Tag Archives: Google Apps

Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Google Translate Adds More Languages To Assist Communication

Every kid who grew up watching sci-fi has dreamed of the day when a Universal Translator would be available, making seamless communication possible and eliminating the language barrier entirely.

That day hasn’t arrived yet, but Google is steadily marching toward that goal. The company has been making use of new machine learning and other advanced AI techniques to improve the functionality of its Google Translate service. They recently added support for new languages, bringing the total number of supported languages up to 108.

This most recent expansion of five new languages is the Translate service’s first expansion in four years. According to a Google spokesman, the lengthy delay was not the result of a lack of desire to continue expanding on Google’s part. Rather, it is the fact that some languages don’t have a lot of web-based content to work with. This can make it difficult to build a viable translation database.

Fortunately, improvements in the company’s AI routines have made it possible to create a viable translation database with a significantly smaller dataset.

As to the five new languages on offer, they are:

  • Kinyarwanda, which is the official language of Rwanda
  • Odia, which is the language spoken in the Indian state of Odisha
  • Tartars, a Turkic language spoken in the Tartarstan region of Russia
  • Turkmen, which is the official language of Turkmenistan
  • Uyghur, spoken in western portions of China

All told, the five new languages are spoken by approximately 75 million people around the world. While that’s a tiny percentage of the global population, the additions are welcome indeed. It’s thrilling to see yet another expansion of what has become one of Google’s most popular services. Kudos to Google for continuing to inch closer to the technology we all ultimately want to see!

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

The Amount Of Earth Google Has Mapped So Far

These days, who hasn’t made use of Google Maps?  It has become an indispensable navigation tool and smart phone navigation. It is powered by Google Maps and could arguably be described as a killer app that makes modern life a whole lot more convenient. What fewer people realize is that Google Maps’ Street View is handy for research, walking trips, and has even become an important social media platform.

It is a convenient way to leave reviews for local businesses, which raises an interesting question. Just how much of the world has Google mapped in this way for Google Street View and Google Earth?

The answer might surprise you.  According to a report the company recently published, Google has photographed more than 10 million miles of Street View imagery and more than 36 million square miles of Google Earth imagery. Of those two figures, the Google Earth figure is the most impressive, and based on the particulars in the report, Google claims to have photographed more than 98 percent of places on the planet where people live.

The Street View figure is no slouch, however. It runs far ahead of Google’s nearest competitor Apple, which has begun a similar project. It is millions of miles behind Google. Even if you don’t make regular use of either service, it’s clear just based on the scope and scale of the company’s accomplishments in both of these areas, how seriously the company takes it.

More and more, imagery is taking center stage on the world wide web.  We’re a long way from being able to declare that text is no longer the King of the web, but imagery is increasingly important.  If you aren’t already doing so, next time you have a minute, try doing a Google Earth search to get a sense for how far things have come, and prepare to be impressed.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Another WhatsApp Vulnerability Has Been Found

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform in the world.

Unfortunately, that means it’s got a giant bullseye on it where hackers are concerned.

In recent months, the company has faced no end of troubles as a raft of vulnerabilities have been exposed and exploited by hackers from every corner of the globe.

The company is still reeling from the blowback associated with these various issues, but their troubles don’t seem to be over yet.  Just last month, WhatsApp quietly found and patched another vulnerability.  This one is tracked as CVE-2019-11931. It is a stack-based buffer overflow issue relating to the way that older WhatsApp versions parsed MP4 metadata, allowing attackers to launch denial-of-service or remote code execution attacks.

All a hacker needed in order to exploit the flaw was a target’s phone number and a specially crafted MP4 file. It just had to be constructed in such a way that it installed a backdoor upon opening.  From there, a wide range of malware could be installed at the hackers’ leisure.  Worse, this vulnerability was found in both the consumer and Enterprise versions of WhatsApp for all major platforms, including Windows, iOS, and Android.

An advisory bulletin was recently published by WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook. See the list of versions they provided below.

The list of affected versions are as follows:

  • Business for iOS versions prior to 2.19.100
  • Business for Android versions prior to 2.19.104
  • Windows Phone versions prior to and including 3.18.368
  • Enterprise Client versions prior to 2.25.3
  • iOS versions prior to 2.19.100
  • Android versions prior to 2.19.274

If there’s a silver lining here, it is that the company has confirmed that there have been no instances of this exploit having been used ‘in the wild’ and the company has already issued a patch.  If you’re one of WhatsApp’s legions of users, check to be sure you’re running the latest version. If not, update immediately to be on the safe side.

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Malicious Apps Continue Getting Past Google On Play Store

Say what you want about Google, but the company has a solid track record of doing all they can to keep the Google Play Store relatively free of malicious apps. By most accounts, they have been wildly successful at that.

Unfortunately, given the sheer number of apps available on the Play Store, statistics invariably catch up with them.

A small number of poisoned apps, trojans and the like still find their way onto the store. They blend in with legitimate apps until some enterprising researcher discovers them, at which point, Google promptly brings the hammer down.

The question is, why does it keep happening?  It’s a fair question, but it’s important to put it in proper context.  After all, more than 99 percent of the apps on the Play Store right now are perfectly fine, so Google’s robust system of checks and strict guidelines are certainly working.

The problem is, nobody ever reports on the fact that the majority of the time, the system works as advertised.  We only tend to hear about the instances where something goes off the rails and an unsavory developer temporarily pulls the wool over Google’s eyes.

At the end of the day, the answer is simply this:  No system, no matter how robust, is perfect.  Google generally does a good job of policing its Play Store, which is why it’s seen as one of the safe havens on the internet.

Having said that, there’s always room for improvement. To the company’s credit, Google is in the habit of regularly and methodically improving its own processes. Even so, a certain amount of due diligence is required on the part of the user, even when downloading apps from a supposedly safe source.  We can’t fault Google for the actions of careless users. We can’t blame them for the actions of determined, unsavory developers who occasionally find ways to temporarily circumvent the company’s safeguards.

 

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Posted on Author Atlantic Computer Services Categories Blog

Zynga Games Has Data Breach Including Personal Information

Zynga is a wildly successful gaming company with a number of hit titles under their belt including FarmVille, Words with Friends, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, and Café World.

Their titles boast more than a billion players, worldwide, which is a number that would make most gaming outfits green with envy.

Naturally, their success has painted a giant target on the company. Recently, a Pakistani hacker going by the alias Gnosticplayers has claimed that he successfully breached Words With Friends and made off with a massive database containing information on more than 218 million users.

It doesn’t appear to be an idle boast.  Recently Zynga acknowledged that they had been breached and that a variety of data was stolen from certain players of Draw Something and Words With Friends.

For his part, Gnosticplayers has been quite forthcoming, even providing The Hacker News with a sample of the stolen data, which includes:

  • Player name
  • Email address
  • Login ID
  • Hashed password
  • Password reset token (if present)
  • Facebook ID (if connected)
  • User Zynga account ID

He also boasted that he made off with data belonging to some 7 million Draw Something users, and in this case, revealed that the data he stole contained plain text passwords.

Zynga issued a statement which reads, in part, as follows:

“An investigation was immediately commenced, leading third-party forensics firms were retained to assist and we have contacted law enforcement. As a precaution, we have taken steps to protect these users’ accounts from invalid logins.  We plan to notify players as the investigation proceeds further.”

If you play either Words With Friends or Draw Something, you should change your password immediately and be on the lookout for phishing scams aimed at you in a bid to try and extract even more information from you.

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