How the US lost to hackers | Reuters finds accounts alleging Myanmar election fraud | Singapore spying on students
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If ever there was a sign the United States was losing control of information warfare, of its own warriors, it was the moment one of its own, a young American contractor, saw first lady Michelle Obama’s emails pop up on his screen. For months, David Evenden, a former National Security Agency analyst, questioned what he was doing in Abu Dhabi. He, like two dozen other N.S.A. analysts and contractors, had been lured to the United Arab Emirates by a boutique Beltway contractor with offers to double, even quadruple, their salaries and promises of a tax-free lifestyle in the Gulf’s luxury playground. The New York Times
A Reuters review early this week found dozens of pages and accounts alleging election fraud [in Myanmar] - the reason given by the army for seizing power. The posts started in October and continued after the election; in the 48 hours before the coup, many of the pages called for military intervention. After the coup, those pages turned to posts accusing the ousted government of fraud and justifying the takeover, the review showed. Some of the pages published coordinated posts criticizing or threatening politicians like Suu Kyi as well as journalists and activists. Facebook took down dozens of the accounts on Wednesday, shortly before being shut down. Reuters
Singapore’s Education Ministry has made it mandatory for secondary school students to install tracking and remote access software on all laptops issued under a national digital literacy program, and on students’ personal devices that are used to attend classes online during Covid-19 related school closures. Human Rights Watch
ASPI ICPC
A QAnon primer, protests in Russia and a geopolitical wrap
Policy, Guns & Money: The ASPI Podcast
In this episode of Policy, Guns & Money, Dr Jacob Wallis speaks with Ariel Bogle about QAnon. They discuss the conspiracy theory’s origins, its translation from an online phenomenon into violence and the ensuing ‘real world’ consequences that encompass everything from the US Capitol riots to Australian policy responses.
The race to create the world's next super-app
BBC News
@BBCKarishma
"The risks associated with WeChat's lack of end-to-end encryption is that Tencent and WeChat can have access to any of your data on WeChat," says Audrey Fritz, who co-authored an ASPI report looking at the Communist Party's influence on Chinese internet firms. "[They are] bound by [China's] cyber-security laws to give any data on WeChat or any of their apps to the government, if the Communist Party should request that."
Australia
Google launches News Showcase in Australia in sign of compromise over media code
The Guardian
@joshgnosis
Google launched its News Showcase product in Australia on Friday with seven Australian publishers Google will pay to host content in Showcase. One of the biggest news media outlets, Nine – which publishes the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and the Australian Financial Review – dismissed the launch, indicating it would not participate in negotiations until the code is brought in.
Cracks in media code opposition as Microsoft outflanks Google and Facebook
The Sydney Morning Herald
@LisaVisentin
Microsoft made an extraordinary intervention into the fray this week. Its global president Brad Smith publicly pledged Microsoft’s full support for the code, and said the company would invest in its own search engine Bing to fill the void should Google depart.
China
Chinese-speaking Clubhouse users are creating "silent rooms"
Protocol
@ZeyiYang
Clubhouse is blowing up in China, but many Chinese-speaking users aren't talking. Instead, they're using it to network. One chatroom is named "Silent Room 2: No talking on the microphone, just checking bios and following each other" in traditional Chinese script. It's attracted over 1,700 participants, including the famous Taiwanese singer and actor Aaron Yan. Even with over 80 people set as speakers or moderators, the room is dead quiet.
Chinese flock to freewheeling US chat app Clubhouse
Nikkei Asia
@michan_hk
Audio-based social-media platform becomes free-speech haven for mainland users.
China’s SMIC Says It’s Missing Out on the Chip Boom Due to U.S. Restrictions
The Wall Street Journal
@DanStrumpf
China’s largest maker of computing chips said restrictions placed by the Trump administration would crimp its pace of growth, despite the booming demand for semiconductors creating a global shortage.
Chinese state newspaper omits Jack Ma from list of entrepreneurial leaders
Reuters
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma has been left off a list of Chinese entrepreneurial leaders published by state media - the snub underscoring how just far he has fallen out of favour with Beijing.
USA
How the United States Lost to Hackers
The New York Times
@nicoleperlroth
If ever there was a sign the United States was losing control of information warfare, of its own warriors, it was the moment one of its own, a young American contractor, saw first lady Michelle Obama’s emails pop up on his screen. For months, David Evenden, a former National Security Agency analyst, questioned what he was doing in Abu Dhabi. He, like two dozen other N.S.A. analysts and contractors, had been lured to the United Arab Emirates by a boutique Beltway contractor with offers to double, even quadruple, their salaries and promises of a tax-free lifestyle in the Gulf’s luxury playground.
US taking 'urgent' steps to improve cybersecurity
The Hill
@magmill95
President Biden said Thursday that his administration is launching an “urgent initiative” to improve the nation’s cybersecurity, pointing to concerns around malign efforts by Russia and China.
Sheryl Sandberg Downplayed Facebook’s Role In The Capitol Hill Siege—Justice Department Files Tell A Very Different Story
Forbes
@iblametom
Forbes reviewed data from the Program on Extremism at the George Washington University, which has collated a list of more than 200 charging documents filed in relation to the siege. In total, the charging documents refer to 223 individuals in the Capitol Hill riot investigation. Of those documents, 73 reference Facebook.
Russian Campaign Promotes Homegrown Vaccine and Undercuts Rivals
The New York Times
@sheeraf @abihabib @julianbarnes
Russian news outlets connected to election disinformation campaigns in the United States have set their sights on a new target: convincing Spanish-speaking countries that the Russian coronavirus vaccine works better than its American competitors, according to researchers and State Department officials.
Chinese and Russian influence campaigns risk undermining Covid-19 vaccination programs
The Strategist
Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments
Associated Press
Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.
Don’t Underestimate China’s Military-Civil Fusion Efforts
Foreign Policy
@emily_sw1
Chinese military and technological capabilities are modernizing rapidly and have outpaced most predictions during the last two decades. For the United States, correctly responding to these efforts begins with a holistic U.S.-government approach that assesses military-civil fusion within the context of China’s broader science and technology aspirations.
They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them.
The New York Times
@cwarzel @stuartathompson
A source has provided another data set, this time following the smartphones of thousands of Trump supporters, rioters and passers-by in Washington, D.C., on January 6, as Donald Trump’s political rally turned into a violent insurrection. At least five people died because of the riot at the Capitol. Key to bringing the mob to justice has been the event’s digital detritus: location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing.
Twitter permanently suspends Gateway Pundit founder's account
The Hill
@cecelou18
Twitter on Saturday issued a permanent suspension for the account run by Jim Hoft, founder and editor-in-chief of far-right news website Gateway Pundit, for violations of its "civic integrity policy." A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the news to The Hill, citing "repeated violations" of its policy that bars users from tweeting messages "for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes," including misinformation regarding the outcome of an election.
Lawsuits Take the Lead in Fight Against Disinformation
The New York Times
@grynbaum
In just a few weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns and liberal outrage could not: curbing the flow of misinformation in right-wing media.
A better bureaucracy can close the gap between defense and commercial technology
War on the Rocks
@sgblank @JoeFelter
As it is currently organized, the U.S. government is ill-equipped to deal with the growing number of national security challenges that exist at the intersection of commercial and defense technology. Innovation opportunities are slipping between Washington’s organizational gaps, and America’s enemies are too.
Cyber chief Chris Krebs: ‘You find out who your friends are’
Financial Times
@kiranstacey
The tech security expert on being fired by Trump — and why we are struggling to keep up with the hackers.
Southeast Asia
Facebook faces a reckoning in Myanmar after blocked by military
Reuters
@f_potkin
A Reuters review early this week found dozens of pages and accounts alleging election fraud - the reason given by the army for seizing power. The posts started in October and continued after the election; in the 48 hours before the coup, many of the pages called for military intervention. After the coup, those pages turned to posts accusing the ousted government of fraud and justifying the takeover, the review showed. Some of the pages published coordinated posts criticizing or threatening politicians like Suu Kyi as well as journalists and activists. Facebook took down dozens of the accounts on Wednesday, shortly before being shut down.
Myanmar's military has cut off the internet and Facebook. It's a tactic straight from the authoritarian playbook
ABC News
@erinahandley
Plunging the country into cyber darkness has precedent in Myanmar and it comes straight out of the authoritarian playbook. Countries from Russia to Ethiopia, Iran and India have all recently shut down the internet to varying degrees.
Singapore Spying on Students’ Laptops
Human Rights Watch
@techchildrights
Singapore’s Education Ministry has made it mandatory for secondary school students to install tracking and remote access software on all laptops issued under a national digital literacy program, and on students’ personal devices that are used to attend classes online during Covid-19 related school closures.
South & Central Asia
Google And Apple Have Caved To Pakistani Pressure To Take Down Apps Made By This Persecuted Religious Minority
BuzzFeed News
@meghara
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has used anti-blasphemy rules to target members of the Ahmadiyya community.
India Turns Off the Internet
Slate
@PranavDixit
Last week, in response to protests by farmers outside New Delhi, India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi restricted access to the mobile web in areas where the protests were unfolding. The move is the latest in the Indian government’s long history of throttling internet access and censoring speech online. Why is the Modi government increasingly shutting down the internet and stifling digital dissent? And what does the party’s history of internet shutdowns tell us about India’s future?
UK
MI6 fears over UK colleges links to Beijing as at least a dozen institutions are probed by spooks
Daily Mail
More than a dozen British universities are under investigation over commercial relationships with the Chinese government that might break laws designed to protect national security and human rights, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The institutions – which include some of the most prestigious universities in the country – could be hit by ‘enforcement notices’ imposed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over alleged breaches of export controls in their dealings with Beijing.
UK 'must learn from 5G Huawei U-turn supplier squeeze'
BBC News
@gordoncorera
The UK will be left vulnerable without a new government strategy on emerging technologies, a parliamentary committee is warning. UK 'must learn from 5G Huawei U-turn supplier squeeze'.
Europe
What Germany’s new cyber security law means for Huawei, Europe, and NATO
European Council on Foreign Relations
@BerylJThomas
The legislation has received harsh criticism for its bureaucratic approach to the Huawei problem. Rather than taking a firm political stance on the matter, Berlin has created a complicated two-part assessment mechanism for telecom vendors seeking access to Germany’s 5G networks. Along with a technical evaluation, the draft law requires a vendor to issue a declaration that its components cannot be used for “sabotage or espionage”.
How Trump won over Europe on 5G
Politico
@markscott82
A growing coalition of European countries have banned — or significantly reduced — China's involvement in domestic 5G mobile telecommunications networks, and that's to a large extent a consequence of the Trump administration's insistent prodding.
Middle East
Turkey Uighurs fear sellout to China in exchange for vaccine
Associated Press
@dakekang
Opposition legislators in Turkey are accusing Ankara’s leaders of secretly selling out Uighurs to China in exchange for coronavirus vaccines.
Africa
In Ethiopia’s digital battle over the Tigray region, facts are casualties
The Washington Post
@CyberAlexi @claireLwilmot
On social media, pro- and anti-government groups continue to vie for control of the conflict narrative. Abiy released a statement on Tuesday encouraging Ethiopians to launch an offensive against the TPLF’s distortions and “lies” in the international arena. Our analysis of over 500,000 tweets related to Tigray helps explain the intensifying information conflict. We collected and analyzed tweets between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20 to try to understand the kinds of information being circulated, and the effects of different messaging campaigns.
Research
Techno-nationalism and corporate governance
Hinrich Foundation
The US-China tech cold war has politicized the business environment for multinationals. Firms must now evaluate how to restructure their cross-border operations to reduce risks. In short, corporate governance must deal with the primacy of geopolitics over efficiencies in global value chains. The driving force behind this change is techno-nationalism.
China’s STI Operations - Monitoring Foreign Science and Technology Through Open Sources
Center for Security and Emerging Technology
Open source intelligence (OSINT) and science and technology intelligence (STI) are realized differently in the United States and China, China putting greater value on both.
The West needs to respond to China’s bid for technology dominance
LSE IDEAS
Western countries urgently need to develop a coordinated response to China’s growing dominance in the development of new technology. This is one of the key findings from a new report from LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank based at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Events
Ranking Digital Rights Launches the 2020 RDR Corporate Accountability Index
New America
Join Ranking Digital Rights for a first look at the 2020 RDR Corporate Accountability Index and a discussion of how policymakers, advocates, and shareholders can use our data to hold tech and telecom companies accountable for upholding our fundamental rights in 2021.
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