million customers worldwide. Some analysts think it is Netflix's early adoption of ML that made it the world leader.

Brainstorm: What would you define as best practice in implementing or investing in ML today?

Mandla Gqada, solutions architect and engineering lead, MakwaIT: Machine learning experts across the different divisions in an organisation, instead of having one central, isolated machine learning team. This will enable machine learning experts to work side by side with domain experts who understand the data better than the machine learning experts.

Marilyn Moodley, country leader for South Africa and West, East, Central Africa, SoftwareONE: CIOs should push to empower machines to do more, better learning ahead of the task. This requires rethinking on how machines take in data. Businesses should not think of themselves as a collection of tasks, but, rather, view their operations as brought to life by streams of data that run through workflows made up of those tasks.

Craig Stephens, advisory business solution manager, SAS in South Africa: With so many different approaches, models, and methodologies to choose from, each companys ML journey will be guided by its strategic imperatives. But its still worthwhile to build simple, white-box models using regression and decision trees. Simpler models are also easier to deploy, which makes the IT and systems operation teams happy.

Nkosi Kumalo, managing executive, BCX Exa: Without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, its impossible to measure success. This includes identifying the opportunities and defining the use cases. From a best practice perspective, there needs to be a consensus based on IT fundamentals, but the specifics may vary depending on the technology stack used to execute the ML initiative.

How Palindrome Data leveraged machine learning to predict retention and viral suppression in HIV treatment.

There are two things that the current South African healthcare sector knows are true. The first is that South Africa has one of the largest HIV epidemics in the world, with more than 7.5 million people living with HIV; and that access to data, and use of this data, is limited by rural locations and limited access to healthcare facilities and technologies. That said, thanks to the hard work and commitment of government agencies, universities and various funding organisations, theres a significant quantity of accumulated data that has the potential to be used intelligently to help practitioners make real-time, action-based decisions that put the patient first. This is where machine learning and Palindrome Data step in.

What we did was take the data and use machine learning to build predictive models so we could build tools and job aids for clinicians and frontline healthcare workers to make better patient decisions, says Lucien de Voux, director of Market Strategy at Palindrome Data. Its essentially the use of machine learning on healthcare data to help clinicians understand the patients most at risk.

Ask the right question and then find out what data you want to use to answer that question.

Brett St Clair, Teraflow

Accessing the data was the key part of solving the problem and the team was fortunate enough to have contacts at universities such as Wits and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and other academic institutions and establish partnerships where they got the data, and provided value back by developing tools and providing insights.

At first, it was very much a research initiative, but over the years, weve built up evidence and published papers that have allowed us to be on the ground and deploy models through tools and job aids, says De Voux. What were doing now is going beyond the theory and taking the tools to clinicians and facilities on the ground to improve usability and patient engagement by leveraging physical tools.

Predictive algorithms

A lot of machine learning goes on in the background as the company takes the models and builds both digital applications and paper-based tools around the models. Having paper-based solutions was critical as many clinics are remote and have low resources, running exclusively on paper-based systems. The machine-learning developed tools have been translated into a paper format so they can be deployed into clinics in remote areas.

One of the problems facing clinicians when it comes to HIV is retention, says De Voux. HIV can be well managed as long as patients stay on their treatment, but up to one in three patients in southern Africa drop out of care, so the problem is not knowing who drops out and who stays in. Our predictive modelling and machine learning take these big data sets to build predictive algorithms so we can triage which patients are at high risk of lost follow-up, of stopping treatment. When clinicians know which patients are going to have trouble staying in care, they can shift their resources to those patients, which delivers impact and cost savings.

Palindrome Data has published several papers built around the machine learning and predictive outcomes of its work, and has an accuracy of three out of four for viral load suppression, and an accuracy of two out of three for those likely to drop out of care.

When you can make those predictions based on the data, then you can change your intervention strategy as opposed to retroactively finding patients. It goes beyond just identifying patients at risk, but into tailoring solutions and using machine learning and big data to better engage with patients and deliver personalised solutions, says De Voux.

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Daily Authority: Concept car time – nation.lk – The Nation Newspaper

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

Good morning! If youre enjoying a holiday, please continue to enjoy it while we peek at wild new cars.

Motor shows are back

Car shows are back! Germany is playing host to fun new ideas at the 2021 IAA Mobility Event in Munich. It officially starts tomorrow but just like tech conferences, much of the good stuff is announced in pre-event launches.

And at the top of the list nowadays are electric vehicle and autonomous driving details and concepts, with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, VW, BMW, various startups, and so on, spilling out new concepts:

Volkswagen:

BMW:

Also:

Roundup

Pixel 3 phones are bricking left and right, no clear answer as to why, and the mode the phones fail into means theres little that can be done for now (Android Authority).

Phone makers may be forced to provide seven years of updates in Germany, two years longer than the EUs proposal (Android Authority).

Vivo X70 series specs leak: Three chips from three chipmakers (Android Authority).

Mark Gurman suggested Apple might announce its next major event as soon as this week, and suggested the coming Apple Watch Series 7 will be in tight supply which added weight to previous rumors (Bloomberg).

Apple quietly postponed its CSAM scanning initiative on Friday night heading into a holiday, saying: we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features. (Android Authority). Over 100 policy and rights groups, including the EFF and American Civil Liberties Union, had asked Apple to recalibrate. One take said the issue was Apple trying to solve a problem like this inside the Apple Park vacuum while adhering to its annual iOS release schedule. iOS 15 is expected in the next few weeks. (TechCrunch).

Microsoft Excel continues to give gene scientists headaches: 30% of published papers contain mangled gene names, due to problems like SEPT4 (septin 4) and MARCH1 being automatically changed to 4-Sep and 1-Mar (Nature).

Dyson could be designing a robot vacuum helper thing that can climb stairs (Bloomberg).

A desk bike looks weird but per this review, having a desk bike is actually pretty great. Huh. (Ars Technica).

NASA starts flight testing with Jobys electric air taxi or electric VTOL aircraft (Engadget).

Sony to offer free Horizon Forbidden West PS4 to PS5 upgrade after criticism (The Verge).

The Perseverance rover on Mars confirms it has collected and stored its first rock sample, after initial problems (CNET).

NASAs helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has clocked up 12 flights and is going so well that its mission has been extended indefinitely, though the approaching Martian winter will be a challenge (ScienceAlert).

Where does the CO2 absorbed by trees end up? (r/askscience).

Monday Meme

Coders at Apple thought of this, back in the day, when writing and testing Apples chess engine that has been baked into MacOS for the longest time:

Or in text form:

// Paradoxically enough, moving as quickly as possible is

// not necessarily desirable. Users tend to get frustrated

// once they realize how little time their Mac really spends

// to crush them at low levels. In the interest of promoting

// harmonious Human Machine relations, we enforce minimum

// response times.

Threatningly yours,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor

Daily Authority: Virgin grounded

The Daily Authority

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Future in the cloud for encryption – Capacity Media

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

06 September 2021 | Alan Burkitt-Gray

Traditional PKI methods of encrypting data are about to fall to the onslaught of quantum computing. Arqit, a start-up led by David Williams thinks it has a quantum-based solution, he tells Alan Burkitt-Gray

A start-up company that is expected to be valued at US$1.4 billion by the end of August is launching its quantum-based telecoms encryption service in the middle of July. Arqit, founded by satellite entrepreneur David Williams, is launching QuantumCloud, a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for telecoms, including consumer, industrial and defence internet of things (IoT), he tells me.

Early customers, including BT and other telcos that he doesnt want to name, have already signed contracts and used the cyber security software, but Arqit is likely to be thrust into greater prominence imminently, when a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company (Spac) buys it in a deal that will value it at $1.4 billion.

Williams and a small number of co-founders will own 45%, he tells me a stake that will be worth $630 million to him and his colleagues.

A former banker, Williams, who is now chairman of Arqit, was founder and CEO of Avanti, a UK-based company that runs a fleet of geostationary satellites called Hylas with government, military and commercial customers. He left Avanti in August 2017 and a month later set up Arqit.

Being the founder of two satellite companies is a pretty remarkable record after seven years working for three banks following a degree in economics and politics. (He also notes that he was the yard-of-ale champion at the University of Leeds.)

However, his first start-up, Avanti Communications, has not fared well over the past year, long after Williamss departure. In February 2021 its existing junior lenders injected $30 million of new capital, and its so-called super senior facility, which was due for repayment in February, was extended, but only to the end of January 2022.

Existential threat

But Arqit has moved into a completely different market, addressing something the company calls an existential threat to the hyperconnected world. Why? The legacy encryption that we all use, designed in the 1980s, has done a great job but is now failing us, says Arqit on its website. It was never intended for use in our hyper-connected world. The breaches caused are seen around us daily.

At the same time, there is a bigger problem. Quantum computing now poses an existential threat to cyber security for everyone. As a result, the world must begin a global upgrade cycle to replace all encryption technologies, an upgrade unlike anything we have seen before, says the company.

Dont bother patching and mending, says Arqit. Dont take risks with incremental improvements to public key encryption which is no longer fit for purpose.

Encryption using public key infrastructure (PKI) emerged from the communications intelligence community around 1971 in work by James Ellis at the UKs Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and was then developed further in 1976 through work in the US and Israel by Whit Diffie and Martin Hellman and separately by Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman (known, from their initials, as RSA).

So, the idea is virtually half a century old. But in that time, certainly in the past decade, it has done us well. If the URL of a website starts https://, you know its encrypted to those 1970s standards. It means we are reasonably confident we can type our credit card details into a hotel, theatre, travel or shopping site. Messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp use encryption based on these PKI principles.

No one trusts PKI

However, no one trusts PKI any more, says Williams. The safest way of delivering keys to a battlefield is now to put them on a dongle and fly them in by helicopter.

At the heart of the problem is the fact that quantum computers are coming, and quantum computers are fast. Diffie and Hellman, and the RSA trio, calculated that if it took weeks or months to decrypt a message, PKI was secure. Breaking the code would be computationally infeasible, to use the term the crypto community likes.

By perhaps as soon as next year, quantum computers will be able to work so fast that they will have decrypted the text in a usable period of time. The challenge will no longer be computationally infeasible. Someone intercepting a transaction could find your credit card details within an hour or so, and use them. So, thats why there is pressure to upgrade to a new system of key exchange, a replacement for PKI.

However, the security people have something more to worry about. Many suspect that for years governments and other organisations have been squirrelling away in their vaults traffic that is encrypted to current standards, knowing that, any time soon, they will be able to crack it.

Think of all those politicians, on all sides of the global political divides, who have been conspiring via WhatsApp. Think of all those whistleblowers who have leaked information to law enforcement authorities or journalists via Signal. Think of all those criminal organisations that have been using Telegram for their plans.

Lemon juice and milk

Thats why PKI, the current crypto infrastructure, is facing what Arqit calls an existential threat. Pretty soon, it will be as outmoded as writing Xf buubdl bu ebxo upnpsspx* in lemon juice or milk and sending it via carrier pigeon. Dont bother with minor fixes, says Arqit. Its wrong to patch and mend, or to take risks.

The future lies in symmetric keys, with a new way of distributing them. Symmetric keys are provably secure against any attack, including quantum computing, says the company.

The problem is that, until now, there has been no safe way to distribute them. Arqit says that it offers a method to create those keys at scale, securely, at any kind of endpoint device. We have invented a method of creating unbreakable encryption keys locally, both at the edge and in the cloud, says Williams.

Arqit has a solution. Its called Arq19, pretty much for the same reason Covid-19 has that suffix: 2019 was our Eureka moment, he smiles.

These are systems he calls global and trustless, a confusing term. It seems to mean you cant trust it, but what Williams and Arqit mean is that you dont have to trust it, as keys will never be stored in any system, so they cannot be stolen, but they can be put on devices within less than half a second to enable a high level of security.

We create hardware storage modules in a number of places he says London, New York, Sydney, for example. But those arent the keys. They are clues, a process involving shared secrets to create brand-new symmetrical encryption keys. No, I dont understand either; but how many people in 1936 understood Turings famous paper, On Computable Numbers, which started the computer revolution? (Turing went on to work during World War Two at GCHQs predecessor at Bletchley Park, in what is now the English city of Milton Keynes.)

Arqit can deliver its keys in unlimited group sizes, says Williams. The traditional PKI approach is for two-way communications Alice and Bob, in the crypto communitys terminology.

But what Williams is looking for is a system that will work with Alice, Bob, Catherine, Dave, Eve and a whole telephone directory.

For example, says Williams, they can deliver keys to international telecoms networks, and we can change the key every second if we want. He says that will result in ultra-secure software defined networks (SDNs).

We can deliver quantum keys in a manner thats global and trustless, says Williams. The company will use a small fleet of satellites, weighing 300kg each, that is being built by QinetiQ, a company formed 20 years ago by the privatisation of part of the UK governments Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

BT has an exclusive deal to distribute Arqits QuantumCloud services in the UK, and the Japanese firm Sumitomo has a deal as the first big international customer, says Williams.

It is working with telcos to encrypt traffic on Japanese fibre cables, he adds.

These are contracts with distributors that have been signed, but the companys first contract with a corporate user went live in June, he says, although he will not name the partner, except that it is a big global corporation. It is an enterprise customer and is not BT.

The eventual market will include the internet of things (IoT) and connected cars, enterprise and connectivity, he said. Cost will be low, says Williams. Users will pay a tiny fraction of a dollar for each key created.

Heir to Turing

Williams has gathered around him a range of technical, crypto and management talent. CTO and co-founder with Williams is David Bestwick, who was also a co-founder and CTO of Avanti. Theres a chief cryptographer who was at GCHQ: think of David Shiu as the inheritor of the tradition founded by Turing 80 years ago.

There are other ex-GCHQ people, too, and a retired air vice-marshal and a former lieutenant general in the US Air Force. And more, including experts in telecoms, IT and a chief software engineer who was at McAfee. And a former head of operations at 10 Downing Street.

These people are well connected. Well see what they achieve.

Though, will we be able to find out, or will it all be encrypted?

*Xf buubdl bu ebxo upnpsspx means just We attack at dawn tomorrow, using the so-called Caesar cipher, as reputedly used by the Roman dictator

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WhatsApps Claims Of End-To-End Encryption Might Be Entirely True – Ubergizmo

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

WhatsApp claims to offer end-to-end encryption. What this means is that messages are encrypted so that during transit, even if they were to be intercepted, it will not be readable. Instead, it only gets decrypted once it arrives on the intended device. Or at least thats what they claim.

According to a somewhat damning report from ProPublica, it seems that WhatsApps claims of end-to-end encryption might not be 100% true. The report alleges that WhatsApp employs over 1,000 contractors from Dublin, Singapore, and Texas who use special Facebook software to examine user content.

These contractors then make judgments on the content that appears on their screen that includes all kinds of content ranging from fraud, spam, potential terrorist planning, and CSAM. WhatsApp has since sort of denied the allegations made in the report. The companys director of communications Carl Woog told the publication that the contractors are only used to remove the worst abusers who use their platform to spread spam, threats, and more.

Facebook has also since issued a statement claiming that WhatsApp has been built in a way that limits the data they collect, which might be true, but it also means that some data can be collected.

WhatsApp has faced several privacy related controversies in the past, with the latest one seeing many users migrate to other messenger platforms like Signal and Telegram.

Filed in General. Read more about Facebook, Privacy, Security and Whatsapp. Source: cultofmac

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WhatsApp Flaw Casts Doubt on End-to-End Encryption – Security Boulevard

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

A recently fixed WhatsApp security vulnerability that, if exploited, could cause data leakage underscores the fact that hackers can bypass end-to-end encryption with some machinations.

WhatsApp included a patch for the flaw in its February 2021 Security Advisory Report and, in a statement, assured Check Point researchers Dikla Barda and Gal Elbazwho analyzed the Out-Of-Bounds read-write vulnerability in a blog postthis week that it had no reason to believe users would have been impacted by this bug and that users should feel confident that end-to-end encryption continues to work as intended and peoples messages remain safe and secure.

The messaging app company pointed to the multiple steps a user would have needed to take before the vulnerability could be exploited. Indeed, Check Point acknowledged that the threat remains theoretical, and would have required complex steps and extensive user interaction in order to exploit but stresses that doing so could have allowed an attacker to read sensitive information from WhatsApp memory.

The vulnerability is related to the WhatsApp image filter functionality and was triggered when a user opened an attachment that contained a maliciously crafted image file, then tried to apply a filter, and then sent the image with the filter applied back to the attacker, they said.

The researchers zeroed in on how WhatsApp processes and sends images, using Check Points AFL fuzzer to generate malformed files. Switching between several filters on crafted GIF files, they caused WhatsApp to crash.

After connecting the phone to its lab and capturing the crash location via adb logcat, Check Point did some reverse engineering to review the crashes, identifying one as a memory corruption. At that point, the researchers reported the finding to WhatsApp and the vulnerability was named CVE-2020-1910 Heap-Based out-of-bounds read and write.

In a deeper dive, Barda and Elbaz reverse-engineered the libwhatsapp.so library using a debugger to analyze the crashs root cause. The problem is that both destination and source images are assumed to have the same dimensions and also the same format RGBA (meaning each pixel is stored as 4 bytes, hence the multiplication by 4), the researchers wrote. However, there are no checks performed on the format of the source and destination images. Therefore, when a maliciously crafted source image has only 1 byte per pixel, the function tries to read and copy 4 times the amount of the allocated source image buffer, which leads to an out-of-bounds memory access.

Burak Agca, an engineer at Lookout noted that Lookout has seen multiple variants of the same attack, and added that attackers typically execute an exploit chain taking advantage of multiple vulnerabilities across the app and the operating system in tandem. He pointed to the first such discovered chain that exploited a vulnerability, which has since been patched, in the Safari browser to break out of the application sandbox. After this, multiple operating system vulnerabilitiesalso since patchedwere exploited to elevate privileges and install spyware without the users knowledge.

The WhatsApp exploit, he said, seems to exhibit a similar behavior, and the end-to-end details of these types of exploits came under scrutiny by the security community.

For individuals and enterprises like, Agca said, it is clear relying on WhatsApp saying its messaging is encrypted end-to-end is simply not enough to keep sensitive data safe.

He applauded WhatsApp for the speed and thoroughness of upgrades for this and other vulnerabilities. WhatsApp continuously updates its applications in order to address these security issues, Agca said. Updates to their apps patch the vulnerability in question, and, in addition, they release a server-side fix to prevent any version of the app from being exploited.

But consumers and organizations need to do their part to remain secure on the app. WhatsAppusers can be proactive and download a mobile security solution that reduces the risk of falling victim toWhatsAppscamsespecially ones that try to phish your credentials or quietly install malware, said Agca.

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Debunking Wi-Fi Security Myths: Wi-Fi Encryption Is Weak – TechSpective

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

One of the most common myths associated with Wi-Fi security is that wireless encryption is weak and easily cracked. To be fair, this myth does have a basis in reality, but that reality is two decades old. Practically speaking, there is no perfect security and no such thing as unbreakable encryption, but the simple fact is that a lot has changed since then, and the encryption available in Wi-Fi is significantly stronger.

Wireless networking exploded into mainstream acceptance in early 2000, and fundamentally changed the technology landscape from that point forward. The 802.11b standard dramatically increased throughput, and the cost of the underlying technology dropped, creating a perfect storm for widespread adoption.

The novelty of simply being able to set up a desktop computer without having to run an ethernet cable was exciting, and Wi-Fi also enabled the laptop boomfreeing people from being tethered to a single location at all. Of course, being able to communicate wirelessly and transmit potentially sensitive data through the air from Point A to Point B also introduced some security concernswhich is why the developers of the Wi-Fi standard included Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).

The United States government placed restrictions on exporting cryptographic technology to prevent our adversaries from obtaining encryption that was too strong for intelligence agencies to crack. The goal was for the Wi-Fi standard to be accepted globally, so developers used a 40-bit key that would stay within the export guidelines.

That worked for the US government. Unfortunately, using weak encryption with a weak encryption key comes with consequences as well. Researchers were able to quickly crack the WEP encryption. A variety of tools suddenly became available that would allow virtually anyone to crack WEP encryption within a few minutes.

The ease with which WEP could be cracked and easy access to a plethora of tools available to do it tarnished the reputation of Wi-Fi. Many businesses and consumers make the mistake of leaving their wireless networks open, which makes them an even easier target. An attacker will generally choose the path of least resistance, so they are likely to go after wireless networks that are not protected at all than to invest any time and effort breaking into a protected networkeven if its protected by something as weak as WEP.

For many people, the reputation of wireless networking as inherently insecure and easy to break into has endured. Nearly 20 years later, rumors persist that Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable, and that wired or cellular data networks offer better security and data protection.

The reality is that the industry quickly moved from WEP to Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WPA adopted the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP), which significantly improved protection. TKIP dynamically generates a new 128-bit key for each packet transmitted and includes a Message Integrity Check designed to prevent attackers from altering and resending data packets.

WPA was replaced with WPA2 around 2004which uses AES-CCMP encryptionand that remained the security standard for Wi-Fi until recently. AES encryption is rock solid and is still widely used today for very sensitive environments and data. In 2018, Wi-Fi Alliance announced WPA3 as the next generation of Wi-Fi security. WPA3 adds a 192-bit security level and replaces the pre-shared key (PSK) model of WPA2which was susceptible to key reinstallation attackswith simultaneous authentication of equals (SAE).

Technology changes quickly and constantly. Wi-Fi technology and wireless networking are ubiquitous now, and standards like Wi-Fi must continuously evolve to embrace new technologies and new use cases. The threat landscape is also continually adapting and expandingwhich means that the security technologies and protocols used by Wi-Fi must be updated as well.

All new devices certified by Wi-Fi Alliance now require WPA3, including Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 devices. , WPA3 offers a variety of security enhancements to strengthen and extend protection for Wi-Fi traffic. WPA3 ensures that Wi-Fi devices are more secure than everand just as secure as wired or cellular data networks.

WPA3 offers a variety of cutting-edge protections to defend against the latest techniques and exploits, such as:

Wi-Fi security had some issues in the early days. WEP was easily crackable and that reputation has continued as a pervasive myth about Wi-Fi security in general that is simply no longer true. WPA3 ensures that your wireless connection is just as secure as a wired or cellular data connection and protects against the latest attack techniques.

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Bluefin Receives U.S. Patent on Systems for Vaultless Tokenization and Encryption – WFMZ Allentown

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

ATLANTA, Sept. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Bluefin, the leading provider of payment and data security solutions, has announced the issuance of their first U.S. patent on the company's ShieldConex data security platform for the tokenized encryption of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), and payment / ACH account data.

U.S patent 11,070,534, Systems for Vaultless Tokenization and Encryption, covers an iFrame service for collecting data, a tokenization service for (de)tokenizing and encrypting/decrypting data, and managing and creating templates for iFrame collection, (de)tokenization, and encryption/decryption.

ShieldConex utilizes both hardware-based encryption and vaultless tokenization to secure PII, PHI, cardholder data (CHD) and ACH account data entered online. All ShieldConex tokens are format preserving and the option exists to maintain portions of the tokenized data, such as the last four digits of a social security number, preserving the usefulness of the data in tokenized form while being database-friendly for developers. Additionally, the vaultless nature of the solution means customers always retain their data ShieldConex tokenizes the sensitive data and returns it to the customer and also eliminates issues of data sovereignty, while guaranteeing higher performance than legacy token vault-based solutions.

Companies can also directly connect to ShieldConex for online data encryption and tokenization via Bluefin's API.

"There is more sensitive data being entered online than ever before, thanks in part to the pandemic," said Ruston Miles, Bluefin's founder. "Ecommerce purchasing has risen dramatically, people are utilizing healthcare forms to enter everything from insurance information to their medical history, and as a result, hackers are going after the online channel. ShieldConex provides an easy to implement solution that protects any type of online data upon entry, in transit and in system storage."

Bluefin was the first North American provider of a PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution in 2014 for the immediate encryption of point-of-sale (POS) payments. PCI P2PE provides numerous benefits, including cost savings, PCI scope reduction and brand protection. ShieldConex complements the company's P2PE suite by providing a holistic data security system that protects all online data.

"Implementing P2PE and ShieldConex is like a one-two punch," said Tim Barnett, Bluefin's CIO and patent author. "You have P2PE protecting mobile, face-to-face and call center transactions, and then you have ShieldConex protecting any type of data whether payment, consumer or company data that is entered online. The future of payment and data security must address every intake channel, and we are very pleased to have received our first U.S. patent on ShieldConex for this online protection."

While the U.S. patent marks the first on ShieldConex, Bluefin has previously been issued 28 U.S., EU and Japanese patents on its P2PE innovations. The company also has an additional 13 patents pending.

About Bluefin

Bluefin is the recognized leader in encryption and tokenization technologies for payment and data security. Our security suite includes PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) for contactless face-to-face, call center, mobile and unattended payments, and our ShieldConex data security platform for the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Personal Health Information (PHI) and payment data entered online. The company's partner network currently includes over 200 processors, payment gateways and ISV's operating in 45 countries, which provide Bluefin's P2PE solutions direct to merchants, enterprises, healthcare organizations and more. Bluefin is a Participating Organization (PO) of the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC) and is headquartered in Atlanta, with offices in Waterford, Ireland. For more information, please visit http://www.bluefin.com.

Media Contact

Danielle Duclos, Bluefin, 8006756573, press@bluefin.com

SOURCE Bluefin

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Priti Patel backs ad campaign that criticises Facebook’s stance on end-to-end encryption – Graham Cluley Security News

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

According to media reports, British Home Secretary Priti Patel is backing a new ad campaign that will accuse Facebook of blindfolding police investigations into child sex abuse.

What has Facebook done to warrant the attention? It has introduced the option for Facebook Messenger calls and video chats to be end-to-end encrypted just like Facebook Messenger text chats have been since 2016

and just like the chats you have on Signal, Wire, and FaceTime are too.

Priti Patel is just the latest in a long line of British politicians to rail against encrypted messaging, arguing that it makes it harder for the police and intelligence agencies to catch paedophiles, drug barons, and terrorists.

Patels predecessors have even tried to argue that real people dont want secure communications.

But if you weaken end-to-end encrypted messaging by creating backdoors for intelligence agencies or police to monitor communications, you dont make life less safe for the criminals. You make it less safe for everyone.

Indeed, all a criminal would do is use another service that does provide end-to-end encryption, or create their own service beyond the reach of the authorities and impervious to any ad campaign backed by Priti Patel.

Encryption isnt a bad thing, its a good thing. Encryption protects our privacy from hackers and organised criminals. It defends our bank accounts, our shopping, our identities. It saves the lives of human rights activists working against oppressive regimes.

Journalist James Ball summed up in a tweet the idiocy of being anti-encryption:

We shouldnt be looking for ways to weaken or outlaw encrypted communications. If anything, we should be encouraging their wider use.

Im no fan of Facebook. I think it is, in many ways, ghastly. But I welcome anything they do to harden the security and privacy of their users.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy.Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, or drop him an email.

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EXCLUSIVE: What’s in the new zero-trust strategy – Politico

September 8, 2021 | Author: admin

Editors Note: Weekly Cybersecurity is a weekly version of POLITICO Pros daily Cybersecurity policy newsletter, Morning Cybersecurity. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the days biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

MC has your first look at the Biden administrations new plan for protecting the government with zero-trust networking.

Two Senate committees will have to iron out their differences on cyber incident reporting soon if they want to hitch a ride on a must-pass bill.

The Biden administration and the European Union are making plans to tackle challenges posed by encryption.

HAPPY TUESDAY, and welcome back to Morning Cybersecurity! If youre reading this message, it means that we got through the long Labor Day weekend without any devastating cyberattacks. Maybe everyone really listened to Anne Neuberger after all. Sam will be back tomorrow, so send your thoughts, feedback and especially tips to [emailprotected]. Follow @POLITICOPro and @MorningCybersec. Full team contact info below.

FIRST IN MC: DONT TRUST, VERIFY The White House this morning is releasing for public comment a draft version of its strategy for implementing zero trust principles across federal networks. The Biden administration sees zero-trust networking in which a computer system is designed with the assumption that hackers have already gained access and must be constantly challenged and impeded as key to its security overhaul of decades-old networks, and its new strategy will require a raft of actions to lock down software applications, limit users access to data and protect network traffic from prying eyes.

Among the 18 steps required by the end of fiscal 2024: Every agency will have to use one single sign-on service to let employees access all of its applications; ditch multi-factor authentication systems such as codes delivered by text message that are susceptible to phishing attacks; and eliminate archaic password policies requiring special characters and regular password changes. Theyll also have to encrypt all internal traffic and develop plans to segment their networks so that hackers cant easily slip from one application to another. And theyll have to make one internal system securely accessible from the internet to reduce the use of VPNs.

Along with the draft zero-trust strategy, CISA is also releasing a maturity model that provides a roadmap for agencies implementation of zero-trust policies, as well as a guidance document to help agencies securely migrate their applications to the cloud.

The zero-trust plan is part of President Joe Bidens cyber executive order, which also launched several other initiatives that have impending due dates. By Thursday, for example, agencies must submit progress reports on their rollout of multi-factor authentication and encryption. CISA has until Thursday to develop a cyber incident response playbook that every agency can use. And DHS and OMB have until Thursday to set up procedures to ensure that contractors report cyber incidents to the appropriate agencies.

SENATE SHOWDOWN As Congress summer recess nears its end, lawmakers face a big question: How will they reach agreement on the best way to require companies to report hacks? And more specifically, what will happen to the Senate Intelligence Committees cyber incident reporting bill now that the Senate and House homeland security panels have teamed up on more industry-friendly legislation?

Senate Intelligences bill differs widely from the Senate Homeland measure that yours truly scooped last week, especially in terms of its minimum reporting timeframe, the types of companies covered and the punishments for noncompliant companies. In letters to Congress and at last weeks hearing, industry groups criticized the Intelligence bills provisions.

There is strong industry support for the House and Senate Homeland bills approach, said Ron Bushar, an executive at the cyber firm FireEye who testified on the House bill last week. And Senate Homeland has another advantage over Senate Intelligence it has jurisdiction over any reporting bill, so it will play a significant role in shaping whatever legislation emerges. FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia will meet with Senate Homeland Security Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) on Wednesday, according to Stacy OMara, the companys director of government affairs.

But the Senate Intelligence bill has powerful sponsors, including perennial swing vote Susan Collins (R-Maine) and committee chair Mark Warner (D-Va.), an influential voice on national security. Warner and his colleagues are still revising their bill, and his office says its having productive meetings with interested parties.

The homeland-security panels are collaborating closely on their bills, according to an aide for the House panel. And Senate Homeland Security ranking member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has been talking to the Senate Intelligence bills sponsors, a Senate aide said. Both aides requested anonymity to discuss legislative negotiations.

Its critical for Congress to listen to industry stakeholders and ensure whats written into law in Washington makes sense practically when implemented in the real world, House Homeland Security ranking member Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) told MC.

Homeland and Intelligence face a tight deadline to resolve their differences. Multiple people tracking the process said the best hope for incident reporting legislation was to attach it to the fiscal 2022 defense policy bill, which is being marked up now. Senate Homelands outreach to industry included a request for feedback by Sept. 14.

Another reason to hurry is that implementation will take a while. You're looking at a minimum of half a year anyway between passage of a bill and standup of a reporting platform, Bushar said. The longer you delay the bill, the more time it takes before you can have a regime in place that can actually start to have an impact.

BOTH FORMS OF CRYPTO The Biden administration and the European Union have recommitted to collaboratively seeking a solution to the encryption debate, a top EU official told MC, suggesting that while this policy challenge has simmered under the surface for several years, its still top of mind for policymakers behind closed doors.

Encryption is important, but we have to always avoid a black-or-white discussion, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in an interview after meetings in Washington with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland. It's not like we should protect privacy or protect vulnerable children. We need to do both.

Johansson, who discussed encryption with Garland, said that while the attorney general didnt reveal the Biden administrations agenda for resolving the long-running crypto wars, the EU and the U.S. are very much close to each other on these issues. Both leaders, she said, agreed that tech companies need to take their responsibility to develop proper technical solutions for this.

Apple has received withering criticism from security experts over a proposal to identify child sexual abuse imagery on its customers phones. On Friday, the company said it was pausing the rollout of that feature to collect input and make improvements. Speaking before that news broke, Johansson applauded the companys effort. Apples solution might not be the perfect one, she said, but I welcome a company that really tries to find a balanced approach protecting both privacy and children.

Johansson and her U.S. counterparts also agreed on the scope for a common working group on ransomware, she said. The new group will focus on investigative cooperation, tracing ransom payments (which Johansson identified as a particular priority) and building digital resilience against hackers. The group will present its initial report at the next EU-U.S. Ministerial Meeting on Justice and Home Affairs later this year.

STILL EVADING The U.S. government continues to brush off suggestions that it was involved in firewall maker Juniper Networks use of an encryption algorithm backdoored by the NSA, despite a Bloomberg story saying the Pentagon leaned on the company to adopt the code. Asked about Bloombergs reporting during Thursdays White House press briefing, Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, described the Juniper/NSA saga as an old story thats been reported, and I think weve continuously noted that there isnt substantiation for it.

Security experts first proposed a link between the NSA and the backdoored Juniper code in 2015, several months after the company announced that sophisticated hackers had breached its systems by modifying that code. But until last weeks Bloomberg story, it remained unclear why Juniper had used the widely criticized code in the first place. NIST told companies to stop using it in 2014, one year after leaked documents revealed that the NSA had secretly tampered with it and paid a leading vendor $10 million to use it.

During MCs break, yours truly conducted the first in-depth interview with inaugural National Cyber Director Chris Inglis. Pros can read the story about his priorities and the full Q&A. He also revealed that the Biden administration is pushing Microsoft to make full log data free for all customers.

University of California, Berkeley computer science professor Nicholas Weaver with some real talk: The Ivermectin of Computer Science is Blockchain

How Kuwait punished a security expert for revealing a major banks embarrassing hack. (CyberScoop)

Nextgov interviewed Allan Friedman, the man behind the governments software bill of materials campaign, as he moves from NTIA to CISA to bring SBOMs to life.

The Justice Department launched a cyber fellowship program for prosecutors.

NIST wants feedback on its proposed criteria for an internet of things security labeling program.

Chat soon.

Stay in touch with the whole team: Eric Geller ([emailprotected]); Bob King ([emailprotected]); Sam Sabin ([emailprotected]); and Heidi Vogt ([emailprotected]).

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