Ex-Google CEO says successful AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to ‘clean up the mess’
Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt has made headlines for saying that Google was blindsided by the early the rise of ChatGPT because its employees decided that “working from home was more important than winning.” The comment was made in front of Stanford students during a recent interview, video of which was removed from the university’s YouTube channel after Schmidt’s gaffe was widely picked up by the press. I managed to watch most of Schmidt’s chat with Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson before it was taken down, however, and something else he said stands out. (You can still read the full transcript here.)
Kim Dotcom is being Megauploaded to the US for trial
Kim Dotcom is being extradited to the United States to face long-standing criminal charges relating to his defunct file-sharing service Megaupload. The order was signed by New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, according to Reuters, which said that “Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial.” As the founder and former CEO of Megaupload, Dotcom (born Kim Schmitz) was accused by US authorities of having cost film studios and record companies over $500 million by enabling users to share pirated content.
T-Mobile fined $60 million for failing to stop data breaches
T-Mobile has been fined $60 million for failing to both report and stop data breaches, as indicated by Bloomberg. The hefty fine was levied by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) and represents the largest such financial penalty the organization has ever issued. T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom, a company based in Germany, which is why CFIUS got involved. These penalties have their origins in the terms of a 2020 deal in which T-Mobile purchased Sprint. CFIUS put some conditions on the purchase, including some related to protecting consumer data. The Committee found that T-Mobile didn’t comply with these conditions by failing to secure data and then by failing to report unauthorized access to this data, as reported by Reuters.
Google Pixel phones sold with security vulnerability, report finds
Most Google Pixel phones sold since September 2017 included software that could be used to surveil or remotely control users’ phones, according to a new report from the cybersecurity company iVerify. The vulnerability was discovered after iVerify’s endpoint detection and response (EDR) scanner flagged an insecure Android device at Palantir Technologies, an iVerify client. After launching a joint investigation, iVerify, Palantir, and Trail of Bits discovered a hidden Android software package — Showcase.apk — across Google Pixel devices. The data-mining firm Palantir, which sells its surveillance products to governments and private companies, banned Android devices across the company in response.
Multi-Stage ValleyRAT Targets Chinese Users with Advanced Tactics
Chinese-speaking users are the target of an ongoing campaign that distributes malware known as ValleyRAT. “ValleyRAT is a multi-stage malware that utilizes diverse techniques to monitor and control its victims and deploy arbitrary plugins to cause further damage,” Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researchers Eduardo Altares and Joie Salvio said. “Another noteworthy characteristic of this malware is its heavy usage of shellcode to execute its many components directly in memory, significantly reducing its file footprint in the victim’s system.” Details about the campaign first emerged in June 2024, when Zscaler ThreatLabz detailed attacks involving an updated version of the malware.
