Australia goes on billion-dollar cyber war footing | India bans TikTok, dozens of other Chinese apps | Reddit bans ‘The_Donald’ subreddit
Follow us on Twitter. The Daily Cyber Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cyber, critical technologies & strategic issues like foreign interference.
An extra 500 Australian cyber spies will be recruited as part of a $1.35 billion boost to protect the nation's sensitive computer networks and data from an unrelenting wave of cyber attacks which China is suspected of orchestrating. The Australian Financial Review.
The Indian government on Monday evening said it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were engaging in activities that threatened “national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India” in what is the latest standoff between the world’s two most populated nations. TechCrunch
Reddit, one of the largest social networking and message board websites, on Monday banned its biggest community devoted to President Trump as part of an overhaul of its hate speech policies. The New York Times
ASPI ICPC
What is a cyber attack, what are the targets and who is behind them? Inside the hacking attacks bombarding Australia
ABC
Tom Uren from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says China's tendency to use these strategies to steal business secrets — not just state secrets, the stock-in-trade of a spy — leads to what he calls a "scope mismatch".
Human rights, Uighurs, and Huawei: It's time for Helsinki with Chinese characteristics
The Telegraph
The known partnership between Huawei and Xinjiang’s Security Bureau is not in dispute. A Xinjiang news press release quoted a Huawei Director as saying: ‘Together with the Public Security Bureau, Huawei will unlock a new era of smart policing and help build a safer, smarter society.’ The Australian Strategic Policy Institute meticulously details the global expansion of 23 key Chinese technology companies and one of their researchers, Vicky Xu, says that the idea that Huawei is not working directly with local governments in Xinjiang is “just straight-up nonsense”.
See ASPI ICPC’s Mapping China’s Tech Giants project
Forget Trump And Google—Huawei Now Has A Critical New Problem In China
Forbes
@Zak Doffman
Last November, I reported on Huawei’s “darkest secret,” its work with the authorities in the Xinjiang region of China, where the oppression of its Muslim Uighur minority has been condemned worldwide. A leak of classified Chinese government documents that became known as the “China Cables,” was followed by a shocking report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) into the leading companies whose technology enabled that oppression.
India bans TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps citing security concerns
ABC
Fergus Ryan, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the ABC earlier this year that: "The key difference between Facebook and Instagram and TikTok is that there really isn't much of a firewall between Chinese tech companies and the Chinese state."
World
The Chinese and American Apps Winning the Next Billion Users
MacroPolo
@mattsheehan88
One irony of US-China technology competition is that much of it isn’t taking place in either country. Instead, it plays out in dozens of developing countries around the world where American and Chinese technology companies compete to win over what they call “the next billion users.”
Australia
PM goes on billion-dollar cyber war footing amid China tensions
Australian Financial Review
@andrewtillett @mikesmithafr
An extra 500 cyber spies will be recruited as part of a $1.35 billion boost to protect the nation's sensitive computer networks and data from an unrelenting wave of cyber attacks which China is suspected of orchestrating.
How to fight China's cyber warriors
The Lowy Institute
@ben_g_scott
Canberra must also consider options for offensive action. Australia needs to deter this form of Chinese aggression. Prime Minister Turnbull sought to do so in 2016 by disclosing, for the first time, that Australia had an offensive cyber capability, housed in Australian Signals Directorate.
Read ASPI ICPC’s report Australia’s Offensive Cyber Capability
A Facebook post can change your life: Documents reveal how social media is used by immigration officials
ABC
@arielbogle
Asylum seekers and immigration lawyers say Government officials routinely use social media posts to challenge an applicant's identity and claim for protection — and documents obtained by the ABC confirm that official guidance exists for this practice.
Eden-Monaro byelection: AFP investigate disinformation campaign against Labor's Kristy McBain
The Guardian
The Australian federal police are investigating a disinformation campaign against Labor’s candidate in the Eden-Monaro byelection after spam emails distributed around the country claimed that Kristy McBain had pulled out of the contest.
Facebook Inc says it does not have contractual relationship with Australian users
ZDNet
@campbell_kwan
Facebook on late Friday afternoon argued at Australian Federal Court that the handling of personal data owned by Australian users is only the responsibility of Facebook Ireland, and that the US-based Facebook Inc has no contractual relationship with these users.
China
USA
Reddit, Acting Against Hate Speech, Bans ‘The_Donald’ Subreddit
The New York Times
@MikeIsaac
The influential pro-Trump community broke the rules on harassment and targeting, said Reddit, which also banned other groups.
YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer, and more for hate speech
The Verge
“We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies,” a YouTube spokesperson told The Verge. “After updating our guidelines to better address supremacist content, we saw a 5x spike in video removals and have terminated over 25,000 channels for violating our hate speech policies.”
Detroit Police Chief: Facial Recognition Software Misidentifies 96% of the Time
Vice
@jason_koebler
In a public meeting Monday, Detroit Police Chief James Craig admitted that the technology, developed by a company called DataWorks Plus, almost never brings back a direct match and almost always misidentifies people.
Zuckerberg once wanted to sanction Trump. Then Facebook wrote rules that accommodated him
The Washington Post
Starting as early as 2015 when Trump was still a candidate, Facebook executives started crafting exceptions for the president and making changes to the company's products to accommodate him. Those changes have transformed the company and the world's information battlefield for years to come.
The New York Times Pulls Out of Apple News
The New York Times
The Times is one of the first media organizations to pull out of Apple News. The Times, which has made adding new subscribers a key business goal, said Apple had given it little in the way of direct relationships with readers and little control over the business.
Twitch temporarily bans President Trump
The Verge
@@jake_k
Twitch has temporarily banned President Donald Trump, in the latest surprise and high-profile suspension from the streaming service. Trump’s account was banned for “hateful conduct” that was aired on stream, and Twitch says the offending content has now been removed.
North Asia
Huawei controversy opens field for 5G challengers
Yahoo
With growing pressure to keep China's Huawei out of 5G network development, it could be time for firms like Japan's NEC and South Korea's Samsung to shine.
South Asia
India bans TikTok, dozens of other Chinese apps
TechCrunch
The Indian government on Monday evening said it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were engaging in activities that threatened “national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India” in what is the latest standoff between the world’s two most populated nations. Among the apps that India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT has ordered to ban include ByteDance’s TikTok, which counts India as its biggest overseas market; Community and Video Call apps from Xiaomi, which is the top smartphone vendor in India; two of Alibaba Group’s apps (UC Browser and UC News); Shareit; CM Browser, Club Factory, which claims to be India’s third-largest e-commerce firm; and ES File Explorer.
UK
Democracy under threat from ‘pandemic of misinformation’ online, say Lords Committee
UK Parliament
The UK Government should act immediately to deal with a ‘pandemic of misinformation’ that poses an existential threat to our democracy and way of life. The stark warning comes in a report published today by the Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies.
Approval for £1bn Huawei hub triggers Washington backlash
The Times
The Trump administration has warned Britain to think again about allowing “untrusted companies like Huawei” access to sensitive information after the Chinese giant’s £1 billion research hub near Cambridge was approved. South Cambridgeshire district council gave permission for the first phase of construction at a 500-acre site.
Europe
U.S. Presses Europe to Uproot Chinese Security-Screening Company
The Wall Street Journal
@Kate_OKeeffe
The U.S. is targeting China’s largest maker of security-screening equipment, saying its expanding presence in Europe is a threat to Western security and businesses, according to documents and people familiar with the matter.. Those networked systems could give Nuctech and companies like it access to personal and commercial information. U.S. officials worry Nuctech could turn over such data to Chinese authorities, the State Department said in a separate memo, on May 26, viewed by the Journal.
Big-Tech Investors Need to Start Watching Brussels More Closely
The Wall Street Journal
@RToplensky
Tiring of the current stalemate, the EU is now trying to improve its chances of success by building bigger weapons and making more overt use of industrial policy. Two mooted changes in particular have the potential to upend the European operations and profitability of U.S. tech companies, including Google, Apple and Amazon, that operate so-called gatekeeper platforms.
Opening address by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas at the Virtual Annual Council Meeting of the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR)
German Federal Foreign Office
European sovereignty, as I understand it, means that Europe can act independently and decide to pool its resources in areas where the individual states have long since lost their ability to shape globalisation to the major powers. The fact that Europe now imports almost 90% of all medicines the WHO considers essential from China or India illustrates where action is needed. Or just think of 5G, storage and information technologies, logistics, energy and the natural resource sector.
Huawei data flows under fire in German court case
Politico
But a court case filed by one of Huawei's former managers at its European headquarters in Düsseldorf takes aim at another pitfall for the company: Its respect of European privacy rules.
Gender and Women in Cyber
Misc
e-Commerce Site Hackers Now Hiding Credit Card Stealer Inside Image Metadata
The Hacker News
In what's one of the most innovative hacking campaigns, cybercrime gangs are now hiding malicious code implants in the metadata of image files to covertly steal payment card information entered by visitors on the hacked websites.
We have a duty to build a better post-pandemic digital world
Al Jazeera
In just 25 years since its invention, almost four billion people now use the internet, vastly outpacing the speed atNow consider this: Half the world's population - including many in the worse COVID-19 hotspots - do not have access to the internet. More than 80 percent of people in the poorest countries remain disconnected from the online world, while women, minorities, and people with disabilities in all parts of the world are persistently excluded. which the world adopted any earlier technology.
Events
Understanding Information Operations with Twitter Data Launch Event
As the first event in a series of workshops on research exploring information operations, the Partnership for Countering Influence Operations and Twitter invite you to back-to-back panels featuring expert speakers. This session will feature two keynote panels outlining the central problems and issues with information operations. This event launches a wider series of workshops centered on a call for proposals from the research community.
Jobs
Program Manager/Senior Analyst
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has an outstanding opportunity for a talented, proactive and super efficient program manager/senior analyst to join its growing centre. The successful candidate will need to have a proven track record of leading teams and experience in project management including financial and stakeholder management (which will include industry, the Australian Government, Parliament and foreign governments). To succeed in this position candidates should have exceptional communication and problem-solving skills and experience in research, policy analysis or policy development.
Analyst
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre has an outstanding opportunity for a talented and proactive allrounder to join its growing centre. The ICPC is looking for someone who is an excellent writer and researcher and who is a team player - you will need to juggle multiple research projects that could span the range of topics listed above. This is not an entry level position. Analysts in ICPC have between 5-15 years’ relevant work experience and, depending on experience, are involved in stakeholder and project management, fundraising and the management of small teams.
Citizen Lab Fellowship: Surveillance, Digital Security, and Race
As an academic institution focused on the advancement of human rights within the technological sphere, we are committed to addressing systemic racism and inequality while also making our own space more representative of the communities we serve. To better achieve these goals, we are pleased to announce a fellowship program on issues related to surveillance, digital security, and race.