‘Havana Syndrome' likely caused by microwave energy | China tweet that enraged Australia propelled by 'unusual' accounts | Chinese Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Quantum Computing Race

Dec 6, 2020

Follow us on Twitter. The Daily Cyber Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cyber, critical technologies & strategic issues like foreign interference.

The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the National Academies of Sciences that cites medical evidence to support the long-held conviction of American intelligence officials. The report, obtained Friday by NBC News, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises that disturbing possibility. NBC News
A Chinese official’s tweet of an image of an Australian soldier that sparked a furious reaction from Canberra was amplified across social media by unusual accounts, of which half were likely fake, an Israeli cybersecurity firm and Australian experts said. Reuters
Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology. Bloomberg

ASPI ICPC

China tweet that enraged Australia propelled by 'unusual' accounts, say experts
Reuters
@KirstyLNeedham
Ariel Bogle, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said she had also noticed "unusual behaviour" by Twitter accounts retweeting or liking Zhao's tweet. "There was a spike in accounts created on November 30 and December 1," she told Reuters, adding it was too early to determine if it was coordinated inauthentic behaviour or patriotic individuals.

China's trolling drives home reality of social media war
The Sydney Morning Herald
@chrizap
The tweet from Zhao Lijian, and the outrage and anger it generated, reveal how quickly weaponised information can hijack the public conversation. “It’s pretty embarrassing to get called out by China,” says Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “The issue at stake here is nationalism and self-image.” Zhao pointed out Australia’s inconsistency on human rights in order “to fend off accusations against China’s human rights abuses”. Xu noted that after the incident, acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge called upon Chinese-Australian community leaders to speak out about the tweet. “Why do they ever need to?” Xu asks. “The optics here are not great and as the bilateral relationship continues to sour, it urgently needs to be understood that neither the Chinese government nor its spokesperson speak for the ethnic Chinese community here.”

AlbertYZhang @AlbertYZhang

.@ScottMorrisonMP has now become the target of pro-China trolling on Twitter following his demand for an apology over Zhao Lijian's tweet of a doctored image. Most of the trolling has appeared on the following tweet:

Scott Morrison @ScottMorrisonMP

Today’s the first day of summer and National Water Safety Day. Please ensure you make good decisions around water this summer and look out for each other. https://t.co/0W8C9xAjni

Indonesian propaganda against West Papua: Meet our Jasmine. Mad. Mysterious. And made up.
The Australian
But Jasmine isn’t a journalist. She’s not even human. Jasmine is a machine-generated image, a synthetic warrior in a new kind of cyber warfare that threatens our relationship with our powerful northern neighbour. An investigation by The Weekend Australian has confirmed the Indonesian government is behind a secret “black ops” disinformation campaign to influence Australian and international opinion against West Papua’s independence movement and to attack human rights activists in Australia. “We’re seeing more and more of these social media profiles that purport to be journalists, particularly on Twitter,” says Elise Thomas, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who has tracked the West Papua campaigns. “My suspicion is that it’s aimed at engendering more trust from other journalists. In places like West Papua, where it’s difficult to get independent reporting, these campaigns can have a significant impact on how a conflict is perceived. From that perspective, they can be very dangerous.”

Read ASPI ICPC's Reports 'Weaponised deep fakes' and 'Joint BBC-ASPI investigation into West Papua information operations'

ASPI @ASPI_org

NEW PODCAST📢 This week: 1⃣ @arielbogle speaks to @katestarbird about US election disinformation 2⃣ @michael_ASPI speaks to Rowan Callick about China's soft power 3⃣ @AussieArchivist speaks to David Fricker @naagovau about data digitisation & preservation bit.ly/3mAuQhM

US election disinformation, China’s soft power, data digitization and preservationAriel Bogle speaks to Dr Kate Starbird, Associate Professor at the University of Washington and researcher at the Election Integrity Partnership. They discuss the growing challenges for social media cbit.ly

The World

‘Havana Syndrome' likely caused by microwave energy, government study finds
NBC News
@BrendaBreslauer @KenDilanianNBC @JoshNBCNews
The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the National Academies of Sciences that cites medical evidence to support the long-held conviction of American intelligence officials. The report, obtained Friday by NBC News, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises that disturbing possibility.

Special Report: Burner phones and banking apps: Meet the Chinese 'brokers' laundering Mexican drug money
Reuters
@Draz_DJ
Early next year, a Chinese businessman named Gan Xianbing will be sentenced in a Chicago courtroom for laundering just over $530,000 in Mexican cartel drug money. U.S. law enforcement officials told Reuters that Chinese “money brokers” such as Gan represent one of the most worrisome new threats in their war on drugs. They say small cells of Chinese criminals have upended the way narcotics cash is laundered and are displacing the Mexican and Colombian money men that have long dominated the trade.

Australia

Privacy makes a comeback': Nine in 10 worried about data
The Sydney Morning Herald
@niltiac
New research suggests an overwhelming number of Australians are anxious about their privacy online as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted increased use of QR codes, e-shopping, social media and video conferencing. The Consumer Policy Research Centre research shows 94 per cent of Australian consumers surveyed are uncomfortable with how their personal information is shared online and 88 per cent do not have a clear understanding of what is involved.

Op-Ed: Artificial intelligence and the future of command & control
Defence Connect
@PaulMaddison7
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the key technologies that will reshape the nature of contemporary warfare and key force multiplier capabilities. First and foremost of these is command and control (C2) capabilities and technology, which will benefit immensely from the introduction of AI technology, providing Australia with a potentially game changing strategic edge, explains Paul Maddison, director of the UNSW Defence Research Institute.

China

Chinese Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Quantum Computing Race
Bloomberg
@schen37
Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology.

China becomes second nation to plant flag on the Moon
BBC News
China has planted its flag on the Moon, more than 50 years after the US first planted the Stars and Stripes there.

Ryan Hass @ryanl_hass

1/ I have received several inquiries lately about Chinese MFA spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s rhetoric and tweets, mostly along the lines of what is driving his antics and whether they should be seen as an aberration or a new normal.

USA

U.S. Boosts China Spying Budget to Meet Growing Economic, National-Security Threat
Wall Street Journal
@wstrobel @dnvolz
The U.S. is increasing the portion of the spying budget devoted to China by nearly one-fifth this year, U.S. officials said on Thursday, reflecting rising concern over what the Trump administration says is a top economic, security and counterintelligence threat from Beijing.

White House drafts executive order that could restrict global cloud computing companies
Politico
@StevenOverly @ericgeller
The Trump administration is weighing an executive order that would let the government restrict the international operations of U.S. cloud computing companies such as Amazon and Microsoft in an effort to protect against foreign cyberattacks, people familiar with the matter tell POLITICO. The executive order would allow the Commerce Department to prohibit U.S. cloud providers from partnering with foreign cloud companies that offer safe haven to hackers and give the Commerce secretary the ability to ban those foreign providers from operating in the U.S., four people told POLITICO.

Chinese professor pleads guilty to lying to FBI in Huawei-related case
Reuters
@karen_freifeld
Chinese professor accused by U.S. prosecutors of helping steal American technology to benefit China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd on Friday pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, but is expected to be allowed to return home after prosecutors decided not to pursue a more serious charge. The professor, Bo Mao, had been charged with conspiring to defraud Silicon Valley's CNEX Labs and faced up to 20 years behind bars. He was a visiting professor at the University of Texas when he was arrested in August 2019.

How Joe Biden's Digital Team Tamed the MAGA Internet
The New York Times
@kevinroose
Mr. Biden won, and despite having many fewer followers and much less engagement on social media than Mr. Trump, his campaign raised record amounts of money and ultimately neutralized Mr. Trump’s vaunted “Death Star” — the name his erstwhile campaign manager, Brad Parscale, gave to the campaign’s digital operation.

Facebook didn't label some Georgia-related election misinformation, activist group says
CNN
@kellybourdet @kyurieff @donie
Facebook failed to apply fact-check labels on some election misinformation related to Georgia, according to a report from activist group Avaaz.

In 2020, Disinformation Broke The US
BuzzFedd News
@JaneLytv
Disinformation and its fallout have defined 2020, the year of the infodemic. Month after month, self-serving social media companies have let corrosive manipulators out for dollars, votes, and clicks vie for attention, no matter the damage.

Justin Gray @JustinGrayWSB

I just spent 2 hours going through State Farm surveillance video with @GabrielSterling & state investigators. We watched chain of custody of the table & ballot boxes in question - from 8am until midnight. The boxes were packed & sealed with observers in room - nothing improper

South & Central Asia

Kazakhstan government is intercepting HTTPS traffic in its capital
ZDNet
@campuscodi
Under the guise of a "cybersecurity exercise," the Kazakhstan government is forcing citizens in its capital of Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) to install a digital certificate on their devices if they want to access foreign internet services. Once installed, the certificate would allow the government to intercept all HTTPS traffic made from users' devices via a technique called MitM (Man-in-the-Middle).

UK

Dominic Raab @DominicRaab

Delighted @JoeWhiteUK has been appointed as Consul General to San Francisco and UK 🇬🇧 Tech Envoy to the US 🇺🇸. Vital we build back better and support an innovative post-pandemic global economy that works for the British and American people @UKin_SF

Europe

Germany’s prevarication on Huawei 5G is bleak news for the free world
The Telegraph
@CitySamuel
German companies are still making too much money exporting to China for their government to risk upsetting the applecart.

Ransomware hits helicopter maker Kopter
ZDNet
@campuscodi
Helicopter maker Kopter has fallen victim to a ransomware attack after hackers breached its internal network and encrypted the company's files. After Kopter refused to engage with the hackers, the ransomware gang has published on Friday some of the company's files on the internet.

Misc

Timnit Gebru: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher
BBC News
Timnit Gebru says she was fired after sending an internal email that accused Google of "silencing marginalised voices". Hundreds of colleagues have signed a letter accusing the search giant of racism and censorship, while Twitter users have rallied around Dr Gebru using the hashtag #BelieveBlackWomen.

We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says
MIT Technology Review

Social media superspreaders: Why Instagram, not Facebook, will be the real battleground for COVID-19 vaccine misinformation
Business Insider
@Hamilbug
But while Facebook has taken a lot of heat over the years for being a hub of anti-vaxx activists and advocates, the real struggle in the coming months may actually end up being on its trendy, younger subsidiary: Instagram.

OnlyFans Is a Billion-Dollar Media Giant Hiding in Plain Sight
Bloomberg
@Lucas_Shaw
OnlyFans has grown into one of the biggest media businesses hiding in plain sight. The company has 85 million users, upward of 1 million creators, and will generate more than $2 billion in sales this year, of which it keeps about 20%. That puts the site on track for $400 million in annual net sales - dwarfing Patreon, a platform devoted to helping creative types monetize their work, which is valued at more than $1.2 billion.

Twitter to revamp its blue-tick verification process
The Sydney Morning Herald
@eculliford
The social media giant's process is set for a revamp to address confusion and criticisms over the blue check-mark badges it uses to authenticate the identity of prominent accounts.

Daily Cyber Digest