China readies Tencent penalty in antitrust crackdown | German intelligence puts coronavirus deniers under surveillance | Taiwan bans recruitment from China to combat chip talent poaching
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China is preparing a substantial fine for Tencent Holdings as part of its sweeping antitrust clampdown on the country’s internet giants, but it is likely to be less than the record $2.75 billion penalty imposed on Alibaba earlier this month, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Reuters
Germany’s domestic intelligence service said on Wednesday that it would surveil members of the increasingly aggressive coronavirus denier movement because they posed a risk of undermining the state. The New York Times
Taiwan has told staffing companies to remove all listings for jobs in China, a drastic move to prevent the outflow of vital tech talent to the mainland amid rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing. The Labor Ministry said that all Taiwanese and foreign staffing companies on the island as a general rule may no longer post openings for jobs located in China, especially those involving critical industries such as integrated circuits and semiconductors, according to a notice seen by Nikkei Asia. Nikkei Asia
ASPI ICPC
Tech companies seeing record profit, despite global economic uncertainty - Technology with Ariel Bogle
ABC
@frankelly08
Despite all the talk of recession, the COVID-19 pandemic has done little to stop the "shift of power and money" to global tech companies. One of the world's biggest companies Alphabet - which is Google's parent company - had a 34 per cent profit increase from the previous year. Guest: Ariel Bogle, analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
北京新一波全球宣傳戰,為新疆再教育營「換臉」
報導者 The Reporter
@liu_chihhsin
In March, a research report issued by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) revealed some of the Chinese government's global round-up tactics. From January 2014 to February 2021, ASPI found more than 270,000 Facebook posts and more than 950,000 Twitter posts mentioning Xinjiang and observed the new strategies and methods of China's propaganda machines. ASPI researcher Albert Zhang, who wrote the report, explained to The Reporter that... "This is a multilingual, multinational, global propaganda campaign that uses various platforms and methods."
Read our report ‘Strange bedfellows on Xinjiang: The CCP, fringe media and US social media platforms’ here.
Australia
Some reflections on the “anonymous Xinjiang paper”
The Interpreter
@meclarke114
During an event to launch the China Story Yearbook at the National Press Club in Canberra on 21 April, the Director of the Australian National University’s China in the World Centre, Professor Jane Golley, stated that she had received an anonymous “scholarly” article that “debunks much of what you have read in the Western media on this topic”.
Visit our 'Xinjiang Data Project' here.
China
Exclusive: China readies Tencent penalty in antitrust crackdown - sources
Reuters
@teamlipei @julie_zhuli
China is preparing a substantial fine for Tencent Holdings as part of its sweeping antitrust clampdown on the country’s internet giants, but it is likely to be less than the record $2.75 billion penalty imposed on Alibaba earlier this month, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
China Warns Large Tech Firms as Industry Faces Rising Oversight
The Wall Street Journal
@Lingling_Wei Stephanie Wang
China is reining in the ability of the country’s internet giants to use big data for lending, money-management and similar businesses, ending an era of rapid growth that authorities said posed dangers for the financial system. On Thursday, China’s central bank and other regulators ordered 13 firms, including many of the biggest names in the technology sector, to adhere to much tighter regulation of their data and lending practices.
USA
U.S. government probes VPN hack within federal agencies, races to find clues
Reuters
@Bing_Chris @josephmenn
For at least the third time since the beginning of this year, the U.S. government is investigating a hack against federal agencies that began during the Trump administration but was only recently discovered, according to senior U.S. officials and private sector cyber defenders.
As forgeries spread, CDC tells states to pull vaccination card templates from web
NBC News
@kevincollier @oneunderscore__
Specific directions showing how to forge Covid-19 vaccination cards have proliferated on conspiracy, pro-Trump and anti-vaccination forums throughout the internet in recent weeks, as users have exploited a largely makeshift verification system.
RCMP Secret Facial Recognition Tool Looked for Matches with 700,000 ‘Terrorists’
The Tyee
@bpcarney
RCMP units in British Columbia broke the force’s own rules when they secretly subscribed to a facial recognition service that claims to help identify terrorists, documents newly obtained by The Tyee show.
Jack Posobiec Links to Russian Intelligence-Backed Website
SPLC
@MichaelEHayden
One America News Network (OANN) correspondent Jack Posobiec tweeted 28 times over a span of ten months links to a website the U.S. government says is backed by Russian intelligence.
Oracle VP Ken Glueck Suspended by Twitter for Doxing an Intercept Reporter
Gizmodo
@swodinsky
A tweet from Oracle Executive VP Ken Glueck goading his followers into harassing a female reporter was found to violate Twitter’s policies, the company told Gizmodo on Wednesday. Glueck, who’s previously made headlines as one of the top lobbyists under Oracle, was forced to take down the tweet and have his account suspended in a read-only mode for the next 12 hours, a Twitter spokesperson said.
Credit Card Ads Were Targeted by Age, Violating Facebook’s Anti-Discrimination Policy
The Markup
@corintxt @alfredwkng
Such ads, along with other age-targeted financial product ads, may violate civil rights laws, attorneys say.
Is Amazon recommending books on QAnon and white nationalism? Browsing books can lead to extremist rabbit hole
USA Today
@jguynn
Amazon’s book recommendation algorithms that help customers discover new titles may have a dark side. A new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue says these algorithms steer people to books about conspiracy theories and extremism, sometimes introducing them to the work of conspiracy theorists who’ve been banned by other online platforms. People browsing a book about one conspiracy on Amazon are likely to get suggestions for more books on that topic as well as books about other conspiracy theories about everything from QAnon to the COVID-19 vaccine, the report found.
North Asia
Taiwan bans recruitment from China to combat chip talent poaching
Nikkei Asia
@ChengTingFang @Lauly_Th_Li
Taiwan has told staffing companies to remove all listings for jobs in China, a drastic move to prevent the outflow of vital tech talent to the mainland amid rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing. The Labor Ministry said that all Taiwanese and foreign staffing companies on the island as a general rule may no longer post openings for jobs located in China, especially those involving critical industries such as integrated circuits and semiconductors, according to a notice seen by Nikkei Asia.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Talanoa
Pacific Islands Law Officers' Network
A newsletter of activities by the Pacific Islands Law Enforcement Officers Network (PILON) with a focus on preventing cybercrime and building capabilities of law enforcement agencies.
South & Central Asia
UK
App used by emergency services under scrutiny
BBC
@janewakefield
Questions have been raised about a digital addressing system which divides the world up into three-by- three-metre squares to pinpoint someone's location.
Europe
German Intelligence Puts Coronavirus Deniers Under Surveillance
The New York Times
@CFSchuetze
Germany’s domestic intelligence service said on Wednesday that it would surveil members of the increasingly aggressive coronavirus denier movement because they posed a risk of undermining the state.
Telecom Italia looking to drop Huawei from Italy 5G network: sources
Reuters
@elvirapollina @Tech_Correspond
Telecom Italia is looking to cancel a contract with Huawei for supplying equipment to build part of the telecom firm’s 5G network in Italy, three sources close to the matter said on Thursday.
Russia
Russia’s Affront on the News: How NewsFront’s Circumvention of Social Media Bans Demonstrates the Need for Vigilance
Alliance for Securing Democracy
@rcerulli2 @selectedwisdom
There has been a sizable public- and private-sector effort to rid the United States’ social media ecosystem of Kremlin disinformation since Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. But what happens to one of those Russian outlets when social media companies suspend its accounts, journalists and NGOs report its possible connections to Russian intelligence, and the U.S. State Department highlights its role in the Russian influence machine? Answer: It adapts, overcomes, and improvises in pursuit of social media audiences worldwide.
Gender and Women in Cyber
How Disinformation and Hate Fuel Online Attacks Against Women Journalists
ICFJ
Vicious online violence that seeks to silence women journalists and discredit their reporting is a growing problem – and one that is often tied to orchestrated disinformation campaigns, new research shows. Because of their race, sexual orientation and religion, some women face even more frequent and vitriolic attacks.
Misc
Apple reports another blowout quarter with sales up 54%, authorizes $90 billion in share buybacks
CNBC
@KIFLESWING
Apple reported a blowout quarter on Wednesday, announcing companywide sales up 54% higher than last year, and significantly stronger profits than Wall Street expected.
Twitter’s revenue jumps 28 percent in its first post-Trump quarter.
The New York Times
@kateconger
Twitter said on Thursday that its revenue in the first quarter of the year was $1.04 billion, a 28 percent increase from the same quarter the previous year that modestly exceeded analyst expectations. Net income for the quarter was $68 million, a turnaround from an $8.4 million loss in the same quarter a year ago.
‘A Perfect Positive Storm’: Bonkers Dollars for Big Tech
The New York Times
@ShiraOvide
The dictionary doesn’t have enough superlatives to describe what’s happening to the five biggest technology companies, raising uncomfortable questions for their C.E.O.s.
Microsoft discloses ‘BadAlloc’ bugs affecting smart devices, industrial gear
The Record
@campuscodi
One of Microsoft’s bug hunting teams has discovered 25 vulnerabilities impacting a broad spectrum of smart IoT devices and industrial equipment.
Scammers Are Hacking Target’s Gig Workers and Stealing Their Money
VICE
@LaurenKGurley
Scammers have been spoofing Target's delivery company Shipt's phone number in order to steal its gig workers' earnings by phishing their credentials from them.
The World Knows Her as ‘Disaster Girl.’ She Just Made $500,000 Off the Meme.
The New York Times
@mariecfazio
Zoë Roth, now a college senior in North Carolina, plans to use the proceeds from this month’s NFT auction to pay off student loans and donate to charity.
Research
Deplatforming Misogyny
LEAF
@Cyn_K
This report examines digital platform liability for technology-facilitated gender-based violence, abuse, and harassment (“TFGBV”).
Detecting Conspiracy Theories on Social Media
RAND
Conspiracy theories circulated online via social media contribute to a shift in public discourse away from facts and analysis and can contribute to direct public harm. Social media platforms face a difficult technical and policy challenge in trying to mitigate harm from online conspiracy theory language. As part of Google's Jigsaw unit's effort to confront emerging threats and incubate new technology to help create a safer world, RAND researchers conducted a modeling effort to improve machine-learning (ML) technology for detecting conspiracy theory language.
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. Candidates must have the ability to synthesis complex cyber and technology developments and explain these developments to media and key stakeholders in plain language. The ability to engage with and brief seniors across parliaments, governments, civil society and the business community.
International Cyber Policy Centre – Program Coordinator
ASPI ICPC
The Coordinator’s primary focus will be the organisation and execution of ICPC’s sponsorship program. The Program Coordinator will work closely with internal and external stakeholders to maintain and develop these relationships. The coordinator will also support the Director and the Deputy Director with the coordination and delivery of ICPC's global research program. This will be a busy, fast-paced and varied role that would suit a highly organised and energetic individual who thinks and acts strategically.