Facebook, Twitter penalize Trump for posts containing coronavirus misinformation I AFP given $88 million to bolster cyber capabilities I Facebook’s Instagram Launches TikTok Copycat
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Twitter said it will require President Trump to remove a post containing coronavirus misinformation, banning him from tweeting until he does so. President Trump’s tweet of a video clip from a Fox News interview — in which he said that children are “almost immune” from covid-19 — violates the site’s rules against misinformation, the company said. Twitter hid the post and said he will not be able to tweet from his account until he deletes it, although he can appeal the decision. The Washington Post
The Australian Federal Police will be given powerful new cyber tools to break into the networks of online paedophiles and terrorists using computer servers on the "dark web". The new permission and capability will allow the AFP to break into the computer networks of criminals operating domestically for the first time. The agency will be given $88 million to bolster its cyber capabilities under a $1.66 billion cyber security package. The Sydney Morning Herald
Facebook Inc.’s Instagram photo-sharing app is launching its clone of TikTok in more than 50 countries, a week after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s copycat strategies to U.S. lawmakers at an antitrust hearing. The product, called Reels, lets people edit 15-second clips of videos together alongside music, just like on TikTok. It will be embedded into Instagram in the U.S. and elsewhere. Bloomberg
ASPI ICPC
The World
Facebook’s Instagram Launches TikTok Copycat in Political Storm
Bloomberg
@sarahfrier
Facebook Inc.’s Instagram photo-sharing app is launching its clone of TikTok in more than 50 countries, a week after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s copycat strategies to U.S. lawmakers at an antitrust hearing. The product, called Reels, lets people edit 15-second clips of videos together alongside music, just like on TikTok. It will be embedded into Instagram in the U.S. and elsewhere, the company said Wednesday in blog post.
Instagram's new copycat video tool will have TikTok reeling. The Washington Post
The real reason Microsoft wants to buy TikTok
The Washington Post
@greene
More than merely appealing to the young users of TikTok, Microsoft could use the data culled from its videos to better compete against its AI rivals.
Australia
Federal Police given new powers in $1.66 billion cyber security package
The Sydney Morning Herald
@Gallo_Ways
The Australian Federal Police will be given powerful new cyber tools to break into the networks of online paedophiles and terrorists using computer servers on the "dark web". The new permission and capability will allow the AFP to break into the computer networks of criminals operating domestically for the first time. The agency will be given $88 million to bolster its cyber capabilities under a $1.66 billion cyber security package.
Cyber plan prioritises infrastructure. The Australian
Morrison to increase cybersecurity spending to $1.6bn and push for expanded police powers. The Guardian
Banks, utilities, universities face new cyber security obligations
Australian Financial Review
@andrewtillett
Banks, utilities providers, defence contractors, universities and data storage services are among a host of critical infrastructure providers that face new obligations to reinforce their cyber defences, with government authorities to gain new powers to step in quickly and protect their networks when they come under attack.
China 'exporting CCP speech controls to Australia' as second university caught in row
The Sydney Morning Herald
@ErykBagshaw @fergushunter
The Chinese Communist Party is harnessing an online cyber policing portal, accessible in Australia, to increase its international influence, as it encourages Chinese internet users to dob in acts that undermine Beijing's image. Australian universities have been engulfed in a fresh row over academic freedom after co-ordinated protests from nationalist Chinese students forced UNSW to take down social media posts critical of the Chinese Communist Party's actions in Hong Kong.. The portal has seen a 40 per cent surge since beginning in October 2019, adding 95,000 reports in July alone for political crimes, threats to the Chinese state, rumours, fraud, scams, bad information, pornography and online violence, according to its monthly report.
University of NSW vice-chancellor apologises for removal of tweet criticising China's human rights abuses. The Guardian
Buyer beware': Prime Minister says there is no case to ban TikTok
The Sydney Morning Herald
@Gallo_Ways
Australia will not ban social media platform Tiktok after security agencies found the Chinese company did not pose serious national security concerns. The Australian government is still looking at ways to manage privacy and security risks posed by social media companies such as TikTok and WeChat, but has decided any kind of ban or country-wide restrictions on the applications are not warranted on national security grounds.
PM vows to tackle China interference
The Australian
Scott Morrison and national security chiefs have briefed state and territory leaders on the threat level of Chinese interference, ahead of a major address by the Prime Minister to a US strategic forum warning of the unprecedented militarisation of the Indo-Pacific, cyber attacks and an “assault” on liberal democracies.
Australia kicks off new initiative assisting Vietnam to apply Artificial Intelligence in post COVID 19 economic recovery
CSIRO
The Australian government announced today its financial support of AUD 650,000 to a new initiative that enables applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist economic recovery in Vietnam post COVID-19.
Tech 'no silver bullet'
The Australian
Australia’s banks and financial institutions need to mix high-powered tech with people power to best fight financial crime, according to PayPal’s global head of financial crime and customer protection.
Defending Australia in a high-tech future
The Lowy Institute
@thomdixon
Some of this response must obviously be achieved with diplomacy. It is no surprise there have been growing calls for the government to wind back recent funding cuts to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. However, Australia must also adapt to the rate of technological change characterising the US-China rivalry. Australia will need a high-skilled, technologically literate and critically engaged workforce. Without this workforce, it will be difficult to engage intelligently with US-China rivalry over global technological dominance. This means Australia needs to prioritise education and research—not just at home, but with partners across the Indo-Pacific region.
China
China Builds Surveillance Network In International Waters Of South China Sea
Forbes
China has been building a series of surveillance platforms spanning parts of the South China Sea (SCS). Many of these are in Chinese waters, but several are floating in international waters.
USA
Facebook, Twitter penalize Trump for posts containing coronavirus misinformation
The Washington Post
Twitter said it will require President Trump to remove a post containing coronavirus misinformation, banning him from tweeting until he does so. President Trump’s tweet of a video clip from a Fox News interview — in which he said that children are “almost immune” from covid-19 — violates the site’s rules against misinformation, the company said. Twitter hid the post and said he will not be able to tweet from his account until he deletes it, although he can appeal the decision.
NSA Warns Cellphone Location Data Could Pose National-Security Threat
The Wall Street Journal
@byrontau @dnvolz
The National Security Agency issued new guidance on Tuesday for military and intelligence-community personnel, warning about the risks of cellphone location tracking through apps, wireless networks and Bluetooth technology. The detailed warning from one of the nation’s top intelligence agencies is an acknowledgement that Silicon Valley’s practice of collecting and selling cellphone location information for advertising and marketing purposes poses a serious national-security risk to many inside the government.
Silicon Valley is losing the battle against election misinformation
Politico
@markscott82 @stevenoverly
Videos peddling false claims about voter fraud and Covid-19 cures draw millions of views on YouTube. Partisan activist groups pretending to be online news sites set up shop on Facebook. Foreign trolls masquerade as U.S. activists on Instagram.
Read our work tracking state and non-state actors manipulating the information environment to exploit the COVID-19 crisis for strategic gain. Our new report this week was Automating influence operations on Covid-19: Chinese speaking actors targeting US audiences.
State attorneys general blast Facebook’s civil rights record, blaming social media for rise in hate crimes and discrimination
The Wall Street Journal
@lizzadwoskin
Nearly two dozen state attorneys general demanded Facebook do more to stop the spread of disinformation, discrimination and hate in an open letter on Wednesday, the latest volley in a growing campaign targeting the company’s civil rights record.
Hackers Get Green Light to Test Election Voting Systems
The Wall Street Journal
Election Systems & Software LLC, the top U.S. seller of voting-machine technology, is calling a truce in its feud with computer-security researchers over the ways they probe for vulnerabilities of the company’s systems.
Announcing the Expansion of the Clean Network to Safeguard America’s Assets
United States Department of State
The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration’s comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Today, I am announcing the launch of five new lines of effort to protect America’s critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure.
Microsoft Won't Fix TikTok's Problems
Vice
A real solution lies not in banning TikTok or transferring its ownership to Microsoft, but in reevaluating the relationship between social media users and the platforms we create.
Facebook’s fact-checkers have ruled claims in Trump ads are false—but no one is telling Facebook’s users
The Washington Post
@craigtimberg @abtran
Fact-checkers were unanimous in their assessments when President Trump began claiming in June that Democrat Joe Biden wanted to “defund” police forces. PolitiFact called the allegations “false,” as did CheckYourFact. The Associated Press detailed “distortions” in Trump’s claims. FactCheck.org called an ad airing them “deceptive.” Another site, the Dispatch, said there is “nothing currently to support” Trump’s claims. But these judgments, made by five fact-checking organizations that are part of Facebook’s independent network for policing falsehoods on the platform, were not shared with Facebook’s users. That is because the company specifically exempts politicians from its rules against deception. Ads containing the falsehoods continue to run freely on the platform, without any kind of warning or label.
Instagram Displayed Negative Related Hashtags For Biden, But Hid Them For Trump
Buzzfeed News
@RMac18
For at least the last two months, a key Instagram feature, which algorithmically pushes users toward supposedly related content, has been treating hashtags associated with President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in very different ways. Searches for Biden also return a variety of pro-Trump messages, while searches for Trump-related topics only returned the specific hashtags, like #MAGA or #Trump—which means searches for Biden-related hashtags also return counter-messaging, while those for Trump do not.
A TikTok video told Democrats to vote after Election Day, violating the platform’s rules. Media Matters
White House adviser Navarro suggests Microsoft divest China holdings
Reuters
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft Corp could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy the Chinese owned short-video app TikTok.
Samantha Power: Trump’s tweets are confusing and dangerous
The Strategist
President Donald Trump’s random tweets make it hard for allies, and potential adversaries, of the United States to understand its policies and, potentially, to de-escalate dangerous situations, says former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.
Southeast Asia
Even in Southeast Asia, Uighur Muslims Are Under Surveillance. Here’s How China Does It.
Vice
@heatherchen_
Southeast Asia is now home to a sizable Uighur diaspora community, but many remain vulnerable to political persecution—there have been reports of Uighurs being forcibly repatriated to China despite living overseas, indicating that maintaining a physical distance from Xinjiang doesn’t guarantee Uighurs and their families’ safety, nor does it protect them from Beijing’s wide-reaching campaigns of cyber spying and harassment.
UK
British Dental Association members targeted by hackers
BBC News
Dentists' bank account numbers and correspondence with a trade body are feared to have been stolen by hackers. The British Dental Association has told its members that it is still not sure exactly what was accessed in a breach on 30 July. A spokeswoman told the BBC it was possible that information about patients was exposed, but was vague about the potential context. The BDA's website has been offline since the attack.
Europe
First EU Sanctions for Cyberattacks Point to Alignment With U.S. on Foreign Hacking
The Wall Street Journal
@catstupp
The European Union imposed sanctions for the first time in response to major cyberattacks, bringing the bloc more in line with the U.S. approach of publicly naming and seeking punishment for nation-state hackers.
Darknet: 'Chemical Revolution' drug dealers go on trial
Deutsche Welle
@matvhein
Darknet, drugs, Bitcoin—these ingredients made "Chemical Revolution" the largest online narcotics shop in Germany. The trial against its alleged dealers begins as the Darknet economy continues to flourish. According to the state prosecutors in Frankfurt, the eleven defendants trafficked more than 130 kilos (287 pounds) of amphetamines, 42 kilos of cannabis, 17 kilos of crystalline ecstasy, 6 kilos of cocaine, and kilos of heroin via their trading platform "Chemical Revolution" on the Darknet between September 2017 and February 2019. The defendants are said to have gained more than one million euros ($1.2 million) from Germany's largest online drug trade.
Can Killing Cookies Save Journalism?
Wired
@GiladEdelman
The leadership at Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) interpreted the law strictly, deciding that visitors to any of its websites would now be prompted to opt in or out of cookies, the tracking technology that enables personalized ads based on someone’s browsing history. And, unlike with most companies, who assume that anyone who skips past a privacy notice is OK with tracking, any NPO visitor who clicked past the obtrusive consent screen without making a choice would be opted out by default. The results weren’t terribly surprising: 90 percent of users opted out. Rather than decline, its digital revenue is dramatically up, even after the economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic.
North America
Canada’s Scattered and Uncoordinated Cyber Foreign Policy: A Call for Clarity
Just Security
@joshgold3 @caparson @irenepoet
In mid-July, Canada joined the United States and U.K. in attributing COVID-19 vaccine-related hacking to the Russian government. In response, Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan called for reinforcing a “common understanding of rules-based norms,” and for deterrence against foreign actors. Yet despite Canada’s attempts to play a leading role in upholding global peace and security – as illustrated by its (failed) June 2020 bid for a U.N. Security Council seat – Canada lacks a clear and holistic international cyber strategy.
Misc
TikTok is banning deepfakes to better protect against misinformation
The Verge
@nickstatt
TikTok is establishing new moderation policies today to better protect its platform against misinformation, election interference, and other forms of manipulative content ahead of the 2020 election. The company says it now explicitly bans deepfakes.
Read ASPI ICPC’s report Weaponised deep fakes - National security and democracy.
Ex-NSA Hacker Finds a Way to Hack Mac Users Via Microsoft Office
Vice
@lorenzofb
A security researcher who specializes in MacOS found a way to hack users who would double click on a Microsoft Office file, with no need for any other interaction.
The hack that could make face recognition think someone else is you
MIT Technology Review
@_KarenHao @HowellONeill
A team from the cybersecurity firm McAfee set up the attack against a facial recognition system similar to those currently used at airports for passport verification. By using machine learning, they created an image that looked like one person to the human eye, but was identified as somebody else by the face recognition algorithm—the equivalent of tricking the machine into allowing someone to board a flight despite being on a no-fly list.
AI is learning when it should and shouldn’t defer to a human
MIT Technology Review
@_KarenHao
Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Laboratory (CSAIL) have now developed an AI system to do this kind of optimization based on strengths and weaknesses of the human collaborator. It uses two separate machine-learning models; one makes the actual decision, whether that’s diagnosing a patient or removing a social media post, and one predicts whether the AI or human is the better decision maker.
Google Accidently Enables Home Smart Speakers to Listen in to Everyday House Sounds
The Independent
@adamndsmith
Google accidentally enabled a feature for Google Home users which let the smart speaker listen to the sounds of objects in your house. A user on Reddit spotted a notification on his phone from his smart speaker which alerted him to the fact his smoke alarm was going off while he was cooking.
Journalists’ Twitter use shows them talking within smaller bubbles
Illinois News Bureau
Journalists in Washington, D.C., have long been accused of living in a “Beltway bubble,” isolated from the broader public, talking too much to each other. Their interactions on Twitter, however, show them congregating in even smaller “microbubbles,” says a recent study. The journalists within each communicate more among themselves than with journalists outside the group.
Digital trust and the cost of cyber failure
National Security Podcast
Katherine Mansted is joined by AustCyber CEO Michelle Price to talk about the risks of putting blind faith in the digital devices we use to run our lives and businesses.
Events
Webinar Launch - 'Spy vs Spy: The New Age of Espionage'
ASPI and Foreign Policy
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and Australian Foreign Affairs is delighted to invite you to a panel discussion on the new issue of Australian Foreign Affairs: Spy vs Spy: The New Age of Espionage. This issue of Australian Foreign Affairs explores the threat facing Australia as changes in technology enable malign actors to target individuals, officials, businesses and infrastructure – challenges that have only sharpened due to Covid-19. Speakers: Professor Anne-Marie Brady, Danielle Cave, Andrew Davies, Kim McGrath, Jonathan Pearlman and Penny Wong.
Research
GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda
US Department of State Global Engagement Center
The GEC is releasing a special report that provides an overview of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem. The report outlines the five pillars of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem and how these pillars work together to create a media multiplier effect. In particular, it details how the tactics of one pillar, proxy sources, interact with one another to elevate malicious content and create an illusion of credibility.
Jobs
Senior Expert
European Institute for Security Studies
The EUISS seeks to hire a non-resident Senior Expert who will contribute to the implementation of the project “Global mapping on cybersecurity capacity building and portal” funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development. The selected candidate will report to the Brussels Executive Officer acting in his capacity of Project Coordinator. The deadline for submitting applications is Friday, 21 August 2020, 14:00 CEST.
Fall 2020 Internship, Alliance for Securing Democracy
The German Marshall Fund of the United States
The Alliance for Securing Democracy is seeking fall interns to assist with research on malign actors’ attempts to undermine democracies. Interns will be responsible for tracking and compiling research and developments in this area, including tracking real-time developments in Europe and the United States, and researching partner organization’s work. Interns will benefit from exposure to GMF’s network, and will gain valuable research, analysis, and writing experience. During COVID-19, all internships will be on a remote, work-from-home basis.