Biden's trip to Europe is about rallying world's democracies | US recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers | Chip shortage to last until at least mid-2022
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Joe Biden: “My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies… More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator.” The Washington Post
US investigators have recovered millions in cryptocurrency they say was paid in ransom to hackers whose attack prompted the shutdown of the key East Coast pipeline last month, the Justice Department announced Monday. CNN
The global chip shortage disrupting the car industry and threatening the supply of consumer technology products will last for at least another year, one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers has warned. Financial Times
The World
Chip shortage to last until at least mid-2022, warns manufacturer
Financial Times
@harrydemps
The global chip shortage disrupting the car industry and threatening the supply of consumer technology products will last for at least another year, one of the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturers has warned.
Australia
The time is right for Australia to re-establish its reputation as a global space power
The Strategist
@bec_shrimpton John Leslie
Australia’s participation in global space development requires national coordination and cohesion. It requires a unified approach to exploit the geographic, geopolitical, technological and entrepreneurial advantages that can make Australia a leader in the space domain… Four US companies raised US$2 billion over a six-month period to March, and each has announced intentions to make 300+ launches per year by 2025. Right now, Australia has a window to attract international investment to build a secure, flexible, responsive and high-cadence launch capability to serve the growing global market. Building capability to serve this global demand now will be far more effective than attempting to displace other suppliers in future, once costs are sunk… Australia is an economically and socially stable democracy as well as one of the United States’ most-trusted allies. Australia has proven it can be trusted to protect sensitive technologies, but to secure US investment and customers we need to formalise this through a bilateral technology safeguard agreement. A decision to negotiate such an agreement would spotlight Australia’s advantages precisely when international markets are awash with capital looking for space industry investments.
CSIRO boss explains why seL4 team was dumped
InnovationAus
CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall has explained why the agency sensationally dumped the team behind the seL4 microkernel, saying he did not believe it was feasible to spin out the research in Australia and that it didn’t fit with the agency’s new focus on AI.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner targets abuse online as Covid-19 supercharges cyberbullying
The Strategist
@tweetinjules
Technology never stays still for long and so we must also keep an eye on the digital horizon for new technologies heading our way, anticipating how they could be misused and weaponised to harm others. From decentralised services to end-to-end encryption, online anonymity, new immersive technologies and the rise of deepfakes, we need to anticipate how they might be misused and how we can build safety features in before the genie can squeeze his way out of the bottle.
Predictive policing strategies for children face pushback
NBC News
@oliviasolon @cfarivar
Jones' family and civil liberties experts believe his case is emblematic of a broader effort by law enforcement agencies across the United States to predict criminality based on a wide range of data points that are crunched together and used to assign a risk score to individuals or places. While some law enforcement agencies say it can be a useful approach to efficient resource allocation and early intervention, critics say these programs can enter into the alarming realm of "pre-crime," where the presumption of innocence is lost, and that they encode existing racial and social biases.
China
Chinese companies shrug off Biden move to extend US blacklist
Nikkei Asia
@Sonarayanan @ChengTingFang @Lauly_Th_Li
Investors on Friday shrugged off U.S. President Joe Biden's blacklisting of 59 Chinese companies, even as analysts described the move as a "more enforceable" extension of a Trump-era ban on U.S. investment in military-linked entities.
China’s Tech Clampdown Is Spreading Like Wildfire
The Wall Street Journal
@StephanieAYang
The latest salvos in China’s campaign against its tech companies make one thing clear: Jack Ma’s businesses aren’t the only ones under the regulatory microscope. What started out as a government crackdown on anticompetitive practices among Chinese internet giants has grown into a broader effort to clean up how the country’s fast-growing—and, until recently, freewheeling—tech sector operates.
China blocks cryptocurrency Weibo accounts in ‘judgment day’ for bitcoin
The Guardian
China has stepped up its crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining, blocking a slew of cryptocurrency-related accounts on the Twitter-like Weibo platform over the weekend. More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator.
China's bid for digital-yuan sphere raises red flags at G-7
Nikkei Asia
Kosuke Takami
The G-7 finance ministers, who kicked off a two-day meeting in London on Friday, will sort out potential issues arising from state-issued digital currencies, with the aim of announcing new rules as soon as this fall. China's aggressive push to issue a digital yuan has raised concerns that it could give rise to a new economic zone centering around nations taking part in its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Such a framework could undermine the current currency system based on the U.S. dollar.
Tencent bans nose picking, spanking and other 'violations' on its WeChat livestreaming service
CNBC
@ArjunKharpal
Tencent runs WeChat, a messaging app that is used by over a billion people. The app is an integral part of daily life in China and can be used for everything from payments to booking flights. Last year, Tencent launched a live broadcasting feature called "Channels." In a bid to clean up the platform, the Chinese technology giant published a list of dozens of common "violations" on its platform which it had found through monitoring Channels.
Chinese social media users joke about the Queen dying after UK embassy's Tiananmen candle post
ABC News
@BangXiao_
A false hashtag about Queen Elizabeth dying has gone viral on Chinese social media after the UK embassy posted an image of a candle to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre..the embassy, which has 1.8 million followers on Weibo, posted the image of a candle without any message or context on Friday, which prompted hundreds of posts with the hashtag, literally translated as "the Queen died of illness". The Queen has not died. A tweet by Christina Scott, the UK's deputy head of mission in China, said the original candle post on Weibo was censored after only 20 minutes.
USA
Joe Biden: My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies
The Washington Post
@JoeBiden
More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator.
First on CNN: US recovers millions in cryptocurrency paid to Colonial Pipeline ransomware hackers
CNN
@evanperez @ZcohenCNN
US investigators have recovered millions in cryptocurrency they say was paid in ransom to hackers whose attack prompted the shutdown of the key East Coast pipeline last month, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Lawmakers Say U.S. Cyber Ransom Payments Should Be Disclosed
Bloomberg
@RosKrasny @johngitt
More transparency is needed into what kind of cash payments are made after ransomware attacks, a top Democrat said, following a recent spate of cyber-attacks aimed at U.S. companies.DarkSide, Blamed for Gas Pipeline Attack, Says It Is Shutting Down
The New York Times
@mschwirtz @nicoleperlroth
The criminal hacking group DarkSide, which the F.B.I. has blamed for carrying out a ransomware attack that crippled fuel delivery across the Southeastern United States this week, has announced that it is shutting down because of unspecified “pressure” from the United States.
Senate Poised to Pass Huge Industrial Policy Bill to Counter China
The New York Times
@SangerNYT @CatieEdmondson @dmccabe @thomaskaplan
Faced with an urgent competitive threat from China, the Senate is poised to pass the most expansive industrial policy legislation in U.S. history, blowing past partisan divisions over government support for private industry to embrace a nearly quarter-trillion-dollar investment in building up America’s manufacturing and technological edge.
Sedition Hunters’ Turn Capitol Insurrection Into Ultimate Online Manhunt
Bloomberg
@yaffebellany
Amateur internet sleuths have turned the Washington, D.C., insurrection on Jan. 6 into the ultimate online manhunt.
North Asia
‘Do We Need to Be in Hong Kong?’ Global Companies Are Eying the Exits
The Wall Street Journal
@LyonsNotes @frances_jisun
After China announced its crackdown, South Korean internet search company Naver Corp. said it was deleting its Hong Kong-based backup servers and moving them to Singapore to protect user data. Technology companies including Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google dropped plans to connect Hong Kong and the U.S. with undersea data cables after U.S. security officials signaled opposition to the plans.
Southeast Asia
Sultan urges Royal Brunei Armed Forces to embrace technology
The Star
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah said the Royal Brunei Armed Forces should constantly be receptive and responsive to current developments, such as making use of cyber technology, while also mitigating its threats to security.
The authoritarian threat of Indonesia’s latest internet bill
The Interpreter
Eduard Lazarus
The notorious Electronic Transaction and Information Law (UU ITE), for example, has been used multiple times by politicians and police authorities to counter accusations of corruption and misconduct, while expressing opposition to human rights abuses in West Papua carries the risk of being accused of pro-separation propaganda. This list has now expanded.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Senior gang members arrested after global sting targeting organised crime
Stuff
Bill Hickman
Senior members of the Mongrel Mob, Head Hunters and Comancheros gangs have been arrested in a massive police operation targeting organised crime... Police said the FBI created a closed encrypted company, 'ANOM', to monitor people's communications, and for 18 months the alleged offenders were unknowingly using the system to talk about their criminal behaviour.
South & Central Asia
Why Amazon Is Confronting the Richest Man in India
The New York Times
@Amannama
The American company sees big potential in the country’s nascent e-commerce market. Both sides view a troubled grocery store chain as the key to success.
UK
Ransomware warning: There's been another spike in attacks on schools and universities
ZDNet
@dannyjpalmer
The number of ransomware attacks targeting schools, colleges and universities is on the rise again, warns the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The latest alert comes following a spate of high-profile ransomware attacks around the world during the past month, including incidents encrypting the networks of Colonial Pipeline, Ireland's health service and meat supplier JBS.
Europe
Europe’s latest export: A bad disinformation strategy
Politico
@PCunliffeJones
When it comes to tech regulation, what happens in Europe doesn’t usually stay in Europe. Legislation cooked up in Brussels has a way of becoming a de facto standard for governments around the world looking for off-the-shelf solutions to the challenges of the digital age. With the European Union’s landmark proposal on fighting misinformation — the Digital Services Act (DSA) and its accompanying Code of Practice on disinformation — that’s bad news. The approach embraced by Brussels simply doesn’t work, in Europe or anywhere else. Not only does it fail to address the harm from misinformation, our research suggests it risks doing real damage of its own.
Russia
Ukraine warns of ‘massive’ Russian spear-phishing campaign
The Record
@campuscodi
Three Ukrainian cybersecurity agencies have warned last week of a “massive” spear-phishing operation carried out by Russian threat actors against the Ukrainian government and private sector. The Ukrainian Secret Service, one of the three agencies, has attributed the attack to the “special services of the Russian Federation,” marking the third cyberattack the agency has publicly attributed to Russian hackers this year.
Middle East
Mass scale manipulation of Twitter Trends discovered
EPFL News
@Tanya Petersen
New EPFL research has found that almost half of local Twitter trending topics in Turkey are fake, a scale of manipulation previously unheard of. It also proves for the first time that many trends are created solely by bots due to a vulnerability in Twitter’s Trends algorithm.
Misc
What Happened When Trump Was Banned on Social Media
The New York Times
@daveyalba @ellawinthrop @DataJacob
When Facebook and Twitter barred Donald J. Trump from their platforms after the Capitol riot in January, he lost direct access to his most powerful megaphones. On Friday, Facebook said the former president would not be allowed back on its service until at least January 2023, citing a risk to public safety.
Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos to Be on Blue Origin’s First Human Space Flight
The Wall Street Journal
@mattgrossman
Jeff Bezos plans to travel to space next month as part of the first crew carried by Blue Origin, the Amazon.com Inc. founder’s space company. Mr. Bezos said in an Instagram post Monday that he will be one of the inaugural passengers on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, during its first crewed flight scheduled for launch from West Texas on July 20. Mr. Bezos, 57 years old, said that his brother, Mark Bezos, will also be on board.
Research
Jobs
ICPC Analyst or Senior Analyst - Cyber & technology
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for an exceptional cyber-security or technology focused analyst or senior analyst to join its centre in 2021. Please note that interviews have commenced for this position and will continue until the end of June. This role will focus on policy relevant cybersecurity analysis, informed public commentary and either original data-heavy research and/or technical analysis. Analysts usually have around 7-15 years work experience. Senior analysts usually have a minimum of 15 years relevant work experience and tend to be involved in staff and project management, fundraising and stakeholder engagement.