IT news January 8: Telegram allows you to calculate the exact location of users, JetBrains was accused of involvement in hacking American companies, the first AR effect appeared on TikTok

Today in the news selection:

• Telegram's feature allows you to calculate the exact location of users.
• JetBrains was accused of involvement in hacking American companies and government agencies.
• TikTok has the first augmented reality effect.
• Google Phone will automatically record calls from unknown numbers.
• Artificial intelligence was trained to draw a floor plan based on a short video clip.
• IT specialists are recognized as the most promising profession in Russia.
• There's a new Live View option coming to Microsoft Teams.

Telegram feature allows you to calculate the exact location of users

The People Nearby option in Telegram allows you to set the exact geographic location of users. The vulnerability is already being exploited for spam in geochat groups (local groups where people close to each other communicate). In addition, obtaining information about a person’s exact geolocation by outsiders can pose a threat to his safety. Expert Ahmet Hassan found out that an attacker just needs to download an application to fake his geographic coordinates, for example, Fake GPS location , and measure the distance to the victim from three different points within 12 km (the range of the “People Nearby” function). Next, you need to go to Google Earth Pro , enter three sets of coordinates and draw circles around your fictitious location with the radius specified by Telegram. The intersection point of the three circles will indicate the exact location of the person. According to Hassan, he reported the vulnerability to the Telegram team, but was told that they did not see a problem in this situation. Users of the messenger, when activating the option, consciously agree to the transfer of their geolocation. By default it is disabled. Source: Android Police

JetBrains was accused of involvement in hacking American companies and government agencies

The New York Times published an article , the authors of which did not rule out that JetBrains, “a Russian company headquartered in the Czech Republic,” was involved in a series of large-scale cyber hacks of government agencies and companies in the United States. The publication claims that government experts and officials are studying the possibility that the hacking of dozens of internal networks of American government agencies occurred through a backdoor in JetBrains software. In their accusations, the journalists refer to the recently published FireFly report on the hacking of SolarWinds systems. The document indicates that Russian hackers used a loophole in the server software for continuous integration and deployment of TeamCity from JetBrains to hack. JetBrains representative Maxim Shafirov rejected the version of the company's possible involvement in the hacker attack. According to him, "if TeamCity was somehow used in this process, it could be due to a misconfiguration rather than a specific vulnerability." Source: New York Times

TikTok has its first augmented reality effect

TikTok on its official Twitter account demonstrated the first augmented reality effect in the history of the social network. It uses the LIDAR sensor present in the iPhone 12 Pro. The 19-second video demonstrates the AR effect in action: first, an image of balloons appears that form the current year's date: “2021.” Confetti then rains down and falls onto the floor and sofa. Apple first introduced the LiDAR scanner in the iPad Pro in spring 2020 and then added it to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. The scanner works by emitting infrared light to measure the distance to objects, allowing the device to create an accurate 3D map of the scene. Source: 9to5mac

Google Phone will automatically record calls from unknown numbers

The Google Pixel line of smartphones will soon feature a feature to automatically record calls from unknown numbers. This is evidenced by lines of code found when parsing the latest update to the Google Phone app (version 59). The code mentions new dialog messages that, once the feature is deployed, will alert users when a phone call is about to be recorded. The first line of the new feature tells the user a disclaimer: “You or the other person on the call may be in a country that requires consent to be recorded. Everyone will be notified in advance that the call is being recorded. You must comply with call recording laws. The recordings are stored only on your phone." Users will also see a confirmation dialog asking the gadget owner if they want to enable automatic call recording for numbers not in their contacts list. The option has two options: “Always record” and “Cancel”. Source: Xda-developers

Artificial intelligence was trained to draw a floor plan from a short video clip

Researchers from Facebook, the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Mellon University have developed an artificial intelligence method called AV-Map, which can draw the layout of an apartment or an entire floor after watching a short video clip. Previously, visualizing an enclosed space typically required analyzing data from 3D sensors and multiple photographs taken in each room from different angles. AV-Map uses video with multi-channel audio to create a 2D floor plan. Artificial intelligence analyzes not only the briefly shown video image, but also the sound. It gives information about the area and purpose of the room. For example, the sound of a shower running may indicate the direction of the bathroom, or the sound of a microwave oven may indicate the direction of the kitchen. All data is then combined using a decoder. Source: Venture Beat

IT specialists are recognized as the most promising profession in Russia

Every eighth Russian (13%) named IT specialists as the most promising profession in 2021. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by the Rabota.ru and Sberservice services. Among 13% of respondents, 11% believe that programmers will be the most in demand on the labor market; another 1% of respondents named developers and system administrators each. After IT specialists, the second most promising profession in Russia is the medical profession (8%). At the same time, 3% of respondents each chose healthcare workers and infectious disease specialists. Virologists and pharmacists - 1% each. The list of the most relevant professions is completed by government representatives: deputies (4%), president (3%) and ministers (2%). Source: TASS

Microsoft Teams is getting a new Live View option

Teamwork app Microsoft Teams will soon get a new feature that improves the visibility of slides and speakers during meetings and events. A feature called Dynamic View was rolled out to the PC version of Teams in March of this year. The main feature of Dynamic View is that the user will be able to adjust the size of individual parts of the screen - for example, slides broadcast in a group meeting or event. This will improve the experience in Teams virtual meetings, where each participant is currently only visible on a small portion of the screen. “New controls let you personalize the look and feel to suit your preferences and needs. For example, users will be able to display shared content and specific participants side by side,” Microsoft said in a blog post. Source: ZDNet