Microsoft face scrutiny over recent cyberattacks | Sparks over EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports | New ASPI report: Negotiating technical standards for artificial intelligence
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Microsoft President Brad Smith testify before US lawmakers, accepting responsibility for security issues revealed by a government advisory board's investigation into recent China-linked hacks, amid growing concerns over the tech giant's ability to protect its products from nation-state cyberattacks. Axios
The EU's investigation into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies has led to significant tariffs on imports, highlighting the growing trade tensions and strategic competition between Europe and China. South China Morning Post
The Indo-Pacific region, including Australia and India, faces strategic and economic risks by not being strongly represented in the development of AI governance and technical standards, crucial for ensuring the responsible deployment and use of AI technologies. ASPI
ASPI
Negotiating technical standards for artificial intelligence: a techdiplomacy playbook for policymakers and technologists in the Indo-Pacific
ASPI
Bart Hogeveen, Baani Grewal, Arindrajit Basu and Isha Suri
At the heart of how AI technologies are developed, deployed and used in a responsible manner sit a suite of technical standards: rules, guidelines and characteristics that ensure the safety, security and interoperability of a product. In the forums where these standards are developed, the Indo-Pacific, including Australia and India, are playing a role on the sidelines. Not being strongly represented in the world of AI governance & technical standards is a strategic risk for the Indo-Pacific region.
They left a trail of ash: decoding the Arakan Army’s arson attacks in the Rohingya heartland
The Strategist
Nathan Ruser
This Strategist special report explains what happened that night and presents new satellite imagery analysis that reveals a systematic campaign of retaliatory arson that has occurred in the township since 24 April and continued until at least 21 May. With communications in this area of Myanmar effectively cut off, with no independent media presence and with a desperate lack of supplies and food reaching the area, it is challenging to pin down specifics of what happened.
Google AI Gemini parrots China’s propaganda
VOA
Wenhao Ma
Albert Zhang, a cyber security analyst at Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told VOA that the root cause of Gemini making pro-Beijing responses could result from the data that is used to train the AI assistant. In an emailed response to VOA, Zhang said it is likely that the data used to train Gemini “contained mostly Chinese text created by the Chinese government's propaganda system.”
World
G7 leaders to talk both AI’s risks and opportunities at summit
POLITICO
Mark Scott and Gian Volpicelli
The meeting is expected to focus on how best to govern tools — like OpenAI's ChatGPT service — and how to harness AI for countries' economic growth and broader development goals, primarily in Africa, according to five officials with direct knowledge of the upcoming summit who were granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Australia
Anthony Albanese backs under-16 social media ban
The Australian
Sarah Ison
Anthony Albanese says a total ban on under-16s from accessing social media is a “good way to go” in curbing the serious online harms impacting children, declaring that Peter Dutton was just playing “catch up” by promising to legislate such a ban within the first 100 days of the Coalition taking office. The Opposition Leader on Thursday doubled down on his pledge to use age verification to stop children accessing social media before the age of 16, saying it was “inconceivable” for tech giants to allow 13 year-olds on to their platforms.
Australia should seek a trilateral partnership with Indonesia and PNG
The Strategist
Ridvan Kilic
With relations between Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) strong, the time is right for Australia to advocate for a high-level Australia–Indonesia–PNG trilateral strategic partnership. Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper identified the Pacific and Southeast Asia as Australia’s second strategic defence interest, behind a secure and resilient Australia itself. Geography makes Indonesia and PNG the most important neighbours to Australia. They (and East Timor) are the closest. They also stand between Australia and China. At the same time, Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest country, and PNG is the largest Pacific Island nation.
China
‘The whole supply chain is subsidised’: inside the EU’s blockbuster Chinese EV probe
South China Morning Post
Finbarr Bermingham
The tariff percentages the EU would slap on electric vehicle imports from China landed with a bang. “The EU has disregarded facts and WTO rules, ignored China’s repeated strong opposition, and ignored the appeals and dissuasions of many EU member governments and industries, and has acted unilaterally,” fumed a statement from China’s Ministry of Commerce, which landed minutes after the notification had been received.
Fintech Giant Ant Group Spends Record $2.9 Billion on Research
Bloomberg
Xinyi Luo
Ant Group Co. spent a record 21.2 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) on research last year as the fintech giant increased its investment in technology including artificial intelligence. The affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has been boosting its research and development investment over the past three years, according to its 2023 sustainability report released Thursday.
How safe are driverless cars in China?
The New York Times
Keith Bradsher
Far less public and official scrutiny exists in China, where the government strongly backs the technology and tightly limits public information about driverless car accidents. The Ministry of Transport issued safety rules in December that are designed to foster a broad shift from people to computers in car driving. In the United States, a similar crash would probably have attracted considerable attention and possibly government or legal scrutiny.
Dan's the man: Why Chinese women are looking to ChatGPT for love
BBC
Wanqing Zhang
Dan – which stands for Do Anything Now - is a “jailbreak” version of ChatGPT. This means it can bypass some of the basic safeguards put in place by its maker, OpenAI, such as not using sexually explicit language. It can interact more liberally with users – if requested to do so through certain prompts. And Dan is becoming popular with some Chinese women who say they are disappointed with their real world experiences of dating.
USA
Microsoft "accepts responsibility" for issues raised in hack report
Axios
Sam Sabin
Microsoft president Brad Smith will tell lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday that the company is responsible for "each and every one of the issues" that a government advisory board uncovered while investigating a recent China hack, according to prepared remarks. Microsoft has faced two notable nation-state cyberattacks in the last year that has put federal agencies' communications in jeopardy: last July when a China-backed hacking group had broken into the email accounts of several organizations, including federal offices and earlier this year when Russian intelligence hackers also stole several federal agencies' emails after breaching Microsoft.
Microsoft chose profit over security and left US government vulnerable to Russian hack, whistleblower says
ProPublica
Renee Dudley and Doris Burke
Former employee says software giant dismissed his warnings about a critical flaw because it feared losing government business. Russian hackers later used the weakness to breach the National Nuclear Security Administration, among others. The product, which was used by millions of people to log on to their work computers, contained a flaw that could allow attackers to masquerade as legitimate employees and rummage through victims’ “crown jewels” — national security secrets, corporate intellectual property, embarrassing personal emails — all without tripping alarms.
Pro-Trump influencers fire up fears of migrant 'invasion' ahead of U.S. election
Reuters
Helen Coster and Ted Hesson
One late afternoon in mid-May, a half dozen Hispanic day laborers were paid $20 each to parade in front of the White House on camera. The stunt was orchestrated by Nick Shirley, a pro-Trump online influencer who often asks migrants on camera if they support Democratic President Joe Biden or think he made it easier for them to come to the US. Shirley, a 22-year-old with more than 318,000 followers on social media, is among a new class of influencers supportive of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who are helping shape the immigration debate as the U.S. election campaign heats up.
Spy agencies’ foreign influence hub says it is issuing more private warnings
The Record by Recorded Future
Martin Matishak
The US intelligence community’s hub for fighting election interference by foreign adversaries has issued warnings to more targets of such campaigns over the last year than since it was established in 2021, according to officials. The uptick in private notices by the Foreign Malign Influence Center coincides with the 2024 presidential race — which national security officials say faces threats from a diverse group of adversaries using emerging technologies like generative AI.
Americas
A new Chinese megaport in South America is rattling the US
The Wall Street Journal
Ryan Dubé and James T. Areddy
In this serene town of Chancay on South America’s Pacific coast, China is building a megaport that could challenge U.S. influence in a resource-rich region that Washington has long considered its backyard. The port has put Peru squarely in the middle of the rivalry between the two superpowers in South America. Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, wants to develop semiconductors with China after rebuffing U.S. requests to exclude Huawei Technologies from 5G networks. Chinese companies are building a metro in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. Honduras cut ties with Taiwan, hoping to receive a flood of Chinese investments. And in Argentina, China is buying up lithium mines, an essential component in EVs.
North Asia
South Korea is still Indonesia’s best partner for defence-technology cooperation
The Strategist
Yokie Rahmad Isjchwansyah
Indonesia should seize a chance of improving its defence-industry capability by stepping up cooperation with South Korea. With four defence companies among the world’s top 100, South Korea shows that Indonesia can achieve its objective of lifting the scale and skills of its state-owned defence companies, which as a group are known as Defence Industry Indonesia (Defend ID). After unwisely scaling down its participation in South Korea’s KF-21 fighter program, Indonesia should look at other opportunities for join development and production efforts.
Taiwan’s iconic hi-tech sector drifts towards India, Thailand, Vietnam to hedge political risk
South China Morning Post
Ralph Jennings
For the past 40 years, Taiwan’s US$130 billion tech industry has supplied the world with PCs, phones and other consumer electronics plus their components. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), for example, is the world’s largest contract chipmaker. “In terms of [computer] notebook production, Vietnam and Thailand are the two most favourable countries right now, for their lower labour costs, improving infrastructure and growing domestic market,” said Sanesha Huang, an analyst with the Taipei-based market research firm TrendForce.
Southeast Asia
Low outlay on technology this year in major ASEAN economies: report
The Nation
Even though tech spending in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) is expected to grow by 6-7% from 2024 to 2027, the spending in five Southeast Asian economies – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam – as well as Taiwan is expected to increase by only 1%, or $74 billion, this year. Singapore is expected to see the second highest growth in technology spending at 5% – $18 billion – followed by Australia (4% – $49 billion) and China (2% – $261.9 billion).
South & Central Asia
Android malware used in six-year Pakistan-linked campaign against Indian government
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Hackers allegedly based in Pakistan have used Android-based malware during a six-year campaign targeting India’s government as well as Indian companies connected to the defense and technology sectors. The campaign is still active, according to researchers at Cisco Talos, and it involves the use of malware named GravityRAT that allows hackers to steal information. In a report released Thursday, the researchers call the campaign “Operation Celestial Force.”
Ukraine - Russia
Two Ukrainians suspected of helping Russia spread propaganda, hack military phones
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, detained two people who reportedly helped Russian intelligence spread pro-Kremlin propaganda and hack the phones of Ukrainian soldiers. The two suspects operated so-called bot farms, which involve using special servers and SIM cards to create and manage fake social media accounts. According to the SBU’s statement, she registered more than 600 virtual mobile numbers, as well as an unspecified number of fake Telegram accounts, and then sold or rented them for cryptocurrency on specialized Russian criminal websites.
Europe
How the far-right gained traction with Europe's youth
Reuters
Sarah Marsh, Barbara Erling and David Latona
From Germany and France to Poland and Spain, the far-right made inroads into the youth vote in key states in this EU election - as a generation that has grown up amid constant crises seeks new answers and follows politicians fluent in TikTok and YouTube. Young voters, traditionally perceived to be more left-wing, drove the wave of support for environmental parties at the last EU election in 2019, earning the nickname "Generation Greta" after the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. But following the pandemic, the Ukraine war and cost of living crisis, many shifted their support this year towards far-right populist parties that tapped into their concerns, fuelling their overall rise in the June 6-9 EU parliament poll.
Swedish company's games featured in illegal online casinos
Radio Sweden
Axel Kronholm and Sven Carlsson
Games from the Swedish company Evolution have been found on a number of sites for illegal online casinos in Southeast Asia, a Swedish Radio News investigation shows. Some of these online casinos have ties also to other suspected crimes such as money laundering and fraud. Experts say game suppliers risk assisting the criminal organisations that are behind these sites.
UK
New UK sanctions to crack down on Putin's war machine
UK Government
UK announces 50 new sanctions designations and specifications to degrade Putin’s war machine, in co-ordinated action with G7 partners to support Ukraine. New targets include ships in Putin’s shadow fleet, institutions at the heart of Russia’s financial system and suppliers supporting Russia’s military production. These new sanctions announced while the Prime Minister attends the G7 Leaders Summit in Italy.
Africa
As China scrambles for Zimbabwe’s lithium, small miners are left behind
Al Jazeera
Farai Matiashe
Zimbabwe has the world’s fifth-largest reserves of lithium – which is an essential component of the rechargeable batteries used in things like mobile phones and electric vehicles. In 2021, an output of 1,200 tonnes of lithium was recorded in the country and it is set to become Zimbabwe’s third biggest mineral export after the gold and platinum group of metals. Across Southern Africa, there are rich reserves of valuable natural resources – though only a small minority has historically profited from this. To increase the benefits for local economies, regional countries have increasingly sought to transform raw minerals into higher-value products locally.
Big section of 2Africa subsea cable is now live
TechCentral
The first big segment of 2Africa, a massive submarine cable system backed by Meta Platforms, is live, connecting South Africa with Kenya. “The initial phase of activation connects Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, heralding a new era of high-speed, reliable internet access,” Airtel Telesonic, the wholesale arm of Airtel Africa, said in a statement on Wednesday. When completed, the 45 000km 2Africa system will encircle Africa and connect countries across the continent with Europe and Asia.
Big Tech
Google missing as banks, telcos and Meta sign on to scams fight
The Australian
David Ross
Tech giant Google has failed to sign on to an intelligence sharing agreement between Australia’s biggest banks, telcos, and crime fighters, unveiled by the Albanese government on Thursday.
Google partners with Nevada utility for geothermal to power data centers
Reuters
But Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, signed on to the deal aimed at fighting the growth of financial scams and fraud, by sharing information between social media platforms and market participants. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said the deal would see the National Anti-Scam Coalition join the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange to share suspicious messages, phone numbers, URLs and bank accounts, to put the financial sector on watch for criminal actors.
Firefox browser blocks anti-censorship add-ons at Russia's request
The Intercept
Nikita Mazurov
The Mozilla Foundation, the entity behind the web browser Firefox, is blocking various censorship circumvention add-ons for its browser, including ones specifically to help those in Russia bypass state censorship. The add-ons were blocked at the request of Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor — the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media — according to a statement by Mozilla.
Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI expands lobbying team to influence regulation
Financial Times
Cristina Criddle and Javier Espinoza
OpenAI is building an international team of lobbyists as it seeks to influence politicians and regulators who are increasing their scrutiny over powerful artificial intelligence. The company aims to build up to 50 personnel by the end of 2024. The push comes as governments explore and debate legislation around AI safety that risk constraining the start-up’s growth and the development of its cutting-edge models, which underpin products such as ChatGPT.
Former head of NSA joins OpenAI board
The Verge
Jay Peters
OpenAI has appointed Paul M. Nakasone, a retired general of the US Army and a former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), to its board of directors, the company announced on Thursday. Nakasone, who was nominated to lead the NSA by former President Donald Trump, directed the agency from 2018 until February of this year. Before Nakasone left the NSA, he wrote an op-ed supporting the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the surveillance program that was ultimately reauthorized by Congress in April. OpenAI says Nakasone will join its Safety and Security Committee.
Research
Return of the RealSikhs: the fake network targeting Sikhs across the world despite platform takedowns
Center for Information Resilience
Benjamin Strick
A network that labels Sikh activists as "extremists" and attempts to undermine calls for Sikh independence has reappeared on social media – despite platform takedowns in November 2021. CIR reveals the tell-tale signs of coordination, despite the network’s concerted efforts to appear credible and authentic. This research uncovers a network of fake accounts on social media pretending to be Sikhs in order to undermine Sikh activists, stoke cultural tensions and promote Indian government narratives.
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.
Connecting the Dots on Privacy, Security and Online Safety for Young People
ASPI and the Future of Privacy Forum
In our increasingly digital world, the boundaries of our expectations related to privacy, security and online safety are stretched more and more – by technology companies, criminals and harm-doers, as well as regulators. Finding a good balance that ensures appropriate protection for members of our community in their use of digital products and services is complicated. This event will discuss the potential impacts of specific mandates or regulations, including broader societal impacts, the significance of the growing availability of AI-driven tools and services, and how regulators and policy leaders may balance these critically important interests.
ASPI – CNAS – RUSI | Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue
ASPI
The ASPI-CNAS-RUSI Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue is an initiative across leading Australian, American, and British think tanks to hold robust, pragmatic, and principled conversations about AUKUS and related national security and defense policies.This year’s Trilateral AUKUS Dialogue will explore the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific, regional perspectives on AUKUS, and critical issues regarding tech diplomacy, technology sharing, and legislative environments necessary to deliver capabilities to meet the pact’s purposes for enhancing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The Dialogue will be held on 17-18 June 2024 in Washington, DC.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.