SpaceX is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency | Australian government concerned as Meta dumps transparency tool CrowdTangle | G7 ministers agree to cooperate on AI, supply chains
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SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company and national security agencies. Reuters
The Albanese government has reinforced its deep concerns over the corporate and social behaviour of digital platforms, after Meta announced last week it was closing its own misinformation research tool. The Australian
Industry ministers from the Group of Seven major democracies agreed on Thursday to align rules on the development of artificial intelligence and to secure supply chains in key sectors such as semiconductors, the Italian presidency said. Reuters
ASPI
TikTok faces new calls for bans or curbs
The Sydney Morning Herald
David Crowe and Matthew Knott
Australia should pass new laws to curb the power of TikTok and protect the community from misinformation on the social media app, a leading security expert has warned after days of political dispute over Chinese control of the popular platform. Cybersecurity expert Fergus Ryan said it had become "trivially easy" for TikTok to influence Australian debate because it had swollen to 8.5 million users in this country while officials considered how to act on its growing power.
World
G7 industry ministers agree to cooperate on AI, supply chains, presidency says
Reuters
Industry ministers from the Group of Seven major democracies agreed on Thursday to align rules on the development of artificial intelligence and to secure supply chains in key sectors such as semiconductors, the Italian presidency said. Italy wants to use its presidency of the G7 this year to focus on the impact of AI on jobs and inequality, while also laying down safeguards for the development of the technology. The G7 industry ministers also decided to create a permanent working group to study ways to address policies aimed at increasing domestic production of semiconductors.
Australia
Australian government concerned as Meta dumps transparency tool CrowdTangle
The Australian
James Madden
The Albanese government has reinforced its deep concerns over the corporate and social behaviour of digital platforms, after Meta announced last week it was closing its own misinformation research tool. Over the next five months, the tech giant will gradually phase out CrowdTangle — a service used by news outlets, academic researchers, and regulators worldwide to monitor viral content and misinformation across social media — and will abandon it completely on August 14.
AFP chiefs to re-sign three security agreements in Beijing, as Wang heads to Canberra
The Australian
Geoff Chambers
The nation’s most senior police chief has landed in Beijing to seal a raft of significant deals with Chinese security officials for tackling drugs and transnational crime. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw will recommit to three agreements with China’s Ministry of Public Security early this week, with the top cop saying the Beijing visit enhances crime-fighting arrangements to dismantle drug cartels targeting the Asia-Pacific region. Despite the Morrison government’s poor relations with Beijing ahead of the 2022 federal election, the AFP maintained a presence in China during the pandemic to continue the fight against the region’s drug traffickers.
USA
Exclusive: Musk's SpaceX is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency, sources say
Reuters
Joey Roulette and Marisa Taylor
SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company and national security agencies. The network is being built by SpaceX's Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites, the sources said.
TikTok and national security
Centre for Strategic and International Studies
James Andrew Lewis
Recent legislation in the House of Representatives highlights the discussion of national security risks from the use of TikTok have identified three potential sources of danger. The first is that TikTok is part of a nefarious Chinese government influence operation designed to sway U.S. politics. The second is that TikTok can be used to collect personal data on Americans. The third is that voluntarily downloading TikTok onto phones or devices allows for the injection of malicious software by China. Only the third source creates serious risk.
Congress is right to want to curtail TikTok’s power and influence
The Guardian
Nita Farahany
Earlier this month, while the US Congress was considering a bill that would curtail TikTok’s operations in the United States, the popular, Chinese-owned social media platform confronted its users with a kind of digital ransom note calling for political action. As the New York Times reported, TikTok’s campaign sparked a deluge of calls to Capitol Hill, overwhelming some congressional offices and demonstrating the platform’s political influence.
TikTok’s American growth as already stalling
The Wall Street Journal
Meghan Bobrowsky and Georgia Well
As TikTok fends off a new attack by Congress, it is also battling headwinds that have sapped its U.S. business of its mojo. For the first time in TikTok’s history, its user growth is stagnating, according to people familiar with the matter. Ad sales are hitting growth targets but not exceeding them, and it is at war with the world’s largest music company. Its bet on e-commerce as a new revenue source has angered some users by muddying the app’s stream of short videos. And TikTok’s main competitor, Instagram Reels, has been gaining ground.
Group sues after novel Biden deepfake urged voters to skip N.H. primary
The Washington Post
Tobi Raji
A voting advocacy group is suing a political consultant and companies behind an AI-generated robocall of President Biden that in January urged New Hampshire voters not to participate in the state’s presidential primary. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire on behalf of three voters who said they received the robocalls, asks a judge to fine the defendants and block them from producing, generating or distributing other robocalls generated with artificial intelligence.
How Trump’s allies are winning the war over disinformation
The New York Times
Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers
In the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, a groundswell built in Washington to rein in the onslaught of lies that had fueled the assault on the peaceful transfer of power. Social media companies suspended Donald J. Trump, then the president, and many of his allies from the platforms they had used to spread misinformation about his defeat and whip up the attempt to overturn it. Mr. Trump and his allies embarked instead on a counteroffensive, a coordinated effort to block what they viewed as a dangerous effort to censor conservatives. They have unquestionably prevailed.
Americas
Canada conducts national security review of Chinese-owned TikTok
The Guardian
Canada is conducting a national security review of Chinese-owned TikTok’s proposed expansion of the popular video app in the country, the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, said on Friday. In a teleconference from Italy after meeting with his G7 counterparts, Champagne said the review under the Investment Canada Act had been quietly initiated in September last year.
North Asia
Japan is making way for AI-powered medical technologies
Nikkei Asia
John Collings
A growing shortage of medical workers in Japan is exacerbating health care system stresses caused by the rapid aging of the country's population. This has created an enormous challenge that requires a multifaceted solution. One approach that Japan is increasingly embracing is the use of artificial intelligence-powered medical technologies. These tools have the potential to exponentially increase the ability of Japanese health care workers to treat the country's older population.
South & Central Asia
What happened when the world’s most populous nation turned off TikTok
CNN
Diksha Madhok
As TikTok fans in the United States worry about losing access to the wildly-popular social media app, there are lessons they can learn from a country on the other side of the world. On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban. While the Chinese-owned app is not disappearing from Americans’ phones anytime soon, many of its 170 million users in the country are deeply rattled. But here is what they need to know: It is possible to survive and thrive in a TikTok-less world. Just ask the planet’s most populous nation.
How China could swamp India’s chip ambitions
The Wall Street Journal
Megha Mandavia
When India’s largest conglomerate, Tata Group, broke ground on a $11 billion semiconductor factory this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country was poised to become a world leader in the sector. He might be in for a rude awakening. The problem is that China, whose ambitions in cutting-edge chips have been stymied by U.S. and European export controls, is pouring capital into legacy chip making on a breathtaking scale. That will compress margins for everyone—and make life especially difficult for new small-scale players.
Ukraine - Russia
Vladimir Putin to cement his grip on power in Russian election
Financial Times
Max Seddon, Anastasia Stognei and Polina Ivanova
Vladimir Putin is cruising to victory in Russia’s presidential election, cementing his rule for another six years amid his invasion of Ukraine and brutal suppression of dissent. The result of the three-day election ending on Sunday is a foregone conclusion after the Kremlin outlawed all criticism of Putin or the war and blocked any opposition candidates from running. The longest-serving ruler since Joseph Stalin, Putin has solidified his grip on power despite western efforts to impose harsh economic sanctions on Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia strengthens its internet controls in critical year for Putin
The New York Times
Adam Satariano, Paul Mozur and Aaron Krolik
Russia is ratcheting up its internet censorship ahead of elections this weekend that are all but assured to give President Vladimir V. Putin another six years in power, further shrinking one of the last remaining spaces for political activism, independent information and free speech. The Russian authorities have intensified a crackdown against digital tools used to get around internet blocks, throttled access to WhatsApp and other communications apps in specific areas during protests, and expanded a program to cut off websites and online services, according to civil society groups, researchers and companies that have been affected.
Russia says Ukraine launched far-ranging drone attacks on final day of Russia’s presidential vote
Associated Press
Katie Marie Davies
Ukraine launched a new wave of attacks inside Russian territory Sunday, killing at least two people, including a teenager, according to local officials, as Russians cast ballots on the final day of a presidential vote set to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule for another six years. Authorities also said that a drone fell on a refinery in the Krasnodar region, sparking a blaze that was extinguished a few hours later. A worker at the refinery died of a heart attack, officials said. The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region.
Europe
EU AI Act reaction: Tech experts say the world's first AI law is 'historic' but 'bittersweet'
Euronews
Pascale Davies
Europe’s policymakers have rushed to spin out rules and warnings to tech companies since the launch of ChatGPT and this week has been monumental in establishing the EU’s artificial intelligence rules. On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved the Artificial Intelligence Act, which takes a risk-based approach to ensure companies release products that comply with the law before they are made available to the public. A day later, the European Commission, asked Bing, Facebook, Google Search, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and X under separate legislation to detail how they are curbing the risks of generative AI.
Scottish health service says ‘focused and ongoing cyber attack’ may disrupt services
The Record by Recorded Future
Alexander Martin
NHS Dumfries and Galloway, part of the Scottish healthcare system, announced on Friday it was the target “of a focused and ongoing cyber attack.” The nature of the incident has not yet been disclosed, although the health board announced there “may be some disruption to services as a result of this situation.” A bespoke web page published to update patients about the impact of the attack references “incursions into our systems” and warns “there is a risk that hackers have been able to acquire a significant quantity of data.”
Africa
African internet outage was caused by subsea cable break, MainOne says
Reuters
West African data center and connectivity provider MainOne said on Friday that an internet outage that hit West and Central Africa earlier this week was caused by a break in its submarine cable system. MainOne, which is owned by data center operator Equinix, said that an "external incident" resulted in a cut to its cable system in the Atlantic Ocean, offshore Cote D'Ivoire along the coast of West Africa. It ruled out human activity as a cause. The major internet outage affected West and Central Africa on Thursday, with operators of multiple subsea cables reporting failures.
Middle East
Abu Dhabi in talks to invest in OpenAI chip venture
Financial Times
Chloe Cornish and Madhumita Murgia
A new Abu Dhabi investment company is in talks to back OpenAI’s ambitious chip venture, in the latest effort by the United Arab Emirates to become a global powerbroker in the development of artificial intelligence. The US start-up’s chief executive Sam Altman is seeking to launch a semiconductor business to reduce its dependence on cutting-edge chips made by Nvidia.
Artificial Intelligence
As AI tools get smarter, they’re growing more covertly racist, experts find
The Guardian
Ava Sasani
Popular artificial intelligence tools are becoming more covertly racist as they advance, says an alarming new report. A team of technology and linguistics researchers revealed this week that large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini hold racist stereotypes about speakers of African American Vernacular English, or AAVE, an English dialect created and spoken by Black Americans. “We know that these technologies are really commonly used by companies to do tasks like screening job applicants,” said Valentin Hoffman, a researcher at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Misc
Hackers roil entire industries with attacks on IT supply chain
Bloomberg
Jordan Robertson
Across Paraguay, hackers knocked out online services provided by the foreign ministry and companies. In Sweden, they crippled the payroll and human resources systems of more than 100 government bodies, including the central bank and parliament, as well as hospitals, retailers and others. In the US, intruders took down a software system that the biggest banks use to process trades, and they crippled a network that connects medical providers and pharmacies with insurance companies.
How to protect your child against identity theft
The Wall Street Journal
Heidi Mitchell
Young children may not even have an allowance yet, but thieves can make a lot of money off their identity. Criminals can grab children’s information in the real world or online—most crucially, the Social Security number—and then use it to open a line of credit, using whatever address or bank account they choose. From there, the crooks can do anything from going on a spending spree to trying to claim the child’s government benefits like healthcare coverage or nutrition assistance.
McDonald’s hit by ‘technology outage’ in UK, Australia, Japan and China
The Guardian
Dan Milmo, Jordyn Beazley and Amy Hawkins
McDonald’s restaurants in multiple countries including the UK and Australia have been hit by a “technology outage”, which the fast food chain denied had been caused by a cybersecurity attack. Australia, the UK, Japan and China were among the markets where services were affected, with restaurant, drive-through and online orders hit. The company’s global chief information officer, Brian Rice, said the problem was not due to a cyber-attack. He indicated it was due to an unspecified change to IT systems run by an outside contractor for McDonalds, blaming a “third-party provider during a configuration change”.
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
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.
Professional Development Program Coordinator
ASPI
Our Program Coordinators are fundamental to the success of our professional development programs. Success demands adept communication and interpersonal skills, a focus on client service, exceptional organisational abilities coupled with keen attention to detail, and the capability to think on your feet, problem-solve, and meet deadlines effectively. We currently have one position to be filled as soon as possible and will be looking to fill another position in the next three to six months via a merit list established from this recruitment application.
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.
China Analyst or Senior Analyst
ASPI
ASPI has an exciting opportunity for an analyst or senior analyst to explore China's evolving foreign and security policy, political economy and impact on the Indo-Pacific and the world. ASPI’s China analysts conduct rigorous data-driven research, publish impactful reports that shape the public policy discourse and contribute to the wide catalogue of influential China work published by ASPI. The difference between the analyst and senior analyst levels will depend on experience level and demonstration of past work.
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