Google – Page 14

New study accuses LM Arena of gaming its popular AI benchmark

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google, lm arena, Meta, openai / Paul Patrick / May 2, 2025

This study also calls out LM Arena for what appears to be much greater promotion of private models like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. Developers collect data on model interactions from the Chatbot Arena API, but teams focusing on open models consistently get the short end of the stick.

The researchers point out that certain models appear in arena faceoffs much more often, with Google and OpenAI together accounting for over 34 percent of collected model data. Firms like xAI, Meta, and Amazon are also disproportionately represented in the arena. Therefore, those firms get more vibemarking data compared to the makers of open models.

More models, more evals

The study authors have a list of suggestions to make LM Arena more fair. Several of the paper’s recommendations are aimed at correcting the imbalance of privately tested commercial models, for example, by limiting the number of models a group can add and retract before releasing one. The study also suggests showing all model results, even if they aren’t final.

However, the site’s operators take issue with some of the paper’s methodology and conclusions. LM Arena points out that the pre-release testing features have not been kept secret, with a March 2024 blog post featuring a brief explanation of the system. They also contend that model creators don’t technically choose the version that is shown. Instead, the site simply doesn’t show non-public versions for simplicity’s sake. When a developer releases the final version, that’s what LM Arena adds to the leaderboard.

Proprietary models get disproportionate attention in the Chatbot Arena, the study says. Credit: Shivalika Singh et al.

One place the two sides may find alignment is on the question of unequal matchups. The study authors call for fair sampling, which will ensure open models appear in Chatbot Arena at a rate similar to the likes of Gemini and ChatGPT. LM Arena has suggested it will work to make the sampling algorithm more varied so you don’t always get the big commercial models. That would send more eval data to small players, giving them the chance to improve and challenge the big commercial models.

LM Arena recently announced it was forming a corporate entity to continue its work. With money on the table, the operators need to ensure Chatbot Arena continues figuring into the development of popular models. However, it’s unclear whether this is an objectively better way to evaluate chatbots versus academic tests. As people vote on vibes, there’s a real possibility we are pushing models to adopt sycophantic tendencies. This may have helped nudge ChatGPT into suck-up territory in recent weeks, a move that OpenAI has hastily reverted after widespread anger.

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Sundar Pichai says DOJ demands are a “de facto” spin-off of Google search

antitrust, DoJ, Google, Tech / Tim Belzer / May 1, 2025

The Department of Justice (DOJ) rested its case in Google’s search remedy trial earlier this week, giving Google a chance to push back on the government’s attempt to break up the search giant. Today is arguably Google’s best chance to make the case that it should not be harshly penalized in the ongoing search antitrust case, with CEO Sundar Pichai taking the stand.

Pichai attempted to explain why Google isn’t abusing its market position and why the DOJ’s proposed remedies are too extreme. The issue of Chrome divestment came up, but Google’s team also focused intensely on the potential effects of the DOJ’s data remedies, which could force Google to share its search index and technology with other firms.

A de facto spin-off

Pichai, who chose to stand while giving testimony, took issue with the government’s proposal to force Google to license search technology to other companies. The DOJ claims that Google’s status as a monopolist has resulted in it accumulating a huge volume of user data on search behavior. Plus, its significant technological lead means its index of the web is much more robust than competing services.

If the market is going to be rebalanced, the DOJ believes Google must be forced to license this data. Google has derisively referred to this as “white labeling” Google search.

According to Bloomberg, Pichai used even harsher language when discussing these remedies in court. He called this part of the government’s case “so far reaching, so extraordinary” that it would remake Google as a company and lead to numerous unintended consequences. To hear Pichai tell it, forcing Google to license this data for a nominal fee would be a “de facto divestiture of search.”

Giving other companies the option of using Google search index to map the web would make other products better, but Pichai claims they would essentially be able to reverse-engineer everything that makes Google’s platform special. And at that point, Google would need to reevaluate how it approaches innovation. Pichai suggests the data remedies could make it “unviable” for Google to invest in research and development as it has been for the past 20 years.

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Google search’s made-up AI explanations for sayings no one ever said, explained

AI, Google, google ai, google ai overviews / Kris Guyer / April 30, 2025

But what does “meaning” mean?

A partial defense of (some of) AI Overview’s fanciful idiomatic explanations.

Mind…. blown Credit: Getty Images

Last week, the phrase “You can’t lick a badger twice” unexpectedly went viral on social media. The nonsense sentence—which was likely never uttered by a human before last week—had become the poster child for the newly discovered way Google search’s AI Overviews makes up plausible-sounding explanations for made-up idioms (though the concept seems to predate that specific viral post by at least a few days).

Google users quickly discovered that typing any concocted phrase into the search bar with the word “meaning” attached at the end would generate an AI Overview with a purported explanation of its idiomatic meaning. Even the most nonsensical attempts at new proverbs resulted in a confident explanation from Google’s AI Overview, created right there on the spot.

In the wake of the “lick a badger” post, countless users flocked to social media to share Google’s AI interpretations of their own made-up idioms, often expressing horror or disbelief at Google’s take on their nonsense. Those posts often highlight the overconfident way the AI Overview frames its idiomatic explanations and occasional problems with the model confabulating sources that don’t exist.

But after reading through dozens of publicly shared examples of Google’s explanations for fake idioms—and generating a few of my own—I’ve come away somewhat impressed with the model’s almost poetic attempts to glean meaning from gibberish and make sense out of the senseless.

Talk to me like a child

Let’s try a thought experiment: Say a child asked you what the phrase “you can’t lick a badger twice” means. You’d probably say you’ve never heard that particular phrase or ask the child where they heard it. You might say that you’re not familiar with that phrase or that it doesn’t really make sense without more context.

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

[image or embed]

— Greg Jenner (@gregjenner.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 6: 15 AM

But let’s say the child persisted and really wanted an explanation for what the phrase means. So you’d do your best to generate a plausible-sounding answer. You’d search your memory for possible connotations for the word “lick” and/or symbolic meaning for the noble badger to force the idiom into some semblance of sense. You’d reach back to other similar idioms you know to try to fit this new, unfamiliar phrase into a wider pattern (anyone who has played the excellent board game Wise and Otherwise might be familiar with the process).

Google’s AI Overview doesn’t go through exactly that kind of human thought process when faced with a similar question about the same saying. But in its own way, the large language model also does its best to generate a plausible-sounding response to an unreasonable request.

As seen in Greg Jenner’s viral Bluesky post, Google’s AI Overview suggests that “you can’t lick a badger twice” means that “you can’t trick or deceive someone a second time after they’ve been tricked once. It’s a warning that if someone has already been deceived, they are unlikely to fall for the same trick again.” As an attempt to derive meaning from a meaningless phrase —which was, after all, the user’s request—that’s not half bad. Faced with a phrase that has no inherent meaning, the AI Overview still makes a good-faith effort to answer the user’s request and draw some plausible explanation out of troll-worthy nonsense.

Contrary to the computer science truism of “garbage in, garbage out, Google here is taking in some garbage and spitting out… well, a workable interpretation of garbage, at the very least.

Google’s AI Overview even goes into more detail explaining its thought process. “Lick” here means to “trick or deceive” someone, it says, a bit of a stretch from the dictionary definition of lick as “comprehensively defeat,” but probably close enough for an idiom (and a plausible iteration of the idiom, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me…”). Google also explains that the badger part of the phrase “likely originates from the historical sport of badger baiting,” a practice I was sure Google was hallucinating until I looked it up and found it was real.

It took me 15 seconds to make up this saying but now I think it kind of works! Credit: Kyle Orland / Google

I found plenty of other examples where Google’s AI derived more meaning than the original requester’s gibberish probably deserved. Google interprets the phrase “dream makes the steam” as an almost poetic statement about imagination powering innovation. The line “you can’t humble a tortoise” similarly gets interpreted as a statement about the difficulty of intimidating “someone with a strong, steady, unwavering character (like a tortoise).”

Google also often finds connections that the original nonsense idiom creators likely didn’t intend. For instance, Google could link the made-up idiom “A deft cat always rings the bell” to the real concept of belling the cat. And in attempting to interpret the nonsense phrase “two cats are better than grapes,” the AI Overview correctly notes that grapes can be potentially toxic to cats.

Brimming with confidence

Even when Google’s AI Overview works hard to make the best of a bad prompt, I can still understand why the responses rub a lot of users the wrong way. A lot of the problem, I think, has to do with the LLM’s unearned confident tone, which pretends that any made-up idiom is a common saying with a well-established and authoritative meaning.

Rather than framing its responses as a “best guess” at an unknown phrase (as a human might when responding to a child in the example above), Google generally provides the user with a single, authoritative explanation for what an idiom means, full stop. Even with the occasional use of couching words such as “likely,” “probably,” or “suggests,” the AI Overview comes off as unnervingly sure of the accepted meaning for some nonsense the user made up five seconds ago.

If Google’s AI Overviews always showed this much self-doubt, we’d be getting somewhere. Credit: Google / Kyle Orland

I was able to find one exception to this in my testing. When I asked Google the meaning of “when you see a tortoise, spin in a circle,” Google reasonably told me that the phrase “doesn’t have a widely recognized, specific meaning” and that it’s “not a standard expression with a clear, universal meaning.” With that context, Google then offered suggestions for what the phrase “seems to” mean and mentioned Japanese nursery rhymes that it “may be connected” to, before concluding that it is “open to interpretation.”

Those qualifiers go a long way toward properly contextualizing the guesswork Google’s AI Overview is actually conducting here. And if Google provided that kind of context in every AI summary explanation of a made-up phrase, I don’t think users would be quite as upset.

Unfortunately, LLMs like this have trouble knowing what they don’t know, meaning moments of self-doubt like the turtle interpretation here tend to be few and far between. It’s not like Google’s language model has some master list of idioms in its neural network that it can consult to determine what is and isn’t a “standard expression” that it can be confident about. Usually, it’s just projecting a self-assured tone while struggling to force the user’s gibberish into meaning.

Zeus disguised himself as what?

The worst examples of Google’s idiomatic AI guesswork are ones where the LLM slips past plausible interpretations and into sheer hallucination of completely fictional sources. The phrase “a dog never dances before sunset,” for instance, did not appear in the film Before Sunrise, no matter what Google says. Similarly, “There are always two suns on Tuesday” does not appear in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film despite Google’s insistence.

Literally in the one I tried.

[image or embed]

— Sarah Vaughan (@madamefelicie.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 7: 52 AM

There’s also no indication that the made-up phrase “Welsh men jump the rabbit” originated on the Welsh island of Portland, or that “peanut butter platform heels” refers to a scientific experiment creating diamonds from the sticky snack. We’re also unaware of any Greek myth where Zeus disguises himself as a golden shower to explain the phrase “beware what glitters in a golden shower.” (Update: As many commenters have pointed out, this last one is actually a reference to the greek myth of Danaë and the shower of gold, showing Google’s AI knows more about this potential symbolism than I do)

The fact that Google’s AI Overview presents these completely made-up sources with the same self-assurance as its abstract interpretations is a big part of the problem here. It’s also a persistent problem for LLMs that tend to make up news sources and cite fake legal cases regularly. As usual, one should be very wary when trusting anything an LLM presents as an objective fact.

When it comes to the more artistic and symbolic interpretation of nonsense phrases, though, I think Google’s AI Overviews have gotten something of a bad rap recently. Presented with the difficult task of explaining nigh-unexplainable phrases, the model does its best, generating interpretations that can border on the profound at times. While the authoritative tone of those responses can sometimes be annoying or actively misleading, it’s at least amusing to see the model’s best attempts to deal with our meaningless phrases.

Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.

Google search’s made-up AI explanations for sayings no one ever said, explained Read More »

Google: Governments are using zero-day hacks more than ever

Google, Security, zero-day / Mike M. / April 30, 2025

Governments hacking enterprise

A few years ago, zero-day attacks almost exclusively targeted end users. In 2021, GTIG spotted 95 zero-days, and 71 of them were deployed against user systems like browsers and smartphones. In 2024, 33 of the 75 total vulnerabilities were aimed at enterprise technologies and security systems. At 44 percent of the total, this is the highest share of enterprise focus for zero-days yet.

GTIG says that it detected zero-day attacks targeting 18 different enterprise entities, including Microsoft, Google, and Ivanti. This is slightly lower than the 22 firms targeted by zero-days in 2023, but it’s a big increase compared to just a few years ago, when seven firms were hit with zero-days in 2020.

The nature of these attacks often makes it hard to trace them to the source, but Google says it managed to attribute 34 of the 75 zero-day attacks. The largest single category with 10 detections was traditional state-sponsored espionage, which aims to gather intelligence without a financial motivation. China was the largest single contributor here. GTIG also identified North Korea as the perpetrator in five zero-day attacks, but these campaigns also had a financial motivation (usually stealing crypto).

That’s already a lot of government-organized hacking, but GTIG also notes that eight of the serious hacks it detected came from commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs), firms that create hacking tools and claim to only do business with governments. So it’s fair to include these with other government hacks. This includes companies like NSO Group and Cellebrite, with the former already subject to US sanctions from its work with adversarial nations.

In all, this adds up to 23 of the 34 attributed attacks coming from governments. There were also a few attacks that didn’t technically originate from governments but still involved espionage activities, suggesting a connection to state actors. Beyond that, Google spotted five non-government financially motivated zero-day campaigns that did not appear to engage in spying.

Google’s security researchers say they expect zero-day attacks to continue increasing over time. These stealthy vulnerabilities can be expensive to obtain or discover, but the lag time before anyone notices the threat can reward hackers with a wealth of information (or money). Google recommends enterprises continue scaling up efforts to detect and block malicious activities, while also designing systems with redundancy and stricter limits on access. As for the average user, well, cross your fingers.

Google: Governments are using zero-day hacks more than ever Read More »

ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature

Adam Fry, AI, AI shopping, Biz & IT, chatgpt, coffee, eCommerce, Google, Google Shopping, machine learning, openai, wired / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

On Thursday, OpenAI announced the addition of shopping features to ChatGPT Search. The new feature allows users to search for products and purchase them through merchant websites after being redirected from the ChatGPT interface. Product placement is not sponsored, and the update affects all users, regardless of whether they’ve signed in to an account.

Adam Fry, ChatGPT search product lead at OpenAI, showed Ars Technica’s sister site Wired how the new shopping system works during a demonstration. Users researching products like espresso machines or office chairs receive recommendations based on their stated preferences, stored memories, and product reviews from around the web.

According to Wired, the shopping experience in ChatGPT resembles Google Shopping. When users click on a product image, the interface displays multiple retailers like Amazon and Walmart on the right side of the screen, with buttons to complete purchases. OpenAI is currently experimenting with categories that include electronics, fashion, home goods, and beauty products.

Product reviews shown in ChatGPT come from various online sources, including publishers and user forums like Reddit. Users can instruct ChatGPT to prioritize which review sources to use when creating product recommendations.

An example of the ChatGPT shopping experience provided by OpenAI. Credit: OpenAI

Unlike Google’s algorithm-based approach to product recommendations, ChatGPT reportedly attempts to understand product reviews and user preferences in a more conversational manner. If someone mentions they prefer black clothing from specific retailers in a chat, the system incorporates those preferences in future shopping recommendations.

ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature Read More »

iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years

android, Apple, Biz & IT, choicejacking, Features, Google, iOS, juice jacking, juicejacking, Security, Tech / Kris Guyer / April 28, 2025

SON OF JUICE JACKING ARISES

New ChoiceJacking attack allows malicious chargers to steal data from phones.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

About a decade ago, Apple and Google started updating iOS and Android, respectively, to make them less susceptible to “juice jacking,” a form of attack that could surreptitiously steal data or execute malicious code when users plug their phones into special-purpose charging hardware. Now, researchers are revealing that, for years, the mitigations have suffered from a fundamental defect that has made them trivial to bypass.

“Juice jacking” was coined in a 2011 article on KrebsOnSecurity detailing an attack demonstrated at a Defcon security conference at the time. Juice jacking works by equipping a charger with hidden hardware that can access files and other internal resources of phones, in much the same way that a computer can when a user connects it to the phone.

An attacker would then make the chargers available in airports, shopping malls, or other public venues for use by people looking to recharge depleted batteries. While the charger was ostensibly only providing electricity to the phone, it was also secretly downloading files or running malicious code on the device behind the scenes. Starting in 2012, both Apple and Google tried to mitigate the threat by requiring users to click a confirmation button on their phones before a computer—or a computer masquerading as a charger—could access files or execute code on the phone.

The logic behind the mitigation was rooted in a key portion of the USB protocol that, in the parlance of the specification, dictates that a USB port can facilitate a “host” device or a “peripheral” device at any given time, but not both. In the context of phones, this meant they could either:

Host the device on the other end of the USB cord—for instance, if a user connects a thumb drive or keyboard. In this scenario, the phone is the host that has access to the internals of the drive, keyboard or other peripheral device.
Act as a peripheral device that’s hosted by a computer or malicious charger, which under the USB paradigm is a host that has system access to the phone.

An alarming state of USB security

Researchers at the Graz University of Technology in Austria recently made a discovery that completely undermines the premise behind the countermeasure: They’re rooted under the assumption that USB hosts can’t inject input that autonomously approves the confirmation prompt. Given the restriction against a USB device simultaneously acting as a host and peripheral, the premise seemed sound. The trust models built into both iOS and Android, however, present loopholes that can be exploited to defeat the protections. The researchers went on to devise ChoiceJacking, the first known attack to defeat juice-jacking mitigations.

“We observe that these mitigations assume that an attacker cannot inject input events while establishing a data connection,” the researchers wrote in a paper scheduled to be presented in August at the Usenix Security Symposium in Seattle. “However, we show that this assumption does not hold in practice.”

The researchers continued:

We present a platform-agnostic attack principle and three concrete attack techniques for Android and iOS that allow a malicious charger to autonomously spoof user input to enable its own data connection. Our evaluation using a custom cheap malicious charger design reveals an alarming state of USB security on mobile platforms. Despite vendor customizations in USB stacks, ChoiceJacking attacks gain access to sensitive user files (pictures, documents, app data) on all tested devices from 8 vendors including the top 6 by market share.

In response to the findings, Apple updated the confirmation dialogs in last month’s release of iOS/iPadOS 18.4 to require a user authentication in the form of a PIN or password. While the researchers were investigating their ChoiceJacking attacks last year, Google independently updated its confirmation with the release of version 15 in November. The researchers say the new mitigation works as expected on fully updated Apple and Android devices. Given the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, however, many Android devices remain vulnerable.

All three of the ChoiceJacking techniques defeat Android juice-jacking mitigations. One of them also works against those defenses in Apple devices. In all three, the charger acts as a USB host to trigger the confirmation prompt on the targeted phone.

The attacks then exploit various weaknesses in the OS that allow the charger to autonomously inject “input events” that can enter text or click buttons presented in screen prompts as if the user had done so directly into the phone. In all three, the charger eventually gains two conceptual channels to the phone: (1) an input one allowing it to spoof user consent and (2) a file access connection that can steal files.

An illustration of ChoiceJacking attacks. (1) The victim device is attached to the malicious charger. (2) The charger establishes an extra input channel. (3) The charger initiates a data connection. User consent is needed to confirm it. (4) The charger uses the input channel to spoof user consent. Credit: Draschbacher et al.

It’s a keyboard, it’s a host, it’s both

In the ChoiceJacking variant that defeats both Apple- and Google-devised juice-jacking mitigations, the charger starts as a USB keyboard or a similar peripheral device. It sends keyboard input over USB that invokes simple key presses, such as arrow up or down, but also more complex key combinations that trigger settings or open a status bar.

The input establishes a Bluetooth connection to a second miniaturized keyboard hidden inside the malicious charger. The charger then uses the USB Power Delivery, a standard available in USB-C connectors that allows devices to either provide or receive power to or from the other device, depending on messages they exchange, a process known as the USB PD Data Role Swap.

A simulated ChoiceJacking charger. Bidirectional USB lines allow for data role swaps. Credit: Draschbacher et al.

With the charger now acting as a host, it triggers the file access consent dialog. At the same time, the charger still maintains its role as a peripheral device that acts as a Bluetooth keyboard that approves the file access consent dialog.

The full steps for the attack, provided in the Usenix paper, are:

1. The victim device is connected to the malicious charger. The device has its screen unlocked.

2. At a suitable moment, the charger performs a USB PD Data Role (DR) Swap. The mobile device now acts as a USB host, the charger acts as a USB input device.

3. The charger generates input to ensure that BT is enabled.

4. The charger navigates to the BT pairing screen in the system settings to make the mobile device discoverable.

5. The charger starts advertising as a BT input device.

6. By constantly scanning for newly discoverable Bluetooth devices, the charger identifies the BT device address of the mobile device and initiates pairing.

7. Through the USB input device, the charger accepts the Yes/No pairing dialog appearing on the mobile device. The Bluetooth input device is now connected.

8. The charger sends another USB PD DR Swap. It is now the USB host, and the mobile device is the USB device.

9. As the USB host, the charger initiates a data connection.

10. Through the Bluetooth input device, the charger confirms its own data connection on the mobile device.

This technique works against all but one of the 11 phone models tested, with the holdout being an Android device running the Vivo Funtouch OS, which doesn’t fully support the USB PD protocol. The attacks against the 10 remaining models take about 25 to 30 seconds to establish the Bluetooth pairing, depending on the phone model being hacked. The attacker then has read and write access to files stored on the device for as long as it remains connected to the charger.

Two more ways to hack Android

The two other members of the ChoiceJacking family work only against the juice-jacking mitigations that Google put into Android. In the first, the malicious charger invokes the Android Open Access Protocol, which allows a USB host to act as an input device when the host sends a special message that puts it into accessory mode.

The protocol specifically dictates that while in accessory mode, a USB host can no longer respond to other USB interfaces, such as the Picture Transfer Protocol for transferring photos and videos and the Media Transfer Protocol that enables transferring files in other formats. Despite the restriction, all of the Android devices tested violated the specification by accepting AOAP messages sent, even when the USB host hadn’t been put into accessory mode. The charger can exploit this implementation flaw to autonomously complete the required user confirmations.

The remaining ChoiceJacking technique exploits a race condition in the Android input dispatcher by flooding it with a specially crafted sequence of input events. The dispatcher puts each event into a queue and processes them one by one. The dispatcher waits for all previous input events to be fully processed before acting on a new one.

“This means that a single process that performs overly complex logic in its key event handler will delay event dispatching for all other processes or global event handlers,” the researchers explained.

They went on to note, “A malicious charger can exploit this by starting as a USB peripheral and flooding the event queue with a specially crafted sequence of key events. It then switches its USB interface to act as a USB host while the victim device is still busy dispatching the attacker’s events. These events therefore accept user prompts for confirming the data connection to the malicious charger.”

The Usenix paper provides the following matrix showing which devices tested in the research are vulnerable to which attacks.

The susceptibility of tested devices to all three ChoiceJacking attack techniques. Credit: Draschbacher et al.

User convenience over security

In an email, the researchers said that the fixes provided by Apple and Google successfully blunt ChoiceJacking attacks in iPhones, iPads, and Pixel devices. Many Android devices made by other manufacturers, however, remain vulnerable because they have yet to update their devices to Android 15. Other Android devices—most notably those from Samsung running the One UI 7 software interface—don’t implement the new authentication requirement, even when running on Android 15. The omission leaves these models vulnerable to ChoiceJacking. In an email, principal paper author Florian Draschbacher wrote:

The attack can therefore still be exploited on many devices, even though we informed the manufacturers about a year ago and they acknowledged the problem. The reason for this slow reaction is probably that ChoiceJacking does not simply exploit a programming error. Rather, the problem is more deeply rooted in the USB trust model of mobile operating systems. Changes here have a negative impact on the user experience, which is why manufacturers are hesitant. [It] means for enabling USB-based file access, the user doesn’t need to simply tap YES on a dialog but additionally needs to present their unlock PIN/fingerprint/face. This inevitably slows down the process.

The biggest threat posed by ChoiceJacking is to Android devices that have been configured to enable USB debugging. Developers often turn on this option so they can troubleshoot problems with their apps, but many non-developers enable it so they can install apps from their computer, root their devices so they can install a different OS, transfer data between devices, and recover bricked phones. Turning it on requires a user to flip a switch in Settings > System > Developer options.

If a phone has USB Debugging turned on, ChoiceJacking can gain shell access through the Android Debug Bridge. From there, an attacker can install apps, access the file system, and execute malicious binary files. The level of access through the Android Debug Mode is much higher than that through Picture Transfer Protocol and Media Transfer Protocol, which only allow read and write access to system files.

The vulnerabilities are tracked as:

- CVE-2025-24193 (Apple)
- CVE-2024-43085 (Google)
- CVE-2024-20900 (Samsung)
- CVE-2024-54096 (Huawei)

A Google spokesperson confirmed that the weaknesses were patched in Android 15 but didn’t speak to the base of Android devices from other manufacturers, who either don’t support the new OS or the new authentication requirement it makes possible. Apple declined to comment for this post.

Word that juice-jacking-style attacks are once again possible on some Android devices and out-of-date iPhones is likely to breathe new life into the constant warnings from federal authorities, tech pundits, news outlets, and local and state government agencies that phone users should steer clear of public charging stations.

As I reported in 2023, these warnings are mostly scaremongering, and the advent of ChoiceJacking does little to change that, given that there are no documented cases of such attacks in the wild. That said, people using Android devices that don’t support Google’s new authentication requirement may want to refrain from public charging.

Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82.

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Perplexity will come to Moto phones after exec testified Google limited access

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google, Motorola, Tech / Tim Belzer / April 25, 2025

Shevelenko was also asked about Chrome, which the DOJ would like to force Google to sell. Like an OpenAI executive said on Monday, Shevelenko confirmed Perplexity would be interested in buying the browser from Google.

Motorola has all the AI

There were some vague allusions during the trial that Perplexity would come to Motorola phones this year, but we didn’t know just how soon that was. With the announcement of its 2025 Razr devices, Moto has confirmed a much more expansive set of AI features. Parts of the Motorola AI experience are powered by Gemini, Copilot, Meta, and yes, Perplexity.

While Gemini gets top billing as the default assistant app, other firms have wormed their way into different parts of the software. Perplexity’s app will be preloaded, and anyone who buys the new Razrs. Owners will also get three free months of Perplexity Pro. This is the first time Perplexity has had a smartphone distribution deal, but it won’t be shown prominently on the phone. When you start a Motorola device, it will still look like a Google playground.

While it’s not the default assistant, Perplexity is integrated into the Moto AI platform. The new Razrs will proactively suggest you perform an AI search when accessing certain features like the calendar or browsing the web under the banner “Explore with Perplexity.” The Perplexity app has also been optimized to work with the external screen on Motorola’s foldables.

Moto AI also has elements powered by other AI systems. For example, Microsoft Copilot will appear in Moto AI with an “Ask Copilot” option. And Meta’s Llama model powers a Moto AI feature called Catch Me Up, which summarizes notifications from select apps.

It’s unclear why Motorola leaned on four different AI providers for a single phone. It probably helps that all these companies are desperate to entice users to bulk up their market share. Perplexity confirmed that no money changed hands in this deal—it’s on Moto phones to acquire more users. That might be tough with Gemini getting priority placement, though.

Perplexity will come to Moto phones after exec testified Google limited access Read More »

Google reveals sky-high Gemini usage numbers in antitrust case

AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, Google, Google Gemini, openai, Tech / Paul Patrick / April 24, 2025

Despite the uptick in Gemini usage, Google is still far from catching OpenAI. Naturally, Google has been keeping a close eye on ChatGPT traffic. OpenAI has also seen traffic increase, putting ChatGPT around 600 million monthly active users, according to Google’s analysis. Early this year, reports pegged ChatGPT usage at around 400 million users per month.

There are many ways to measure web traffic, and not all of them tell you what you might think. For example, OpenAI has recently claimed weekly traffic as high as 400 million, but companies can choose the seven-day period in a given month they report as weekly active users. A monthly metric is more straightforward, and we have some degree of trust that Google isn’t using fake or unreliable numbers in a case where the company’s past conduct has already harmed its legal position.

While all AI firms strive to lock in as many users as possible, this is not the total win it would be for a retail site or social media platform—each person using Gemini or ChatGPT costs the company money because generative AI is so computationally expensive. Google doesn’t talk about how much it earns (more likely loses) from Gemini subscriptions, but OpenAI has noted that it loses money even on its $200 monthly plan. So while having a broad user base is essential to make these products viable in the long term, it just means higher costs unless the cost of running massive AI models comes down.

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OpenAI wants to buy Chrome and make it an “AI-first” experience

AI, antitrust, chrome, Google, openai, Tech / Kris Guyer / April 23, 2025

According to Turley, OpenAI would throw its proverbial hat in the ring if Google had to sell. When asked if OpenAI would want Chrome, he was unequivocal. “Yes, we would, as would many other parties,” Turley said.

OpenAI has reportedly considered building its own Chromium-based browser to compete with Chrome. Several months ago, the company hired former Google developers Ben Goodger and Darin Fisher, both of whom worked to bring Chrome to market.

Close-up of Google Chrome Web Browser web page on the web browser. Chrome is widely used web browser developed by Google. — Credit: Getty Images

It’s not hard to see why OpenAI might want a browser, particularly Chrome with its 4 billion users and 67 percent market share. Chrome would instantly give OpenAI a massive install base of users who have been incentivized to use Google services. If OpenAI were running the show, you can bet ChatGPT would be integrated throughout the experience—Turley said as much, predicting an “AI-first” experience. The user data flowing to the owner of Chrome could also be invaluable in training agentic AI models that can operate browsers on the user’s behalf.

Interestingly, there’s so much discussion about who should buy Chrome, but relatively little about spinning off Chrome into an independent company. Google has contended that Chrome can’t survive on its own. However, the existence of Google’s multibillion-dollar search placement deals, which the DOJ wants to end, suggests otherwise. Regardless, if Google has to sell, and OpenAI has the cash, we might get the proposed “AI-first” browsing experience.

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Google won’t ditch third-party cookies in Chrome after all

advertising, browser cookies, chrome, cookies, Google, Tech / Mike M. / April 23, 2025

Maintaining the status quo

While Google’s sandbox project is looking more directionless today, it is not completely ending the initiative. The team still plans to deploy promised improvements in Chrome’s Incognito Mode, which has been re-architected to preserve user privacy after numerous complaints. Incognito Mode blocks all third-party cookies, and later this year, it will gain IP protection, which masks a user’s IP address to protect against cross-site tracking.

What is Topics?

Chavez admits that this change will mean Google’s Privacy Sandbox APIs will have a “different role to play” in the market. That’s a kind way to put it. Google will continue developing these tools and will work with industry partners to find a path forward in the coming months. The company still hopes to see adoption of the Privacy Sandbox increase, but the industry is unlikely to give up on cookies voluntarily.

While Google focuses on how ad privacy has improved since it began working on the Privacy Sandbox, the changes in Google’s legal exposure are probably more relevant. Since launching the program, Google has lost three antitrust cases, two of which are relevant here: the search case currently in the remedy phase and the newly decided ad tech case. As the government begins arguing that Chrome gives Google too much power, it would be a bad look to force a realignment of the advertising industry using the dominance of Chrome.

In some ways, this is a loss—tracking cookies are undeniably terrible, and Google’s proposed alternative is better for privacy, at least on paper. However, universal adoption of the Privacy Sandbox could also give Google more power than it already has, and the supposed privacy advantages may never have fully materialized as Google continues to seek higher revenue.

Google won’t ditch third-party cookies in Chrome after all Read More »

Google Messages can now blur unwanted nudes, remind people not to send them

Apps, Google, messaging, Tech / Kris Guyer / April 23, 2025

Google announced last year that it would deploy safety tools in Google Messages to help users avoid unwanted nudes by automatically blurring the content. Now, that feature is finally beginning to roll out. Spicy image-blurring may be enabled by default on some devices, but others will need to turn it on manually. If you don’t see the option yet, don’t fret. Sensitive Content Warnings will arrive on most of the world’s Android phones soon enough.

If you’re an adult using an unrestricted phone, Sensitive Content Warnings will be disabled by default. For teenagers using unsupervised phones, the feature is enabled but can be disabled in the Messages settings. On supervised kids’ phones, the feature is enabled and cannot be disabled on-device. Only the Family Link administrator can do that. For everyone else, the settings are available in the Messages app settings under Protection and Safety.

To make the feature sufficiently private, all the detection happens on the device. As a result, there was some consternation among Android users when the necessary components began rolling out over the last few months. For people who carefully control the software installed on their mobile devices, the sudden appearance of a package called SafetyCore was an affront to the sanctity of their phones. While you can remove the app (it’s listed under “Android System SafetyCore”), it doesn’t take up much space and won’t be active unless you enable Sensitive Content Warnings.

Google Messages can now blur unwanted nudes, remind people not to send them Read More »

Chrome on the chopping block as Google’s search antitrust trial moves forward

ai search, antitrust, department of justice, Google, Policy / Kris Guyer / April 22, 2025

The court ruled that Google has a search monopoly. Now, we learn the consequences.

The remedy phase of Google’s search antitrust trial is getting underway, and the government is seeking to force major changes. The next few weeks could reshape Google as a company and significantly alter the balance of power on the Internet, and both sides have a plan to get their way.

With opening arguments beginning today, the US Justice Department will seek to convince the court that Google should be forced to divest Chrome, unbundle Android, and make other foundational changes. But Google will attempt to paint the government’s position as too extreme and rooted in past grievances. No matter what happens at this trial, Google hasn’t given up hope it can turn back time.

Advantage for Justice Dept.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has a major advantage here: Google is guilty. It lost the liability phase of this trial resoundingly, with the court finding Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power.” As far as the court is concerned, Google has an illegal monopoly in search services and general search advertising. The purpose of this trial is to determine what to do about it, and the DOJ has some ideas.

This case, overseen by United States District Judge Amit Mehta, is taking place against a backdrop that is particularly unflattering for Google. It has been rocked by loss after loss in its antitrust cases, including the Epic-backed Google Play case, plus the search case that is at issue here. And just last week, a court ruled that Google abused its monopoly in advertising tech. The remedies in Google’s app store case are currently on hold pending appeal, but that problem is not going away. Meanwhile, Google is facing even more serious threats in the remedy phase of this trial.

The DOJ will come out guns blazing—it sees this as the most consequential antitrust case in the US since the Microsoft trial of the 1990s. The effects of breaking up Google could even rival the impact of antitrust actions against AT&T and Standard Oil decades earlier. We also expect to be reminded repeatedly that virtually every state has joined the government’s case against Google, indicating wide understanding that the market is not operating fairly.

A large seal of a white, Classical Revival-style office building is flanked by flags.

It’s no secret that incentives at the federal level are shifting as the second Trump administration politicizes the Justice Department to an unprecedented degree. Despite the new divisions, opinions are remarkably unified on the Google search case. The DOJ team has successfully made the case that Google is a monopolist, and now they have to enforce the law. The new conservative leadership sees Google as a principal source of the “censorship” of right-wing ideology, which they largely interpret as a downstream effect of Google’s undue market power.

This phase of the case is not about whether or not Google did it; the goal is to decide how to change Google. The DOJ tells Ars that it believes Google’s proposed remedies are anemic and won’t move the needle at all. In this case, government lawyers will argue that the playing field cannot be leveled unless Google gives something up, and that something ought to be Chrome. The government will attempt to show that Google’s handling of Chrome creates a barrier to competition, preferencing Google’s services over the competition.

The DOJ has suggested there are numerous entities that could acquire Chrome and instantly realign online markets, but Google is going to push back hard on that. The government will counter by producing multiple witnesses from Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Microsoft, and others to explain how their search businesses were stymied by Google and how hacking off Chrome could rectify that.

The DOJ is also interested in Google’s search placement deals—for example, paying Apple and Mozilla billions of dollars to make Google their default search engine. In the government’s view, this forced rivals to nibble around the edges after being locked out by Google’s contracts. The DOJ will try to have these contracts banned in addition to forcing the sale of Chrome.

Not done fighting

Google has already announced its preferred remedies in this case, which amount to less exclusivity in search contracts and more freedom for Android OEMs to choose app preloads. Google says it would also accept additional government oversight to ensure it abides by these remedies.

In the remedy phase, Google will try to portray the Justice Department’s proposal as heavy-handed and emblematic of the agency’s “interventionist agenda.” We expect to see Google looking for any opportunity to make the DOJ look out of touch with the realities of technology today.

Google says it will spend a lot of time arguing against the DOJ’s attempt to end search placement deals, and it will have some backup here in the form of representatives from Mozilla and Apple, both of which are paid billions of dollars per year to make Google their default search engine. These firms will explain Google’s services are the best available, and that’s why they use them. In the case of Mozilla, almost all the foundation’s revenue comes from Google, and Google doesn’t dispute that. In fact, it has noted in the past (and surely will again at the trial) that Mozilla would fold without all that Google money, and that’s bad for user choice. However, the DOJ will probably point out that the massive revenue Apple and Mozilla get from these deals makes their testimony less reliable.

Another pillar of Google’s opposition will be the privacy and security implications of the DOJ’s demand for data sharing. The DOJ will claim this is essential to help other search providers to compete, but Google will paint this as a threat to the privacy of user data. And then there’s the national security angle, which Google has been pushing harder since the start of the year.

More than anything else, Google doesn’t want to lose Chrome. We expect to see Google’s established opposition to Chrome divestiture cranked up to 11 in the remedy phase. The company will no doubt be able to point to many instances where it acted as a benevolent steward of the open web through the dominance of Chrome. It chose to make Chromium open source and has kept it that way, even though it could have made more money keeping the code to itself.

There is uncertainty about the future of Chrome if it’s sold off, and a Google spokesperson suggests the company will capitalize on that. Google’s legal team will forecast a world in which Chrome has become less secure without Google’s involvement, the Chromium project has crumbled, and browser choice has cratered. Google says its goal of providing easy access to its products and services gives it a strong incentive to keep Chrome free and open, which may not be the case for its new owner. The DOJ would call that self-dealing, of course.

While the government has backed away from the stringent AI investment limits in its original remedy request, Google still worries its AI efforts could be hampered by limits on self-dealing. We expect Google to talk about the rapid pace of changes in AI today, portraying this case as too focused on how the search market worked a decade ago. The company may even go so far as to admit it’s losing ground to the likes of OpenAI as more people use AI to get answers to their questions instead of traditional web search. But can a company worth $2 trillion count on anyone feeling sorry for it?

A time of consequence

The trial will run for a few weeks, and later on, we’ll learn what remedies the court has decided to impose. That doesn’t mean anything will change for Google in the short- or medium-term, though. All the lawyering should be done by early May, and then it’s up to Judge Mehta to decide on the final remedies, which could come as late as August 2025.

That won’t be the end of things. Google is adamant that it plans to appeal the case, but it has to go through the remedy phase first. Google may be able to get the remedies paused while it pursues a new verdict, similar to the current state of the app store case. Much of what the DOJ wants would fundamentally alter the nature of Google’s business, making it difficult to undo the changes if Google does prevail on appeal.

Even if Google can maintain the status quo for the foreseeable future, the company could be headed into Google I/O in late May with a sword of Damocles dangling over its metaphorical head. Google has enjoyed years of growth so stupendous and unprecedented that it reshaped media and commerce. If Google is forced to give up a key product like Chrome or lose its default status in popular products, there’s no telling how the Internet could change. One thing is certain, though. The next few weeks will be the most consequential for Google since it went public more than 20 years ago.

Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he’s written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards.

Chrome on the chopping block as Google’s search antitrust trial moves forward Read More »