Aussie spies to get $2b top-secret Amazon data centre | China-built EVs hit with duties in biggest EU trade case yet | North Korea switches TV broadcasts from Chinese satellite to Russian
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The Albanese government will spend more than $2 billion with technology giant Amazon to build and run top-secret data centres for the country’s spies and military. The Australian Financial Review
The European Union will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% from Friday on imports of electric vehicles made in China, EU officials said, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing in Brussels' largest trade case yet. Reuters
North Korea has switched state television broadcasts to a Russian satellite instead of a Chinese one, significantly reducing the number of people who can watch them. The Record by Recorded Future
ASPI
Top secret cloud and AI loomerism
The Strategist
Mike Bareja
Intelligence and defence are now data enterprises, which means they are AI enterprises. The volume and velocity of data is well beyond human scale. To extract actionable insights, shorten decision loops and empower our spies and warfighters, data must be handled at machine speed. Human-machine teaming is our only viable path forward.
The long and winding road to Amazon’s $2 billion ‘top secret cloud’ contract
Capital Brief
Dan Van Boom and Anthony Galloway
"We are following in the trend among the five eyes of having a Top Secret Cloud capability," said Mike Bareja, Deputy Director of Cyber, Technology and Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "It's been working well in the US' intelligence community since 2013 and is a huge technology and capability boost for the intelligence and defence agencies."Amazon to build $1.3bn Australian defence cloud
Financial Times
Nic Fildes
Mike Bareja, deputy director of the ASPI think-tank’s cyber, technology and security unit, said the AWS contract would play to the strategic imperative of allies in the Indo-Pacific, including Five Eyes and the smaller AUKUS group, to create a platform for data sharing that goes beyond the secure sharing of classified documents.
Australia
Aussie spies to get $2b top-secret Amazon data centre
The Australian Financial Review
Nick Bonyhady
The Albanese government will spend more than $2 billion with technology giant Amazon to build and run top-secret data centres for the country’s spies and military. The decade-long deal will let national security staff from agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Secret Intelligence Service collaborate with their peers without touching the open internet where foreign powers could gain access.
ATO stepping up AI capabilities to be 'leader' by 2030
Canberra Times
Connor Pearce
The Australian Tax Office is targeting a significant increase in its AI capabilities, with the aim to become a leader in automation and artificial intelligence. In a document released under freedom of information legislation, the agency sets a target of 2030 to be a leader in "industrial ethical, impactful and scalable A&AI [automation and artificial intelligence] solutions".
Nova tests anti-mine drone capability
Defence Connect
The uncrewed aerial vehicles use image recognition technology to differentiate between landmines and other objects having been developed in-house by Nova engineers, the company confirmed. The AI-enabled UAV system has been undergoing testing at Latrobe Valley at Nova’s deployable UAV testing range, where it will undergo further development and improvement. It is expected that the drone technology will enable Defence to cover broad swathes of ground quickly while keeping personnel safe, Dean Rosenfield, chief executive officer of Nova Systems, said. “The integration of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems into the Australian Defence Force is not just a strategic choice, but an imperative,” Rosenfield said.
ANU, Fujitsu plan quantum computer for Canberra
InnovationAus.com
Brandon How
Plans to build a quantum computer in Canberra have been set in motion after the Australian National University signed a new agreement with Japanese tech conglomerate Fujitsu. On Thursday, Fujitsu announced a memorandum of understanding with the university to establish a new quantum research facility “with ambitions to build an onsite quantum computer”. The agreement will also grant ANU researchers and academics access to quantum systems and simulators in Japan from next year.
Canberra’s $1b digital identity play could be the next white elephant
The Australian Financial Review
Tom Burton
The risks to the federal government’s new $1 billion digital ID system were laid bare by a report on Wednesday about the abject failure of another government-led tech idea, open banking. There’s also the beleaguered data-sharing scheme My Health Record, where a snub by specialists means less than 2 per cent of documents on the platform are being reviewed by doctors.
China
China-built EVs hit with duties in biggest EU trade case yet
Reuters
Philip Blenkinsop and Charlotte Van Campenhout
The European Union will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% from Friday on imports of electric vehicles made in China, EU officials said, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing in Brussels' largest trade case yet. There is however a four-month window during which the tariffs are provisional and intensive talks are expected to continue between the two sides as Beijing threatens wide-ranging retaliation. The European Commission's provisional duties of between 17.4% and 37.6% without backdating are designed to prevent what its president Ursula von der Leyen has said is a threatened flood of cheap EVs built with state subsidies.
Huawei exec rejects idea that advanced chip shortage will hamper China's AI ambitions
Reuters
A senior executive at Chinese technology giant Huawei on Thursday dismissed the idea that a shortage of the most advanced artificial intelligence chips will hinder the country's aim to be a leader in AI, but said innovation is needed to address the issue. The comments by Zhang Ping'an, CEO of Huawei Cloud, comes amid tighter U.S. restrictions on advanced AI chip shipments to China including a ban on sales there by companies such as U.S. giant Nvidia.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang calls for nations to bridge ‘intelligence gap’ in AI
South China Morning Post
Dewey Sim and Ann Cao
Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday called for more inclusive development of artificial intelligence, saying that many developing economies have been left behind. He told the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai that the “intelligence gap” needs to be bridged. Li said nations should work together to foster a “fair and open” environment for AI development so that more countries can benefit from the emerging technology.
Is Xenophobia on Chinese Social Media Teaching Real-World Hate?
The New York Times
Li Yuan
The video posted last year on Chinese social media showed more than 100 Japanese children, supposedly at an elementary school in Shanghai, gathered in their schoolyard. Chinese subtitles quoted two students leading the group as screaming: “Shanghai is ours. Soon the whole China will be ours, too.”The messages were alarming and infuriating in China, which Japan invaded during World War II. Except that the scene actually took place at an elementary school in Japan. And the students were not stoking hatred of China; they were swearing an oath to play fair at what looked like a sporting event. The video wasn’t taken down until after it had been viewed more than 10 million times.
Analysis: Tragedy shows China's anti-Japan social media fire burns out of control
Nikkei Asia
Katsuji Nakazawa
Japanese and other foreign residents in China have been targeted for assaults recently. One incident took place at a school bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The truth behind each attack remains unclear. But a Chinese expert familiar with the country's media situation cited a rapid spread of anti-Japanese and anti-American nationalism across China. The expert says this is partly fueled by social media influencers hoping to go viral, attract more followers and leverage their popularity to gain ad and other revenue. Bashing Japan is one way to quickly accomplish this.
USA
Twilio says hackers identified cell phone numbers of two-factor app Authy users
TechCrunch
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Last week, a hacker claimed to have stolen 33 million phone numbers from U.S. messaging giant Twilio. On Tuesday, Twilio confirmed to TechCrunch that “threat actors” were able to identify the phone number of people who use Authy, a popular two-factor authentication app owned by Twilio. In a post on a well-known hacking forum, the hacker or hackers known as ShinyHunters wrote that they hacked Twilio and obtained the cell phone numbers of 33 million users.
Americas
Canada enacts digital-services tax amid US reprisal threat
Bloomberg
Laura Dhillon Kane
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has authorised the implementation of a digital-services tax on large foreign technology companies, despite warnings of trade retaliation from the US. A government notice posted online indicated the tax came into effect as of June 28. It will apply for calendar year 2024, with that first year covering taxable revenues earned since Jan. 1, 2022.
North Asia
North Korea switches TV broadcasts from Chinese satellite to Russian
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
North Korea has switched state television broadcasts to a Russian satellite instead of a Chinese one, significantly reducing the number of people who can watch them. This change was discovered by South Korea’s national broadcaster KBS, which relies on North Korea's Korean Central Television, KCTV, as a window into the isolated country.
Japan chip gear sales seen climbing 15% this fiscal year on AI
Bloomberg
Yuki Furukawa
Sales of Japanese chipmaking tools is expected to rise 15% in the year to March 2025, thanks to an AI-fueled recovery in spending on memory capacity, an industry group said. The Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan lifted its annual outlook to ¥4.25 trillion ($26 billion), up from a previous forecast of ¥4.03 trillion. Increased investment by logic foundries is expected to boost sales another 10% in the year to March 2026 to ¥4.68 trillion, it said, with sales seen rising further to ¥5.15 trillion in the year ending March 2027.
Japan’s Orix, Ubiden strike deal for EV chargers at older condos
Bloomberg
Supriya Singh
Japan’s Orix Group and electric vehicle charging provider Ubiden Inc. have agreed to install chargers at existing apartment complexes around the country as the government seeks to have EVs account for 100% of all new passenger car sales by 2035.
Japan introduces enormous humanoid robot to maintain train lines
The Guardian
Agence France-Presse
It resembles an enormous, malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West Japan Railway’s new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind. Starting this month, the large machine with enormous arms, a crude, disproportionately small Wall-E-like head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck – which can drive on rails – will be put to use for maintenance work on the company’s network.
Southeast Asia
Indonesia’s biggest cyberattack prompts resignation, audit
Bloomberg
Chandra Asmara and Sarah Zheng
An official of Indonesia’s information technology ministry resigned as the government continues an audit of its data centers in the wake of the nation’s worst cyberattack. Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, director-general for applications and information at the Communications and Information Technology Ministry, stepped down on Thursday, following last month’s massive hack that crippled government services from airports to scholarships. Pangerapan said he was “morally responsible.”
Foxconn gets licence to invest $551 mln more in Vietnam, media reports
Reuters
Foxconn Singapore has been awarded a licence to invest $551 million in two projects to produce smart entertainment products and smart-system equipment in Vietnam's northern province of Quang Ninh, state media reported. Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and assembler, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company already has major operations in Vietnam.
Artificial intelligence threat makes data protection priority for Philippine military
East Asia Forum
Erick Javier
In 2023, the Philippines' Department of National Defense issued a memorandum banning military personnel and DND civil servants from using artificial intelligence image generator apps, aiming to avoid providing image data that could be used for identity theft and phishing attacks. The Philippines experienced the danger of AI technology in 2024, when Chinese diplomats used a falsified conversation transcript to cause confusion and coerce the Philippine government. This incident revealed the threat of AI-generated media in undermining trust, diplomacy and national security, highlighting the necessity of good 'cyber hygiene', enhanced education and robust procedures in militaries worldwide.
Advancing ASEAN’s Digital Economy: Challenges in Cybersecurity and IP Protection
Fulcrum
Farlina Said and Farah Nabilah
The successful implementation of the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement is expected to grow the regional digital economy to US$2 trillion by 2030 and enhance digital integration in ASEAN. The framework agreement covers nine core elements that include cross border data flows, digital trade, and cybersecurity. Focusing on these aspects could substantially enhance cybersecurity, personal data protection, and intellectual property (IP) protection across the region.
Ukraine - Russia
Czech report warns against Russian tactics to undermine support for Ukraine
Euractiv
Aneta Zachová
Czechia has been subjected to targeted information operations aimed at reducing support for Ukraine, a recent report by the Czech National Centre for Combating Organised Crime has revealed. According to NCOZ, an alarming trend of so-called hybrid threats is intensifying in Czechia as well as in other EU countries. Russian activities are aimed at influencing the population of Western European countries while increasing the threat of sabotage against critical and transport infrastructure.
Europe
Russia targets social media during French legislative campaign
Euractiv
Hugo Struna
Russian disinformation campaigns are targeting social media platforms to destabilise the French political scene — currently in a legislative campaign — a study by the French National Centre for Scientific Research focused exclusively on X reads. The study, published on 30 June, identifies some of the Kremlin’s digital disruption strategies during the legislative election campaign.
Ahead of second round, Russia tries to weigh in on French snap elections
Euractiv
Théo Bourgery-Gonse
A study published on the night of the first electoral round found that Russia had conducted targeted disinformation campaigns on social media in an effort to polarise debate, encourage a far-right vote and break the cordon sanitaire. Russia has been judged a systemic risk by the French authorities, especially in its efforts to muster online disinformation.
French far-right parties target voters with AI ahead of vote
POLITICO
Mark Scott and Océane Herrero
France's far right is bombarding voters across social media ahead of Sunday's second-round parliamentary election with artificial intelligence-generated content focused on hot-button issues like immigration and the European Union. In total, the National Rally, which leads polling after making big gains in the first round of voting, and Reconquest, a smaller nationalist party led by Éric Zemmour, have collectively published 23 AI-generated images across 81 posts on Facebook, Instagram and X, according to research shared exclusively with POLITICO by AI Forensics, a nonprofit organisation.
Artificial Elections: Generative AI imagery in French elections
AIForensics
AI Forensics conducts a cross-party, cross-platform analysis of the use of AI-generated images in French political campaigns during the 2024 European Parliament and legislative elections. In May and June, we collected data across party websites, as well as their official Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts. We identified a total of 51 instances of generative AI imagery across Facebook, Instagram, and X. We found that the Rassemblement National, Reconquête, and Les Patriotes use generative AI imagery as an integral campaigning strategy, and found single-case usage for L’Alliance Rurale and the Union des Démocrates et Indépendants.
Polish media outlets protest ‘threat of domination’ by Big Tech
POLITICO
Csongor Körömi
A group of about 350 local news organisations launched a joint, one-day campaign to put pressure on Polish politicians to introduce fairer copyright rules in a draft law currently making its way through the national parliament, according to Radio Poland. Last week, the parliament known as the Sejm passed an amendment to Poland's copyright legislation implementing the European Union's 2019 directive requiring large internet platforms to compensate publishers for the reuse of their content on services like Google's search and Meta's Facebook. Publishers lobbied to amend the draft law to set rules that would allow them to better negotiate compensation with Big Tech giants. But the government largely ignored their pleas in the final amendment to the law, media groups said.
Spain introduces porn passport to stop kids from watching smut
POLITICO
Gian Volpicelli
The Spanish government has a plan to prevent kids from watching porn online: Meet the porn passport. Officially (and drily) called the Digital Wallet Beta (Cartera Digital Beta), the app Madrid unveiled on Monday would allow internet platforms to check whether a prospective smut-watcher is over 18. Porn-viewers will be asked to use the app to verify their age. Once verified, they'll receive 30 generated “porn credits” with a one-month validity granting them access to adult content. Enthusiasts will be able to request extra credits.
Big Tech
Microsoft hack also impacted VA, State Department Agency
Bloomberg
Charles Gorrivan, Jamie Tarabay, and Evan Gorelick
The US Department of Veterans Affairs and an arm of the US State Department are among a growing list of Microsoft Corp. customers that have acknowledged they were impacted by a breach of the technology giant that was blamed on Russian state-sponsored hackers. The US Agency for Global Media, part of the State Department that provides news and information in countries where the press is restricted, was notified “a couple months ago” by Microsoft that some of its data may have been stolen, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. No security or personally identifiable sensitive data was compromised, the spokesperson said.
Events & Podcasts
The Sydney Dialogue
ASPI
The Sydney Dialogue was created to help bring together governments, businesses and civil society to discuss and progress policy options. We will forecast the technologies of the next decade that will change our societies, economies and national security, prioritising speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We will promote diverse views that stimulate real conversations about the best ways to seize opportunities and minimise risks.
Defending against economic cyber-espionage: saving a norm that never was?
ASPI
As side-event to the UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on security of and in the use of ICTs, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute - in collaboration with the US State Department’s Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy – is pleased to invite you to a panel discussion on ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property.
Modernising India with Reuben Abraham
Chats Over Chai
In this episode of Chats Over Chai, CEO Lisa Singh discusses India's rapid modernisation with Dr. Reuben Abraham, CEO of Artha Global. The pair delve into India’s increasing urbanisation and digitalisation and how this transformation is advancing India’s goal of becoming a developed economy by 2047- the 100th year of India’s independence.
Jobs
Program Manager - Cyber, Technology & Security (CTS)
ASPI
This is a key role within the CTS team working with the Director, Deputy Director and Program Coordinator on project delivery, fundraising and coordination of team activities. The focus of the role is to help manage and support the individual researchers to collectively deliver projects, accurately, on time and in the most effective way to impact policy across the intersection of technology, security and human rights. As such, stakeholder engagement, both internally and externally, as well as organisational skills such as project management, delivery and grant writing are key to the role’s success.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.