Chinese TikTok users are in love with ‘Daddy Putin’ | Circumstances surrounding the Nauru Police Force hack and leak | U.S, E.U will seek to head off subsidy race over chip production
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To much of the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a ruthless villain with blood on his hands as his brutal invasion of Ukraine presses on. But for thousands of users on China’s TikTok app, he’s “daddy Putin”—a handsome, valiant leader who simply wants world peace. Foreign Policy
On 2 May 2022, 285,631 files stolen from the Nauru Police Force, including some relating to alleged human rights abuses in Australia’s offshore processing centres, were leaked. CyberCX assesses that the leak, published less than three weeks before an Australian federal election—and exactly one week before early voting opened—is intended to influence Australian politics. CyberCX
The United States and European Union will announce a joint effort to avert a "subsidy race" as they scramble to boost production of scarce semiconductor chips, a senior Biden administration official said. The move will be unveiled at the second meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), taking place on Sunday and Monday in Paris. Reuters
The World
U.S, E.U will seek to head off subsidy race over chip production, official says
Reuters
Alexandra Alper
The United States and European Union will announce a joint effort to avert a "subsidy race" as they scramble to boost production of scarce semiconductor chips, a senior Biden administration official said. The move will be unveiled at the second meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), taking place on Sunday and Monday in Paris. The TTC pledged at an inauguration conference last year in Pittsburgh to deepen transatlantic cooperation to strengthen chip supply chains, curb China's non-market trade practices, and take a more unified approach to regulating big, global technology firms.
Can Russia really disconnect from the rest of the digital world?
Prospect
Ethan Zuckerman
The Kremvax hoax, as it came to be known, was an April Fools’ joke played by Dutch internet pioneer Piet Beertema. Thirty-eight years later, as Russia’s war against Ukraine has shattered whatever “peaceful co-existence” reigned between Russia and Nato allies, it’s worth reflecting on Beertema’s prank. This time around, Russia seems determined to leave the global internet and build its own sovereign internet, or “splinternet.” But as with many of the plans announced by Vladimir Putin, the reality is much more complicated: Putin’s plan may be as fanciful as Chernenko’s Usenet post.
Ukraine - Russia
Chinese TikTok users are in love with ‘Daddy Putin’
Foreign Policy
Amanda Florian
For months, users on Douyin—the Chinese original version of TikTok, an immensely popular video-sharing app—have referred to Putin as “handsome daddy,” “older brother,” and even “Prince Charming or male god,” with one user writing they wanted to “worship” him more day by day. Last week, a user from Anhui, China, wrote that Russian citizens must come together to support Putin.
Across drones, AI, and space, commercial tech is flexing military muscle in Ukraine
CSIS
Gregory C. Allen
The early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine generated significant admiration for the quality and performance of the United States’ military technology and the defense industry that makes it.
China
China's digital challenge: Hidden in plain sight, bigger than you thought, and much harder to solve
CSIS
David Dorman and John Hemmings
As the United States and its allies begins to take stock of the technology competition, it is important to avoid the continued focus on single-type technologies like 5G or quantum computing. There is already a number of extremely good—but localized—portraits of Chinese efforts in supercomputers, data management, artificial intelligence, quantum, 5G, semiconductors, innovation, cybersecurity, smart cities, and biotechnology, but it is important to begin to try and understand the overall strategy driving these disparate efforts. The United States and its allies should also begin to understand how these technologies intersect with each other in the various bundles developed by China and how they will impact global governance and order.
China’s largest academic research database CNKI had years of alleged market power abuse before antitrust crackdown
South China Morning Post
Coco Feng
China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), which has become the latest antitrust target by national regulators, has long been accused of abusing its monopoly power over access to published academic papers through excessive subscription fees, according to state media reports and past cases. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on Friday launched an antitrust investigation into CNKI, weeks after the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country’s top natural science research institution, said it would suspend its use of the country’s largest online academic database because of its hefty annual fees.
China’s semiconductor output shrinks as Covid-19 lockdowns disrupt production, crimp demand
South China Morning Post
Jiaxing Li
China’s monthly output of chips shrunk to its lowest level since 2020, as strict lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities disrupted production in downstream industries from cars to robotics. Output of integrated circuits in April declined 12.1 per cent year on year to 25.9 billion units, the lowest since December 2020, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
USA
The Hikvision tipping point?
The Wire China
Katrina Northrop
In the blocks surrounding the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, and the Pentagon, Hikvision cameras keep a watchful eye. In fact, at least 2,900 products from the Chinese security camera company surveil the streets of America’s capital alone, according to Shodan, a platform that collects data on devices connected to the internet. But now, the officials inside those buildings may be considering a move that would make Hikvision one of the country’s top Chinese corporate targets, effectively eliminating its presence in the U.S. and potentially spelling the end of its rapid global expansion.
F.B.I. told Israel it wanted Pegasus hacking tool for investigations
The New York Times
Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman
The F.B.I. informed the Israeli government in a 2018 letter that it had purchased Pegasus, the notorious hacking tool, to collect data from mobile phones to aid ongoing investigations, the clearest documentary evidence to date that the bureau weighed using the spyware as a tool of law enforcement.
Ransomware group strikes second U.S. health care system in the last two months
CyberScoop
AJ Vicens
AvosLocker, a prolific ransomware group that was the subject of a recent joint FBI and U.S. Treasury Department warning, claimed this week that it had hit a Dallas-based nonprofit Catholic health system with more than 600 facilities across four U.S. states, Mexico, Chile and Colombia.
White House cyber official: U.S. beating China in race to quantum supremacy
CyberScoop
Suzanne Smalley
A senior White House official overseeing cybersecurity said Monday that the U.S. is ahead of China in the dash to achieve quantum supremacy thanks to the “huge competitive advantage” conferred by the collaborative nature of American science and industry.
U.S. issues charges in first criminal cryptocurrency sanctions case
The Washington Post
Spencer S. Hsu
The Justice Department has launched its first criminal prosecution involving the alleged use of cryptocurrency to evade U.S. economic sanctions, a federal judge disclosed Friday. In an unusual nine-page opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui of Washington, D.C., explained why he approved a Justice Department criminal complaint against an American citizen accused of transmitting more than $10 million worth of bitcoin to a virtual currency exchange in one of a handful of countries comprehensively sanctioned by the U.S. government: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria or Russia.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Intelligence Update. A question of timing: examining the circumstances surrounding the Nauru Police Force hack and leak
CyberCX
At this time, there is insufficient evidence to definitively attribute this incident. CyberCX has high confidence that it was not conducted by hacking collective Anonymous as some media outlets have claimed. There are several anomalies that invite scepticism about the motivations of the threat actor and the integrity of the leaked data that warrant further investigation. Hack-and-leak operations are criminal activities (unlike whistleblowing, journalism or political speech) and have been used by malign actors to undermine open and transparent political debate and democratic processes, including elections.
Europe
Europeans' data shared 376 times daily in advertising sales, report says
BBC
Zoe Kleinman
Data about every internet user is shared hundreds of times each day as companies bid for online advertising slots, a report suggests. The study, by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), found that the average European user's data is shared 376 times per day. The figure rises to 747 times daily for US-based users, the report claims. The revenue from digital adverts is what keeps most internet services free to use.
EU lawmakers reach agreement on stronger cyber rules for critical sectors
The Record
Adam Janofsky
The European Parliament and EU member states on Friday announced an agreement on setting a higher baseline for cybersecurity standards in key sectors, including energy, transportation, and healthcare. Once adopted, the revised directive — called NIS2 — would replace the first EU-wide law on cybersecurity that was set in 2016.
Middle East
Big Tech
After Buffalo shooting video spreads, social platforms face questions
The New York Times
Kellen Browning and Ryan Mac
On Saturday, a gunman in Buffalo, N.Y., mounted a camera to his helmet and livestreamed on Twitch as he killed 10 people and injured three more at a grocery store in what the authorities said was a racist attack. In a manifesto posted online, Payton S. Gendron, the 18-year-old whom the authorities identified as the shooter, wrote that he had been inspired by the Christchurch gunman and others. Twitch said it reacted swiftly to take down the video of the Buffalo shooting, removing the stream within two minutes of the start of the violence. But two minutes was enough time for the video to be shared elsewhere.
Elon Musk’s free-speech agenda poses safety risks on global stage
The Washington Post
Naomi Nix and Gerry Shih
Elon Musk’s controversial vow to restore free speech to Twitter is likely to be complicated to implement in the United States. But it could create even bigger problems abroad in places such as India. Musk has said he wants to remove many of the rules that currently govern the social media site to allow for a more diverse conversation, including eliminating the ban of former president Donald Trump.“My preference is to hew close to the laws of countries in which Twitter operates,” Musk tweeted last week.
Google faces fresh class action-style suit in UK over DeepMind NHS patient data scandal
TechCrunch
Natasha Lomas
Google is facing a new class-action style lawsuit in the U.K. in relation to a health data scandal that broke back in 2016, when it emerged that its AI division, DeepMind, had been passed data on more than a million patients as part of an app development project by the Royal Free NHS Trust in London — without the patients’ knowledge or consent.
Misc
How the cloud is helping make sustainability a reality
The Sydney Morning Herald
Peter Shadbolt
When it comes to litter and refuse, most people associate the problem with the end user. A drink can carelessly tossed from a car window, or a drink container conveniently forgotten on a park bench. However, at CES (Container Exchange Services), an eco-tech joint venture between Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Lion, the knowledge that waste is part of a consumption eco-system involving hundreds of players is being turned into a business.
Ransomware is already out of control. AI-powered ransomware could be 'terrifying.'
Protocol
Kyle Alspach
In the perpetual battle between cybercriminals and defenders, the latter have always had one largely unchallenged advantage: The use of AI and machine learning allows them to automate a lot of what they do, especially around detecting and responding to attacks. This leg-up hasn't been nearly enough to keep ransomware at bay, but it has still been far more than what cybercriminals have ever been able to muster in terms of AI and automation.
Events
Wartime content moderation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The Atlantic Council
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced social media platforms to make difficult content moderation decisions in real-time. Technology companies have issued a flurry of policies focused on everything from the spread of Russian propaganda to Ukrainian calls for violence against the Russian military and applications of the Geneva Conventions. In so doing, these companies have had to balance the physical security of their employees in Russia as well as their obligations to Russia’s dwindling civil society. This period of policymaking on the fly has set new precedents that will persist long after the war has ended. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab invites you to join us on Wednesday May 18th 11:00 am – 12:00 pm ET, for a virtual panel discussion on “Wartime Content Moderation and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.”
Jobs
The Sydney Dialogue - Senior Events Coordinator
ASPI ICPC
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is currently recruiting for an experienced events professional to coordinate the planning and logistics of the second iteration of ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue - the world’s premier summit on emerging, critical and cyber technologies.
ICPC Senior Analyst or Analyst - China
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for exceptional and experienced China-focused senior analysts or analysts to join its centre. This role will focus on original research and analysis centred around the (growing) range of topics which our ICPC China team work on. Our China team produces some of the most impactful and well-read policy-relevant research in the world, with our experts often being called upon by politicians, governments, corporates and civil society actors to provide briefings and advice.