Cybersecurity is a national priority for Australia | Iran's influence in Iraq | TikTok's chief speaks

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• The internet has made our lives richer and easier, and businesses more efficient. Australians don’t want to turn back the clock. However, they have a right to expect a level of cybersecurity that gives them confidence online. We’ve solved problems like this many times before. Australians trust the cars they drive, the water they drink and the medicines they consume. This is because everyone involved in providing these goods and services is accountable for managing risk and consumers understand what they need to do. It’s a national priority that we get to the same mature state in the digital world and make necessary changes to protect all Australians—particularly the most vulnerable. ASPI Strategist
  

• Leaked Iranian documents offer a detailed portrait of just how aggressively Tehran has worked to embed itself into Iraqi affairs, and of the unique role of Suleimani. The Intercept
  

• In an interview Mr. Zhu denied, in unambiguous terms, several key accusations. No, TikTok does not censor videos that displease China, he said. And no, it does not share user data with China, or even with its Beijing-based parent company. The New York Times
  
  

ASPI ICPC

Cybersecurity is a national priority for Australia
The ASP Strategist
@PeterDutton_MP
The internet has made our lives richer and easier, and businesses more efficient. Australians don’t want to turn back the clock. However, they have a right to expect a level of cybersecurity that gives them confidence online. We’ve solved problems like this many times before. Australians trust the cars they drive, the water they drink and the medicines they consume. This is because everyone involved in providing these goods and services is accountable for managing risk and consumers understand what they need to do. It’s a national priority that we get to the same mature state in the digital world and make necessary changes to protect all Australians—particularly the most vulnerable.

• Read through the entire debate on what's needed in Australia's next cybersecurity strategy on the ASPI Strategist here.

Businesses urged to lift cybersecurity
Nine News
Australia is "too vulnerable" to cyber attack and the rising cost of managing risk must be brought under control through greater cooperation, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says..Mr Dutton said 65 per cent of Australian businesses had been victim to cybersecurity breaches, with half of these attacks costing businesses up to $4.9 million. "Government's limited role online means more responsibility for cybersecurity is borne by the private sector," he wrote in an article for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Australia

Without funding the government's AI plan is too little too late
Australian Financial Review
Ed Husic
The Morrison government must massively lift national AI investment if its plans to harness the benefits of this technology are ever to eventuate.

The World

Facebook quietly hid webpages bragging of ability to influence elections
The Intercept
@samfbiddle
When Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook had influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, the founder and CEO dismissed the notion that the site even had such power as “crazy.” It was a disingenuous remark. Facebook’s website had an entire section devoted to touting the “success stories” of political campaigns that used the social network to influence electoral outcomes.

China

China’s Surveillance State Has Eyes on Central Asia
Foreign Policy
@Jardine_bradley
China’s advanced surveillance regime is taking root along the length of the Belt and Road—especially the Belt, the overland Eurasian routes that were the origin of the government’s ambitious investment project.

USA

TikTok’s Chief Is on a Mission to Prove It’s Not a Menace
The New York Times
@zhonggg
In an interview — his first since taking the reins at TikTok this year — Mr. Zhu denied, in unambiguous terms, several key accusations. No, TikTok does not censor videos that displease China, he said. And no, it does not share user data with China, or even with its Beijing-based parent company. All data on TikTok users worldwide is stored in Virginia, he said, with a backup server in Singapore. But China is a murky place for companies. Even if TikTok’s policies are clear on paper, what if Chinese authorities decided they didn’t like them and pressured ByteDance? What if China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, personally asked Mr. Zhu to take down a video or hand over user data?

Misguided Immigration Policies Are Endangering America’s AI Edge
Defense One
Green card limits haven’t budged in decades, while new policies make it harder, costlier, and more uncertain for the world’s talent to come to the United States.

Reviving Antimonopoly Traditions for the Era of Big Tech
OneZero
@superwuster
Over the last several years, a movement to revive the anti-monopoly traditions of the United States has gained increasing momentum and even retaken its place in presidential political debate. While popularly known as a movement to “break up big tech,” it is really a movement that reacts to the economic policies of the last 40 years.

Think of the children: FBI sought Interpol statement against end-to-end crypto
ArsTechnica
@thepacketrat
Justice Department officials have long pushed for some sort of backdoor to permit warranted surveillance and searches of encrypted communications. Recently, that push has been taken international with Attorney General William Barr and his counterparts from the United Kingdom and Australia making an open plea to Facebook to delay plans to use end-to-end encryption across all the company's messaging tools.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaking to 5G and civilian telecommunications networks. Read or listen to his keynote address here.

Southeast Asia

Huawei sweetens 5G offer in Thailand with tech training center
Nikkei Asian Review
Huawei Technologies is lobbying hard to build Thailand's 5G network as the Chinese telecom maker looks to strengthen its foothold in Southeast Asia following the company's blacklisting by the U.S. government.

South Asia

Sockpuppet accounts impersonate India’s space agency chief
DFRLab
@DfrKaul
Several popular sockpuppet accounts claiming to belong to Dr. Kailasavadivoo Sivan, the chairman of India’s national space agency, accrued a significant number of followers over the summer before Twitter suspended them, further obscuring the information environment in the country.

United Kingdom

Leaked report concludes Russia may have influenced Brexit vote
The Sydney Morning Herald
Questions about the British government's failure to release a report on Russia's interference in the country's politics have continued to dog Prime Minister Boris Johnson as critics said leaks from the document raised concerns about the security of next month's election.

BT, O2 and Vodafone ‘exploit’ delays in security review to use Huawei in Britain
The Times
@LOS_Fisher
British telecoms giants have been accused of exploiting delays in a Whitehall review on 5G networks to install Chinese kit that could pose a security risk. Critics have raised concerns about equipment provided by Huawei, the Chinese technology company, amid fears that it poses espionage and sabotage threats. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is leading a review of the supply chain that will underpin the UK’s next-generation mobile network. Part of the inquiry involves investigating the risk posed by foreign technology vendors including Huawei. Its decision on whether to impose a total or partial ban on Huawei kit was expected in the spring, but has been pushed back.

Europe

Estonia welcomes the AI challenge
Estonian World
@ReginaErlenheim
Estonia has joined the Finnish-led initiative to educate at least one per cent of the population about artificial intelligence; Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) has brought one of the most popular free online courses in the world – “The Elements of AI” – to Estonia.

Russia

Why Were the Russians So Set Against This Hacker Being Extradited?
Kerbs On Security
@briankrebs
The Russian government has for the past four years been fighting to keep 29-year-old alleged cybercriminal Alexei Burkov from being extradited by Israel to the United States.

Middle East

How Iran's Government Shut Off the Internet
Wired
@lilyhnewman
How does a country like Iran switch off internet access to a population of more than 80 million? It's not an easy thing to do.

Leaked Iranian Intelligence Reports Expose Tehran’s Vast Web of Influence in Iraq
The Intercept
@tarangoNYT @farnazfassihi @mazmhussain @Ronenbergman
Now leaked Iranian documents offer a detailed portrait of just how aggressively Tehran has worked to embed itself into Iraqi affairs, and of the unique role of Suleimani. The documents are contained in an archive of secret Iranian intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept and shared with the New York Times for this article, which is being published simultaneously by both news organizations. The unprecedented leak exposes Tehran’s vast influence in Iraq, detailing years of painstaking work by Iranian spies to co-opt the country’s leaders, pay Iraqi agents working for the Americans to switch sides, and infiltrate every aspect of Iraq’s political, economic, and religious life. Many of the cables describe real-life espionage capers that feel torn from the pages of a spy thriller.

Misc

Deepfakes are already breaking democracy. Just ask any woman
Wired
@VickiTurk
Last week, two videos started circling news sites with the promise of an unbelievable twist in UK politics. One showed Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn apparently backing incumbent prime minister Boris Johnson in the upcoming general election; another showed Johnson putting his weight behind Corbyn. The videos, of course, were deepfakes.

Real News: Hardly Anybody Shares Fake News
Bloomberg
@fayeflam
Radio and cable TV are bigger conduits for conspiracy theories.

Burglars Really Do Use Bluetooth Scanners to Find Laptops and Phones
Wired
@lilyhnewman
Bluetooth scanners are readily available and easy to use—which means that smash-and-grab car break-in might not have been pure chance.

Facebook, Google Fund Nonprofits Shaping Federal Privacy Debate
Bloomberg
@realdanstoller
Few companies have more riding on proposed privacy legislation than Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. To try to steer the bill their way, the giant advertising technology companies spend millions of dollars to lobby each year, a fact confirmed by government filings.

Events

Launch: China Defence Universities Tracker
ASPI
ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre invites you to attend the launch of the 'China Defence Universities Tracker’ on November 26. The tracker is a comprehensive resource on the defence and security links of over 160 Chinese universities and research institutions. The tracker will take the form of a publicly available website accompanied by a report that explains the database’s findings and recommends policies in response to them. The project aims to improve the ability of governments, universities and researchers to understand collaboration with the PRC and raise the standard of risk-management and due-diligence work carried out by universities.

Countering violent extremism and terrorist content online
ASPI
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre warmly invites you to attend a panel discussion to explore the challenges on how to counter the spread of violent extremism and terrorist content online which has become a global priority for both industry and governments. ASPI is convening experts in the field to discuss how poor policy can have unintended consequences and to workshop recommendations for how governments can better tackle this problem.

Jobs

Australian businesses that support Indigenous pathways into Cyber Security careers
ASPI is looking for business which have a program, grant or any other initiative in place to facilitate entry into Cyber Security careers for our Indigenous students. We'd really appreciate a share to your networks, if possible.