Space commander 'scared' Australia lagging in military space capability | Apple’s political censorship leaves Taiwan, remains in Hong Kong | Authentication firm Okta probes report of digital breach
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Australia's first space commander has conceded the nation is lagging "far behind" in the emerging military domain, while admitting China and Russia's ability to take out satellites "scares" her. ABC News
Since our initial report, Citizen Lab found that Apple has eliminated their Chinese political censorship in Taiwan. However, Apple continues to perform broad, keyword-based political censorship outside of mainland China in Hong Kong, despite human rights groups’ recommendations for American companies to resist blocking content. Citizen Lab
Authentication services provider Okta Inc is investigating a report of a digital breach, the company said on Tuesday, after hackers posted screenshots showing what they claimed was its internal company environment. Reuters
ASPI ICPC
Australia's media watchdog cracking down on misinformation online
Ausbiz
The Australian Communcations and Media Authority has been granted powers to hold big tech companies to greater account when it comes to how they handle misinformation. The regulator will be able to force companies to provide internal data around how said misinformation was handled. Karly Winkler from the International Cyber Policy Centre joined us this afternoon to take us through the implications.
Ukraine - Russia
Russian news website blames hack for report of nearly 10,000 army deaths in Ukraine
Reuters
Mark Trevelyan
A Russian newspaper has accused hackers of planting fake news on its website after a report appeared there for more than six hours saying nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s engineers battle to keep the internet running while Russian bombs fall around them
Forbes
Thomas Brewster
“Every day after each attack, we’re trying to restore our base stations and our services for our citizens,” said Bohdan Kashyntsev, a unit chief for internet connectivity at Lifecell. Of his engineers, Kashyntsev said, “They are kind of like the medics — they’re not treating someone, but they are supporting people.”
Tech was creating a new economy in Eastern Europe. Then came the war in Ukraine.
The Washington Post
Jeanne Whalen
The efforts of one software company to stay in business show how the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has fractured a modern, digital way of life.
Is Russia’s largest tech company too big to fail?
WIRED
Paul Starobin
It took 20 years for Arkady Volozh to build Yandex into Russia’s Google, Uber, Spotify, and Amazon combined. It took 20 days for everything to crumble.
Australia
Space commander 'scared' Australia lagging in military space capability, as Russia and China reach for the stars
ABC News
Andrew Greene
Australia's first space commander has conceded the nation is lagging "far behind" in the emerging military domain, while admitting China and Russia's ability to take out satellites "scares" her.
China
Engrave condition: Apple’s political censorship leaves Taiwan, remains in Hong Kong
Citizen Lab
Jeffrey Knockel and Lotus Ruan
Since our initial report, Citizen Lab found that Apple has eliminated their Chinese political censorship in Taiwan. However, Apple continues to perform broad, keyword-based political censorship outside of mainland China in Hong Kong, despite human rights groups’ recommendations for American companies to resist blocking content.
Xiaomi says chip shortage to 'fundamentally' ease in second half
Nikkei Asia
Chang Ting-Fang and Lauly Li
After more than a year of serious supply constraints, several suppliers have started to suggest the situation will improve. Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, has said the chip shortage will ease in the second half, but warned that looming inflation will have an impact on its gross margin this year. Delta Electronics, the world's biggest power solutions provider, said chip and component supplies have been much more stable recently compared with the same time last year.
Alibaba upsizes share buyback by two-thirds to record $25 billion
Reuters
Shubham Kalia, Josh Horwitz and Jason Xue
Alibaba raised its share buyback programme to $25 billion on Tuesday, the largest ever repurchase plan by the e-commerce giant, to prop up its battered shares as it fights off regulatory scrutiny and concerns about slowing growth.
USA
Reuters staff raise alarms over partnership with Russian-owned wire service
POLITICO
Max Tani
Employees at one of the most well-known news wire services are privately fuming over their company’s ongoing partnership with a Russian state-controlled media organization that has published unverified information about the war in Ukraine.
FBI advised that hackers scanned networks of 5 US energy firms ahead of Biden's Russia cyberattack warning
CNN
Sean Lyngaas
Hackers associated with Russian internet addresses have been scanning the networks of five US energy companies in a possible prelude to hacking attempts, the FBI said in a March 18 advisory to US businesses obtained by CNN.
Exclusive: Ransomware attacks on U.S. supply chain are undermining national security, CBP bulletin warns
Yahoo! News
Jana Winter
“Cybercriminals are targeting multibillion-dollar industries, including the logistics supply chain to make a profit, disrupt international economies and trade, and cause social, economic and potentially political instability,” states the CBP bulletin, which is dated March 7.
Bitcoin miners want to recast themselves as eco-friendly
The New York Times
David Yaffe-Bellany
Facing intense criticism, the crypto mining industry is trying to change the view that its energy-guzzling computers are harmful to the climate.
US regulators say someone really needs to monitor Elon Musk’s tweets
TechCrunch
Rebecca Bellan
U.S. securities regulators on Tuesday said they have authority to subpoena Tesla CEO Elon Musk about his tweets and urged a federal judge not to let the executive get away with tweeting with abandon.
Southeast Asia
Facebook failed to detect hate speech against Rohingya, report finds
The Hill
Monique Beals
A recent report found that Facebook did not detect hate speech and violence directed against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Global Witness, a rights group, submitted eight paid advertisements containing different versions of hate speech to Facebook. The social media giant approved all eight ads, Global Witness said in a release.
South & Central Asia
India needs to minimise dependence on global internet networks: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekha
MSN
Nidhi Singal
Restating the importance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of making India a self-reliant nation, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Tuesday said India should minimise its dependence on international internet networks.
Telecom firm blocks nearly 8,000 SIM cards after MP cyber police notice
Republic World
The Madhya Pradesh cyber police have directed various telecom companies to block SIM cards issued on fake identity proofs, following which a leading firm has blocked nearly 8,000 SIM cards, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Crypto provides fix for some in crisis-hit Afghanistan
Al Jazeera
Digital currencies, impervious to international sanctions, allow handful of young Afghans to avoid the worst of crisis.
Europe
EU rules must focus on AI benefits not curbs, lawmaker says
Reuters
Foo Yun Chee
Europe's attempt to set landmark rules for artificial intelligence should take a positive approach to reap the benefits of the technology rather than restrict it, European Parliament lawmaker Svenja Hahn said on Tuesday.
Big Tech
Authentication firm Okta probes report of digital breach
Reuters
Raphael Satter
Authentication services provider Okta Inc is investigating a report of a digital breach, the company said on Tuesday, after hackers posted screenshots showing what they claimed was its internal company environment.
'This is really, really bad': Lapsus$ gang claims Okta hack
WIRED
Lily Hay Newman
The Lapsus$ digital extortion gang published a series of increasingly shocking posts in its Telegram channel. First, the group dumped what it claims is extensive source code from Microsoft's Bing search engine, Bing Maps, and Cortana virtual assistant software. A potential breach of an organization as big and security-conscious as Microsoft would be significant in itself, but the group followed the post with something even more alarming: screenshots apparently taken on January 21 that seem to show Lapsus$ in control of an Okta administrative or “super user” account.
Cyber company Okta is latest potential victim cited by Lapsus$ hackers
CyberScoop
Joe Warminsky and AJ Vicens
Identity authentication company Okta, which provides services to thousands of companies as well as U.S. government agencies, acknowledged Tuesday morning that it had investigated an incident in January that was related to screenshots posted online Monday night by a hacking group.
Metaverse lessons from Hollywood
The New York Times
Shira Ovide
Now, Mark Zuckerberg and other technologists are dreaming of a future in which we spend more of our time in immersive digital worlds, called the “metaverse.” And Perlman has advice for metaverse creators: Focus on the face.
Nvidia unveils new technology to speed up AI, launches new supercomputer
Reuters
Jane Lanhee Lee and Chavi Mehta
Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) on Tuesday announced new chips and technologies that it said will boost the computing speed of increasingly complicated artificial intelligence algorithms, stepping up competition against rival chipmakers vying for lucrative data center business.
Apple music, App store knocked offline for second day in row
Bloomberg
Mark Gurman
Apple Inc. services such as Apple Music, the App Store and podcasts suffered outages for the second day in a row on Tuesday, spurring complaints from the tech giant’s customers.
Twitter leads call for EU lawmakers to ‘think beyond Big Tech’
TechCrunch
Natasha Lomas
Sinéad McSweeney, Twitter’s global policy VP, said the group is making a plea to lawmakers to think about the wider web ecosystem — rather than see the internet as “a monolith” comprised of just a handful of tech giants.
Misc
The cyber-delusion digital threats are manageable, not existential
Foreign Affairs
John Mueller
Over the past decade, the global obsession with digital threats has taken various forms, with a particular focus on the potential military implications of emerging cyber-capabilities. To be sure, the military needs to worry about keeping its communications and command and control operations secure from hostile attackers. Any disruptions, however, are more likely to be instrumental or tactical than strategic.
Biden: Russia 'exploring' US cyber-attacks
BBC
James Clayton
President Joe Biden said on Monday that intelligence indicated a growing Russian cyber threat to the US. He said Russia was "exploring" cyber attack, but the US would use "every tool" to prevent and respond to such a move.
Cryptoverse: remember when bitcoin was 'anonymous'?
Reuters
Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Bansari Mayur Kamdar
Bitcoin just isn't anonymous enough for a growing cohort of crypto users who are seeking greater seclusion. A volatile class of crypto known as privacy coins, created with the primary aim of masking the identity of users and details of transactions, has quietly been gaining ground this month as maturing bitcoin inches towards mainstream finance.
Jobs
The Sydney Dialogue - Director
ASPI ICPC
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is currently recruiting for a Director to lead the second iteration of ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue - the world’s premier summit on emerging, critical and cyber technologies.
The Sydney Dialogue - Senior Events Coordinator
ASPI ICPC
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is currently recruiting for an experienced events professional to coordinate the planning and logistics of the second iteration of ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue - the world’s premier summit on emerging, critical and cyber technologies.
ICPC Senior Analyst or Analyst - China
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has a unique opportunity for exceptional and experienced China-focused senior analysts or analysts to join its centre. This role will focus on original research and analysis centred around the (growing) range of topics which our ICPC China team work on. Our China team produces some of the most impactful and well-read policy-relevant research in the world, with our experts often being called upon by politicians, governments, corporates and civil society actors to provide briefings and advice.
Important disclaimer: This digest is a daily collation of material designed to provide authoritative information and commentary in relation to the subject matters covered. The views expressed in this material are those of the authors only. To provide feedback please contact: icpc@aspi.org.au