China’s advancing efforts to influence the U.S. election raise alarms | Japan and EU to develop cutting-edge materials for chips and EVs | Jeffrey Epstein’s island visitors exposed by data broker
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Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November. The New York Times
Japan and the European Union plan to formally collaborate on development of advanced materials in such fields as chips and EV batteries, in part to reduce their dependence on China. Nikkei Asia
Nearly 200 mobile devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious “pedophile island” in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. WIRED
Australia
Government and creators slam Meta’s political posts move amid disengagement fears
The Australian
James Dowling
Tech giant Meta will “turn the tap off” on political content across its Instagram and Threads platforms, threatening to leave Australians uninformed, the government has warned. The change, where both platforms will allow users to decide how much political content they are recommended, went through with little fanfare and many users not realising.
McGuinness outlines Australia’s biggest cybersecurity challenges
The Mandarin
Peter Gearin
Prior to becoming Australia’s premier cyber coordinator in February, Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness spent three years as the only non-American deputy inside the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Having started as national cyber security coordinator in late February, McGuinness said her job is to position Australia as a “more cyber-resilient nation, to ensure we’re not just playing catch-up in response to the constantly evolving threat, but are actually getting ahead, preventing and, of course, preparing and responding to cybersecurity incidents”.
China
China’s Advancing Efforts to Influence the U.S. Election Raise Alarms
The New York Times
Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers
Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials. The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden.
In tech rivalry with the US, China is behind on a key asset: Its own OpenAI
CNBC
Rebecca Fannin
In China, which is angling to produce its own chips or get more from Nvidia, no dominant gen AI contender to OpenAI has emerged yet among dozens of Chinese tech titans and startups. Late to the game, China is seeking to catch the lead of OpenAI in a wider U.S. AI market shaped by tech titans Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google and Amazon, and well-financed startups including Anthropic, which this week received a $2.7 billion infusion of cash from Amazon.
Foreign Intelligence Hackers and Their Place in the PRC Intelligence Community
The Jamestown Foundation
Matthew Brazil
Leaked files from iS00N reveal deep insights into the PRC’s intelligence operations, highlighting an intensified global security offensive as well as issues within the intelligence community. iS00N’s growth is tied to Xi Jinping’s aggressive policies and demonstrates the importance of private contractors in fulfilling the PRC’s increased intelligence and security needs.
USA
Jeffrey Epstein’s Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker
WIRED
Dhruv Mehrotra and Dell Cameron
Nearly 200 mobile devices of people who visited Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious “pedophile island” in the years prior to his death left an invisible trail of data pointing back to their own homes and offices. Maps of these visitations generated by a troubled international data broker with defense industry ties, discovered last week by WIRED, document the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender.
TikTok sell-or-ban bill heads to Senate: What's next?
Nikkei Asia
Yifan Yu
It took the U.S. House of Representatives just a week to pass a bill aimed at forcing TikTok to either cut ties with its Chinese parent, ByteDance, or be banned from operating in America. President Joe Biden whose own re-election campaign recently joined the short video platform has said he will sign the bill into law if it passes the Senate.
A new 'digital cold war' is brewing and TikTok is at the centre of it, experts say
SBS News
Social media platform TikTok could become the frontline of a "digital cold war" that splits the internet between the West and the rest of the world, experts say. University of Sydney digital cultures lecturer Chunmeizi Su says any ban could transform the internet from a globalised source of information into a platform splintered along geopolitical lines.
EU and US continue to cooperate on AI, including genAI
Euractiv
Eliza Gkritsi
The EU and US are in close contact over artificial intelligence risks and mitigation, including a possible partnership for a framework on generative AI, according to an unreleased draft statement, seen by Euractiv, for a joint meeting to be held on 4-5 April. While the EU passed comprehensive AI regulation earlier in March, the US has issued an executive order on the technology on the federal level, focused around guidelines as opposed to the EU’s binding measures.
Algorithms are guiding senior home staffing. Managers say care is suffering.
The Washington Post
Two decades ago, a group of senior-housing executives came up with a way to raise revenue and reduce costs at assisted-living homes. Brookdale Senior Living, the leading operator of senior homes with 652 facilities, acquired the algorithm-based system and used it to set staffing at its properties across the nation. But as Brookdale’s empire grew, employees complained the system, known as “Service Alignment,” failed to capture the nuances of caring for vulnerable seniors, documents and interviews show.
North Asia
Japan and EU to develop cutting-edge materials for chips and EVs
Nikkei Asia
Tsuji Takashi
Japan and the European Union plan to formally collaborate on development of advanced materials in such fields as chips and EV batteries, in part to reduce their dependence on China, Nikkei has learned. "It makes a lot of sense to expand cooperation as like-minded partners and pursue collaborative opportunities under our respective research and innovation programs, in a true spirit of cooperation and reciprocity," she said.
TSMC to partner with Kyushu University on chip personnel, research
Nikkei Asia
Yoshinaru Sakabe and Mayune Hotta
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is expected to reach a preliminary agreement with Kyushu University for a wide-ranging partnership focused on semiconductors as soon as April, Nikkei has learned. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, will send staff as instructors to the Japanese university's Education Center for Semiconductors and Value Creation with an eye toward addressing a talent shortage in the field.
In Taiwan, a group is battling fake news one conversation at a time--with a focus on seniors
The Asahi Shimbun
Nearly six years later, with just one formal employee and a team of volunteers, Fake News Cleaner has hosted more than 500 events, connecting with college students, elementary-school children — and the seniors that, some say, are the most vulnerable to such efforts. Its people are filling up lecture halls and becoming a key voice in an effort as pressing here as anywhere: scrubbing Taiwan of disinformation and the problems it causes, one case at a time.
Southeast Asia
Myanmar mobile providers face uncertainty under military control
Nikkei Asia
Mobile providers in Myanmar are finding themselves caught between the military's tightening grip and investor concerns over human rights, raising questions about their ability to continue providing a critical service in the country. A local woman in her 60s said she felt "anxious" this month when she received a series of smartphone messages alerting her that men aged 18 to 35 can now be drafted into the Myanmar military. The woman has a family member in the draft pool.
South & Central Asia
Cambodia: Hundreds of Indians rescued from cyber-scam factories
BBC
Cherylann Mollan
The Indian government has so far rescued 250 citizens in Cambodia who were forced to run online scams. They were promised jobs but "forced to undertake illegal cyber work", India's foreign ministry said. Recent reports have said more than 5,000 Indians stuck in Cambodia were forced to operate cyber-fraud schemes.
Ukraine - Russia
Russian disinformation on Ukraine has grown in scale and skill, warns Berlin
Financial Times
Sam Jones
Russian disinformation campaigns to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe have grown significantly in scale, skill and stealth, one of Germany’s most senior diplomats has warned. “It is absolutely a threat we have to take seriously,” Ralf Beste, head of the department for culture and communication at Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, told the Financial Times. “Overall, [there] is an increase in sophistication and impact to what we have seen before.”
Europe
France’s latest foreign interference bill questions democratic control over surveillance services
Euractiv
Théophane Hartmann
On Wednesday, French MPs backed a bill to expand intelligence services competencies to monitor networks, re-opening a debate on democratic control of these agencies. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in 2015, France passed a sweeping Intelligence Law which empowered its intelligence services to install devices on telecom infrastructures using algorithms to detect suspicious behaviour online.
Germany is not prepared for large-scale cyberattacks
Euractiv
Oliver Noyan
Germany is not sufficiently prepared for a potential large-scale cyber-attack as it lacks a functioning crisis management system, the head of the Federal Office for Information Security warned on Sunday. Despite the increasingly tense international security situation and hybrid threats by Russia, Germany has so far not been hit by a large-scale cyberattack on critical infrastructure.
UK
Cambridge university medical IT system targeted by hackers
BBC
Janine Machin
Hundreds of researchers at the University of Cambridge have been unable to access a computer system because of so-called "malicious activity". The problem was found five weeks ago on its Clinical School Computing Service, used for high profile medical studies.
Big Tech
Exclusive: Microsoft to separate Teams and Office globally amid antitrust scrutiny
Reuters
Foo Yun Chee
Microsoft will sell its chat and video app Teams separately from its Office product globally, the U.S. tech giant said on Monday, six months after it unbundled the two products in Europe in a bid to avert a possible EU antitrust fine. The European Commission has been investigating Microsoft's tying of Office and Teams since a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned competing workspace messaging app Slack.
Musk’s Starlink Faces Obstruction From Phone Carrier in Italy High-Speed Rollout
Bloomberg
Elon Musk’s Starlink is claiming that its rollout of high-speed internet in Italy is being obstructed by the country’s largest phone carrier, with possible repercussions for its services across southern Europe and north Africa. In a complaint filed to Italy’s communications watchdog and the Industry Ministry late last week, Starlink claims that Telecom Italia SpA has for months failed to comply with regulations requiring it to share spectrum data in order to avoid frequency interferences with its equipment, a document seen by Bloomberg shows.
Meta shuts monitoring tool CrowdTangle
The Australian
Anuj Chopra and Athur MacMillan
For years, CrowdTangle has been a game-changer, offering researchers and journalists crucial real-time transparency into the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech on influential Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Killing off the monitoring tool, a move experts say is in line with a tech industry trend of rolling back transparency and security measures, is a major blow as dozens of countries hold elections this year – a period when bad actors typically spread false narratives more than ever.
Panasonic eyes 'strategic' Indian market as New Delhi pushes green energy
Nikkei Asia
Ryohtaroh Satoh
Panasonic Energy said it is considering entering the Indian market for batteries used in motorcycles and energy storage, as New Delhi plans to bolster local manufacturing of related industries. The major EV battery maker on Monday said it was in talks with India's top refiner, Indian Oil, to set up a joint venture to manufacture cylindrical lithium-ion batteries for two- and three-wheeled vehicles, and for energy storage systems.
Google Will Destroy ‘Incognito Mode’ Browsing Data: Here's What That Means For Users
Forbes
Zachary Folk
Google will destroy “billions” of data entries it collected on Google Chrome users’ private browsing activities to settle a class action lawsuit, and Chrome will enable default settings that prevent Google from automatically harvesting incognito data—but users won’t see any monetary damages unless they file a suit themselves.
Artificial Intelligence
Godfather of AI' speaks on threat of tech surpassing humanity
Nikkei Asia
Kosuke Shimizu and Kazuyuki Okudaira
Artificial intelligence continues to evolve at an astounding pace. How will the world change when it enters an age in which human intelligence has been surpassed in all fields?
OpenAI deems its voice cloning tool too risky for general release
The Guardian
Alex Hern
A new tool from OpenAI that can generate a convincing clone of anyone’s voice using just 15 seconds of recorded audio has been deemed too risky for general release, as the AI lab seeks to minimise the threat of damaging misinformation in a global year of elections. Voice Engine was first developed in 2022 and an initial version was used for the text-to-speech feature built into ChatGPT, the organisation’s leading AI tool. But its power has never been revealed publicly, in part because of the “cautious and informed” approach that OpenAI is taking to release it more widely.
AI filtering out women who have taken maternity leave in job searches: Nuix
The Australian
Jared Lynch
Artificial intelligence is filtering out women who have taken career breaks or time off to have children, according to forensic software company Nuix, exposing how the technology’s bias is potentially exacerbating the gender pay gap. Nuix chief technology officer Alexis Rouch said Australia has an opportunity to position itself as an ethical developer of AI, and encourage more women into the industry to stamp out such prejudice.
Inside Canva’s mission to combat AI deep fakes and abusive images
The Australian
Jared Lynch
Canva is making its debiasing technology freely available to other developers in order to help stop artificial-generated imagery being used for political deep fakes, hate speech and other abusive material. The explosion of generative AI – or the ability to create content such as photorealistic images and videos via a few basic written prompts – has made it easier than ever to deceive people via the internet and on social media.
How One Tech Skeptic Decided A.I. Might Benefit the Middle Class
The New York Times
Steve Lohr
David Autor seems an unlikely A.I. optimist. The labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is best known for his in-depth studies showing how much technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years. But Mr. Autor is now making the case that the new wave of technology — generative artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and video and convincingly imitate humans’ voices and writing — could reverse that trend.
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.
CSIS LeadershIP 2024
CSIS
Please join LeadershIP and CSIS on April 9 for LeadershIP 2024, the premier conference on intellectual property (IP), innovation, and national security policy. Join experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to analyze and debate the pressing topics in IP, innovation, and national security policy--including geopolitical competition for technology leadership, innovation in emerging technologies, and the intersection of intellectual property and competition policy with economic and national security.
Jobs
Data Scientist
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an inquisitive and problem-solving open-source data scientist who will be responsible for developing and implementing automated techniques for a variety of open-source data collection requirements. We are open to experienced data scientists and those beginning their career. Role equivalency would be between levels 3 – 7 of Data Science category of SFIA 8. The closing date for applications is 15 April 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.