Facebook unveils plan for oversight board | US files civil suit against Snowden | Security agencies feared electoral commissions targeted in cyber attack
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Facebook has unveiled its plan to create an independent "oversight" board to make decisions over how the network is moderated. The firm insisted the panel, which will hear its first "cases" in 2020, will have power to override decisions it makes over contentious material and influence new policy. BBC
The United States today filed a lawsuit against Edward Snowden, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), who published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA. US Department of Justice
Australia's security agencies were concerned that state and territory electoral commissions may also have been targeted as part of a cyber attack on federal political parties, according to previously confidential documents obtained by 7.30. ABC News
ASPI ICPC
Australia's Cyber Strategy, version 2.0
ASPI ICPC
Back in 2016, Australia launched its first national cybersecurity strategy. The strategy covers a four-year period to 2020, and given the changes in the security environment, an update is now clearly warranted. To that end, the government has just launched a discussion paper to kick off the public consultation. The closing date for submissions on the discussion paper is 1 November.To complement the public submission process, ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is initiating a public debate on what should be included in the next cybersecurity strategy. Contributions will be compiled into a report that we will deliver to the Department of Home Affairs to inform the strategy’s development.
Australia should ‘name and shame’ cyber attack perpetrators
Sky News
The Australian government should have the confidence to “name and shame” countries that undertake cyber attacks against us, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Fergus Hanson.
Fergus Hanson on Sky News discussing the need to ‘name and shame’ cyber attack perpetrators.
Fears over driver licence surveillance plan
The Australian
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Fergus Hanson this month told the PJCIS that he was concerned by the proposed legislation. “Australia needs to sharply distinguish its use of surveillance technologies from those of authoritarian states,” Mr Hanson said in a submission. “Most notably, this means very clearly setting out limits for the use of these technologies and creating protections for citizens that err on the side of constraining use of the tools, providing ample protections for citizens and boosting transparency around the use of the tools. “The current draft bill does not achieve this balance.”
Australia to Update National Cybersecurity Strategy
Data Breach Today
"We still have a big skills shortage; the strategy probably had too many focus areas, and we need to do much more to defend critical infrastructure," Fergus Hanson an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, tells Information Security Media Group. "While we have made attributions of some cyberattacks, we still haven't taken the next step of imposing costs. So there is still no real deterrent."
Australia
Security agencies feared state and territory electoral commissions were targeted in cyber attack
ABC News
@FarrellPF
Australia's security agencies were concerned that state and territory electoral commissions may also have been targeted as part of a cyber attack on federal political parties, according to previously confidential documents obtained by 7.30.. Shortly before Mr Morrison's public announcement of the attack on political parties, a whole-of-government teleconference led by the Australian Cyber Security Centre — which included representatives from the Australian Signals Directorate, ASIO, the Australian Electoral Commission, state electoral commissions and other federal government agencies — was held to brief agencies on the breach.
Google fires back at ACCC, talks up support for news publishers
Sydney Morning Herald
Google Australia managing director Mel Silva has hit back at the competition watchdog for suggesting the government gets involved in commercial negotiations between the tech titans and news publishers.
Young mum and alleged cyber crime mastermind charged
Australian Financial Review
@jamesafrost
The Australian Federal Police and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission allege Jasmine Vella-Arpaci is a central figure in a multi-layered cyber-crime that involved fraud, smuggling, the dark-web and cryptocurrency.
China
“Multi-million spike in pageviews”: The company behind TikTok is now shaking up news aggregation
WNIP
The MIT Technology Review called it “the insanely popular Chinese news app that you’ve never heard of.” The app, Toutiao (Chinese for ‘headlines’) is one of the largest news aggregation apps in China. It is installed on over 250M monthly unique devices.
China pushing ahead with controversial corporate social credit rating system for 33 million firms
South China Morning Post
China is moving forward rapidly its plans for a controversial social credit rating system that will include 33 million companies, raising fears of reprisals among foreign firms as Beijing seeks to extend its control over the business environment in the country.
China’s internet regulator orders online AI algorithms to promote ‘mainstream values’
South China Morning Post
Chinese social media platforms, websites and apps that use algorithms powered by artificial intelligence to recommend or suggest content to their users must ensure the technology steers people towards material that adheres to “mainstream values”, the country’s top internet regulator said. The Cyberspace Administration of China released its draft regulations on “managing the cyberspace ecosystem” on Tuesday in another sign of how the ruling Communist Party is increasingly turning to technology to cement its ideological control over society.
Facial recognition technology in China beaten by a nose job
South China Morning Post
A young woman in eastern China found her life turned upside down when plastic surgery altered her appearance so drastically she was banned from online payment gateways and unable to sign in to work.
USA
Facebook unveils its plan for oversight board
BBC
Facebook has unveiled its plan to create an independent "oversight" board to make decisions over how the network is moderated. The firm insisted the panel, which will hear its first "cases" in 2020, will have power to override decisions it makes over contentious material and influence new policy.
U.S. Targets North Korean Hacking as Rising National-Security Threat
Wall Street Journal
New U.S. sanctions against North Korean hackers and revelations about North Korean malware show how Pyongyang’s cyber operations have become a crucial revenue stream and a security threat that soon could rival its weapons program, U.S. and industry officials say. North Korea’s hacks of financial systems and critical infrastructure world-wide reveal sophisticated cyber capabilities developed to counter global sanctions and expand Pyongyang’s geopolitical power, according to these officials.
United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden
US Department of Justice
The United States today filed a lawsuit against Edward Snowden, a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), who published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA.
Same suspects identified in Polk County, Dallas County courthouse burglaries
Des Moines Register
@Philip_Joens
Iowa Judicial Branch spokesman Steve Davis said after the Dallas County break-in came to light that the men worked for Coalfire, a Colorado-based cybersecurity firm with which the Judicial Branch has contracted. Polk County authorities found a small electronic device with the Coalfire logo on it during its investigation.. The men were hired to attempt "unauthorized access" to court records "through various means" in order to check for potential security vulnerabilities of Iowa's electronic court records, Iowa Judicial Branch officials have said.
The Great Anti-China Tech Alliance
Foreign Policy
The United States and Europe will regret letting Beijing win the race to govern digital technology.
Washington, Silicon Valley Struggle to Unify on Protecting Elections
Wall Street Journal
@DNVOLZ @DSeetharaman
U.S. national-security officials traveled to Silicon Valley last week to forge deeper ties with big tech companies in hopes of better protecting the 2020 election from foreign intervention. It didn’t go entirely as planned.
Snapchat launches political ads library as 2020 election ramps up
CNN
Snapchat launched a political ads library as the mobile app becomes a campaign tool for 2020 candidates. The new library, available as a downloadable spreadsheet on Snap's website, makes all political and issue-based ads on Snapchat publicly available -- for the first time.
California lawmaker targets fake candidate videos after doctored Pelosi footage
San Francisco Chronicle
Citing fears that doctored videos of political candidates could be used to manipulate voters in 2020, a California lawmaker has proposed legislation to ban the release of so-called deepfake images before an election.
Twitter deletes ‘death threat’ from Texas lawmaker who targeted Beto O’Rourke
The Verge
Today, Twitter removed a tweet from a Republican state lawmaker from Texas for threatening the life of Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, following remarks he made about gun reform during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
Chinese Government Employee Charged in Manhattan Federal Court with Participating in Conspiracy to Fraudulently Obtain U.S. Visas
US Department of Justice
The Department announced today the arrest of Zhongsan Liu, who was charged by complaint for his involvement in a conspiracy to fraudulently obtain U.S. visas for Chinese government employees. Liu was arrested today in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and presented this afternoon in Manhattan federal court before the U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang.
India
Reliance Jio and Airtel tie up with non-Chinese majors to keep Huawei away from 5G trials
TFI Post
In what comes as a huge development, it has been reported that India’s leading telecom players, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, have shunned Huawei in their 5G rollout plans. According to a media report, while Reliance Jio has tied up with South Korean telecom major Samsung, Bharti Airtel is finalising its agreements to tie up with European tech firms Nokia and Ericsson, for 5G trials.
Southeast Asia
Well structured cyber-criminals on the prowl, warns cyber-security agency boss
FMT News
The head of the national cyber-security agency has warned that Malaysia is vulnerable to increasingly well structured cyber-criminals who are leveraging on new and emerging technologies for monetary gain.
UK
Sister of murdered British MP wants new approach to fighting trolls
The Sydney Morning Herald
@latikambourke
The sister of Jo Cox, the British MP who was murdered in the middle of the EU referendum campaign, has called on social media companies, politicians, celebrities and the media to back a new approach to shut down internet trolls as one way to detoxify public debate.
Our shared commitment to law, norms and confidence building in cyberspace
Gov.UK
Statement by Dr. Alexander Evans OBE, Cyber Director at the Open-ended Working Group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications.
Russia
Facebook Apologizes for Accidentally Suspending Kremlin’s Top Propagandist
The Daily Beast
@kpoulsen
Facebook apologized Friday to Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russia’s government-run RT and Sputnik news networks, after wrongly flagging one of Simonyan’s posts as a violation of the platform’s standards and suspending her account.
Russia and China Are Trying to Set the U.N.’s Rules on Cybercrime
Foreign Policy
As world leaders gather in New York next week for another session of the United Nations General Assembly, they’ll have a number of pressing global security challenges on their minds. But on one key topic—cybercrime—the United States risks losing to Russia and China if it doesn’t have a clear strategy for pushing back against their attempts to prevail on the issue.
Russian diplomatic Twitter accounts rewrite history of World War II
Medium
Official Twitter accounts amplified the hashtag #TruthAboutWWII in an effort to justify the Soviet Union's signing of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
Americas
Inauthentic activity' in Alberta election a possible preview of tactics in the federal campaign, report warns
CBC
A government of Canada team says it identified a number of suspicious social media accounts and instances of disinformation in the run-up to the Alberta election — and is warning that similar tactics could be used this fall during the federal campaign.
Central Asia
Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Iraq and Ukraine
Facebook
Today, we removed multiple Pages, Groups and accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram. We found two separate, unconnected operations that originated in Iraq and Ukraine.
Misc
How YouTube Needs To Address Politically Motivated Disinformation
Forbes
@mikehposner
YouTube has a serious problem with disinformation, but the company’s senior leadership continues to wish it away. A recent blog post by YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, exemplifies the problem. Wojcicki celebrates the many ways the company adds value to society while sidestepping it’s most difficult challenges. Not least among these challenges is the manipulation of video images on the YouTube platform to advance various political agendas.
Revealed: catastrophic effects of working as a Facebook moderator
The Guardian
The task of moderating Facebook continues to leave psychological scars on the company’s employees, months after efforts to improve conditions for the company’s thousands of contractors, the Guardian has learned.
This Company Built a Private Surveillance Network. We Tracked Someone With It
Vice
Repo men are passively scanning and uploading the locations of every car they drive by into DRN, a surveillance database of 9 billion license plate scans accessible by private investigators.
Data of 24.3 million Lumin PDF users shared on hacking forum
ZD Net
The details of over 24.3 million Lumin PDF users have been shared today on a hacking forum, ZDNet has learned from a source.
Tech Firms Need More Regulation
The Atlantic
Information technology is having an immensely uneven economic impact on the world, creating huge wealth for some while leaving others behind, as it displaces jobs and fails to reach communities that lack broadband connectivity.
Research
Strategic Stability in Cyberspace: A Chinese View
China Quarterly of International Strategic Studies
As the strategic importance of cyber security increases, the question of how to foster a stable cyber order compatible with the current international order is one of the most urgent issues for the international community. International cyber governance and strategic cyber stability maintenance have thus become two emerging fields in international studies.
The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A growing number of states are deploying advanced AI surveillance tools to monitor, track, and surveil citizens. Carnegie’s new index explores how different countries are going about this.
Events
The Digital Revolution in the Pacific
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre warmly invites you to attend a panel discussion to consider how governments and businesses in the Pacific Islands are reaping the benefits and tackling the challenges stemming from increased internet and mobile connectivity.