The US to announce further sanctions on Semiconducter chips destined for Russia | The EU announces significant tariffs on Chinese EVs | China drone manufacturers staying a step ahead of US legislation
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The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
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The U.S. government plans on Wednesday to announce wider sanctions on the sale of semiconductor chips and other goods to Russia, with the goal of targeting third-party sellers in China, sources familiar with the plans said late on Tuesday. The administration will announce it is broadening existing export controls to include U.S.-branded goods, not just those made in the United States, the sources said. It will identify certain Hong Kong entities it says are shipping goods to Moscow. Reuters
The European Union will slap additional tariffs of as much as 38.1% on electric vehicles shipped from China as of next month, escalating a global trade war and upping the cost of selling cars in Europe for companies ranging from China’s BYD to Tesla. Bloomberg
Lawmakers in the US House and Senate are pushing legislation to ban Chinese-made drones from entering the United States. But the leading Chinese companies manufacturing those drones are making moves to stay a step ahead of them. The Hill
ASPI
Fact check: Was China's Tiananmen massacre a US-led myth?
DW
Mu Cui and Monir Ghaedi
The author, Andy Boreham, a New Zealand journalist working with the state-affiliated media outlet Shanghai Daily, has been described by Chinese state media outlets, such as the Global Times, as a journalist challenging misinformation about China. However, sources like the Australia-based think tank ASPI call him a "foreign propagandist" for the Beijing government.
World
Faking an honest woman: Why Russia, China and Big Tech all use faux females to get clicks
Associate Press
David Klepper
Whether it’s Chinese or Russian propaganda agencies, online scammers or AI chatbots, it pays to be female — proving that while technology may grow more and more sophisticated, the human brain remains surprisingly easy to hack thanks in part to age-old gender stereotypes that have migrated from the real world to the virtual.
Australia
Age verification for pornography access? Our research shows it fails on many levels
The Conversation
Zahra Stardust and Alan McKee
Published in Big Data and Society, our new study into one common facial age estimation tool shows such technologies are unreliable, and have a racial and gender bias. They are also undesirable – they make pornography a political scapegoat for gendered violence and divert resources from evidence-based strategies that can actually help.
Anthony Albanese shrugs off concerns over Chinese ownership of local lithium plant ahead of Li Qiang visit
The Australian Financial Review
Andrew Tillett
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Chinese ownership of local critical minerals projects does not undercut Labor’s Future Made in Australia agenda, as he prepares to host the first visit by a senior leader from the Asian nation in seven years.
Doctors and pharmacists left in the dark following Medisecure databreach
ABC News
Ange Lavoipierre
Doctors and pharmacists named in a sample of stolen MediSecure data up for sale on the dark web are still waiting to hear from the company.
China
More Local Centers for Global Propaganda
China Media Project
David Bandurski
The addition of external propaganda bases in Zhejiang and Tianjin over the past two weeks brings the total number at the provincial level to 23. These ICCs, also being launched at the city level, are meant to remake China’s approach to delivering its message externally.
Chinese universities clamp down on AI-generated content, as record graduation season starts
Channel News Asia
A growing number of universities in China have issued rules on the use of AI in students’ work as the college graduation season gets into full swing. The moves come amid institutions’ concerns over academic integrity and as a recent survey points to the widespread use of AI tools among college students.
USA
China’s dominant drone industry is a step ahead of Congress
The Hill
Brad Dress
Lawmakers in the US House and Senate are pushing legislation to ban Chinese-made drones from entering the United States. But the leading Chinese companies manufacturing those drones are making moves to stay a step ahead of them.
US senator urges UK to investigate Shein’s labour practices ahead of IPO
Financial Times
China hawk Marco Rubio says allegations of ‘unethical and irresponsible business practices’ should be vetted before London listing. Human rights groups say ethnic minorities are being used as forced labour in Shein’s cotton supply in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. The company has denied the claims and said it has a “zero tolerance policy for forced labour”.
Frontier hackers threaten to release private data for at least 750,000 customers
The Verge
Jess Weatherbed
The group claims the stolen dataset contains information belonging to two million Frontier customers, including their full name, physical address, date of birth, social security number, email address, credit score, and phone number.
New York moves to limit kids' access to 'addictive feeds'
ABC News
Ange Lavoipierre
New York has more or less just banned the algorithm as we know it for under-18s. The new state law defines an addictive feed as one where the content is recommended based on information about the user — in other words, the definition of the news feeds used by most social media platforms.
North Asia
Data leak at SoftBank joint venture sparks blame game between Japan and South Korea
Financial Times
David Keohane, Kana Inagaki, Christian Davies and Song Jung-a
Japan and South Korea have been at loggerheads since Line Yahoo — originally a messaging app in Japan created by South Koreans — suffered network breaches that were blamed on insecure systems at Seoul-based Naver, its joint owner.
China accounts for half of Japan's chipmaking equipment exports
Nikkei Asia
Hirofumi Kanaoka
At least 50% of Japan's exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment went to China for a third straight quarter in the three months through March, amid an apparent surge in demand for less advanced gear spurred by U.S.-led trade restrictions. Japanese trade data shows China accounting for half the shipments of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, components for this machinery as well as gear for making flat-panel displays.
Amazon to Invest Billions in Taiwan Cloud Infrastructure
The Wall Street Journal
Sherry Qin
Amazon will invest billions of dollars in Taiwan over the next 15 years to build data centers, the latest global technology company to expand its footprint in Asia to meet the region’s growing demand for cloud services. The new infrastructure will enable customers to store data securely and run workloads with low latency from data centers located in Taiwan, it said.
South Korean AI chip developers Rebellions and Sapeon to merge
Reuters
The consolidation is aimed at winning the global AI semiconductor market within the next two to three years, a window of time South Korea must not miss as AI competition intensifies across the world, SK Telecom said in a statement.
Southeast Asia
ByteDance to cut 450 jobs in Indonesia after merging TikTok shop with Tokopedia
Bloomberg
Olivia Poh and Zheping Huang
ByteDance is slashing about 450 jobs at its Indonesian e-commerce arm in the first round of cuts since combining its TikTok Shop with local rival Tokopedia in January. Indonesia is among the earliest markets for ByteDance’s e-commerce ambitions — and thus far the biggest — but competition is intense with rivals such as Sea’s Shopee and Alibaba's Lazada.
Ukraine - Russia
US to widen sanctions on sale of semiconductor chips to Russia, sources say
Reuters
Andrea Shalal
The administration will announce it is broadening existing export controls to include U.S.-branded goods, not just those made in the United States, the sources said. It will identify certain Hong Kong entities it says are shipping goods to Moscow.
Europe
EU to Slap Tariffs of Up to 48% on EV Imports From China
Bloomberg
Alberto Nardelli and Jorge Valero
The European Union will slap additional tariffs of as much as 38.1% on electric vehicles shipped from China as of next month, escalating a global trade war and upping the cost of selling cars in Europe for companies ranging from China’s BYD to Tesla.
‘We’re writing history’: Spanish women tackle Wikipedia’s gender gap
The Guardian
Ashifa Kassam
Just under a fifth of Wikipedia’s content, including biographies, is focused on women, while women account for just about 15% of the site’s volunteer editors. “The numbers are pretty terrifying,” said Patricia Horrillo, who for much of the past decade has spent her spare time working to tackle this gap, cultivating a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to publishing content focused on women.
OpenAI, Apple deal raises questions about enforcement of EU antitrust rules
Euractiv
Théophane Hartmann
The integration of ChatGPT into Apple’s operating service, iOS, later this year could trigger a revision of the enforcement of the EU’s digital antitrust regulation according to a European Commission spokesperson, speaking on Tuesday.
UK
Cyber-attack on London hospitals to take ‘many months’ to resolve
The Guardian
Denis Campbell and Dan Milmo
“It is unclear how long it will take for the services to get back to normal, but it is likely to take many months,” the well placed official said. “Key to a return to normal will be clarity about how the hackers gained access to the system, how many records have been affected and whether these records are retrievable,” they added.
Africa
Long jail terms for Chinese cybercrime gang in Zambia
BBC
Natasha Booty and Wycliffe Muia
After a trial lasting several weeks, the perpetrators pleaded guilty on three charges - computer-related misrepresentation, identity-related crimes, and illegally operating a network or service. The 22 people jailed on Friday were among a bigger group of 77 suspects arrested in April, in connection with what authorities called a "sophisticated internet fraud syndicate".
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.
WDSN's Policy Views and Brews
ASPI
ASPI’s Women in Defence and Security Network is excited to invite you to its inaugural ‘Policy Views and Brews’ networking event on Thursday June 13! Designed to be a relaxed atmosphere where like-minded people can exchange ideas on a range of themes within defence, policy and national security, each meet-up will revolve around a specific topic, inspired by a pre-designated article sent out beforehand.
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.