Wmrmecho

Over the past several months, the Threat Analysis Group has identified an ongoing campaign targeting security researchers working on vulnerability research and development at different companies and organizations. The actors behind this campaign, which we attribute to a government-backed entity based in North Korea, have employed a number of means to target researchers which we will outline below. We hope this post will remind those in the security research community that they are targets to government-backed attackers and should remain vigilant when engaging with individuals they have not previously interacted with.

In order to build credibility and connect with security researchers, the actors established a research blog and multiple Twitter profiles to interact with potential targets. They've used these Twitter profiles for posting links to their blog, posting videos of their claimed exploits and for amplifying and retweeting posts from other accounts that they control.

Their blog contains write-ups and analysis of vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed, including “guest” posts from unwitting legitimate security researchers, likely in an attempt to build additional credibility with other security researchers.

While we are unable to verify the authenticity or the working status of all of the exploits that they have posted videos of, in at least one case, the actors have faked the success of their claimed working exploit. On Jan 14, 2021, the actors shared via Twitter a YouTube video they uploaded that proclaimed to exploit CVE-2021-1647, a recently patched Windows Defender vulnerability. In the video, they purported to show a successful working exploit that spawns a cmd.exe shell, but a careful review of the video shows the exploit is fake. Multiple comments on YouTube identified that the video was faked and that there was not a working exploit demonstrated. After these comments were made, the actors used a second Twitter account (that they control) to retweet the original post and claim that it was “not a fake video.”

Security researcher targeting

The actors have been observed targeting specific security researchers by a novel social engineering method. After establishing initial communications, the actors would ask the targeted researcher if they wanted to collaborate on vulnerability research together, and then provide the researcher with a Visual Studio Project. Within the Visual Studio Project would be source code for exploiting the vulnerability, as well as an additional DLL that would be executed through Visual Studio Build Events. The DLL is custom malware that would immediately begin communicating with actor-controlled C2 domains. An example of the VS Build Event can be seen in the image below.

In addition to targeting users via social engineering, we have also observed several cases where researchers have been compromised after visiting the actors’ blog. In each of these cases, the researchers have followed a link on Twitter to a write-up hosted on blog.br0vvnn[.]io, and shortly thereafter, a malicious service was installed on the researcher’s system and an in-memory backdoor would begin beaconing to an actor-owned command and control server. At the time of these visits, the victim systems were running fully patched and up-to-date Windows 10 and Chrome browser versions. At this time we’re unable to confirm the mechanism of compromise, but we welcome any information others might have. Chrome vulnerabilities, including those being exploited in the wild (ITW), are eligible for reward payout under Chrome's Vulnerability Reward Program. We encourage anyone who discovers a Chrome vulnerability to report that activity via the Chrome VRP submission process.

These actors have used multiple platforms to communicate with potential targets, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, Discord, Keybase and email. We are providing a list of known accounts and aliases below. If you have communicated with any of these accounts or visited the actors’ blog, we suggest you review your systems for the IOCs provided below. To date, we have only seen these actors targeting Windows systems as a part of this campaign.

If you are concerned that you are being targeted, we recommend that you compartmentalize your research activities using separate physical or virtual machines for general web browsing, interacting with others in the research community, accepting files from third parties and your own security research.

Actor controlled sites and accounts

• https://blog.br0vvnn[.]io

• https://twitter.com/br0vvnn
  
• https://twitter.com/BrownSec3Labs
  
• https://twitter.com/dev0exp
  
• https://twitter.com/djokovic808
  
• https://twitter.com/henya290 
  
• https://twitter.com/james0x40
  
• https://twitter.com/m5t0r
  
• https://twitter.com/mvp4p3r
  
• https://twitter.com/tjrim91
  
• https://twitter.com/z0x55g
  

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-brown-a6678b1b8/
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/guo-zhang-b152721bb/
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/hyungwoo-lee-6985501b9/
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/linshuang-li-aa696391bb/
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/rimmer-trajan-2806b21bb/

• https://keybase.io/zhangguo
  

• https://t.me/james50d
  

• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/4c3499f3cc4a4fdc7e67417e055891c78540282dccc57e37a01167dfe351b244/detection (VS Project DLL)
  
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/68e6b9d71c727545095ea6376940027b61734af5c710b2985a628131e47c6af7/detection (VS Project DLL)
  
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/25d8ae4678c37251e7ffbaeddc252ae2530ef23f66e4c856d98ef60f399fa3dc/detection (VS Project Dropped DLL)
  
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a75886b016d84c3eaacaf01a3c61e04953a7a3adf38acf77a4a2e3a8f544f855/detection (VS Project Dropped DLL)
  
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a4fb20b15efd72f983f0fb3325c0352d8a266a69bb5f6ca2eba0556c3e00bd15/detection (Service DLL)
  

• angeldonationblog[.]com
  
• codevexillium[.]org
  
• investbooking[.]de
  
• krakenfolio[.]com
  
• opsonew3org[.]sg
  
• transferwiser[.]io
  
• transplugin[.]io
  

• trophylab[.]com
  
• www.colasprint[.]com
  
• www.dronerc[.]it
  
• www.edujikim[.]com
  
• www.fabioluciani[.]com
  

• https[:]//angeldonationblog[.]com/image/upload/upload.php
  
• https[:]//codevexillium[.]org/image/download/download.asp
  
• https[:]//investbooking[.]de/upload/upload.asp
  
• https[:]//transplugin[.]io/upload/upload.asp
  
• https[:]//www.dronerc[.]it/forum/uploads/index.php
  
• https[:]//www.dronerc[.]it/shop_testbr/Core/upload.php
  
• https[:]//www.dronerc[.]it/shop_testbr/upload/upload.php
  
• https[:]//www.edujikim[.]com/intro/blue/insert.asp
  
• https[:]//www.fabioluciani[.]com/es/include/include.asp
  
• http[:]//trophylab[.]com/notice/images/renewal/upload.asp
  
• http[:]//www.colasprint[.]com/_vti_log/upload.asp
  

Host IOCs

• Registry Keys

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\KernelConfig

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverConfig

• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\SSL Update 

• File Paths

• C:\Windows\System32\Nwsapagent.sys

• C:\Windows\System32\helpsvc.sys

• C:\ProgramData\USOShared\uso.bin

• C:\ProgramData\VMware\vmnat-update.bin

• C:\ProgramData\VirtualBox\update.bin

The year 2020 felt particularly sluggish—and simultaneously much, much too fast. With so many things happening in the world (and far fewer things happening in my day-to-day quarantine life), it’d be easy to forget what exactly occurred and when. 

So humor us while we—gasp!—revisit the past year a bit, and take a look at some of what we worked on here at Google. Because as slow as the year may have felt at times, what didn’t happen in 2020? 

1. As COVID-19 began to spread, we made sure that Google products were supporting people during the pandemic—and especially what Search and News could do to surface relevant, accurate information. More than once, we turned to Dr. Karen DeSalvo, our Chief Health Officer, for her insights on the pandemic, including information about the coming vaccines. In April, we partnered with Apple to use Bluetooth technology to create Exposure Notifications System, which is now being used by public health authorities in more than 50 countries, states and regions around the world to anonymously inform people if they’ve come into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

2. Part of fighting COVID-19 means supporting businesses and communities. Our $800 million commitment to small and medium-sized businesses was one of these initial efforts. We made it easier for businesses to update their profiles using Search and Maps, and gave them new ways to communicate with customers. For people who needed to find work or forge new careers, we launched a new suite of Google Career Certificate programs. We also found ways to support Black-owned businesses, with new funding for Black founders and the launch of the Black-owned business attribute for Business Profiles.

3. Finding jobs and helping businesses succeed was only one part of the transition: How people worked hugely changed. As more people worldwide began working from home, we shared resources to make the transition easier. Our experts offered tips on how to make your home work environment more efficient, and about their methods for fighting screen fatigue. We also investigated the “why?” behind some of the WFH feelings people everywhere were having—like why remote meetings just aren’t the same as the real thing.

4. Remote teaching isn’t the same, either. My sister, who lives with me, teaches third-grade online, and I’m completely in awe of how hard she works. This year, we offered resources on how to keep learning even without internet access. The Anywhere School introduced more than 50 new features, like a Tech ToolKit for families who need help troubleshooting, and ways for instructors to introduce polls into Meet. And we launched new tools for parents who became teachers. We also heard personal distance learning stories, and did our best to tell educators how thankful we are for their work. (Thanks, Vicki!)

5. The passage of time can be marked by eras of emoji. World Emoji Day coincided with the introduction of critters like 🦬 and 🐻‍❄️. And it really just wouldn’t be 2020 if new emoji mashups didn’t include the 😷 emoji and a few new ways to get in our feelings. Oh, my top emoji of 2020? Thanks for asking! Obviously, they were 😬, 🥴, 🙃, 💞 and 🍕.

6. Masks weren’t required to welcome new augmented-reality friends into our homes. From dinosaurs to kangaroos to the Cambropachycope (I know, I know, your favorite), there was no shortage of AR-created creatures at our disposal. (A popular fictional paleven made the cut.) 

7. We said goodbye to earworms with the launch of Hum to Search, a new feature where anyone can hum or sing a tune and find out what song is stuck in their head. The tool was introduced during Google’s live (streamed) Search event and talked about advancements in AI that are making Search more accessible and useful. And this year, Search became more visually friendly, allowing us to do things like use Google Lens to shop or turn to AR for help with homework.

8. Search isn’t the only Google tool that’s improved leaps and bounds since its inception: Google Maps turned 15! To mark this milestone, we rolled out a fresh look and helpful new features and also looked back on the journey. The work hardly ended there: Maps and Search also debuted real-time wildfire maps and information. And as the spread of COVID-19 affected how people moved around this year, Maps released multiple new features focused on helping people stay informed and safe and make decisions around travel, and My Maps was an incredibly important resource for communities everywhere, helping people find food banks and testing sites, among so many other things.

9. “The world must act now if we’re going to avert the worst consequences of climate change,” CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in September, announcing our latest efforts at achieving a carbon-free future, and eliminating our carbon legacy entirely. More good news: data centers are more energy efficient than ever. But small changes can make a difference, too: We shared tips on how everyone could become more sustainable at home. Other projects included hitting our hardware sustainability goals—and creating news ones—and making sure our own construction principles go above and beyond.

10. One thing we all relied on in 2020 was video calling. In May, we made Google Meet free for all—andthrough March 2021 all free Meet users can enjoy unlimited meetings without having to worry about the 60-minute time limit. Plus, a handful of new features specifically geared to help teachers with video schooling were added, and we shared tips on how to make sure video conferences are accessible to everyone. And I set my grandma up with a Nest Hub Max so we can video chat, and Google partnered with senior care centers so their residents could do the same with their families.

11. The world has been intensely focused on health during the pandemic—including mental health. We took an in-depth look at Blue Dot, an employee resource group at Google that works to normalize conversations about mental health. The Digital Wellbeing team worked on giving you more control and transparency over selfies, and Search launched an anxiety self-assessment tool. On a more personal level, Googler Carly Schwartz shared her journey to sobriety, and how Google tools can help others who are looking for help.

12. Despite the challenges of 2020, Googlers continued doing amazing things. We met Fabiana Fregonesi, a scuba diver who photographs and advocates for sharks, and Sarah Torney, who used old family photos to take us to turn-of-the-century San Francisco. And of course, in true 2020 fashion, more than a few Googlers came up with creative new hobbies for their time spent at home. Speaking of fashion: AI Engineer Dale Markowitz showed us how to use machine learning to create your own stylist.

All this just skims the surface: We also talked about what it’s like to work at home with our dogs and offered mobile photography tips—and yes, while time became more and more of a construct, it really was just this year that we introduced new Pixel phones and Nest devices. 

But with all that said, I think it’s time to say goodbye to this year. Farewell, 2020, and thanks for giving us plenty to write about. Here’s to ending the year on a grateful note, and looking forward to the next one with hope. 

Checkout the song, ‘Together,’ the backing track to Year in Search.

In a year unlike any other, we knew Google’s 2020 Year in Search campaign would need to take a unique approach. Each year, Google Trends data reflects not only everyday queries, but also the moments, people and ideas that defined that year. Inspired by the year’s Trends data, music producer Peter CottonTale created the song highlighted in Year in Search.

Peter wrote and produced the song “Together”in collaboration with Chance the Rapper, Cynthia Erivo, the Chicago Children’s Choir, Matt Jones (of Re-Collective Orchestra,) and Rachel Robinson and Jamila Woods. “Together” acknowledges 2020’s heartaches and challenges, as well as the need for communities to come together. Ultimately, Peter’s song delivers a message of hope.

We sat down with Peter to learn more about his creative process, why this song meant so much to him and the importance of lifting Black voices.

What inspired Together?

After hearing about the plans for Year in Search, the context and vision for the project really stood out. From health concerns to the spotlight on the Black struggle, it felt like the right way to help contextualize, increase representation and create opportunities for all of those involved through Google’s Year in Search campaign. My hope is that showcasing opportunities for Black artists with Google will lead to more opportunities and other projects down the road. 

Tell us about your creative process. 

We had initial meetings discussing what 2020 has meant to people. The cast of people involved in creating the music and the film were, if not leaders themselves, surrounded by leaders who in their own way are pushing for change in the community. It was also about giving everyone hope and a bit of celebration too. We wanted to show that by working together, growing together, we will get through this.

How did you select the talent that helped bring your vision to reality?

In a year where the focus has been on Black women, I wanted to showcase and highlight amazing Black women artists and writers.  I worked with Jamila Woods and Young Chicago Authors to develop some of the early concepts for the record. Cynthia Erivo, an amazing artist and Black woman,  was the featured female vocalist on the track. And we also included Black artists from a variety of different genres and experiences. To really capture the essence of this year, we asked the Chicago Children’s Choir to join the project. The organization’s social justice history and effort to bring young voices of different backgrounds together through song truly inspired me. 

What impact has this year had on you, both personally and professionally? 

This year has been the craziest year of my life so far for sure, and I’m sure others feel the same way too. I learned how to run and operate my recording studio in the middle of shutdowns, with virtual sessions and other offerings. I had to get really creative about how I rolled out my own music and merchandise. I was in the streets most of the summer alongside community leaders, serving and amplifying the work of friends around me who spent their summer protesting and fighting for Black Lives. And of course, I’ve had to navigate and work around production delays caused by COVID-19, so I’ve found different ways of getting things done, and grown in patience. As tough as this year has been, it has been full of blessings and so many great lessons. I’m really excited for the future.

What is your wish for the future of diversity and representation in creative fields and the music industry?

Wow, I have to pick one wish? I always wish for the progression of diversity and the advancement of authentic representation in writers rooms, media and development of culture-based environments.  So often, equity gets lost somewhere, for non-creatives and creatives alike. Black people are a disenfranchised minority who are affected by misrepresentation on a daily basis on macro and micro levels. I couldn’t possibly solve [this] with one wish.

A year ago, Google’s Quantum AI team achieved a beyond-classical computation by using a quantum computer to outperform the world’s fastest classical computer. With this, we entered a new era of quantum computing. We still have a long journey ahead of us to find practical applications, and we know we can’t get there alone. So today we’re launching qsim, a new open source quantum simulator that will help researchers develop quantum algorithms. 

The importance of simulators in quantum computing

Simulators are important tools for writing and debugging quantum code, and they’re essential for developing quantum algorithms. The few experimental quantum processors currently available, like the one that achieved a beyond-classical computation, are prone to noise and don’t perform error correction. This is where simulators like qsim come in. They allow researchers to explore quantum algorithms under idealized conditions and are more readily available. They also help prepare experiments to run on actual quantum hardware.

qsim can simulate around 30 qubits on a laptop, or up to 40 qubits in Google Cloud. What used to take an expensive cluster of computers to simulate can now be done on a single computer with qsim. We use qsim frequently at Google to test and benchmark quantum algorithms and processors. One example of this is our research in quantum neural networks. By using qsim with Cirq and TensorFlow Quantum, we’ve trained quantum ML models involving hundreds of thousands of circuits. 

Open source software tools for developing quantum algorithms

To help you get started with qsim and our other open source quantum software, we’ve launched a new website that brings together all of our tools, research initiatives, and educational material. Researchers can access our latest publications and research repositories, students can find educational resources or apply for internships, and developers interested in quantum computing can join our growing community of contributors. 

The debate over Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code is part of a bigger conversation about the nature and direction of the internet itself.  

The modern internet was designed to empower individuals — as a free, open and democratic system for the exchange of information. From its early origins in the 1960s and 70s to the massive expansion of the world wide web in the 1990s and 2000s, this design made it possible for anyone to improve the net with new ideas and applications.

At the same time, it opened up unprecedented access to information and services, with the number of websites globally growing from a few million two decades ago to more than 1.7 billion in 2019. As the internet expanded, these new websites — and the people and businesses that owned them — captured the growth in advertising revenues that came with the digital age. 

Google was founded to help users find information in this ocean of webpages. It helps to connect people to millions of businesses, service providers and knowledge sources, and enables website owners to earn money through online advertising. 

But while Google — and YouTube — open up a vast range of information, products and services, only a small portion of it relates to traditional news sources. The truth is that news content makes up a tiny proportion of the things people search for online (1 percent, in Australia). People’s searches reflect the priorities in their lives. Even if Google disappeared overnight, Australians would still need to use the internet to find a job, car, restaurant or plumber; to learn a language or get a red wine stain out of the carpet. 

The reason news businesses are making less revenue is not because Google exists. It is because in a much more open and diverse digital market, news businesses began to face competition from websites that have taken classified advertising online, including Australian platforms like Seek and Domain. In Australia, recent research from AlphaBeta makes clear that these companies have contributed to the vast majority of the recent decline in newspaper revenues. Google’s impact has been completely different: opening up an entirely new market, search advertising, helping small-to-medium businesses establish an online presence. 

It would be no more reasonable to try to return to an environment where publishers’ revenues were protected than it would be to expect Australians to go back to the Yellow Pages, Encyclopedia Britannica or Microfiche for their sources of information. The world has changed. Yet in advocating a code that serves their interests only, certain Australian news businesses are effectively arguing for the Australian Government to turn back time — to make the open internet significantly less open and its business models dramatically less diverse.  

One of the key arguments behind the code is the idea that Google should pay for news content that ‘is made available’ through Search results. But that’s not how search engines work, or should work, nor how people use them. When you search online, no matter what you’re looking for, you get links and in most cases one or two lines of text (called ‘snippets’). In the case of a news article, you only get the chance to read the full piece after clicking through to the publisher’s site. Links are the cornerstones of open access to information online; requiring a search engine (or anyone else) to pay for them undermines one of the fundamental principles of the internet as we know it today. 

The draft code would distort the open internet in other ways. Under a law forcing digital platforms to turn over information about algorithm changes, news businesses would gain access to privileged knowledge above every other business striving to compete for visibility and grow. Not only that, by imposing an arbitration model that considers only publishers’ costs and claims, it incorrectly supposes that news content always has a higher value to users than any other kind of online information or service. Raw data and human behaviour tell us this is a fallacy. 

As it is currently framed, both the premise of the code and the approach it sets out are deeply flawed. Digital platforms do not owe publishers compensation for the emergence of an internet-based economy. And undermining the foundations of a democratic internet is not a sustainable solution to one industry’s economic challenges.  

None of this is to deny that the news industry has a vital role in the working of democracy and the spread of knowledge. It does, and that role should be supported appropriately — as Google is seeking to do through commercial partnerships. 

Nor is this an argument about the merits of regulating technology at all. Around the world, as the internet expands and evolves for the better in areas like health and education, it also poses new challenges. Governments are rightly seeking to design sensible rules that can keep pace — and, where needed, keep people from harm.  

The draft news media bargaining code is not this kind of regulation. On the contrary, it is an intervention that would distort access to information and disadvantage Australians who rely on Google to share their voice and run their business. It would introduce bias into systems that were designed to be fair, and undercut a democratic internet where people compete not on their political influence, but on the value of their content. 

Google is working with the Australian Government to resolve the evident issues with the draft code and bring balance into the final version of the law. Anything else would represent a backward step towards a world that no longer exists—not just for Australia’s digital economy, but for the open internet globally. 

When my daughter Ruth was born this January, she was a handful. Literally. In the early months of her life, she refused to be put down, fussing and screaming unless we were holding her, walking up and down the hallways of our home. I became a sleep-deprived zombie, shuffling around with one arm free to get some much-needed coffee. And that was on a good day. 

I needed all the help I could get. And for me, some of that help came in the form of Google Assistant. Thanks to the Google Nest devices around my house, I was able to get things done a little easier by saying, “Hey Google, turn the temperature down” or “Hey Google, play some soothing music.”  

If you’re thinking about the frazzled parents in your life this holiday season, there are a variety of Nest products that might be just right for your gift list. Here are a few suggestions to get you started. 

For the parents who are music lovers

Whether your kid blisses out to classic rock or gets hyped up to the umpteenth playing of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” music is key to getting a little bit of peace in the house. The new Nest Audio can play songs via your favorite streaming music subscriptions with a simple voice command.

For the nursery that absolutely must be perfect

In our house, the temperature can fluctuate depending on what time of day it is. That makes it tough to make sure Ruth is at a comfy temperature for naps and nights. Luckily, the new Nest Thermostat offers Quick Schedule, which lets you set a custom temperature at different times of the day. That way, we can make sure Ruth’s nursery is at the right temperature at night, but our office isn’t stiflingly hot during the day. Plus, the thermostat is simple to use and at an affordable price, which makes it an easy fit for many families.   

For the family looking for shows to watch together

With the COVID-19 pandemic making families stay home more than usual, that means it’s extra crucial to find shows everyone agrees on. Thankfully, the new Chromecast with Google TV gives you personalized recommendations based on what you like to watch. And its new remote lets you control your smart home using Google Assistant.  

For the couple constantly shouting across the house

We have various Nest devices throughout the house, and we use them to communicate with one another. If I’m feeding Ruth in the nursery downstairs and she’s hungrier than I expect, for example, I say, “Hey Google, broadcast to Kitchen Display: ‘I need another bottle,’” so my husband can bring down a bottle. And when tracking how much she drank, we’d ask the Assistant to convert milliliters to ounces, or just do basic addition and subtraction when we were too sleepy to calculate how much she had to eat. Data-loving parents like me can also use a list to track feeding amounts and nap times via Keep, Docs or other note-taking apps. 

For the grandparents who miss their little ones

My daughter was born in the months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, so we were lucky to have family come by and help out until she was about two months old. But by March, we were quarantined, leaving the grandparents sorely missing their granddaughter. With our Nest Hub Max, we can make hands-free video calls on Google Duo—and when the baby naps, we can quickly decline a few overenthusiastic calls from Grandpa’s Nest Smart Display or smartphone app. And the Hub Max’s camera angle moves with us throughout the room, so we can get chores done (or just keep Ruth happy) while we keep in touch. 

These days, Ruth can handle being put down. (Well, at least sometimes.) But I know that Nest will keep being a helping hand as she gets older—and especially when she asks me to play cartoons on repeat. 

Editor's Note: At Google Research, we’re interested in exploring how technology can help improve people’s daily lives and experiences. So it’s been an incredible opportunity to work with Thomas Panek, avid runner and President & CEO of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, to apply computer vision for something important in his everyday life: independent exercise. Project Guideline is an early-stage research project that leverages on-device machine learning to allow Thomas to use a phone, headphones and a guideline painted on the ground to run independently. Below, Thomas shares why he collaborated with us on this research project, and what the journey has been like for him.

I’ve always loved to run. Ever since I was a boy, running has made me feel free. But when I was eight-years-old, I noticed that I couldn’t see the leaves on a tree so well, and that the stars in the night sky began to slowly disappear—and then they did forever. By the time I was a young adult, I was diagnosed as legally blind due to a genetic condition. I had to rely on a cane or a canine to guide me. For years, I gave up running.

Then I heard about running with human guides, and I decided to give it a try. It gave me a sense of belonging, holding a tether and following the guide runner in front of me. I even qualified for the New York City and Boston Marathons five years in a row. But as grateful as I was to my human guides, I wanted more independence. So in 2019, I decided to run the first half-marathon assisted only by guide dogs.

But I know it’s not possible for everyone to have a brilliant, fast companion like my guide dog, Blaze. I run an organization called Guiding Eyes for the Blind, and we work tirelessly to help people with vision loss receive running guide dogs that can help them live more active and independent lives. The problem is that there are millions more people with vision loss than there are available guide dogs. So I started asking a question: “Would it be possible to help guide a blind runner, independently?” 

In the fall of 2019, I asked that question to a group of designers and technologists at a Google hackathon. I wasn’t anticipating much more than an interesting conversation, but by the end of the day they’d built a rough demo that allowed a phone to recognize a line taped to the ground, and give audio cues to me while I walked with Blaze. We were excited, and hopeful to see if we could develop it into something more.

We began by sketching out how the prototype would work, settling on a simple concept: I’d wear a phone on a waistband, and bone-conducting headphones. The phone’s camera would look for a physical guideline on the ground and send audio signals depending on my position. If I drifted to the left of the line, the sound would get louder and more dissonant in my left ear. If I drifted to the right, the same thing would happen, but in my right ear. Within a few months, we were ready to test it on an indoor oval track. After a few adjustments, I was able to run eight laps. It was a short distance, and all with my Google teammates close by, but it was the first unguided mile I had run in decades.

Our next step was to see if the tech could work where I love running most: in the peace and serenity of a park. This brought a whole new batch of challenges to work through: variables in weather and lighting conditions and the need for new data to train the model, for starters. After months of building an on-device machine learning model to accurately detect the guideline in different environments, the team was finally ready to test the tech outside for the first time.

I’d been waiting 25 years to run outdoors, on my own. I stood at the start of the guideline, hopping up and down with excitement. When the team gave me the go-ahead, I began sprinting on my toes, as fast as my legs could carry me, down the hill and around a gentle bend in the road. As I tightened my form, my stride was getting more confident and longer with every step. I felt free, like I was effortlessly running through the clouds.

When I arrived at the finish line, I was completely overcome with emotion. My wife, Melissa, and my kids hugged me. My guide dog Blaze licked the salt off of my hand. They were happy for me, too. For the first time in a lifetime, I didn’t feel like a blind man. I felt free.

Today, we’re testing this technology further. I’ll be attempting to run NYRR’s Virtual Run for Thanks 5K along a line temporarily painted in Central Park in New York City. I want to thank NYRR, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Central Park Conservancy, NYPD, NYC Department of Sanitation and the NYC Department of Transportation for helping to make today’s 5K run possible. We want to see how this system works in urban environments, just one of the many challenges to complete before it can be used more widely. 

Collaborating on this project helped me realize a personal dream of mine. I’m so grateful to the Google team, and whoever came up with the idea of a hackathon in the first place. I hope there will be more runs with Project Guideline in my future, and for many other runners as well.

By sharing the story of how this project got started and how the tech works today, we hope to start new conversations with the larger blind and low-vision community about how, and if, this technology might be useful for them, too. As we continue our research, we hope to gather feedback from more organizations and explore painting guidelines in their communities. To learn more, please visit: goo.gle/ProjectGuideline.

On November 17, 1939, in Prague, a chemistry student named Jaroslav Franc woke up to blasts of machine gun rounds and nearby shouting. His college building was being stormed by Nazi soldiers, who were retaliating against Czechoslovak students for their repeated revolts against the current Nazi occupation of their country. Jaroslav and 1200 other university students were soon arrested and transported to a concentration camp. Czechoslovak universities were ordered to shut down.

To commemorate these events, November 17 was declared International Students' Day in 1941 by the International Students' Council meeting in London. Today, 79 years later, students around the world still celebrate the day, one of many times throughout history when young people have been willing to stand up and defend freedom and democracy, sometimes risking, and even losing, their lives.

To honor the important role of students in history, Memory of Nations, one of Europe's most extensive archives of life stories, has partnered with Google Arts & Culture to create a new exhibition exploring the Czechoslovak roots of International Students' Day through the eyes of witnesses.

Through newly digitized photographs, rare documents and, most importantly, interviews with the participants, the new exhibit tells the stories of the 1939 uprisings against the Nazis, as well as those that took place exactly 50 years later, on International Students’ Day 1989. That’s when Czechoslovak students again made history by organizing a march in protest of the oppressive Communist regime. Their peaceful demonstrations were met with violence from the state police. But the movement they started became known as the Velvet Revolution, and ultimately led to the transition to democracy. We hope that this new collection of their stories can inspire anyone, anywhere, on the value of freedom, as well as remind those who were born into it of its value.

When I first joined Google 13 years ago, I was most excited by the company's sense of exploration and possibility. Search allowed you to look up nearly any fact in the world and Maps helped you find even the most remote destination. That spirit of possibility also led to the launch of Google Expeditions, a virtual reality (VR) tool designed to bring the world into every classroom. With this product, educators took students on new adventures to experience far-away places, travel back in time or learn about cultures unlike their own. It has been truly magical to see how educators and students alike incorporated our VR tours into their imaginative curriculums.

Engaging students in the classroom has taken on an entirely different meaning this year. As schools around the world reimagine education from the ground up for a hybrid world, we’ve also been thinking deeply about how to adjust our tools to meet the moment and simultaneously build for the future. We’ve heard and recognize that immersive experiences with VR headsets are not always accessible to all learners and even more so this year, as the transition to hybrid learning has presented challenges for schools to effectively use Expeditions.

Many schools and families use Google Arts & Culture, Google’s free initiative to bring the world’s art and culture online, to experience museums, heritage sites and wonders of the world from their classrooms and homes. To continue to add to the collection, and make Expeditions 360 tours available to everyone, we're migrating most of them to Google Arts & Culture, accessible from the free site as well as the app on iOS or Android, where users can view the tours in 360 or on the web from any device. As Arts & Culture will offer many of the Expeditions tours, we'll no longer support the Expeditions app, and the app will no longer be available to download after June 30, 2021.

With the transition to the Google Arts & Culture platform, educators and students will find a vast array of culturally enriching content from around the world with collections on Natural History, Black History and Culture, the road to equality for women’s rights, and other topics like invention and discovery or fashion. Google Arts & Culture is continuing to expand its augmented reality (AR) content using interactive camera features, such as Art Filter and Art Transfer, that help you learn about cultural artifacts in new and engaging ways that would otherwise not be possible to create in the physical world.

We hope this product evolution to Google Arts & Culture will provide educators with a bridge to continue to use immersive content to transform their classrooms and enrich the learning experience for their students. As always, we’ll continue to share updates, user tips and gather feedback, and we look forward to continuing our support for the educational journeys of people around the world.

Googler Ariel Koren was at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 when more than 7,000 people from Central America were arriving in the area. Ariel, who speaks nine languages, was there serving as an interpreter for asylum seekers fighting their cases.  

Ariel, who leads Marketing for Google for Education in Latin America, knew language skills would continue to be an essential resource for migrants and refugees. She decided to team up with fellow Googler Fernanda Montes de Oca, who is also multilingual and speaks four languages. “We knew that our language skills are only valuable to the extent that we are using them actively to mobilize for others, ” says Fernanda. The two began working to create a network of volunteer translators, which they eventually called Respond Crisis Translation. 

In addition to her job leading Google for Education Ecosystems in Google Mexico, Fernanda is responsible for recruiting and training Respond’s volunteer translators. Originally, the group saw an average of five new volunteers sign up each week; now, they sometimes receive more than 20 applications a day. Fernanda thinks the increased time at home may be driving the numbers. “Many of them are looking to do something that can have a social impact while they're staying at home,” she says. Today, Respond consists of about 1,400 volunteers and offers services in 53 languages.

Fernanda says she looks for people who are passionate about the cause, have experience in legal translations and have a commitment to building out a strong  emotional support network. “Volunteers have to fight against family separation and support folks who have experienced disparate types of violence and abuse,” she says. “It’s also important to have a support network and be able to take care of yourself.” Volunteers have access to a therapist should they need it.

In January 2020, the group officially became an NGO and to date, Respond Crisis Translation has worked on about 1,600 cases, some of which have helped asylum seekers to win their cases. Respond Crisis Translation largely works on cases at the Mexico-U.S. border, but is also increasingly lending their efforts in Southern Mexico and Europe. The COVID-19 pandemic also prompted the group to explore more ways to help. Volunteers have created translated medical resources, supported domestic violence hotlines and have translated educational materials for migrant parents who are now helping their children with distance learning.  

One challenge for the team is meeting increasing demand. “We weren’t just concerned about growing, but ensuring the quality of our work as we grew,” says Ariel. “Small language details like a typo or misspelled word are frequently used to disqualify an entire asylum case. The quality of our translation work is very important because it can impact whether a case is won or lost, which can literally mean the difference between life and death or a deportation. Every time there’s a story about someone who won their case we feel a sense of relief. That’s what motivates us to keep going.” 

Ariel and Fernanda also hope Respond Crisis Translation can become an income source for indigenous language translators. Whenever they work with indigenous language speakers, Respond  asks the NGO they’re working with to provide compensation to the translator for their labor. 

Although Ariel and Fernanda didn’t expect their project to grow as quickly as it has, they’re thrilled to see the progress they’ve made. “Being a multilingual person is a very important part of my identity, so when I see that language is being used as a tool to systematically limit the fundamental right to freedom of mobility,” says Ariel. “I feel a responsibility to resist, and work alongside the language community to find solutions.” 

In February, Şeyma Yıldız was killed by her own father in Ankara, Turkey because she had posted what he thought were “inappropriate images” online. Sadly, the 16-year-old’s story is not an outlier: According to the country’s police data, 81 women were killed in domestic violence incidents this past May. 

Googler Merve Isler lives in Turkey and leads Google’s Women Techmakers efforts in the region. And it’s stories like Şeyma’s that remind her why she does this work. “Yes, the Women Techmakers program aims to increase the visibility of women in the tech industry, but it’s also about ensuring their security online.” It’s incredibly important for women in her country—and around the world—to know how to protect themselves from violence, online and off.  

In the midst of a time when women are reckoning with their safety, Merve led WTM ambassadors in Turkey to organize the Women’s Online Safety Hackathon, held virtually this past August. I recently sat down with her to hear about her experience organizing the event, and to learn more about this cause. 

What was your favorite moment from the event?

I was so impressed by the CyberGuard project presentation. CyberGuard uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to detect cyber harassment by analyzing  messages sent to the user. The team trained an artificial intelligence model using Twitter data. Then, the system could run on someone’s phone and detect if they received harassing text messages. The algorithm could detect an attack on a person at a rate of 85 percent. It also directs people using it to appropriate legal solutions and psychological support if they are being harassed. 

Were there any big learning experiences for you?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me was learning to never stay silent in these situations. It’s important to reflect on and report what’s happening so that we can defend ourselves. 

There are a lot of legal and psychological aspects that we need to learn and be aware of in order to prevent violence against women. While we react against violence against women, we need to be careful not to harm the people we try to support psychologically. Again, it's so important to never be silent about cyber attacks or situations where we’re being bullied. Being aware of how violence manifests in these moments, gathering facts and defending our rights through reporting is important. 

What are some tips you learned about keeping yourself safe online during the event? What do you hope others learn from this work?

I definitely learned a few things, and these are things that can help keep anyone safe. For starters, take control of what people can see about you online. Use your social media accounts' privacy tools to limit who can see your posts, and even how people can search for you. If you need to, make all of your photos and posts private.

Also, try not to use location tags on your posts, and don’t allow your social media apps to have access to your location data.

And always report and block harassers, or place people on restricted lists or use customized groups to only share with people you know. This is especially useful if you want to avoid confrontation.

How can people get involved with this cause?

The Purple Roof Women's Shelter Organization is another great resource that offers legal advice, medical support and counseling to women dealing with domestic violence, and to survivors of sex trafficking. In Turkey, We Will Stop Femicide was founded by the families of murdered women and it provides legal assistance to women in danger, fights cases on behalf of women who have been killed, educates Turkish women about their rights and campaigns for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention. And of course, anyone can sign up for the Women Safety Training events in their region.

Years ago, I wrote something that received some surprising criticism. I’m dyslexic, and I decided to post an update without using any of the writing tools I typically use, just to show people how useful they are. Despite the fact that I introduced the post by explaining it was an example of how challenging writing can be for someone with dyslexia, someone responded by pointing out all my spelling and grammar mistakes. 

Thankfully, most people understood my message: Yes, dyslexia can make some things harder for me, but using the right tools can be transformative.

I really like using my own experience to help others find and use the right tools for them. For more than 25 years, I’ve been championing the benefits of neurodiversity in the tech space. Neurodiversity is a concept where neurological differences are recognized and respected just like any other characteristics that differ from person to person. Dyslexia is one example of neurodiversity; ADHD is another. 

The way I think and process problems is critical to my role at Google, as I need to see the bigger picture in a very complex landscape. Over the last few decades, I’ve been a part of mentor groups as well as neurodiversity roundtables and events where we talk about what challenges and benefits there are for those who have different communication and work styles, and how we can all best excel together. I also partner with Google Cloud and Google Workspace customers through our Office of the CTO program, or OCTO, to help bring some of these learnings to people outside of Google who use our products.

Working from home has presented hurdles for all of us, myself included. I’ve found it difficult to live without a whiteboard or develop ideas when collaborating with others. But I’ve also learned a few things that have helped me adjust, and helped me and my teams. I wanted to share some tips and tools I’ve learned over the months (and in some cases, years) that can be especially useful while many of us continue to work from home. 

1. Personally, I’ve found that using the online version of Jamboard and a Pixel Pen during remote meetings—of which I now have plenty of—has been a game changer. Having a virtual whiteboard in front of me that my colleagues can also see helps bridge the disconnect between us. It’s amazing how engaging it can be seeing a solution coming alive, and how discussing it can enrich the outcome. This is especially critical with complex problems. 

2. While having your camera on during every meeting can become painful, it’s incredibly helpful for many people. I need to read body language; it often helps me know if I need to speak slower or move a little more quickly through a presentation. (Of course, I fully understand when this isn’t possible!)

3. Using captions in Google Meet is always a good idea. For me, being able to match the words that are being spoken to those typed out below helps me not miss important details, and also means I can take notes. Captions even correct speakers’ grammar mistakes, which helps with my note taking. While captions are only available in English right now, we're actively working to bring them to more languages.

4. This might sound a little obvious, but using Smart Compose and grammar suggestions features have definitely improved my writing abilities. If I’m struggling with how to write a sentence, Smart Compose can suggest ways to complete it, which saves me time. (And is especially helpful with words like “where” and “were.”)

5. The fifth and final tool that’s worked well for me is using more than one screen. I’ve found that a single screen feels very restrictive to me. I normally have three screens since I jump between tasks a lot. Many neurodiverse people like myself find it difficult to stay focused on one thing for very long. Having my work “scattered” around on different screens feels sort of like having papers all over a desk; I can pick up pieces in parallel without the need to stop and start what I’m doing. Basically, being able to easily move between the different things helps me find a flow.  

Some of these things more specifically serve neurodiverse people, while others can help anyone. But the idea is that when we’re more empathetic and attuned to what everyone on our team needs, we’re better able to perform as a group.

Editor's note: Jake Wood is the CEO of Team Rubicon, a Google.org grantee. Today, he talks about how their preparedness efforts help communities across the U.S. respond to natural disasters. 

The idea for Team Rubicon came after I finished my two tours with the Marine Corps in 2010. The devastation from the Haiti earthquake was unfolding, and I couldn't just stand idly by and watch. I realized there was an untapped resource in veterans like myself. Our collective knowledge could help communities recover from tornadoes, fires, floods and hurricanes like the one Haiti was reeling from. 

I co-founded Team Rubicon with a vision to create a team of volunteer military veterans and first responders that could help bring immediate relief to marginalized communities recovering from disasters. Lately, we’ve been building on that vision and thinking about how we can better help communities prepare before a crisis happens.To that end, we started the Resilient Cities Initiative, which focuses on recruiting, organizing, and training thousands of veterans and volunteers across 300 metropolitan areas to respond to disasters at a local level. And thanks to Google.org’s $1 million grant last year, we were able to start expandingour Resilient Cities Initiative and scale necessary structures to train a localized and skilled volunteer base.  

We expected this project to increase the resilience of cities. But 2020 gave us the opportunity to prove our hypothesis in ways we never imagined. While some had estimated this would be a record-breaking year for natural disasters, no one predicted that a pandemic would compound these crises. 

This spring, Team Rubicon volunteers saw firsthand how the spread of COVID-19 destabilized communities. With restrictions on long-distance travel, local volunteers became the only solution for direct service organizations. Simultaneously, the disaster season raged on. There were tornados and derechos in the Midwest, Hurricanes Laura, Sally, and Delta in the Southeast, and fires in the West—leaving communities across the country struggling with where to start the recovery process. Thanks to support from Google, when these disasters hit during the pandemic, we already had volunteers who lived in those communities and were able to quickly and safely go out and help. 

To date, we’ve managed hundreds of requests for assistance with food, personal protective equipment (PPE distribution), COVID-19 testing, storm response, and other efforts critical in alleviating the strain on local resources. Thousands of our volunteers have deployed to missions right within the communities they live in and have performed over 9,000 acts of service. Additionally, our food support operations have served more than 2.7 million meals and our volunteers have driven 122 thousand miles (equivalent to driving around the earth four times) to deliver 48 million pounds of food to the doorsteps of vulnerable residents across hundreds of cities. 

While Google.org's support helped fuel the success of this program, to us it was more than just funding. Google.org pushed us to think bigger, be bolder and gain the needed lessons to confront what we can expect to face for the foreseeable future.

In 2010 we set out with a big dream: to transform disaster response. We threw out the playbook and recruited a generation of people who’d served in some of the world’s most complex environments. Today, during a year of compounding crises, communities are turning to veterans to lead them through.  That’s something we can all be proud of.

Today in Kenya we’re celebrating Mashujaa Day, or National Heroes Day, and honoring the remarkable people who have shaped our nation. We are shining the spotlight on a pantheon of cultural and folk heroes, and how their superpowers continue to be the strength and heartbeat of not only the communities from which they came, but all of Kenya. We need days like these to remind us how our shared heritage and our diversity unites us as people, and it is therefore with great pride that I unveil the second chapter of the online project Utamaduni Wetu: Meet the People of Kenya, created in collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya, Google Arts & Culture and the creative agency Shujaa Stories. 

Originally launched in 2019, Utamaduni Wetu: Meet the People of Kenya is Google’s most ambitious digitization project to date in Africa, and one of the first digital content features on the subject of Kenyan communities. Everyone can now explore over 10,600 high-resolution photographs, 170 expert-curated exhibits, 80 Street Views of 16 sites and learn more about the intangible heritage and stories of the country’s 44 communities officially registered by the government. The exhibits shine light on the regions, history, traditions, morals, worldview and wisdom of Kenya’s communities, some of whose stories—usually passed on through oral history—have been written down and shared online for the first time.

Today, on Mashujaa Day, I am delighted to announce that we now have at least one superhero for each of our 44 communities, and I invite you to explore their stories on Google Arts & Culture. Originally conceived by the late Masidza Sande Galavu and Jeff Muchina of Shujaa Stories, the first 21 heroes were unveiled at an exhibition at the National Museums of Kenya  and online as part of Utamaduni Wetu: Meet the People of Kenya. Now, thanks to the leadership of Dr. Mzalendo Kibunjia, the Director General of the National Museums of Kenya, a dedicated team of researchers, curators, academics and young creatives has worked to bring 40 more stories to life. They have travelled far to get first-hand knowledge of the communities and passionately researched, documented and illustrated a total of 61 heroes spanning cultures, generations, gender and geography.

The government’s collaboration with Google Arts & Culture has democratised access to Kenya’s rich heritage and enabled more people to discover our culture and human connections in new, exciting and interactive ways. It has also encouraged real-life visits to the country’s museums, monuments and heritage sites.

I encourage you to read each of the stories, and be inspired by the achievements and bravery of each superhero. They are a celebration of the values and the heritage of the peoples of Kenya and of our unity in diversity. I would like to echo the words of the great author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who said, "The peoples of Kenya have an incredible richness of history and culture. Learning from what we already have, from all the communities, is the way into the world."

Giving Tuesday was first established in 2012 to encourage people to volunteer, advocate for a cause, donate, and perform other acts of generosity. This day has become a fundraising milestone for nonprofits: in 2019, people donated nearly $2 billion on Giving Tuesday in the U.S. alone.  

This year, Giving Tuesday is on December 1st. Giving day related search trends spike each November in the U.S. and more than half of nonprofits have reported a decrease in fundraising as a result of COVID-19. So early October is the right time to set up Ad Grants campaigns to be ready to raise funds online when the day arrives.

We compiled our top five tips for designing Ad Grants fundraising campaigns to help you prepare for Giving Tuesday:

1. Define your goals

Design your digital marketing strategy by identifying your target audience, setting organizational goals and establishing a value for each goal. Fundraising goals could include raising a certain amount of donations or generating a certain number of RSVPs for a virtual fundraising event. 

2. Update your website

Refresh your website often with clear calls to action. Since 40 percent of people will leave a page that takes longer than three secondsto load, you’ll want to test your website’s speed and get tips on how to improve it. 

3. Turn your goals into ads

4. Measure what matters

Measure your goals by tracking the actions people take on your website via conversions. Conversions are the actual website actions that complete your goals such as clicking the “Donate” or “RSVP” buttons. By tracking these conversions you can understand exactly how many people are taking the actions you want after viewing your ads.  

5. Ask for help 

If you sign up for Ad Grants, you also have access to free help from Google Ads-certified university students through the Online Marketing Challenge program. You’ll be matched with a team for hands-on support, including setting your strategy and activating new campaigns. You can also ask other nonprofits questions in our community forum, find answers to commonly asked questions in our help center, or see if other free Google tools can help your nonprofit make the most of Giving Tuesday. 

Since 2003, Google Ad Grants has provided over 115,000 nonprofits across 67 countries with free Search advertising to raise awareness for their missions, drive donations, and recruit volunteers. We hope these tips we’ve learned over the years will propel your organization to raise more funds on Giving Tuesday and set you up for sustained online growth.