|
In an open letter, OpenAI this week turned to the court of public opinion in its existential war against Apple with a public notice in which the company refutes the iPhone maker's claims concerning wholesale use of confidential information.
You can detect the depth of enmity between both firms in OpenAI's opening lines to its letter, which begins: "Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time," and then moves swiftly into defending itself against company's claims, while attempting to characterize Apple's complaints as weak.
What Apple claimed
As reported elsewhere, Apple filed suit against OpenAI in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on July 10. The litigation names OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, io Products, Chang Liu (former senior systems electrical engineer), and Tang Yew Tan (former vice president of product design for iPhone and Apple Watch, now OpenAI's chief hardware officer), and alleges breach of intellectual property agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. The company has since then
|
|
 Apple is prototyping a second new iPhone display, this one measuring around 6.4 inches, that could be destined for the 20th anniversary iPhone, according to a Chinese leaker.
|
|
 Telegram was subject to a "takedown extortionist" who planted AI-modified child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to get Apple to remove the app from the App Store, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said today. Apple removed Telegram from the App Store for about 40 minutes on Monday night after discovering CSAM, but reinstated the app after Telegram removed the content.
|
|
 Apple today released a fourth version of the beta firmware it is testing for the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, AirPods 4, and AirPods Max 2. The firmware is available for developers and has a build number of 9A5336b.
|
|
Apple briefly removed Telegram from the App Store on Monday night after a review found content that violated its guidelines against child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but restored the app a short while later, according to Reuters.
— Telegram Messenger (@teleg
|
|
Apple has had to introduce a quota on security researcher reports because its systems are being overwhelmed by low-quality warnings generated by AI.
It's a classic illustration of the rule of unintended consequences: a technology meant to help us has become a barrier to getting things done. After all, not only has AI driven the cost of consumer electronics higher, but it is also being used to identify and exploit security vulnerabilities — while also overwhelming security teams with low-grade reports, thus eroding their attention span.
The cost of good intentions
This is what's happened at Apple, as security researchers use AI as a tool to identify new bugs. Perhaps the reports are well-intended. Hopefully, the researchers aren't just motivated by the promise of easy bug bounties. Or maybe this is a cynical attempt to overwhelm platform security teams with low-grade bug reports — while holding back larger attacks for actual use by well-resourced state-backed actors.
We can't know whether attackers really are trying to overwhelm active platform defenses before going in for the kill. But given that it's an actively used military strategy, it's pretty hard to ignore the possibility.
Apple's response
|
|
 U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer has teamed up with several of his Senate colleagues to demand Apple commit to not purchasing chips from Chinese companies ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) or Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). [PDF]
|
|
