UN General Assembly vote on AI resolution | Australia joins Drone Coalition on Ukraine | US Justice Department sues Apple over antitrust
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The UN General Assembly is set to vote today on what would be the first United Nations resolution on artificial intelligence, aimed at ensuring the powerful new technology benefits all nations, respects human rights and is “safe, secure and trustworthy.” Associated Press
Australia has joined the UK-led “Drone Coalition” to help Ukraine fight Russia, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles indicating further support will be revealed soon amid growing uncertainty over America’s commitment to the war. Financial Review
The US Justice Department and 16 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, the federal government’s most significant challenge to the reach and influence of the company that has put iPhones in the hands of more than a billion people. New York Times
World
The UN will vote on its first resolution on artificial intelligence, aimed at ensuring its safety
Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press
The General Assembly is set to vote today on what would be the first United Nations resolution on artificial intelligence, aimed at ensuring the powerful new technology benefits all nations, respects human rights and is “safe, secure and trustworthy.” The resolution “would represent global support for a baseline set of principles for the development and use of AI and would lay out a path to leverage AI systems for good while managing the risks,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press earlier in March.
Australia and Five Eyes allies issue new Volt Typhoon advisory
David Hollingworth
Cyber Daily
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released a new advisory on behalf of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, warning of the “urgent risk” posed by the state-backed Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon. The alliance warned that the hacking group was pre-positioning itself on major critical infrastructure networks, a contingency in case of increased geopolitical or military conflict between China and the US. The advisory released overnight cautions executive leaders to “empower cyber security teams to make informed resourcing decisions to better detect and defend against Volt Typhoon and other malicious cyber activity”.
Australia
Australia joins ‘Drone Coalition’ to help Ukraine fight Russia
Andrew Tillett
Financial Review
Australia has joined the UK-led “Drone Coalition” to help Ukraine fight Russia, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles indicating further support will be revealed soon amid growing uncertainty over America’s commitment to the war. Mr Marles and UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps also said that the Australian and British militaries would upgrade ties, signing a new treaty to make it easier to host each other’s forces, expand talks between senior officers, deepen intelligence sharing and consult on emergencies which threatens security.
China
Tech war: Chinese chip executives put faith in global cooperation despite intensifying US restrictions
Che Pan
South China Morning Post
China’s top semiconductor executives attending an annual industry gathering called for tighter collaboration with their global peers, but none of them addressed the elephant in the room: growing US export curbs on advanced chip technology. Semicon China kicked off in Shanghai on Wednesday amid signs that the US is planning to intensify sanctions against Chinese chip firms. The Biden administration may blacklist several semiconductor companies connected to Huawei Technologies, according to a Bloomberg report published on the same day.
China warns foreign hackers are infiltrating ‘hundreds’ of business and government networks
Hayley Wong
South China Morning Post
China’s state security authority warned that the networks of “hundreds” of Chinese business and government units have been infiltrated by an overseas hacking group and urged citizens to step up cybersecurity. The Ministry of State Security on Thursday posted a message on its official WeChat account to highlight hacking and ransom risks, which it said could cause “huge economic losses and leakage of sensitive information” as cyberattacks by foreign agencies have been “rampant” in recent years. Beijing has expanded efforts in cybersecurity compliance in recent years amid a perceived increase in attacks by foreign agencies.
USA
US sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly
David McCabe and Tripp Mickle
New York Times
The US Justice Department and 16 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, the federal government’s most significant challenge to the reach and influence of the company that has put iPhones in the hands of more than a billion people. The government argued that Apple violated antitrust laws by preventing other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products like its digital wallets, which could diminish the value of the iPhone.
House unanimously passes bill to block data brokers from selling Americans’ info to foreign adversaries
Suzanne Smalley
The Record by Recorded Future
A bill that would bar data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive data to foreign adversaries like China, as well as to the companies under their thumb, passed the US House of Representatives unanimously on Wednesday. Along with companion legislation that would require TikTok to divest from its Chinese ownership or effectively be blocked from operating in the U.S., the data privacy bill advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 7. The movement from committee passage to House vote moved at lightning speed compared to the typical pace for Congressional votes.
FBI resumes outreach to social media companies over foreign propaganda
Kevin Collier and Ken Dilanian
NBC News
The FBI has resumed some of its efforts to share information with some American tech companies about foreign propagandists using their platforms after it ceased contact for more than half a year, multiple people familiar with the matter told NBC News. The program, established during the Trump administration, briefed tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Meta when the US intelligence community found evidence of covert influence operations using their products to mislead Americans. The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court.
Lawmakers pass milestone privacy bill overshadowed by TikTok fever
Alfred Ng
Politico
Congress has suddenly swung into action on tech issues after years of inertia on a crucial policy area — overwhelmingly passing a data privacy bill Wednesday that builds on the anti-TikTok bill the House passed last week. With privacy and data ownership an increasingly high-profile issue, lawmakers have spent years discussing new national legislation, without ever voting on a bill in either house. That all changed in a week. Though last week’s TikTok bill captured far more attention, with app users flooding phone lines and former President Donald Trump unexpectedly weighing in on behalf of the video-sharing app, it may be the lower-profile data bill that has more influence and a clearer path to passage.
Reddit’s IPO is a content moderation success story
Kevin Roose
New York Times
A decade ago, no one in their right mind would have put “Reddit” and “publicly traded company” in the same sentence. At the time, Reddit was known as one of the darkest parts of the internet — an anything-goes forum where trolls, extremists and edgelords reigned. Light on rules and overseen by an army of volunteer moderators, Reddit was often spoken of in the same breath as online cesspools like 4chan and SomethingAwful. Few could have predicted back then that Reddit would eventually clean up its act, shed its reputation for toxicity and go public, as it is expected to on Thursday at a $6.4 billion valuation.
Americas
Canadian Forces wants to expand offensive cyber capabilities, briefing says
David Pugliese
Ottawa Citizen
The Canadian Forces wants to expand its ability to launch cyber attacks and plans to conduct a series of related tests this year, military documents show. The military has developed its Cyber Force Vision 2035, a strategy involving its own personnel working closely with the electronic spies at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in Ottawa, a 2023 briefing said. That cyber force would be equipped to conduct advanced defensive and offensive cyber activities. It would also reach, according to the briefing, an end state in which “offensive cyber capabilities, conducted with CSE, are normalized and fully integrated into full spectrum operations.”
North Asia
China may try to influence South Korea's general elections: experts
Kwak Yeon-soo
The Korea Times
In the lead-up to the April 10 general elections, concerns over possible interference by China are growing, spurred by a report by the U.S. conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. The report warns that China may utilize cyber operations to influence the outcome of the April 10 general elections, hoping to seat more Beijing-friendly politicians in the National Assembly. “Beijing would see great benefit to covertly influencing South Korean public opinion in the run-up to the April 2024 National Assembly and 2027 presidential elections in favor of progressive candidates whose policies more closely align with Chinese objectives,” Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the foundation, said in his report.
North Korean-backed hacking group Kimsuky changes tactics
David Hollingworth
Cyber Daily
Cyber security researchers have observed a change in the tactics of the North Korean Kimsuky hacking group. Rapid7 Labs has been tracking the threat actor for some time, and has tracked its evolution from first using malicious ISO files and Office documents to gain initial network access to using .LNK files at the beginning of last year. Now, however, Rapid7’s researchers have observed Kimsuky taking advantage of Compiled HTML Help files, usually via RAR and ZIP files or ISOs. These files are designed mainly as help documents and contain search capabilities, images, text, and hyperlinks, just like a web page. But they can also execute JavaScript, making them ideal for distributing malware.
Ukraine - Russia
Ukraine rolls out target-seeking terminator drones
David Hambling
Forbes
A video from Ukrainian drone fundraiser Serhii Sternenko released on March 20th demonstrates new technology: an attack drone which locks on with machine vision and does not require a human pilot. The first Terminator movie dropped forty years ago. Now the technology for autonomous killing is going mainstream, with all that implies. In the video an FPV attack drone with automatic target recognition homes in on a Russian tank from long distance. Even after the video link tis lost, the drone successfully completes the attack. A reconnaissance drone watches the FPV hit. Ten seconds after he impact, a more violent secondary explosion shakes the tank from inside and it burns fiercely. It is not the first time this type of technology has been used. But Sternenko is collecting funds to build a thousand of the drones, indicating moving beyond prototyping to mass production.
Europe
ECB tells banks to prepare for new types of risk
Reuters
Euro zone banks must adjust how they manage risk as they face challenges from the end of ultra low interest rates to the emergence of non-traditional competitors that can quickly steal market share, the European Central Bank's top supervisor said. Euro zone banks handled the recent surge in inflation and interest rates with remarkable ease and largely escaped last year's U.S and Swiss banking turbulence, raising the risk of complacency and fuelling calls for lenders to prepare for more difficult times. Loan losses have remained exceptionally low, despite a near recessionary environment, but this may be down to unprecedented fiscal and monetary support that shielded banks from shocks, Claudia Buch, the ECB's top bank supervisor said on Thursday.
German politician says country should consider TikTok ban if stricter regulation doesn’t work
Anna Desmarais
Euronews
Some German MPs on a parliamentary intelligence board think the country should consider a harder stance on TikTok. It comes as the US considers legislation banning the app. German politicians are discussing whether they need to harden their stance on TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media app for short social media videos. It comes a few days after the US House of Representatives voted unanimously in favour of legislation that could force ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, to sell the app or face a complete ban from app stores in the United States. The bill still needs to be examined by the US Senate before it becomes law. Multiple members of a German parliamentary board that monitors intelligence services have spoken recently about the topic.
Europe battles ‘avalanche of disinformation’ from Russia
Leila Abboud, Henry Foy and Paula Erizanu
Financial Times
Online fake news and hybrid campaigns increase ahead of European elections. With Russia-leaning nationalist parties polling strongly in France, Germany and elsewhere, the Kremlin has an interest in boosting their messaging, including by emphasising the west’s fading willingness to send aid to Kyiv two years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Vera Jourova, the European Commission’s vice-president spearheading work on disinformation, has warned that the European parliament elections in June will be hit by an “avalanche of disinformation”, including deepfake videos designed to erode public trust in the vote.
Africa
South Africa faces a balancing act with China over its digital transformation
Gift Mwonzora and Bei Wang
LSE Blogs
Beijing’s presence is palpable in many African capitals. For Africa’s political elites, China is seen as a reliable ally and trade partner, dubbed an “all-weather friend”. However, there are growing concerns about the imbalance in Sino-Africa relations. Some view China as a pragmatic investor in Africa, while others criticise its extractive approach, which benefits itself more than its partners. China’s influential role in Africa sparks debate over potential dependency but the partnership is pivotal for the continent’s digital transformation.
How Prime Video failed so spectacularly in Africa
Jesusegun Alagbe
Rest of World
In January this year, Amazon abruptly announced its decision to scale back Prime Video’s operations in Africa and the Middle East. The company said it would no longer fund local original content in Africa, as part of a plan to “prioritize resources on what matters most to customers” and “focus on the areas that drive the highest impact and long-term success.” African filmmakers and industry experts believe Prime Video failed on the continent due to its inability to understand what the audience wanted, inadequate marketing, and poor user experience. It didn’t help that Netflix and local on-demand streaming platform, Showmax, have been making a big push to win the market, which is projected to have 15 million subscribers by 2026.
Big Tech
Musk’s Neuralink shows first brain-chip patient playing online chess
Reuters
Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink livestreamed on Wednesday its first patient implanted with a chip using his mind to play online chess. Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralyzed below the shoulder after a diving accident, played chess on his laptop and moved the cursor using the Neuralink device. The implant seeks to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts. Arbaugh had received an implant from the company in January and could control a computer mouse using his thoughts, Musk said last month.
Artificial Intelligence
Japanese startup generates AI models from 'evolutionary' process
Wataru Suzuki
Nikkei Asia
Sakana AI, a Japanese artificial intelligence startup, said Thursday that it has invented a new way of creating generative AI models that applies the concepts of evolution and natural selection. This approach, according to the company, allows significantly cheaper and faster AI development. Sakana has released three generative AI models -- a large language model, an image-to-text model and an image generation model -- using the "nature-inspired" mechanism, which it calls the first of its kind in the world. Sakana's algorithm took three open-source AI models as parents and "bred" them in various ways to create more than 100 "offspring." It then bred the best-performing ones to create a second generation of offspring. The process was repeated for several hundred generations before the best model was chosen.
Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret
Kate Crawford
Nature
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is warning that the AI industry is heading for an energy crisis. Altman’s admission has got researchers, regulators and industry titans talking about the environmental impact of generative AI. So what energy breakthrough is Altman banking on? Not the design and deployment of more sustainable AI systems — but nuclear fusion. It’s estimated that a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search. Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations.
Why AI conspiracy videos are spamming social media
Hannah Murphy
Financial Times
In a viral TikTok video, celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan appears to deliver a damning message: “We are all probably going to die in the next few years. Did you hear about this? There’s this asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth.” This information was kept top secret by the state, he insists, but then leaked by a US agency worker named Jonathan Brown. In fact, the video is a sham, experts say. The post, which was eventually taken down by TikTok, is part of an emerging phenomenon whereby online creators are pumping out conspiracy-laden videos across social platforms, often with the aid of new AI tools.
Misc
Hackers found a way to open any of 3 million hotel keycard locks in seconds
Andy Greenberg
Wired
When thousands of security researchers descend on Las Vegas every August for what's come to be known as “hacker summer camp,” the back-to-back Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences, it's a given that some of them will experiment with hacking the infrastructure of Vegas itself, the city's elaborate array of casino and hospitality technology. But at one private event in 2022, a select group of researchers were actually invited to hack a Vegas hotel room, competing in a suite crowded with their laptops and cans of Red Bull to find digital vulnerabilities in every one of the room's gadgets, from its TV to its bedside VoIP phone.
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.
Jobs
ASPI Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre (NASPC) Administration Officer
ASPI
This role also works across the Head of the NASPC's alternate policy centres, the Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program, involving work across illicit drugs, illicit finance, transnational serious organised crime, and modern slavery, and ASPI’s Counter-terrorism Policy Centre. The successful applicant will have the chance to assist with coordinating a project in the first half of 2024 focused on northern Australia's connections with Pacific Island Countries, liaising with senior Government and international representatives. The closing date for applications is 29 March 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
Director of Cyber, Technology & Security (CTS)
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an exceptional and experienced leader to lead our largest team focused on emerging security challenges, particularly in cyberspace and the information domain. Director CTS leads ASPI’s largest team to develop and deliver a range of applied research projects on existing and emerging security challenges. CTS’ projects range across cyber and critical infrastructure security, critical and emerging technologies, national resilience and social cohesion, and hybrid threats. The closing date for applications is 22 April 2024 – an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
China Analyst or Senior Analyst
ASPI
ASPI has an exciting opportunity for an analyst or senior analyst to explore China's evolving foreign and security policy, political economy and impact on the Indo-Pacific and the world. ASPI’s China analysts conduct rigorous data-driven research, publish impactful reports that shape the public policy discourse and contribute to the wide catalogue of influential China work published by ASPI. The difference between the analyst and senior analyst levels will depend on experience level and demonstration of past work. The closing date for applications is 10 May 2024– an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.