Foreign govt behind major cyberattacks on Australian govts & business, PM says / Facebook removes Trump re-election ads that feature a Nazi symbol / China steps up cyberattacks on India
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australian organisations, including governments and businesses, are currently being targeted by a sophisticated foreign "state-based" hacker. ABC News
Facebook said it had taken action against ads run by President Trump's re-election campaign for breaching its policies on hate. The ads, which attacked what the Trump campaign described as "Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups," featured an upside-down triangle. The Anti-Defamation League said Thursday the triangle "is practically identical to that used by the Nazi regime to classify political prisoners in concentration camps." CNN
China has opened another front against India with sustained DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on Indian information websites and the country’s financial payments system. Hindustan Times
ASPI ICPC
Senior Analyst Tom Uren (@tomatospy) weighs in on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australian organisations are being targeted by a sophisticated foreign "state-based" hacker:
Genomic surveillance: inside China's DNA dragnet
The Strategist
@jleibold @emiledirks
China’s government is building the world’s largest police-run DNA database in close cooperation with key international industry partners. Yet, unlike the managers of other forensic databases, the authorities in Beijing are deliberately enrolling tens of millions of people, including preschool-age children, who have no history of serious criminal activity. Those individuals have no control over how their samples are collected, stored and used. Nor do they have a clear understanding of the potential implications of DNA collection for themselves and their extended families.. The genomic surveillance program violates Chinese domestic law and international human rights norms, including the UN Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, the UN International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Read the new ASPI ICPC report: ’Genomic surveillance: inside China’s DNA dragnet’
China's 'astounding' mass DNA collection of citizens slammed 7NEWS.com.au
ASPI report calls for Chinese government to ‘cease’ DNA collection immediately News.com.au
ASPI: Inside China's Nationwide DNA collection program China Digital Times
Public consultation: Responsible state behaviour in cyberspace in the context of international security at the United Nations
DFAT
Australia's DFAT published a compilation of examples and suggestions, including those provided by ASPI ICPC, of best practices in the implementation of one, some or all of the agreed norms of responsible state behaviour set out in the 2015 GGE report (A/70/174). Read it here.
Satellite images show positions surrounding deadly China–India clash
The Strategist
@nrg8000
Using this satellite imagery, I will try to illustrate the approximate reality on the ground. My analysis disproves some of the more extreme claims that have been made about the incident, such as that thousands of Chinese soldiers have crossed the LAC and encamped in Indian-controlled territory. The satellite pictures also highlight the obvious threats to a peaceful status quo that exist along the western sector of India’s border with China. The analysis includes evidence that strongly suggests Peoples’ Liberation Army forces have been regularly crossing into Indian territory temporarily on routine patrol routes.
Mao’s ‘Magic Weapon’ Casts a Dark Spell on Hong Kong
Bloomberg
@SheridanAsia
The United Front’s mission is to increase the Chinese Communist Party’s influence. Created in the 1920s, it was hailed by Mao Zedong as a “magic weapon” in the victory of the communist revolution. President Xi Jinping repeated those words in 2015 when he set about revitalizing it. Since then, Xi has nearly doubled the organization’s size, according to Alex Joske, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who published a report about the United Front on June 9.
Chinese censorship Zooms into U.S. computers.
POLITICO
Experts say Zoom’s reply wasn’t good enough, but Apple and Microsoft already treat Chinese users differently. It was the sight of a U.S.-based, U.S.-founded company engaging in extraterritorial censorship that really shocked analysts… Samantha Hoffman at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute tells China Watcher this is a “political problem,” not a technical one. “Governments need to do a better job at articulating for society the risks associated with the collection, transfer and storage of [users’] personal data” as well as “deter[ring] companies from caving to the Chinese party-state's political demands.”
Australia
Foreign government behind a major attack on Australian governments and business, PM says
ABC News
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australian organisations, including governments and businesses, are currently being targeted by a sophisticated foreign "state-based" hacker. “This activity is targeting Australians organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure," he said. "We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the trade craft used."
Australia must become its own agent of innovation
The Australian
@BrendanTN_
Two seemingly disparate elements — the technological divergence of the US and China, and the financial shock of the loss of international student revenue to Australia’s universities — are converging to undercut Australia’s ability to independently generate new technologies, advance science and maintain our defence forces’ regional technological lead. A clear lesson from the pandemic is we require an integrated and whole-of-government national security strategy, then the critical importance of science and technology, how we fund it and the role it plays in our economic prosperity and defence should be at its heart.
China
Baidu Breaks Off an AI Alliance Amid Strained US-China Ties
WIRED
@willknight
Chinese search giant Baidu has left The Partnership on AI (PAI), a US-led effort to foster collaboration on the ethical challenges raised by artificial intelligence. Baidu is said to have cited the cost of membership and recent financial pressures for the move. But as relations between the US and China worsen, the departure comes amid growing challenges for companies and people in the two countries to collaborate, or find common ground, when it comes to critical technologies like AI.
Nokia scrapes a sliver of China Unicom's 5G core
Light Reading
Foreign equipment vendors experience far worse treatment in China than Huawei does overseas, say critics pushing for more stringent curbs on the Chinese vendor. Weeks after Finland's Nokia was reported to have landed a core network deal with China Unicom, the news it scraped only a 10% share of business will give them further ammunition.
USA
Facebook takes down Trump ads 'for violating our policy against organized hate
CNN
@donie
Facebook (FB) on Thursday said it had taken action against ads run by President Trump's re-election campaign for breaching its policies on hate. The ads, which attacked what the Trump campaign described as "Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups," featured an upside-down triangle. The Anti-Defamation League said Thursday the triangle "is practically identical to that used by the Nazi regime to classify political prisoners in concentration camps."
Trump campaign runs ads with marking once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners The Washington Post
Facebook Is Suing Two Developers It Says Sold Fake Likes And Scraped User Data
BuzzFeed News
@craigsilverman
Facebook is suing two developers and a Spanish company it alleges sold software that delivered fake likes and comments on Instagram, and unlawfully scraped user data from Facebook. Facebook filed separate lawsuits in Spain and California today against Mohammad Zaghar, a Moroccan developer, and Marcos Gómez Platón, a Spanish developer, and his company MGP25 Cyberint Services.
Trump-appointed CEO absent as top Democrat warns of firings at the agency behind Voice of America
CNN
The new chief executive of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has yet to show up for his job, sources tell CNN, leaving work 'piling up' as a top Democratic lawmaker warns of an impending rash of firings at the agency.
Eric Schmidt: Huawei has engaged in unacceptable practices
BBC News
@gordoncorera
Huawei poses challenges to national security and has engaged in unacceptable acts, Google's former boss Eric Schmidt has told the BBC. But he says the West should respond by competing with China and its technologies, rather than disengaging. Mr Schmidt now chairs the Pentagon's Defence Innovation Board.
Jonathan Cheng @JChengWSJ
Glorifying China—with a wink—is emerging as an unexpected new trend on TikTok. One American student saw her TikTok views jump after posting about “my boy Xi Jinping” and applauding the Communist Party for doing a “great job running the country." @evawxiao https://t.co/w2hEb62UcBUS-China row moves underwater in cable tangle
BBC News
In another sign of growing tension, a high-speed internet cable looks set to be blocked by the US.
Where Black Lives Matter Protesters Stream Live Every Day: Twitch
The New York Times
@Kellen_Browning
The Amazon-owned site, known for showing video game play, has become a hub for airing the sit-ins and marches over racial inequality.
Exclusive: Massive spying on users of Google's Chrome shows new security weakness
Reuters
@josephmenn
A newly discovered spyware effort attacked users through 32 million downloads of extensions to Google’s market-leading Chrome web browser, researchers at Awake Security told Reuters, highlighting the tech industry’s failure to protect browsers as they are used more for email, payroll and other sensitive functions.
Nobody reads privacy policies. This senator wants lawmakers to stop pretending we do.
The Washington Post
Congress has been debating a consumer privacy law since before there were Web browsers, but the United States still doesn’t have one. On Thursday, Sen. Sherrod Brown broke with nearly every past proposal from Democrats and Republicans alike to suggest a more radical idea: allowing companies to take our data only when it’s “strictly necessary.”
South Asia
China opens another front, steps up cyberattacks that target India: Intel
Hindustan Times
China has opened another front against India with sustained DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on Indian information websites and the country’s financial payments system.
UK
UK virus-tracing app switches to Google-Apple model
BBC News
In a major U-turn, the UK is abandoning the underpinnings of its existing coronavirus-tracing app and switching to a model based on technology provided by Apple and Google.
Home Office to face legal challenge over 'digital hostile environment'
The Guardian
@henrymcdonald
Immigrants’ rights campaigners are to bring the first court case of its kind in British legal history in an attempt to turn off what they claim is a decision-making algorithm that creates a “hostile environment” for people applying for UK visas online.
Police take too much data from victims' phones, says watchdog
The Guardian
Police are extracting “excessive amounts of personal data” from the mobile phones of victims and witnesses during investigations and are in danger of discouraging the public from reporting crime, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has warned.
Europe
Eurostar to roll out facial verification for passengers
Financial Times
@svr13
Eurostar has announced that it is rolling out a facial verification process for its passengers, allowing them to prove their identity by walking through a camera-lined corridor instead of presenting passports and boarding documents. The system, funded by the Department for Transport as part of a £9.4m competition to revolutionise rail travel, is being developed by British technology company iProov in partnership with Eurostar and Canadian travel specialist WorldReach Software. It is planned to enter live operation at London’s St Pancras International station by the end of March 2021.
EU ready to go it alone on taxation of digital firms
Reuters
The European Union is ready to go it alone with taxing digital services of firms like Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple if there is no global deal on such a tax this year, European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Thursday.
Russia
Canada
Huawei hires lobbyists to expand artificial intelligence research in Canada
The Globe and Mail
@nvanderklippe @stevenchase
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has hired lobbyists in Ottawa to discuss artificial intelligence research in Canada and how the government supports foreign investment – a sign the company is seeking to further benefit from Canadian expertise in a branch of computing science vital to technology companies and to China itself.. Critics say expansion of Huawei’s investment in AI research in Canada is “deeply problematic,” given the potential value of the technology in building better tools for military use and authoritarian surveillance and control.
Misc
Amazon says it mitigated the largest DDoS attack ever recorded
The Verge
Amazon Web Services recently had to defend against a DDoS attack with a peak traffic volume of 2.3 Tbps, the largest ever recorded. The attack occurred back in February, and was mitigated by AWS Shield, a service designed to protect customers of Amazon’s on-demand cloud computing platform from DDoS attacks, as well as from bad bots and application vulnerabilities.
Inside the Underground Trade of Pirated OnlyFans Porn
VICE
@samleecole @josephfcox @digijing
Motherboard investigated the ways people download subscriber-only content in bulk and repost it for free or for profit around the internet.
Geoffrey Blainey on the vandalism of historic statues, and the geopolitics of Coronavirus conspiracies
ABC Radio National
What do state actors like China and Russia hope to gain from spreading disinformation on the virus? And how do fringe domestic groups like QANON and anti-vaxxers fit in?
Online Drug Markets Are Entering a 'Golden Age'
VICE
@mrmichaelpower
As the routines and restrictions of the working day receded for millions on lockdown, buying drugs online has never been so popular, research shows. What's more, as Covid-19 restrictions lift, these markets are emerging from a tough few years with their immune systems boosted, thanks to a combination of technical innovation, collaboration between competitors and sheer good fortune.
To evade detection, hackers are requiring targets to complete CAPTCHAs
Ars Technica
@dangoodin001
Microsoft recently spotted an attack group distributing a malicious Excel document on a site requiring users to complete a CAPTCHA, most likely in an attempt to thwart automated detection by good guys. The Excel file contains macros that, when enabled, install GraceWire, a trojan that steals sensitive information such as passwords. The attacks are the work of a group Microsoft calls Chimborazo, which company researchers have been tracking since at least January.
Events
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