Facebook and Google to face mandatory code of conduct to 'level playing field' with traditional news media | Huawei Headache Returns for UK | Prague Airport says thwarted several cyber attacks
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The Australian Federal Government has ordered the competition watchdog to develop a mandatory code of conduct to govern commercial dealings between tech giants and news media companies. ABC.
When Britain said it would limit Huawei Technologies Co.’s role in its next-generation mobile networks, it was supposed to be the government’s last word in a debate that had drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump. But it doesn’t seem to have worked. Bloomberg.
Prague Airport and a regional Czech hospital said on Saturday they had thwarted cyber attacks on their IT networks, reinforcing warnings by the national cyber security watchdog of likely attempts to harm the country’s infrastructure. Reuters.
ASPI ICPC
Covid-19 disinformation and social media manipulation trends
ASPI ICPC
A range of actors are manipulating the information environment to exploit the Covid-19 crisis for strategic gain. ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is tracking many of these state and non-state actors online and will occasionally publish investigative data-driven reporting that will focus on the use of disinformation, propaganda, extremist narratives and conspiracy theories. The bulk of ASPI’s data analysis uses our in-house Influence Tracker tool—a machine learning and data analytics capability that draws out insights from multi-language social media datasets. This report includes three case studies that feature China, Taiwan, Russia and Africa.
Key findings:
Elements of China’s messaging continue to demonstrate disinformation tactics similar to coordinated and persistent Russian state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and the Chinese state’s efforts to contest the information domain are supported by coordinated, although not necessarily inauthentic, pro-China patriotic trolling.
Russia-aligned disinformation is exploiting the health crisis as it unfolds in Africa to exacerbate tensions with the West.
Russia-linked actors are capitalising on missteps by the west by amplifying them overtly through state-sponsored media outlets and by leveraging a network of Facebook groups previously identified as part of a Russian information operation targeting African countries.
World
An Update on Our Work to Keep People Informed and Limit Misinformation About COVID-19
Facebook
Ever since COVID-19 was declared a global public health emergency in January, we’ve been working to connect people to accurate information from health experts and keep harmful misinformation about COVID-19 from spreading on our apps.
NATO Chief Rebukes China Over Coronavirus Disinformation
Foreign Policy
The top leader of NATO criticized China and other government actors for sowing disinformation in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, warning that disinformation campaigns could exacerbate the global health crisis.
Australia
Facebook and Google to face mandatory code of conduct to 'level playing field' with traditional news media
ABC
The Federal Government has ordered the competition watchdog to develop a mandatory code of conduct to govern commercial dealings between tech giants and news media companies.
A level playing field': digital giants will have to pay for news
SMH
Global giants such as Google and Facebook will be forced to pay for content in a radical overhaul of Australia’s $10 billion internet advertising business, in a bid to shield local publishers from the economic wreckage of the coronavirus crisis.
MPs refuse to download official COVID-19 app and demand privacy guarantees
SMH
Politicians including Barnaby Joyce are refusing to use the official COVID-19 contact tracing app, while Liberal MPs are demanding data privacy guarantees, as the government tries to convince Australians the software is key to the nation's coronavirus recovery.
Talking COVID-19 tracing apps on ABC Brisbane and the Gold Coast
Stilgherrian/ABC Brisbane and the Gold Coast
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is ramping up the pressure for Australians to use a COVID-19 contact tracing that that hasn’t even been written yet — and more importantly hasn’t even been shown to be something that’d be useful in the first place.
China
China to ban online gaming, chatting with foreigners
Talk eSport
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has decided to put a ban on online gamers from playing the games with players from foreign countries, and even chatting with them, in general, is now forbidden.
USA
Technology Can Help Solve the Coronavirus Crisis If Government Steps Up
Foreign Affairs
Technology has been crucial to controlling the virus abroad, and the same will be true in the United States—the Senate signaled as much on April 9, when it held a hearing called “Enlisting Big Data in the Fight Against Coronavirus.” But the use of digital tools for public health purposes raises complex questions that U.S. policymakers are not yet prepared to address.
The Pentagon Hasn't Fixed Basic Cybersecurity Blind Spots
Wired
Five years ago, the Department of Defense set dozens of security hygiene goals. A new report finds that it has abandoned or lost track of most of them.
How Facebook Works for Trump
The Atlantic
Donald Trump won the presidency by using the social network’s advertising machinery in exactly the way the company wanted. He’s poised to do it again.
FBI says cybercrime reports quadrupled during COVID-19 pandemic
ZD Net
An FBI official said this week that the bureau has seen a spike in cybercrime reports since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Here’s A Timeline Of How A Bill Gates Reddit AMA Turned Into A Coronavirus Vaccine Conspiracy
Buzzfeed
In less than a month, the baseless claim went from an obscure biohacking blog to the New York Post and RT.
Pompeo rips Huawei after China ‘failed to be transparent’ about coronavirus
NY Post
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says countries should avoid doing business with Chinese telecom giant Huawei after the Chinese Communist Party’s lack of transparency in the coronavirus outbreak.
Asia
Robust personal data protection critical in COVID-19 fight
Jakarta Post
After a patient data breach, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has since urged government officials to protect the identity and privacy of all COVID-19 patients, while the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) has called on the media to be more considerate in their reporting. But the damage was done.
UK
Huawei Headache Returns for Britain’s Government and Carriers
Bloomberg
When Britain said it would limit Huawei Technologies Co.’s role in its next-generation mobile networks, it was supposed to be the government’s last word in a debate that had drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump. But it doesn’t seem to have worked.
Johnson Huawei Plan at Risk; U.K. Set to Rethink China Ties
Bloomberg
Boris Johnson’s plan to let Huawei Technologies Co. help build the U.K.’s fifth-generation mobile networks is under threat from mounting opposition to the Chinese company in his ruling Conservative Party, government officials say.
We can’t remove Huawei kit until 2023, admits BT
The Times
Equipment made by Huawei will remain in the most sensitive parts of EE’s mobile phone network for longer than had been expected, in a delay that the company blames on government.
Europe
Prague Airport says thwarted several cyber attacks; hospitals also targeted
Reuters
Prague Airport and a regional Czech hospital said on Saturday they had thwarted cyber attacks on their IT networks, reinforcing warnings by the national cyber security watchdog of likely attempts to harm the country’s infrastructure.
German government might have lost tens of millions of euros in COVID-19 phishing attack
ZD Net
The government of North Rhine-Westphalia, a province in western Germany, is believed to have lost tens of millions of euros after it failed to build a secure website for distributing coronavirus emergency aid funding.
Middle East
Data Breach Shows Iranians Use Chat Apps to Spy, Researchers Say
Bloomberg
Bob Diachenko, a security researcher in Ukraine, spends part of his days searching the internet for troves of data that aren’t secured properly, in order to patch them up so they aren’t exploited by hackers. Last month, he came across an unsecured server storing information on 42 million messaging accounts, nearly all from Iran and tied to the chat app Telegram.
Misc.
Coronavirus Trackers Try Out AI Tools as Eyes Turn to Reopening
WSJ
Tech companies, health insurers and governments are turning to artificial intelligence to predict potential coronavirus outbreaks and help guide policy decisions about social-distancing as pressure mounts to end lockdowns.
[Podcast] Is Contact Tracing a Privacy Threat?
Lawfare
Many people are holding out contact tracing as the way we are going to control the COVID-19 epidemic. Can we do it legally? Should we do it? Will it be effective? To work through the do’s and don’ts and cans and can’ts of contact tracing, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Josh Sharfstein, Susan Landau, Alan Rozenshtein, Stewart Baker, and Bobby Chesney.
Tor Project lays off a third of its staff
ZD Net
The Tor Project, the organization behind the Tor privacy browser, announced on Friday it was laying off a third of its staff due to the economic burden caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
For global diplomats, Zoom is not like being in the room
Politico
Ambassadors normally mix in a world of corridor chats and embassy cocktail parties, building trust and confidence over meals and trading favors over amendments to resolutions and legislation. But that rarified world is over, replaced by an endless series of video conferences that take longer and produce less.