In today’s Bulldog wrapup of science and technology news:

  • WikiLeaks: CIA hacked Apple devices in ways users can’t fix
  • Google’s YouTube losing major advertisers upset with videos
  • ​Rare frog discovery has researchers hopping for joy
  • 17,000 AT&T workers back on the job

The details:

  • WikiLeaks: CIA hacked Apple devices in ways users can’t fix

New documents from WikiLeaks point to an apparent CIA program to hack Apple’s iPhones and Mac computers using techniques that users couldn’t disable by resetting their devices.

Security experts say the exploits are plausible, but suggest they pose little threat to typical users. They say that many of the tricks are older — the iPhone hack involves the 3G model from 2008, for instance. The techniques also typically require physical access to devices, something the CIA would use only for targeted individuals, not a broader population.

“The most notable part of this latest WikiLeaks release is that it shows the CIA doing exactly what we pay them to — exploit specific targets with limited attacks to support our national interests,” said Rich Mogull, CEO of the security research firm Securosis.

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment. The CIA has not commented on the authenticity of this and earlier WikiLeaks revelations, but has previously said it complies with a legal prohibition against electronic surveillance “targeting individuals here at home, including our fellow Americans.” The agency declined further comment Thursday.

  • Google’s YouTube losing major advertisers upset with videos

AT&T, Verizon and several other major advertisers are suspending their marketing campaigns on Google’s YouTube site after discovering their brands have been appearing alongside videos promoting terrorism and other unsavory subjects.

The spreading boycott confronts Google with a challenge that threatens to cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.

YouTube’s popularity stems from its massive and eclectic library of video, spanning everything from polished TV clips to raw diatribes posted by people bashing homosexuals.

But that diverse selection periodically allows ads to appear next to videos that marketers find distasteful, despite Google’s efforts to prevent it from happening.

Google depends largely on automated programs to place ads in YouTube videos because the job is too much for humans to handle on their own. About 400 hours of video is now posted on YouTube each minute.

Earlier this week, Google vowed to step up its efforts to block ads on “hateful, offensive and derogatory” videos.

“We know that this is unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

As part of Google’s solution to the problem, Schindler promised to hire “significant numbers” of employees to review YouTube videos and flag them as inappropriate for ads. He also predicted YouTube would be able to address advertisers’ concerns through Google’s recent advancements in artificial intelligence — technology parlance for computers that learn to think like humans.

  • Rare frog discovery has researchers hopping for joy

A discovery involving a rare California frog has researchers hopping for joy.

Nine egg masses from the California red-legged frog were discovered on March 14 in a creek in the Santa Monica Mountains, which stretch from Los Angeles westward along the Malibu coast into Ventura County.

The threatened species hasn’t been seen naturally in the mountains since the 1970s and the National Park Service has been trying to rebuild the population by transplanting eggs from a population in the nearby Simi Hills.

The discovery of new egg masses indicates that after four years of effort, the population is showing signs of sustaining itself without human help, although transplants will continue, the park service indicated.

“I was literally crying when the stream team showed me the photos of egg masses,” Katy Delaney, a National Park Service ecologist with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said in a statement. “The years of work we’ve put in is showing amazing progress. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but this is a major moment for the project.”

Red-legged frogs famously appear in the Mark Twain story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

  • 17,000 AT&T workers back on the job

Some 17,000 AT&T workers in California and Nevada returned to their jobs Thursday after a one-day walkout. They had been protesting changes in job duties for some employees.

A Communications Workers of America union local official had said Wednesday that AT&T was asking technicians who install cable to also work outside maintaining phone and cable wires, which is a higher-paid job. The CWA said Thursday that AT&T will no longer require technicians to do work tasks that they weren’t trained to do. AT&T says its agreement with the union “clarified some work processes on assignments for a group of technicians.”

The strike had taken people who install cable and phone service and who work in call centers off the job. AT&T says it had contingency plans.

Negotiations continue over new contracts for workers.