Technology - Google News

The Exit Of Instagram's Founders Is Good News For Facebook
Qualcomm accuses Apple of illegally sharing trade secrets with Intel to fix chip performance
Zero-day vulnerability in macOS Mojave bypasses system-level privacy permissions

The Exit Of Instagram's Founders Is Good News For Facebook

Posted: 25 Sep 2018 07:29 AM PDT

An employee walks past signage and photograph displayed at the Instagram Inc. office in New York, U.S., on Monday, June 4, 2018. Once, Instagram was a simple photo-sharing app, a way for iPhone shutterbugs to show off their latest cool pics. Now, its visual nature and 1 billion active users have sellers salivating over its potential as a place to sell everything from dresses to furniture. Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg

The founders of Instagram are following the founder of WhatsApp in exiting Facebook which, in my opinion, is some of the best news Facebook has had in this torrid year. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are leaving Facebook as a result of increasing pressure from Facebook to become more tightly integrated with the mothership.

This issue dates back to the heady days of 2014 and 2015 when start-ups were such hot property that founders could have their cake and eat it too. This meant that acquirors had to allow the founders of the acquired companies to continue running their companies as before even though founders had sold all of their economic interest in, as well as control of, their creations. Failure to comply meant that the founders would simply move onto the next ecosystem that was willing to pay them the same price and give them the independence they desired. This was why Google lost Twitch (see here) to Amazon as Google has long recognised how crucial it is for Digital Life services to be integrated in order to realise their true value. Google refused to allow Twitch to remain independent and so it went and sold itself to Amazon instead which had not really understood how important integration is.

The same is now happening at Facebook.

Faced with slowing growth and collapsing margins (see here), Facebook can no longer afford to have these massively important assets simply chugging along doing their own thing. When revenues were growing fast and there were no clouds on the horizon, this was less of an issue but now that times are tougher, Facebook needs to get the most from the investments it has made in Instagram and WhatsApp. The first way to do that is to bring them in-house and make them part of Facebook such that the insights and understanding that Facebook has of its users is deeper. This is how it can draw better insights and target users with more relevant, less intrusive advertising and charge its customers more per impression.

Pressure to perform has forced Facebook to go to its acquired companies and bring them closer together, something which the founders have fiercely resisted. This is why Facebook has seen the exit of first, the WhatsApp founder and now the founders of Instagram.

I think that this loss is actually good news for Facebook. These services have grown far beyond anything that was expected thanks to being part of Facebook and whatever value the founders brought to the table has been long since been realised. The future of these services for Facebook is for them to become integrated into Facebook such that Facebook becomes a mature ecosystem in its own right.

This means a consistent place where users live their Digital Lives with Facebook rather than a series of separate and fragmented services. This integration will allow Facebook to more effectively monetise its services and underpins a return to growth at some point in the next 3 years. With the founders gone, Facebook should have a much freer hand to effect this change meaning that their exit is badly needed in fact, good news.

Despite this long-term upside for Facebook, the short-term is pretty bleak with slowing growth and a 1000bp decline in operating margins on the cards. Furthermore, Facebook needs to lick its AI into shape which I have long been of the opinion is at the root of most of its problems (see here). Once all of this is done, then there is scope for a return to steady growth and much better profitability. That is the time to be involved with Facebook once again, not before.

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Qualcomm accuses Apple of illegally sharing trade secrets with Intel to fix chip performance

Posted: 25 Sep 2018 07:03 AM PDT

Qualcomm has accused Apple of stealing trade secrets and handing them over to Intel, a filing with the Superior Court of California claims, alleging Apple wanted to use the information to improve the performance of chips provided to it via Intel.

The latest activity in the long-running legal fight between Apple and Qualcomm has the chip producer directly accusing Apple of acquiring "vast swaths" of confidential information, reports CNBC. Filed on Monday, Qualcomm is intending for the allegations to be included in an existing lawsuit against Apple, if the court allows an amendment to the suit.

The complaint claims Apple breached the "master software agreement" it signed within the last decade when it became a Qualcomm customer. As part of the agreement, Apple was required to allow Qualcomm to ensure its source code and tools were being appropriately protection, but it is alleged this may not have been the case.

While previously Qualcomm argued it was being prevented from auditing Apple's use of Qualcomm-produced source code, it is now alleged Apple is using the same code and tools with Intel to fix engineering flaws in its chips, against the terms of the agreement.

The discovery was unearthed during its latest lawsuit, which started in November 2017, which is said to highlight Apple engineers repeatedly providing the code and other confidential information under the agreement to Intel's counterparts. While no direct evidence is offered, there are references to communications between the two sets of engineers that suggests such sharing was occurring.

"Unlawful use of Qualcomm's valuable trade secrets to try and help a competitor catch up irreparably harms us and must not be allowed to continue," advised Qualcomm general counsel Donald Rosenberg. According to Rosenberg, the case can stand on its own, and would have been filed regardless of the current dispute's status.

Apple has yet to respond to the allegations.

Qualcomm hopes the new charges will be included in the lawsuit, which is expected to go to court by April 2019.

Qualcomm and Apple have attacked each other in court for quite a few years, largely around allegations of patent infringement, such as with the U.S. International Trade Commission complaint that recently denied an iPhone import ban.

Apple has also accused Qualcomm of abusing its "monopoly power" over the wireless modem industry to demand excessive royalties, including withholding almost $1 billion in promised rebates as retribution for Apple's participation in a South Korean antitrust investigation against the chip producer. </span>

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Zero-day vulnerability in macOS Mojave bypasses system-level privacy permissions

Posted: 24 Sep 2018 04:43 PM PDT

Apple's macOS Mojave, which was released to users around the world on Monday, includes a faulty implementation of security protections that can potentially expose personal user data, according to one security researcher.

Outlined by Patrick Wardle of Digita Security, the apparent flaw allows an unprivileged app to bypass built-in system-level permissions and skim user information from certain apps. Wardle has uncovered a number of Apple-related security issues, the most recent being the exfiltration of sensitive user data by popular Mac App Store app Adware Doctor.

Apple during this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in June introduced an extended set of macOS security features that require users provide express permission to use select apps and hardware. Specifically, users need to authorize access to Mac's camera, microphone, Mail history, Messages, Safari, Time Machine and iTunes backups, locations, routines and system cookies when running macOS Mojave.

In a short video uploaded to Twitter, Wardle demonstrates a bypass to at least one of these protections.

The brief demonstration shows a first failed attempt to access and copy contacts through Terminal, an expected result under Apple's security measures. Wardle then runs an unprivileged app, aptly called "breakMojave," to locate and access Mac's Address Book.

With access secured, Wardle is able to run a list command to view all files in the private folder, including metadata and images.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Wardle said the exploit is "not a universal bypass" of the extended permissions feature, but noted the procedure can be leveraged to gain access to protected data when a user is logged in to macOS. As such, the flaw is unlikely to pose a major problem for most users, but could be troublesome in certain situations.

The security researcher is keeping details of the bug private to protect the general public, but said he aired the bypass to draw attention to Apple's lack of a bug bounty for Mac. Indeed, a cheeky line in Wardle's script reads, "Submitting report to bugbounty@apple.com. . .ERROR: macOS bug bounty program not found :/"

Apple currently runs an iOS bug bounty program, introduced in 2016, that pays out up to $200,000 for bugs related to secure boot firmware components, though the company has yet to roll out a similar incentives initiative for Mac.

With the bug now out in the open, Apple will undoubtedly inquire about its details and issue a patch in a coming update. </span>

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