The new Anglo-Japanese alliance and the “Six Eyes” | US DOJ charges eight as part of alleged China conspiracy | Twitter removes tweet by former Malaysian leader for glorifying violence
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With its withdrawal from the EU and its concerns over China’s regional hegemony, Britain is picking up the pace of its rapprochement with Japan. A new trade agreement is likely to be reached in the course of 2020, and there are plans for the British Navy to be part of a joint deployment with US and Japanese forces in the Indo-Pacific in 2021. With a tight bilateral relationship not seen since the 1902–23 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, a Six Eyes alliance seems closer than ever. Nippon.
A complaint and arrest warrants were unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with conspiring to act in the United States as illegal agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Six defendants also face related charges of conspiring to commit interstate and international stalking. The defendants, allegedly acting at the direction and under the control of PRC government officials, conducted surveillance of and engaged in a campaign to harass, stalk, and coerce certain residents of the United States to return to the PRC as part of a global, concerted, and extralegal repatriation effort known as “Operation Fox Hunt.” US Department of Justice
Twitter removed a tweet from former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence. In the tweet, which was part of a longer thread about Muslims living in France, Mohamad said that "Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past." CNET
ASPI ICPC
Cyber-enabled foreign interference in elections on the rise
ASPI ICPC
@Sara_Lisabeth
The effectiveness of cyber-enabled interference in the lead-up to an election is overwhelmingly determined by the robustness and integrity of the country’s broader information environment and the extent to which the electoral process has been digitised. This means states vary in their vulnerability. While it’s difficult to assess the material impact that such efforts have had on the outcome of specific elections and referendums, our report highlights that the same foreign state actors continue to pursue this type of interference, and that for many states cyber-enabled interference has become an expected part of the political process. This perceived threat on its own has the potential to undermine the integrity of elections and referendums and voters’ trust in public and democratic institutions.
Shadow battles and empty spaces: What the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan tells us about disinformation and digital history
EUROPP
@elisethoma5 The military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has generated headlines across the world. Yet as Elise Thomas explains, a parallel battle has also been fought between the two sides online. She argues that better research is required to understand the spread of disinformation during armed conflicts, particularly as material is often removed by social media sites before it can be documented by researchers.
Read ASPI ICPC's report Snapshot of a shadow war
The rapid escalation in the long-running conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia which took place in late September 2020 has been shadowed by a battle across social media for control of the international narrative about the conflict. On Twitter, large numbers of accounts supporting both sides have been wading in on politicised hashtags linked to the conflict. Our findings indicate large-scale coordinated activity. While much of this behaviour is likely to be authentic, our analysis has also found a significant amount of suspicious and potentially inauthentic behaviour.
China's Hopeless Twitter Influence Operations
ChinaTalk
Over the past two years Twitter's Public Safety team has been releasing caches of accounts it believes to be part of state-backed information operations. Australian think tank ASPI (2020, 2019), Stanford's Cyber Observatory Center (2020) and startup Graphika (2020, 2019) have done admirable jobs analyzing the Chinese government's handiwork. China has no idea how to run a Twitter network and does not do a good job amplifying its message with insincere state-run accounts. New strategies like paying YouTubers and technology like GPT3, however, could potentially change the game.
The World
The New Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the “Six Eyes”
Nippon
With its withdrawal from the EU and its concerns over China’s regional hegemony, Britain is picking up the pace of its rapprochement with Japan. A new trade agreement is likely to be reached in the course of 2020, and there are plans for the British Navy to be part of a joint deployment with US and Japanese forces in the Indo-Pacific in 2021. With a tight bilateral relationship not seen since the 1902–23 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, a Six Eyes alliance seems closer than ever.
“This is off the record, but we have already issued an invitation to Japan to become the sixth member. Once Japan makes a decision, we will move forward officially.” That is the comment I got in late June 2020 when I called the contacts I had made at British intelligence when I was London bureau chief for Sankei Shimbun.”
Why the extortion of Vastaamo matters far beyond Finland — and how cyber pros are responding
Cyberscoop
Rather than sticking only to the common tactic of trying to shake down a breached organization, the attackers who stole tens of thousands of patient records from Vastaamo also demanded ransoms from individual people. In doing so, the thieves have been leveraging some of the most sensitive medical data imaginable, and making it difficult for victims to respond collectively.
Australia
Data from smart devices as revolutionary as DNA in helping to solve crimes
ABC Radio
Experts say there's a growing trend globally in using data from smart devices, like watches, phones or home speaker technology, in helping to solve crimes. It was one element that drew particular attention in a recent murder trial in South Australia because the victim was wearing a smart watch
Cyberattack strikes media-monitoring company used by Australian government
The Guardian
Australian Cyber Security Centre says it is assisting Isentia, which has ‘most government departments and large corporations’ as clients.
Nitro breach was probably through cloud, claims cyber sec firm
iTWire
ASX-listed Nitro Software, a firm that had its origins in Melbourne and offers a service to create, edit and sign PDFs and digital documents, appears to have suffered a data breach through cyber criminals gaining access to the company's cloud environment via a compromise of access tokens, the cyber security firm Cyble has told iTWire.
PJCIS stops short of recommending warrants to access metadata as scheme is tightened
ZDNet
In broad terms, thresholds are recommended to be increased by the committee in an effort to avoid a warrant regime, security and transparency on data held and passed across by telcos and authorised agencies would be boosted, while the period of time Australian telcos need to retain data collected on customers remains at two years.
China
If You Play Videogames, China May Be Spying on You
WSJ
Forget WeChat and TikTok. China’s hold on the global videogaming market is the most pressing security vulnerability when it comes to Chinese consumer tech products.
USA
Eight Individuals Charged With Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the People’s Republic of China
US Department of Justice
A complaint and arrest warrants were unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with conspiring to act in the United States as illegal agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Six defendants also face related charges of conspiring to commit interstate and international stalking. The defendants, allegedly acting at the direction and under the control of PRC government officials, conducted surveillance of and engaged in a campaign to harass, stalk, and coerce certain residents of the United States to return to the PRC as part of a global, concerted, and extralegal repatriation effort known as “Operation Fox Hunt.”
US allows sales of chips to Huawei’s non-5G businesses
Financial Times
The US is allowing a growing number of chip companies to supply Huawei with components as long as these are not used for its 5G business, people briefed by Washington said, in a potential lifeline for the Chinese group.
On Election meddling:
How foreign influence efforts are targeting journalists
Washington Post
Fear of amplifying hack-and-leak operations is one reason the news media has been cautious about reading too much into the New York Post Hunter Biden laptop story, for instance. The rapid circulation of such material highlights a specific type of information operation that Russian and other foreign groups are pursuing in this election cycle. Disinformation campaigns target bona fide journalists, in operations designed to launder false or misleading material through reputable outlets.
Overstating the foreign threat to elections poses its own risks, U.S. officials and experts say
Washington Post
“We risk ultimately helping an adversary if we understate the threat or overstate the threat,” said disinformation expert Thomas Rid of Johns Hopkins University. “But we can’t ignore it. So the only solution is to be as sober, fact-based and nuanced as possible.” That can be challenging in a country in which disinformation itself has become a “wedge issue,” said Rid
In election hacking, perception may be as good as the real thing
AFP
Hackers seeking to sow chaos in the November 3 election are hard at work -- but some experts say they don't need to be successful to have an impact. Simply the perception of breaching election systems could have the same effect of undermining confidence in the outcome and opening the door to discrediting the results.
On data breach:
Building wave of ransomware attacks strike U.S. hospitals
Reuters
Eastern European criminals are targeting dozens of U.S. hospitals with ransomware, and federal officials on Wednesday urged healthcare facilities to beef up preparations rapidly in case they are next.
ICE, IRS Explored Using Hacking Tools, New Documents Show
VICE News
A cache of documents shared with Motherboard show much broader interest from the U.S. government in using malware in criminal investigations.
Home Depot Confirms Data Breach in Order Confirmation SNAFU
Threat Post
Hundreds of emailed order confirmations for random strangers were sent to Canadian customers, each containing personal information.
Wisconsin Republican Party says hackers stole $2.3 million
AP
Hackers have stolen $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party’s account that was being used to help reelect President Donald Trump in the key battleground state, the party’s chairman told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products
Reuters
The U.S. National Security Agency is rebuffing efforts by a leading Congressional critic to determine whether it is continuing to place so-called back doors into commercial technology products, in a controversial practice that critics say damages both U.S. industry and national security. The NSA has long sought agreements with technology companies under which they would build special access for the spy agency into their products, according to disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and reporting by Reuters and others.
How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge
NBC
A 64-page document that was later disseminated by close associates of President Donald Trump appears to be the work of a fake "intelligence firm."
A New Platform Maps US Police Violence Against Protesters
Bellingcat
Together with Forensic Architecture, Bellingcat has identified, verified, and archived over 1,000 incidents of police violence against protestors across the United States since May 2020. The data can be accessed here, and is available for use and visualization.
FBI arrests white supremacy leader in extremism crackdown in Michigan
The Detroit News
Federal agents on Thursday arrested two men, including the self-proclaimed leader of the Base, a violent white supremacist group, as part of a continuing crackdown on extremism in Michigan three weeks after the FBI said it thwarted a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Emails show how Pompeos mixed personal, official business
NBC
"We view this as a family endeavor," Pompeo's son, Nick Pompeo, wrote to State Department officials.
Southeast Asia
Twitter removes tweet by former Malaysian leader for glorifying violence
CNET
Twitter removed a tweet from former prime minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence. In the tweet, which was part of a longer thread about Muslims living in France, Mohamad said that "Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past."
Misc
The new war on women: Weaponising online spaces
BroadAgenda
Online spaces are being systematically weaponised to exclude women leaders and to undermine the role of women in public life. Attacks on women which use hateful language, rumour and gendered stereotypes combine personal attacks with political motivations, making online spaces dangerous places for women to speak out.
My Resignation From The Intercept
Glenn Greenwald
The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.
Research
Opportunity Seldom Knocks Twice
The National Bureau of Asian Research
This article challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the strategic motivation and significance of China’s cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property (IP) and suggests that the U.S. has a unique opportunity via its cyber strategy to influence the trajectory of China’s rise.
Events
ASPI Presents: Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy In-Focus
ASPI ICPC
The Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised the importance of the online world; it is now critically important in managing this pandemic. Yet at the same time, the risks and threats are increasing—in June the Prime Minister warned us that Australia was being targeted by a sophisticated state actor. In this webinar, Fergus Hanson, Director of ASPI's International Cyber Policy Centre talks to Abigail Bradshaw CSC, head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and Marc Ablong PSM, head of National Resilience and Cyber Security group at Home Affairs, about Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy 2020 and how it will be operationalised.
Australian Cyber Week 2020
Jump in and be part of Australian Cyber Week 2020. Participate in our events and/or contribute to the discussion online. 26-30 October 2020.
Senior Researcher / Project Lead
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has an outstanding opportunity for a senior researcher to lead a one-year project looking at leadership networks across Asia. Interviews will start immediately.
Jobs
Senior Researcher / Project Lead
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) has an outstanding opportunity for a senior researcher to lead a one-year project looking at leadership networks across Asia. Interviews will start immediately.