Britain is 'at war every day' due to constant cyber attacks | Trump pressed Morrison to help Barr investigate Mueller inquiry | Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army 'psyops' soldier

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• The Chief of the Defence Staff has said that Britain is “at war every day” due to constant cyber attacks from Russia and elsewhere. Distinctions between peace and war “don’t exist any longer” in the modern world, General Sir Nick Carter has warned..Russia and China’s “interpretation” of the rules governing international engagement threatened “the ethical and legal basis on which we apply the rule of armed conflict,” General Carter said. The Telegraph.
  

• In making the request, Mr. Trump was in effect asking the Australian government to investigate itself. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election began after Australian officials told the bureau that the Russian government had made overtures to the Trump campaign about releasing political damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The New York Times.
  

• The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, the 77th Brigade, an 'information warfare' unit which has worked on 'behavioural change' projects in the region. Middle East Eye.

ASPI ICPC

Australia's Cyber Strategy, version 2.0
ASPI ICPC
Back in 2016, Australia launched its first national cybersecurity strategy. The strategy covers a four-year period to 2020, and given the changes in the security environment, an update is now clearly warranted. To that end, the government has just launched a discussion paper to kick off the public consultation. The closing date for submissions on the discussion paper is 1 November.To complement the public submission process, ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is initiating a public debate on what should be included in the next cybersecurity strategy. Contributions will be compiled into a report that we will deliver to the Department of Home Affairs to inform the strategy’s development.

Could China’s strict cyber controls gain international acceptance?
South China Morning Post
@simonelmc @BartHoogeveen
Even if calling for a peaceful cyberspace may not reflect “the factual situation” for China, it “resonates pretty well with other states in the region”, including those in Southeast Asia with weaker tech capabilities, according to ASPI’s Bart Hogeveen...China’s call for a more formal overhaul of existing cyber norms with new international laws or treaties contrasts with the softer international agreements around new norms advocated by the West. The formal approach could appeal to states that felt UN laws formulated after the second world war no longer reflected economic and geopolitical realities, Hogeveen said.

Australia

Trump Pressed Australian Leader to Help Barr Investigate Mueller Inquiry’s Origins
The New York Times
@MarkMazzettiNYT @ktbenner
In making the request, Mr. Trump was in effect asking the Australian government to investigate itself. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election began after Australian officials told the bureau that the Russian government had made overtures to the Trump campaign about releasing political damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Vocus completes final splice of Coral Sea Cable System
ARN Net
@Samira_Sarraf
Vocus has completed the final splice of the Coral Sea Cable System which is set to improve connectivity between Australia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. This follows the the landing of the Coral Sea Cable System at Sydney’s Tamarama Beach on 28 August.

Gladys Liu, WeChat, and Chinese Australians in Politics
Vision Times
Yan Xia
During recent times, WeChat has become an essential part in the lives of Chinese people around the globe. During the 2019 election, the wider Australian public became concerned about possible security risks and political interference as an increasing number of political leaders and candidates created WeChat platforms to communicate with Chinese-speaking voters. Every Chinese Australian knows that WeChat platforms, which operate out of the reach of the Australian legal jurisdiction, wield unimaginable powers that can shape Chinese public opinion to align with the CCP and undermine Australia’s liberal values.

USA

U.S. Alleges California Tour Guide Worked as Spy for Chinese Intelligence
The Wall Street Journal
@Kate_OKeeffe @aviswanatha
U.S. officials have increasingly sounded alarms about alleged efforts by China’s government to target American intelligence information, saying Chinese intelligence specializes in creating large data sets containing the names of U.S. intelligence officers and determining their vulnerabilities.. “The conduct charged in this case alleges a combination of age-old spycraft and modern technology,” said David Anderson, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, which is prosecuting the case.

Inside Pioneer: May the Best Silicon Valley Hustler Win
Wired
@parismartineau
Pioneer distills and concentrates some of the best and worst elements of Silicon Valley into a game with real consequences: constant demand for more hustle and productivity, fierce competition, hype, and a lack of awareness of the toll on participants.

Coffee Co. family says cyber bullying caused high school student to take his own life
Fox-17
@aj_abell
A Coffee County family is hurting after they say cyber-bullying caused a high-schooler to take his own life. The brother of 16-year-old Channing Smith says two teens outed him live on social media right before he shot himself.

UK

Britain is 'at war every day' due to constant cyber attacks, Chief of the Defence Staff says
The Telegraph
Dominic Nicholls
The Chief of the Defence Staff has said that Britain is “at war every day” due to constant cyber attacks from Russia and elsewhere. Distinctions between peace and war “don’t exist any longer” in the modern world, General Sir Nick Carter has warned..Russia and China’s “interpretation” of the rules governing international engagement threatened “the ethical and legal basis on which we apply the rule of armed conflict,” General Carter said..War is increasingly waged online and in outer space, General Carter said, adding the traditional concept of battle only being on land, sea and in the air is outdated. “The key bit that will give you the edge you need is the way in which information connects [it all] together so we are properly integrated at every level. Information is going to be at the core of so much that we do. Future warfare is going to be very much information-centric.”

A tale of two PMs: Facebook, astroturfing, and social proof
Samantha North
@sjnrth
There’s something funny about the prime minister’s Facebook page. In response to every post, especially those about Brexit, there are hundreds of responses. Now this isn’t unusual for the page of a public figure, but the responses didn’t quite ring true. They are all very similar; short utterances of praise for Boris Johnson, repeating words and phrases such as ‘brilliant’, ‘fantastic’, and ‘support Boris 100%’. Each comment is festooned with Facebook’s like emojis, mainly representing ‘like’, ‘love’ and ‘laugh’.

Europe

EU to warn on hacking by foreign states in 5G risk assessment
Politico
@laurenscerulus
In its draft 5G risk assessment, the EU Commission links the threat of state-backed hacking groups to that of supply chain security. 5G will need more software and suppliers, increasing the risk for smart, tooled and connected hacking groups to break in.

Russia

Disinformation for Hire: How Russian PR Firms Plant Stories for Companies in U.K. News Outlets, Social Media
Fortune Magazine
Jeff John Roberts
The staples of Russian misinformation campaigns—fake news and social media propaganda—are turning up in a new place: the private sector. For a small fee, companies can pay Russian operatives to boost their image or smear their competitors, employing some of the same tactics used by the Kremlin to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Middle East

Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army 'psyops' soldier
Middle East Eye
@IanCobain
The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, the 77th Brigade, an 'information warfare' unit which has worked on 'behavioural change' projects in the region.

Misc.

The Internet is Overrun with Images of Child Sexual Abuse, What Went Wrong?
The New York Times
@mhkeller @gabrieldance
Last year, tech companies reported over 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused — more than double what they found the previous year. Online predators create and share the illegal material, which is increasingly cloaked by technology. Tech companies, the government and the authorities are no match.

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PayPal is first foreign company to win Chinese payments licence
The Financial Times
@yuanfenyang
PayPal has become the first foreign company to acquire a payments licence in China, after buying a majority stake in a Chinese payments group.

Facebook argued to FTC there was 'no consumer harm' from Cambridge Analytica
The Hill
@hneidig
Facebook argued that none of its users were harmed as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in a memo the company sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the months before the agency announced a $5 billion fine over the incident.

Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire From Fact-Checking
The Wall Street Journal
Jeff Horwitz
Facebook plans to exempt opinion pieces and satire from its fact-checking program, according to people familiar with the matter, as the social-media giant grapples with how to stop the spread of falsehoods while maintaining its own neutrality.

Inside the new Uber: Weak coffee, vanishing perks and fast-deflating morale
The Washington Post
@faizsays
Tech IPOs have long been viewed as a boon for Silicon Valley workers, ushering in a new era of corporate stability and stock-driven wealth. That’s not been the case at Uber, where the stock price has fallen roughly 30 percent since going public in May and employees say they’ve noticed cuts to amenities as basic as the brands of coffee available for brewing.

First project studying how Facebook affects elections runs into privacy concerns
The Financial Times
@MsHannahMurphy
Facebook’s first effort to open up its platform for academics to study its impact on elections has been thrown into doubt, after the social media group failed to hand over its data and cited privacy concerns.

Legit-Looking iPhone Lightning Cables That Hack You Will Be Mass Produced and Sold
Motherboard
@josephfcox
Soon it may be easier to get your hands on a cable that looks just like a legitimate Apple lightning cable, but which actually lets you remotely take over a computer.

Audio - How worried should we be about deepfakes?
The BBC
@mwendling
The technology behind deepfakes has been in development for a while, it’s only in the last few years that it has become good enough to trick people on a wide scale, using the power of social media. Some experts say that in that in a year it may be tough to tell which videos on our timelines are real and which ones are fake.

Events

Cyber Security Hypothetical – Panel
UNSW
We invite you to join us on 22 October, in challenging paradigms and provoking discussion around this important topic that impacts and targets us all. Cyber Security Hypothetical will be led and moderated by Mr Steve Wilson and panellists will include MAJGEN Marcus Thompson, Professor Michael Frater, Mr Alastair MacGibbon, Ms Kate Carruthers and Mr Justin Warren.

The Digital Revolution in the Pacific
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre warmly invites you to attend a panel discussion to consider how governments and businesses in the Pacific Islands are reaping the benefits and tackling the challenges stemming from increased internet and mobile connectivity.

The rise of information warfare: in-conversation with Peter W. Singer
ASPI ICPC
ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre invites you to an in-conversation with Peter W. Singer and Danielle Cave to consider the rise of information warfare. Peter Warren Singer is strategist and senior fellow at New America. He has been named by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, by Foreign Policy to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List, and as an official “Mad Scientist” for the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. A drinks and canapes reception will conclude the event. This event is kindly supported by Microsoft.