NSA, CIA withholding Ukraine info due to White House pressure | Vietnam’s biggest mobile company to roll out 5G | EU industry chief dismisses fears strict security rules could delay 5G
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff alleged that the NSA and CIA may be withholding documents on Ukraine from Congress due to pressure from the White House, even as the Senate prepares to move forward on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Politico
Vietnam’s biggest telecoms company will launch commercial 5G services this year, bypassing China’s Huawei and using technology it has developed itself, underscoring tensions between the two countries. Financial Times
European industrial policy chief Thierry Breton dismissed claims that relying on European companies to build a 5G network would delay its rollout, weighing in on an increasingly tense debate in Germany over the risk posed by China's Huawei. Reuters
ASPI ICPC
Wake up Britain – Huawei is a national threat
The Telegraph
Robert Spalding
To further illustrate how authoritarian nations use their companies to enable influence beyond their borders, “Engineering Global Consent” – a research paper by Samantha Hoffman of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – details the story of a Chinese big data and artificial intelligence company. The company, GTCOM, collects 2-3 petabytes of data per year to provide language translation services. The service uses machine learning to translate languages. The data, however, doesn’t stop there. It continues to flow towards the intelligence and influence arms of the Chinese Communist Regime.
Australia
ASD Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2019-22
Australian Signals Directorate
Lieutenant-General John Frewen DSC, AM
As Acting Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), I am committed to having a diverse and inclusive workplace. It is imperative for ASD to be an environment where our culture is one of belonging, and we recognise individual difference as fundamental to our success.
US
Schiff says NSA, CIA withholding Ukraine info due to White House pressure
Politico
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff alleged that the NSA and CIA may be withholding documents on Ukraine from Congress due to pressure from the White House, even as the Senate prepares to move forward on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
We’re Banning Facial Recognition. We’re Missing the Point.
The New York Times
Facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing on one particular identification method misconstrues the nature of the surveillance society we’re in the process of building. Ubiquitous mass surveillance is increasingly the norm. In countries like China, a surveillance infrastructure is being built by the government for social control. In countries like the United States, it’s being built by corporations in order to influence our buying behavior, and is incidentally used by the government.
Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone.
The New York Times
@kashhill
Public defenders lack access to gadgets and software that could keep their clients out of jail.
Southeast Asia
Vietnam’s biggest mobile company to roll out 5G services
Financial Times
Vietnam’s biggest telecoms company will launch commercial 5G services this year, bypassing China’s Huawei and using technology it has developed itself, underscoring tensions between the two countries.
Occupied Kashmir Internet to be Firewalled
Dawn
A consequence of the Supreme Court’s order on Internet shutdowns in occupied Kashmir — where it put down accountability norms for Internet shutdowns, and said that some essential websites should be accessible, is that it has given rise to the creation of the Great Indian Firewall: filters that control what users can and cannot access online, Medianama portal said on Saturday.
UK
Barring Huawei from Britain’s 5G is too costly to justify
Financial Times
Some intelligence officials dissent from their bosses’ sanguine attitude, warning 5G networks will eventually be so complex that managing the risks of Chinese involvement will overwhelm resources. The government should therefore give Ofcom, the regulator, stronger powers to hold telecoms operators to the toughest security standards in network design. Huawei’s involvement even in 5G periphery should be conditional on rapidly addressing concerns over its cyber security standards raised by a testing centre based in Banbury. But the costs of a full ban are too high to justify.
Europe
EU industry chief dismisses fears strict security rules could delay 5G
Reuters
European industrial policy chief Thierry Breton dismissed claims that relying on European companies to build a 5G network would delay its rollout, weighing in on an increasingly tense debate in Germany over the risk posed by China's Huawei. In a speech at the DLD conference in Munich on Sunday, Breton, a former French finance minister, warned policy-makers in Germany and elsewhere that the new 5G technology will require more stringent security rules than previous generations.
Merkel seeks to delay German Huawei position until after March EU summit
Reuters
@Andreas__Rinke
Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked her conservative lawmakers to wait until after a March EU summit before taking a position on whether China’s Huawei can take part in the rollout of Germany’s 5G network, sources involved in their talks said.
No end in sight for Germany’s troubles with Huawei Lowy Interpreter
Central America
Puerto Rico Targeted Student Journalists’ Facebook Data
The Intercept
@AlleenBrown @alicesperi
As seven University of Puerto Rico students prepare to face trial in February for participating in a nonviolent protest more than two years ago, documents released to their defense attorneys reveal that Facebook granted the island’s Justice Department access to a trove of private information from student news publications.
Misc
Why Google thinks we need to regulate AI
Financial Times
@sundarpichai
There are real concerns about the potential negative consequences of AI, from deepfakes to nefarious uses of facial recognition. While there is already some work being done to address these concerns, there will inevitably be more challenges ahead that no one company or industry can solve alone.
Google wants to kill third-party cookies. Here's why that could be messy
ABC News
The company's web browser Chrome dominates the market, and that's why Google got a lot of attention last week when it announced it intended to change the way ads are targeted online.
Facebook's Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior - An OSINT Analysis
si.ma
The interactive map displays aggregated data from the Facebook Newsroom reports on identified and removed CIB global networks; it represents announcements from July 2018. Each bubble represents the country where the campaign originated, whereas the lines represent the targeted countries. The color gradient displays the value of the variable, with darker colors representing higher aggregated values.
View the interactive map here.
Jobs & Opportunities
Policy Advisor (Electorate Officer)
Tim Watts MP
I'm now accepting applications for a Policy Advisor based in my Footscray electorate office (6kms from the Melbourne CBD).
Open Grants Process – Cyber Cooperation Program
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is pleased to invite project proposals for Australia's Cyber Cooperation Program. The Cyber Cooperation Program provides the framework to partner with countries in the Indo-Pacific region so they are equipped to respond to the opportunities and challenges presented by the growth of the global Internet and digital technologies.