(Click on image to greatly Enlarge)

Yesterday the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Google titled "Preventing Eavesdropping Resources From Acquiring Unauthorized Data Via Mechanically Excitable Sensors."

At this years' 'Made by Google" Event, Jen Fitzpatrick, SVP for Google Core Systems & Experiences, detailed Google's commitment to user privacy and security on Pixel 7 smartphones. Below is Fitzpatrick's Keynote segment presented on October sixth.

Whether their patent-pending Preventing Eavesdropping system will be something introduced in 2023 is unknown at this time. For now, check out the overview of their invention below.

Google's patent application begins by noting that many electronic devices, such as smartphones, include numerous sensors configured to sense various characteristics associated with an external environment or a user. These sensors enable electronic devices to acquire data, perform calculations, and/or provide valuable information to users.

For instance, some electronic devices include microphones configured to receive and convert sound waves into electrical energy and, thereby, enable electronic devices to amplify, transmit, or record audio. In still further instances, some electronic devices include inertial measurement units configured to measure an angular rate, velocity, gravitational force, and/or orientation of an electronic device. These, and other sensors not mentioned, are highly valued by users in electronic devices due to their utility.

Yet in some cases, however, unauthorized resources (e.g., applications, malware, internet webpage) can exploit or abuse some of these sensors to acquire unauthorized data.

For example, a pressure sensor in an electronic device may be exploited to detect sound, including speech of a user or tones produced by an automated teller machine (ATM) when entering a password identification number (PIN), since sound is the propagation of pressure waves through a medium.

In another instance, an inertial measurement unit in an electronic device may be exploited to detect inputs at the device, including keystrokes at a keyboard, and used determine (e.g., keystroke decoding) data about a user.

As a result, unauthorized actors may exploit mechanically excitable sensors to acquire unauthorized data by which to determine characteristics of an environment or a user.

To this end, Google's patent application describes techniques and apparatuses directed at preventing eavesdropping resources from acquiring unauthorized data via mechanically excitable sensors.

Privacy Manager: In aspects, an electronic device includes a privacy manager configured to analyze one or more signals generated by a mechanically excitable sensor. Responsive to the analysis, the privacy manager may extract unauthorized data from the one or more signals based on a signal received at a mechanical transducer, and further based on calibration data collected during an interaction between the mechanically excitable sensor and the mechanical transducer during a prior calibration sequence.

Although systems and techniques for preventing eavesdropping resources from acquiring unauthorized data via mechanically excitable sensors are described in Google's patent filing, they note that "it is to be understood that the subject of the appended Claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or methods described. Rather, the specific features and methods are disclosed as example implementations and reference is made to the operating environment by way of example only."

Google's patent FIG. 1 below illustrates an example implementation of an electronic device having a plurality of sensors and a privacy manager; FIG. 3 illustrates an example implementation of mechanically excitable sensors; and FIG. 4 illustrates the privacy manager implementing a machine-learned technique.

Google's patent FIG. 5 below illustrates an example implementation of an electronic device having the privacy manager configured to prevent eavesdropping resources from acquiring unauthorized data via mechanically excitable sensors.

Google's patent FIG. 7 above depicts a method configured to prevent eavesdropping resources from acquiring unauthorized data via mechanically excitable sensors.

For more details, review Google's patent application 20220322079 AI.

It must be said that while Jen Fitzpatrick's keynote segment on privacy and security sounded sincere, news of Google being fined $85 million by Arizona for illegally collecting user data on the very same day was damaging. Arizona attorney's stated that Google kept collecting user data even after they disabled the feature that allows recording location data. So, Fitzpatrick claiming that "Every day, our teams of world-class privacy and security experts help protect your personal information," is a little hard to take very seriously. 

The news report added that other States such as Texas, Washington D.C. and Indiana have filed similar suits. 

With that said, if Google is ever to challenge iPhone dominance in the U.S., proving that their privacy and security is actually real is simply a must. Until then, we'll see if the lawsuits continue to mount against Google on the issue of data privacy and wait for real change.

For now, at least on paper, today's patent-pending invention sounds promising, considering that most consumers don't even know that this level of malware eavesdropping is even possible.  

Posted by Jack Purcher on October 12, 2022 at 08:15 AM in 5. Patently Extra News - Industry News+, 9. Patently Mobile (Non-Apple Patents) | Permalink | Comments (0)

The comments to this entry are closed.