Posted in Commentary with tags Google on April 13, 2022 by itnerd
Definity Financial Corporation today announced that its subsidiary Definity Insurance Company has established a new relationship with Google Cloud that will allow the two companies to collaborate and leverage Google’s advanced data, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) technology with a view to accelerating the development of innovative personalized insurance solutions within a highly secure cloud environment. Combining the extensive insurance expertise of Definity’s family of companies with Google Cloud’s leading technology services will provide the opportunity to create a smoother, more intuitive insurance experience for customers and brokers.
Definity’s family of companies has made significant investments to develop market-leading digital capabilities, including Sonnet, Vyne, and Vyne Commercial. Launched in 2016, Sonnet is Canada’s first coast-to-coast fully online home and auto insurance company, while Vyne and Vyne Commercial provide brokers with a simplified and fully integrated digital offering to better support the needs of personal and commercial customers in real time.
Definity Financial Corporation is the parent company to some of Canada’s most long-standing and innovative multi-channel, property and casualty insurance companies and distributors, including Economical Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, Family Insurance Solutions, and Petline Insurance.
We’re delighted to announce that we are working with Google to sell genuine parts for Pixel phones, starting later this year. You can learn more about it in Google’s blog post.
We will be continuing to write our step-by-step Google Pixel phone repair guides, which are comprehensive going all the way back to the original Pixel. Repair guides are live for every Pixel through the Pixel 5, and we are writing guides for the 5a, 6, and 6 Pro right now.
Our parts selection will include everything you need for the most common Google Pixel repairs—batteries, displays, cameras, and more. We will sell them both individually and as part of Fix Kits, which include all the tools you need to fix your Google Pixel, from screwdriver bits to spudgers.
Starting later this year, genuine Pixel spare parts will be available for purchase at ifixit.com for Pixel 2 through Pixel 6 Pro, as well as future Pixel models, in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and European Union countries where Pixel is available.
This is great news for people who want to be able to fix their own phones. And it’s way better than Apple’s announcement/non-announcement where they say that they want to give customers the ability to repair their own stuff but so far hasn’t delivered on that. So the question is, with both Samsung and Google embracing the ability for customers to repair their own devices, will Apple get serious about doing the same thing rather than paying lip service to it? I guess we’ll have to see.
Posted in Commentary with tags Google on April 6, 2022 by itnerd
By Bikash Koley, VP and Head of Google Global Networking and Head of Technology and Strategy, Google Cloud for Telecommunications
There’s a new subsea cable in town: Topaz, the first-ever fiber cable to connect Canada and Asia.
Once complete, Topaz will run from Vancouver to the small town of Port Alberni on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and across the Pacific Ocean to the prefectures of Mie and Ibaraki in Japan. We expect the cable to be ready for service in 2023, not only delivering low-latency access to Search, Gmail and YouTube, Google Cloud, and other Google services, but also increasing capacity to the region for a variety of network operators in both Japan and Canada.
Google is spearheading construction of the project, joined by a number of local partners in Japan and Canada to deliver the full Topaz subsea cable system. Other networks and internet service providers will be able to benefit from the cable’s additional capacity, whether for their own use or to provide to third parties. And, similar to other cables we’ve built, with Topaz we will exchange fiber pairs with partners who have systems along similar routes. This is a longstanding practice in the industry that strengthens the intercontinental network lattice for network operators, for Google, and for users around the world.
Illustration of a map of Japan and the west coast of Canada with a subsea cable line connecting the two countries.
The width of a garden hose, the Topaz cable will house 16 fiber pairs, for a total capacity of 240 Terabits per second (not to be confused with TSPs). It includes support for Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS), an efficient and software-defined way to carve up the spectrum on an optical fiber pair for flexibility in routing and advanced resilience. We’re proud to bring WSS to Topaz and to see the technology is being implemented widely across the submarine cable industry.
While Topaz is the first trans-Pacific fiber cable to land on the West Coast of Canada, it’s not the first communication cable to connect to Vancouver Island. In the 1960s, the Commonwealth Pacific Cable System (COMPAC) was a copper undersea cable linking Vancouver with Honolulu (United States), Sydney (Australia), and Auckland (New Zealand), expanding high-quality international phone connectivity. Today, COMPAC is no longer in service but its legacy lives on. The original cable landing station in Vancouver — the facility where COMPAC made landfall on Canadian soil — has been upgraded to fit the needs of modern fiber optics and will house the eastern end of the Topaz cable.
Traditional and treaty rights, and local communities, are deeply important to our infrastructure projects. The Topaz cable is built alongside the traditional territories of the Hupacasath, Maa-nulth, and Tseshaht, and we have consulted with and partnered with these First Nations every step of the way.
“Tseshaht is very proud of this collaboration and our partnership with Google, who has been very respectful and thoughtful in its engagement with our Nation. That’s how we carry ourselves and that’s how we want business to carry themselves in our territory.“ – Tseshaht First Nation – Elected Chief Councillor-Ken Watts
“The five First Nations of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society are pleased that we have concluded an agreement with Google Canada and have consented to the installation of a new, high-speed fiber optic cable through our traditional territories. This agreement, in which both Google Canada and our Nations benefit, is based on respect for our constitutionally protected treaty and aboriginal rights and enhances the process of reconciliation. We would also like to acknowledge the sensitivity that Google Canada expressed during our talks in regard to the pain and trauma experienced by our people as a result of residential school experience. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Google Canada.” – Chief Charlie Cootes, President of the Maa-nulth Treaty Society
“Google’s respect towards our Nation is appreciated and has good energy behind it.” – Hupacasath First Nation – Elected Chief Councilor – Brandy Lauder
With the addition of Topaz today, we have announced investments in 20 subsea cable projects. This includes Curie, Dunant, Equiano, Firmina and Grace Hopper, and consortium cables like Blue, Echo, Havfrue and Raman — all connecting 29 cloud regions, 88 zones, 146 network edge locations across more than 200 countries and territories. Learn about Google Cloud’s network and infrastructure on our website and in the below video.
The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-0609, was exploited by two separate North Korean hacking groups. Both groups deployed the same exploit kit on websites that either belonged to legitimate organizations and were hacked or were set up for the express purpose of serving attack code on unsuspecting visitors. One group was dubbed Operation Dream Job, and it targeted more than 250 people working for 10 different companies. The other group, known as AppleJeus, targeted 85 users.
This is bad. And fortunately it’s patched. Marcus Fowler, SVP Strategic Engagements and Threats at Darktrace had this comment:
“Hackers backed by North Korea’s government exploited a critical zero-day, attempting to infect hundreds of computers. We should be very cautious about assuming this is tied to rising geopolitical tensions. While North Korea may be trying to take advantage of the US turning its attention to mainly focus on Russia, the two separate North Korean hacking groups who exploited the flaw seem to go back much further. Both Operation Dream Job and AppleJeus have focused on monetary gain — frequently the top priority with North Korean cyber operations.
Previously, Operation Dream Job used spearphishing emails to target specific employees with fake job offers from high-profile organizations. This timing is fascinating given the “Great Resignation” context and employees seeking more flexible jobs and leaving the workforce in droves. The other group, AppleJeus, targeted a cryptocurrency exchange. We have observed an increase in crypto mining attacks over the last few years, so this is also in line with broader hacking trends, not geopolitical happenings.”
I would run and update your copy of Chrome ASAP to make sure that other threat actors don’t exploit this now that it is public.
People have said to me that I am such an Apple Fanboy because I tend to gravitate towards Apple products. The reality is that while I don’t trust any company completely, I trust Apple more than Google. And this story is a clear reason why I feel that way:
According to a research paper, “What Data Do The Google Dialer and Messages Apps On Android Send to Google?” [PDF], by Trinity College Dublin computer science professor Douglas Leith, Google Messages (for text messaging) and Google Dialer (for phone calls) have been sending data about user communications to the Google Play Services Clearcut logger service and to Google’s Firebase Analytics service.
“The data sent by Google Messages includes a hash of the message text, allowing linking of sender and receiver in a message exchange,” the paper says. “The data sent by Google Dialer includes the call time and duration, again allowing linking of the two handsets engaged in a phone call. Phone numbers are also sent to Google.” The timing and duration of other user interactions with these apps has also been transmitted to Google. And Google offers no way to opt-out of this data collection.
So in short, Google is unsurprisingly harvesting user data. Something that they don’t exactly confirm. But they don’t exactly deny either:
Google confirmed to The Register on Monday that the paper’s representations about its interactions with Leith are accurate. “We welcome partnerships – and feedback – from academics and researchers, including those at Trinity College,” a Google spokesperson said. “We’ve worked constructively with that team to address their comments, and will continue to do so.”
The paper raises questions about whether Google’s apps comply with GDPR but cautions that legal conclusions are out of scope for what is a technical analysis. We asked Google whether it believes its apps meet GDPR obligations but we received no reply.
Hopefully politicians in both the US and Europe are paying attention because this is something that merits an investigation. And perhaps some form of punishment.
Posted in Commentary with tags Google on March 22, 2022 by itnerd
In January, Google put a call-out to startups across the country to participate in their second Google Cloud Accelerator Canada cohort. Today, Google is pleased to announce a new class of groundbreaking startups for the Google Cloud Accelerator Canada. This 10-week virtual accelerator brings the best of Google’s programs, products, people and technology to startups doing interesting work in the cloud. Google is offering these startups cloud mentorship and technical project support, along with deep dives and workshops on product design, customer acquisition and leadership development for cloud startup founders and leaders.
Here are the eleven startups that make up the 2022 Google Cloud Accelerator Canada class:
Ad Auris (Vancouver, BC): An end-to-end audio creation platform. Used by digital publications to convert their written work into great-sounding audio, instantly.
Booxi (Montreal, QC): Booxi is an appointment scheduling software designed for retailers. Their mission is to Make Commerce More Human and help retailers offer a personalized experience to every customer.
Cadence (Saskatoon, SK): Cadence is a digital executor assistant, supported by Certified Executor Advisors. Their web app automates Estate Settlement tasks.
f8th (Toronto, ON): f8th’s continuous authentication transparently and passively authenticates users and detects fraudsters in real-time without impacting the user experience.
IRIS (Burlington, ON): IRIS is a smart cities infrastructure technology company. They help urban and rural communities extend the life of their public infrastructure.
Origami XR (Toronto, ON): Origami is a spatial computing company that makes it easy to scan a physical environment using the LiDAR in your phone, and create a 3D digital twin that rivals output from professional scanning equipment.
Pharmaguide (Richmond Hill, ON): PharmaGuide specializes in equipping healthcare providers with solutions to increase efficiency and improve patient outcomes. Through direct integrations with multiple health platforms, they can intelligently analyze data and flag patients that could benefit from treatment modifications.
Schoolio (Toronto, ON): Schoolio OS aims to bridge teachers, parents and tutors into a single ecosystem, focusing on education transparency, inclusive curriculum and a holistic approach to success measurement.
Shaddari Inc. (Montreal, QC): Shaddari Inc. is a precision medicine company that has developed an A.I. that can tell instantly whether a vaccine will be efficient against a new variant of a virus.
SmartONE Solutions (Markham, ON): SmartONE creates smart communities, by connecting the smart homes in multi-family residential developments over a common network to transform community living.
Tiggy (Vancouver, BC): Tiggy is a 15-minute grocery delivery service on a mission to forever change the way we buy everyday essentials.
It’s an exciting opportunity for Google to work with these founders and startup teams to help grow and scale their business. Programming for the Google Cloud Accelerator Canada begins April 11.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) says that China has gotten involved in the Russia/Ukraine war by having its hackers target Ukraine. Google TAG Security Engineer Billy Leonard posted this to Twitter:
It should come as no surprise that CN PLA and other CN intel orgs are acutely interested in the war in Ukraine. Over the last few weeks @Google TAG has identified a govt backed actor from CN targeting Ukrainian govt orgs, and we provided notifications to impacted parties. https://t.co/WALjGL6v5Z
In case you’re wondering who Intrusion Truth are, they are a secretive group known for its work on exposing suspected Chinese hacking operations. So if they’re saying something that Google is confirming, then it’s pretty much fact.
This was backed up by Shane Huntley who runs Google’s Threat Analysis Group:
The Ukraine war isn’t only attracting interest from European threat actors. China is working hard here too. https://t.co/8bpXsGQvD7
I wonder what the US Government thinks of these reports as US President Joe Biden has recently warned Chinese President Xi Jinping not to get involved in the Russian/Ukraine war. He was talking about weapons and the like. But maybe he should add this to the list as clearly China isn’t neutral when it comes to this war.
Posted in Commentary with tags Google on March 10, 2022 by itnerd
You might recall that a couple of days ago Google announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mandiant, Inc., a leader in dynamic cyber defense and response, for $23.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion, inclusive of Mandiant’s net cash. Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud.
Today, organizations are facing cybersecurity challenges that have accelerated in frequency, severity and diversity, creating a global security imperative. To address these risks, enterprises need to be able to detect and respond to adversaries quickly; analyze and automate threat intelligence to scale threat detection across organizations; orchestrate and automate remediation; validate their protection against known threats; and visualize their IT environment in order to identify and simulate new threats. The cloud represents a new way to change the security paradigm by helping organizations address and protect themselves against entire classes of cyber threats, while also rapidly accelerating digital transformation.
The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security. Google Cloud offers customers a robust set of services including pioneering capabilities such as BeyondCorp Enterprise for Zero Trust and VirusTotal for malicious content and software vulnerabilities; Chronicle’s planet-scale security analytics and automation coupled with services such as Security Command Center to help organizations detect and protect themselves from cyber threats; as well as expertise from Google Cloud’s Cybersecurity Action Team. With the addition of Mandiant, Google Cloud will enhance these offerings to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments.
As a recognized leader in strategic security advisory and incident response services, Mandiant brings real-time and in-depth threat intelligence gained on the frontlines of cybersecurity with the largest organizations in the world. Combined with Google Cloud’s cloud-native security offerings, the acquisition will help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle:
Advisory Services: Mandiant’s proven global expertise in providing comprehensive incident response, strategic readiness and technical assurance helps customers mitigate threats and reduce business risk before, during and after an incident.
Threat Detection and Intelligence: Mandiant’s experience detecting and responding to advanced adversaries offers customers actionable insights into the threats that matter right now.
Automation and Response Tools: Security operations tools within Google Cloud’s Chronicle, Siemplify solutions and Mandiant’s Automated Defense help customers analyze, prioritize and streamline threat response and leverage Mandiant’s expertise as a virtual extension of their teams.
Testing and Validation: Mandiant Security Validation helps customers continuously validate and measure the effectiveness of cybersecurity controls across cloud and on-premise environments, and complements Google Cloud’s Security Command Center to help ensure strong risk management.
Managed Defense: Mandiant’s managed detection and response service acts as a seamless extension of customers’ security teams, delivering continuous monitoring, event triage and threat hunting that’s agnostic to customers’ endpoint and network tooling.
As a pioneer in offering multicloud technology, Google Cloud’s security operations suite will continue to provide a central point of intelligence, analysis and operations across on-premise environments, Google Cloud and other cloud providers. In addition, Google Cloud is deeply committed to supporting the technology partners of both companies, including the endpoint ecosystem. This acquisition will enable system integrators, resellers and managed security service providers to offer broader solutions to customers.
The acquisition of Mandiant is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of Mandiant stockholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close later this year. For more information, see Mandiant’s press release.
Posted in Commentary with tags Google on March 8, 2022 by itnerd
Google has announced that it will buy Mandiant who are best known for discovering the Solarwinds hack for $5.4 billion:
The acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security. Google Cloud offers customers a robust set of services including pioneering capabilities such as BeyondCorp Enterprise for Zero Trust and VirusTotal for malicious content and software vulnerabilities; Chronicle’s planet-scale security analytics and automation coupled with services such as Security Command Center to help organizations detect and protect themselves from cyber threats; as well as expertise from Google Cloud’s Cybersecurity Action Team. With the addition of Mandiant, Google Cloud will enhance these offerings to deliver an end-to-end security operations suite with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premise environments.
Google’s acquisition is still dependent on approval from Mandiant’s stockholders, and also the approval of various regulatory bodies. Antitrust enforcers will probably scrutinize whether the acquisition will limit access to Mandiant services and products by competitors or customers.
Earlier today I said this in an article about various companies fighting Russian disinformation:
Who’s missing from this list? Apple. One has to wonder why a company who preaches that it has such high ideals isn’t rushing to join this? As I type this, apps from RT and Sputnik which are two of the biggest mouthpieces for the Russians are still available on the App Store. Why isn’t Apple taking action? That’s a very interesting question that Apple will need to answer ASAP as they really stand out for not having taken action unlike all the companies above. And I should also say, it looks really bad on them.
I guess they are taking a tentative step in terms of doing something by stopping online sales in the country. Not that I want to link to a Russian newspaper, but The Moscow Times broke the story:
Apple and Nike have temporarily suspended sales through their official Russian websiteshttps://t.co/tDDNuYiWjZ
And this was verified by Kevin Rothrock who is an editor at Russia-focused, Latvia-based newspaper Meduza.
Apple has suspended all sales through its official online store in Russia. For any purchases, the delivery date now shows “currently unavailable.” I guess people returning from the West can always bring new iPhones with them on the pla—OH WAIT https://t.co/br8qj90L8G
Definity Leverages Google Cloud’s Data analytics, AI and ML Capabilities
Posted in Commentary with tags Google on April 13, 2022 by itnerdDefinity Financial Corporation today announced that its subsidiary Definity Insurance Company has established a new relationship with Google Cloud that will allow the two companies to collaborate and leverage Google’s advanced data, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) technology with a view to accelerating the development of innovative personalized insurance solutions within a highly secure cloud environment. Combining the extensive insurance expertise of Definity’s family of companies with Google Cloud’s leading technology services will provide the opportunity to create a smoother, more intuitive insurance experience for customers and brokers.
Definity’s family of companies has made significant investments to develop market-leading digital capabilities, including Sonnet, Vyne, and Vyne Commercial. Launched in 2016, Sonnet is Canada’s first coast-to-coast fully online home and auto insurance company, while Vyne and Vyne Commercial provide brokers with a simplified and fully integrated digital offering to better support the needs of personal and commercial customers in real time.
Definity Financial Corporation is the parent company to some of Canada’s most long-standing and innovative multi-channel, property and casualty insurance companies and distributors, including Economical Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, Family Insurance Solutions, and Petline Insurance.
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