South Korea warns of tech threat to democracy | Australia's eSafety probes tech companies over terror-related content | ByteDance researcher wrongly added to US AI safety group chat
Good morning. It's Tuesday 19th March.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday called fake news and disinformation based on AI and digital technology threats to democracy, as his country hosted a gathering of senior global officials including from Britain, the EU and the United States. Reuters
Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said she still receives reports that video and other perpetrator-produced material from terror attacks are being shared on mainstream platforms. The Guardian
A researcher from TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance was wrongly added to a group chat for American artificial intelligence safety experts last week, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology said Monday. Reuters
Australia
Australian eSafety commissioner puts tech companies on notice over reports terror-related content still being shared
The Guardian
Josh Taylor
Australia’s online safety regulator has issued notices to Telegram, Google, Meta, Reddit and X asking how they are taking action against terror material on their platforms. It is five years since an Australian murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand, and broadcast the massacre on Facebook live.
Google, Bing face probe as ACCC begins quality testing
The Australian
Joseph Lam
The nation’s competition watchdog is putting search engine’s on notice, announcing plans to scrutinise the competitive nature and quality of popular services including Google and Bing. The inquiry into the search engine giants, announced on Monday, will call for consumers, businesses and experts to recall recent results and consider whether recent changes to laws in Europe have affected the results they see.
‘Tip of the iceberg’: new cyber tsar issues warning on attacks
The Australian Financial Review
Andrew Tillett
Cybercrime and cyberattacks are being underreported and the problem will get worse as technologies such as artificial intelligence become more sophisticated, says the new national cyber tsar. In an interview marking her appointment as National Cyber Security Coordinator, Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness also pointed to changes to how government and companies should handle cyberattacks in the wake of the Optus and Medibank hacks, which saw millions of Australians’ personal data stolen and released on the dark web.
Cyber security for charities and not-for-profit organisations
Australian Signals Directorate
Australian Signals Directorate
With cyber-attacks continuing to increase in frequency and severity across all sectors, the Australian Signals Directorate is encouraging charities and not-for-profit organisations to take action to protect their online systems. Charities and not-for-profits can be vulnerable to cyber incidents because they may not have resources to implement robust cyber security measures.
Why you might be about to see a lot more of this logo
The Australian Financial Review
Tom Burton
A new brand and logo, myID, could become as prominent as Medicare or myGov as the government forges ahead with a digital tool for Australians to prove their identity without physical passports, driver’s licences or utility bills. The Australian Tax Office has applied to trademark myID and a new stylised, barcode-esque logo of Australia, both of which are expected to become the centrepiece of the new national digital identification system.
China
China's military, state media slam U.S. after Reuters report on SpaceX spy satellites
Reuters
Australian Signals Directorate
Chinese military and state-run media on Sunday accused the United States of threatening global security, days after a Reuters report which found Elon Musk's SpaceX was building hundreds of spy satellites for a U.S. intelligence agency. SpaceX's Starshield unit is developing the satellite network under a classified $1.8 billion contract with the National Reconnaissance Office, Reuters reported on Friday, citing five sources familiar with the programme.
China’s technical expertise touted as new vehicle for progress on embattled, global belt and road
South China Morning Post
Ralph Jennings, Mia Nulimaimaiti
"China seen shifting away from infrastructure-dominated exchanges that long dominated the decade-old Belt and Road Initiative and sparked criticism. Technology transfers have always been part of China's belt and road plan, but analysts say Beijing is increasingly prioritising those types of exchanges to boost ties."
USA
US standards body says ByteDance researcher wrongly added to AI safety groupchat
Reuters
A researcher from TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance was wrongly added to a groupchat for American artificial intelligence safety experts last week, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology said Monday. The researcher was added to a Slack instance for discussions between members of NIST's U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, according to a person familiar with the matter. In an email, NIST said it added the researcher in the understanding that she was a volunteer.
DOJ to Push for TikTok Divestiture in Meeting With US Senators
Bloomberg
Chris Strohm and Daniel Flatley
Senior officials from the Justice Department and other agencies will try to convince skeptical senators during a closed-door briefing Tuesday that TikTok can continue to operate in the US while being severed from its Chinese owner, according to a person familiar with the matter. Tuesday’s briefing, which hasn’t been previously reported, comes as the lobbying battle over controversial TikTok legislation moves to the Senate after surprise passage of a House bill last week that would force a sale or ban the app in the US.
Ro Khanna says TikTok bill is not ‘actually addressing the issue’
The Hill
Lauren Sforza
Rep. Ro Khanna said the TikTok bill passed by the House last week is not “actually addressing the issue.” Khanna, who voted against the bill, argued on ABC’s “This Week” that while the two national security issues cited in the bill are “legitimate,” the legislation still does not address them. He said the two issues at hand are whether the data can get to a foreign government and whether the Chinese Communist Party has an influence on algorithms.
The losing fight to keep your voter data private
POLITICO
Alfred Ng
As Democrats and Republicans alike stress the importance of voting this November, Ashe Dryden is sitting the election out. She hasn’t been a registered voter for more than 10 years, since an online stalker found her voter registration information, published her address online and uprooted her life. “I hide where I live now because of this guy,” she said.
The Department of Homeland Security Is Embracing A.I.
The New York Times
Cecilia Kang
The Department of Homeland Security has seen the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence firsthand. It found a trafficking victim years later using an A.I. tool that conjured an image of the child a decade older. But it has also been tricked into investigations by deep fake images created by A.I. Now, the department is becoming the first federal agency to embrace the technology with a plan to incorporate generative A.I. models across a wide range of divisions.
US Supreme Court seems wary of curbing US government contacts with social media platforms
Reuters
Andrew Chung and John Kruzel
U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared skeptical of a challenge on free speech grounds to how President Joe Biden's administration encouraged social media platforms to remove posts that federal officials deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID-19. The justices heard oral arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's preliminary injunction constraining how White House and certain other federal officials communicate with social media platforms.
‘Jawboning’ politicians who push to delete social media posts draw scrutiny
The Washington Post
Naomi Nix, Cat Zakrzewski and Ann Marimow
In the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, activists gathered outside the Houston home of Sen. Ted Cruz to protest his refusal to certify President Biden’s election victory — as well as his decision to jet off to Cancún on vacation during a deadly local storm. As images of the protesters rippled across Twitter (now X), Cruz’s team called and texted people in Twitter’s D.C. office, insisting that some of their posts violated his safety and demanding that they be removed, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
North Asia
South Korea's Yoon warns of tech threat to democracy at summit
Reuters
Ju-min Park and Jack Kim
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday called fake news and disinformation based on AI and digital technology threats to democracy, as his country hosted a gathering of senior global officials including from Britain, the EU and the United States. Speaking at the opening of the Summit for Democracy, Yoon said countries had a duty to share experiences and wisdom so that artificial intelligence and technology could be employed to promote democracy.
How Pro-Russia Influencers Framed Taiwan’s Elections on Telegram
The Diplomat
Levi Bochantin
Taiwan’s national elections on January 13 led to a clear victory for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, but a split legislature. According to Doublethink Lab, Taiwan was the target of frequent information operations that likely stemmed from China in the lead-up to the election. Particularly, Chinese state actors amplified stories that exacerbated internal conflict within Taiwan in the pre-election period, such as alleged scandals of DPP politicians, and completely fabricated stories closer to election day.
TSMC considering advanced chip packaging capacity in Japan, sources say
Reuters
Sam Nussey, Fanny Potkin and Miho Uranaka
Taiwan's TSMC opens new tab is looking at building advanced packaging capacity in Japan, according to two sources familiar with the matter, a move that would add momentum to Japan's efforts to reboot its semiconductor industry. The deliberations are at an early stage, they added, declining to be identified as the information was not public.
Airbus subsidiary to begin aircraft 5G service in Japan by 2026
Nikkei Asia
Lauly Li
Airbus subsidiary AALTO says Japan will be one of the first countries where the company will provide 5G connectivity and Earth observation via specially designed aircraft when it launches commercial services in early 2026. AALTO's high-altitude platform station uses telecom equipment mounted on aircraft to provide communication services.
Southeast Asia
Malaysia looks to China to fast-track rare earth processing and tackle illegal exports
The Strait Times
Shannon Teoh
Malaysia is appealing to China for rare earth processing technology in a bid to unlock up to RM1 trillion (S$284 billion) worth of the mineral deposits in the country that are crucial to high-technology applications. This is despite Beijing having imposed a ban on exports of rare earth extraction and separation technologies since December 2023, a move that has deep geostrategic implications. China dominates the production of these elements that are necessary in the manufacture of military assets and smartphones – 90 per cent of the world’s supply is refined there.
Europe
Europe’s far right wins over youth vote on TikTok
POLITICO
Clothilde Goujard, Elisa Braun and Mark Scott
Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old protégé of France’s far-right Marine Le Pen, has racked up more than one million followers in less than three years on the Chinese-owned video app. The leader of the country’s far-right National Rally became a social media hit by avoiding what he knows best: politics. Speaking directly to a generation of social media users more interested in viral dance crazes than in staid party-political policies, Bardella poses in tight-fitting turtlenecks while playing a video game.
UK
Pressure on UK to follow US in toughening stance on TikTok
POLITICO
Vincent Manancourt
The U.K. government is coming under increasing pressure at home and abroad to toughen its approach to TikTok in line with U.S. moves against the Chinese-owned app. Speaking to POLITICO a day after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill that would ban TikTok if Chinese owner ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake in the app, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “We should follow America.
Africa
South African Government Pension Data Leak Fears Spark Probe
Dark Reading
John Leyden
South African government officials are investigating reports that a ransomware gang stole and then leaked online 668GB of sensitive national pension data. The alleged compromise of the Government Pensions Administration Agency data on March 11 has not yet been publicly confirmed, but the incident has already made national news in South Africa.
Glitch lets Ethiopia bank customers withdraw millions
BBC
Kalkidan Yibeltal
Ethiopia's biggest commercial bank is scrambling to recoup large sums of money withdrawn by customers after a "systems glitch". The customers discovered early on Saturday that they could take out more cash than they had in their accounts at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. More than $40m (£31m) was withdrawn or transferred to other banks, local media reported.
Big Tech
CATL, the little-known Chinese battery maker that has the US worried
The Guardian
Amy Hawkins
The world’s two superpowers are so intricately linked that it’s hard to think of a pillar of the economy that hasn’t been strained by tensions between the US and China. And the next frontline in the economic conflict may be the most fundamental yet: a fight for power itself. A Chinese company that most people have never heard of is at the heart of the global race to store the clean energy needed to power the green transition in the US and the rest of the world.
Tech war: ASML’s threat to expand outside the Netherlands is watched with interest in China
South China Morning Post
Che Pan
Plans by chip equipment giant ASML to expand outside the Netherlands are watched with great interest in China, where some social media users believe that Dutch export curbs on sophisticated semiconductor manufacturing machines are to blame for the company’s potential relocation. ASML, which holds a monopoly in the world’s most advanced chip-making tools, is mulling an expansion outside its Dutch headquarters, with France being one option, according to recent reports by Reuters.
Fujitsu found malware on IT systems, confirms data breach
Bleeping Computer
Bill Toulas
Japanese tech giant Fujitsu discovered that several of its systems were infected by malware and warns that the hackers stole customer data. Fujitsu is the world's sixth largest IT services provider, employing 124,000 people and having an annual revenue of $23.9 billion.
Artificial Intelligence
The need for responsible AI
The Strategist
Jason Signolet
‘2023 marks 25 years of Google Search, and a quarter of a century of curiosity,’ said the tech giant in December. At the same time, Google launched its ‘Year in Search’, highlighting how it’s been influenced by what matters to Australians, naming everything from the Optus outage and the war in Gaza to the new royal era with King Charles III and Queen Camilla as some stand-out search trends in 2023.
Hey YouTube creators, it’s time to start labeling AI-generated content in your videos
CNN Business
Clare Duffy
Starting Monday, YouTube creators will be required to label when realistic-looking videos were made using artificial intelligence, part of a broader effort by the company to be transparent about content that could otherwise confuse or mislead users. When a user uploads a video to the site, they will see a checklist asking if their content makes a real person say or do something they didn’t do, alters footage of a real place or event, or depicts a realistic-looking scene that didn’t actually occur.
Nvidia unveils new ‘super chip’ in push to extend AI dominance
Financial Review
Ian King
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang unveiled new chips aimed at extending his company’s dominance of artificial intelligence computing, a position that’s already made it the world’s third-most-valuable business. A new processor design called Blackwell is multiple times faster at handling the models that underpin AI, the company said at its annual developer conference in San Jose, California.
Misc
Nvidia unveils new ‘super chip’ in push to extend AI dominance
Financial Review
Ian King
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang unveiled new chips aimed at extending his company’s dominance of artificial intelligence computing, a position that’s already made it the world’s third-most-valuable business. A new processor design called Blackwell is multiple times faster at handling the models that underpin AI, the company said at its annual developer conference in San Jose, California. That includes the process of developing the technology — a stage known as training – and the running of it, which is called inference.
‘Keep a close eye on your partner’: The industry selling spyware to jealous spouses
The Sydney Morning Herald
Patrick Begley
Days before Simon Gittany threw his partner Lisa Harnum to her death from the balcony of their 15th-floor Sydney apartment in 2011, he had been reading her text messages using spyware. Two years later, a Sydney man questioning his girlfriend’s fidelity installed software to read her emails, then stabbed her secret lover to death the next day. In 2020, a former police officer convicted of stalking his ex-partner in Queensland was found to have given her an infected phone.
Events & Podcasts
The Sydney Dialogue
ASPI
The Sydney Dialogue was created to help bring together governments, businesses and civil society to discuss and progress policy options. We will forecast the technologies of the next decade that will change our societies, economies and national security, prioritising speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We will promote diverse views that stimulate real conversations about the best ways to seize opportunities and minimise risks.
Jobs
Director Cyber, Technology & Security
ASPI
ASPI is looking for an exceptional and experienced leader to fill the Director, Cyber, Tehcnology & Security role. The Director will lead our largest team focused on emerging security challenges, particularly in cyberspace and the information domain.
Deputy Director Defence Strategy & National Security
ASPI
ASPI is currently recruiting for a Deputy Director, Defence Strategy & National Security. This is an exceptional opportunity for a talented and experienced individual to contribute to the work of Australia's leading think-tank on strategic defence policy issues in a unique leadership role.
ASPI Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre (NASPC) Administration Officer
ASPI
This role also works across the Head of the NASPC's alternate policy centres, the Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement Program, involving work across illicit drugs, illicit finance, transnational serious organised crime, and modern slavery, and ASPI’s Counter-terrorism Policy Centre. The successful applicant will have the chance to assist with coordinating a project in the first half of 2024 focused on northern Australia's connections with Pacific Island Countries, liaising with senior Government and international representatives.
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ASPI
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