TikTok a potential target in upcoming US bill to ban some foreign tech | UK and Australia urge Washington to ease secrecy rules in security pact | Polish mayor targeted by Pegasus spyware-media
Good morning. It's Monday 6th March.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
Have feedback? Let us know at icpc@aspi.org.au.
Follow us on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
Two U.S. senators plan to introduce legislation this week aimed at letting the government "ban or prohibit" foreign technology products such as Chinese-owned TikTok, Senator Mark Warner said on Sunday. Reuters
Australia and the UK are urging the Biden administration to relax restrictions on the sharing of technology and information that they say risk undercutting the trilateral Aukus security pact. Financial Times
An opposition-linked Polish mayor had his phone hacked using Pegasus spyware, Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported on Friday, amid allegations that the country's special services have used the technology against government opponents. Reuters
ASPI
China beating West in race for critical technologies, report says
Al Jazeera
China leads the world in 37 out of 44 critical technologies, with Western democracies falling behind in the race for scientific and research breakthroughs, a report by an Australian think tank has found.
World
UNESCO conference tackles disinformation, hate speech
Voice of America
Participants at a global U.N. conference in France's capital on Wednesday urged the international community to find better safeguards against online disinformation and hate speech.
Australia
UK and Australia urge Washington to ease secrecy rules in security pact
Financial Times
Demetri Sevastopulo
Australia and the UK are urging the Biden administration to relax restrictions on the sharing of technology and information that they say risk undercutting the trilateral Aukus security pact.
Paid accounts on Facebook and Instagram arrive in Australia
The New York Times
Yan Zhuang
Users had mixed feelings about the new subscription service, which bestows exclusive features and a verification check mark.
TikTok banned by 25 government departments and agencies
Australian Financial Review
Max Mason
Chinese-owned viral video app TikTok has been banned from work-issued devices by 25 federal agencies and departments, including Foreign Affairs and Trade, Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Finance, as an investigation by Home Affairs into social media and what action the government should take nears completion.
China
ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence is ‘difficult to achieve’, China’s tech minister says
South China Morning Post
Xinmei Shen
China has some work to do in catching up to the hit artificial intelligence product ChatGPT, developed by San Francisco-based start-up OpenAI, the head of the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology said, as technological self-reliance remains a top priority for the central government amid heated trade tensions with the US.
Can TikTok convince the world it is not a tool for China?
Financial Times
Cristina Criddle, Hannah Murphy and Demetri Sevastopulo
TikTok and its Chinese owner, ByteDance, are again at the centre of a gathering geopolitical storm as governments in North America and Europe launch fresh restrictions and consider outright prohibitions on its use over fears it could be used to gather data on behalf of the Chinese state.
How China is attempting to control the ‘information pipes’
The Diplomat
Joshua Kurlantzick
In the past decade, China’s government has stepped up its efforts to wield powerful tools of information around the globe – in its near neighborhood and, increasingly in more distant places including North America, Africa, Latin America, and Europe.
China’s chip ambitions remain strong in the mature technology arena
South China Morning Post
Lilian Zhang
Unisoc, a Shanghai-based fabless chip firm that is expanding its market share in low-end smartphone chips, is one example of how Chinese semiconductor companies can survive and perhaps even thrive under US trade sanctions.
What the ChatGPT moment means for U.S.-China tech competition
Foreign Policy
Rishi Iyengar and Liam Scott
The furor around ChatGPT and similar alternatives has prompted a scramble in China’s tech sector to join the party. Baidu, China’s leading search engine, said it plans to roll out its “Ernie Bot” in March while other Chinese tech giants, such as Alibaba and JD.com, announced chatbots of their own.
Why are China’s tech leaders still disappearing if the crackdown is over?
The Washington Post
Meaghan Tobin
Many of the country’s top business executives and influencers — bankers, property developers, movie stars like Fan Bingbing and e-commerce superseller Austin Li — have gone missing without explanation as their power and influence have grown. Some were later hit with fines and accused of offenses like tax evasion or fraud. Despite top leader Xi Jinping’s stated goal to boost the economy after a stifling three years under the strict “zero-covid” policy, China’s tech entrepreneurs and business leaders continue to find themselves under the microscope.
USA
TikTok a potential target in upcoming US bill to ban some foreign tech - Senator
Reuters
Brad Heath
Two U.S. senators plan to introduce legislation this week aimed at letting the government "ban or prohibit" foreign technology products such as Chinese-owned TikTok, Senator Mark Warner said on Sunday.
U.S. government warns of Royal ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an advisory Thursday warning vulnerable organizations of an increased threat posed by Royal ransomware.
Nvidia's plans for sales to Huawei imperiled if U.S. tightens Huawei curbs-draft
Reuters
Alexandra Alper
U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp's plans to sell technology to China's Huawei would be thwarted if the U.S. government proceeds with a proposal to further restrict shipments to the blacklisted company, a draft report by a government contractor shows.
Biden administration announces plan to stop water plant hacks
Reuters
Suzanne Smalley
The Biden administration announced on Friday a new plan to improve the digital defenses of public water systems.
As A.I. booms, lawmakers struggle to understand the technology
The New York Times
Cecilia Kang and Adam Satariano
Even as lawmakers put a spotlight on the technology, few are taking action on it. No bill has been proposed to protect individuals or thwart the development of A.I.’s potentially dangerous aspects. And legislation introduced in recent years to curb A.I. applications like facial recognition have withered in Congress.
Highlights from the new U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy
Krebs on Security
Chris Krebs
The Biden administration today issued its vision for beefing up the nation’s collective cybersecurity posture, including calls for legislation establishing liability for software products and services that are sold with little regard for security. The White House’s new national cybersecurity strategy also envisions a more active role by cloud providers and the U.S. military in disrupting cybercriminal infrastructure, and it names China as the single biggest cyber threat to U.S. interests.
South & Central Asia
Top Apple supplier Foxconn plans major India expansion
The Wall Street Journal
Rajesh Roy, Yoko Kubota and Philip Wen
Apple’s main manufacturer, Foxconn Technology Group, is considering a major expansion in India, including possibly assembling millions more iPhones and setting up new production sites as it seeks to further diversify beyond China.
Europe
Polish mayor targeted by Pegasus spyware-media
Reuters
An opposition-linked Polish mayor had his phone hacked using Pegasus spyware, Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported on Friday, amid allegations that the country's special services have used the technology against government opponents. Reports in 2021 by the Associated Press that the software, developed by Israel-based NSO Group was used to hack the phones of government critics, including a senator for the largest opposition party, have drawn accusations that security services are eroding democratic norms.
How the biggest fraud in German history unravelled
The New Yorker
Ben Taub
The tech company Wirecard was embraced by the German élite. But a reporter discovered that behind the façade of innovation were lies and links to Russian intelligence.
UK
Huawei ‘abandons’ plans for £1bn Cambridge research campus
The Telegraph
Matt Oliver
Huawei has quietly shelved plans for a £1bn Cambridge research campus as the embattled Chinese telecoms giant winds down its UK presence.
Snapchat kicks few children off app in Britain, data given to regulator shows
Reuters
Martin Coulter
Snapchat is kicking dozens of children in Britain off its platform each month compared with tens of thousands blocked by rival TikTok, according to internal data the companies shared with Britain's media regulator Ofcom and which Reuters has seen.
AI apps such as ChatGPT could play a role in Whitehall, says science secretary
The Guardian
Nadeem Badshah
Artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT could play a role in Whitehall and represent a “massive opportunity”, the new science secretary has suggested.
Police cautioned about companies that supply their surveillance equipment
The Canberra Times
Peter Brewer
In a cautionary tale for law enforcement around the world, UK police have been warned about using cameras integrated with biometric technology, such as facial recognition, as the concern over the use of Chinese-made surveillance cameras potentially infected with spyware grows.
Middle East
Israel risks turning into a shut-down nation
Financial Times
John Thornhill
Over the past three decades, the tiny country of 9mn people, located in a hostile neighbourhood, has shrugged off wars, uprisings and financial crises to create one of the world’s most extraordinary technology hotspots. But the recent lurch away from democracy by Israel’s rightwing coalition government is alarming the country’s celebrated tech entrepreneurs with some now threatening to leave. Is the world’s original start-up nation in danger of turning into a shut-down nation?
Gender & Women in Tech
Women powering global transformation with technology
Australian Financial Review
Tess Bennett
To coincide with International Women’s Day, March 8, the Australian Financial Review celebrates the achievements of Australian women in key sectors of the economy, nominating five women as the Women to Watch from each of five sectors – fashion and retail; education; sustainability and energy; technology; and banking.
Big Tech
Google releases civil rights review, caving to years of pressure
The Washington Post
Cristiano Lima and Gerrit De Vynck
Google released an audit Friday examining how its services and policies impact civil rights and racial equity, following years of pressure from advocates and Democratic lawmakers for such a review.
Artificial Intelligence
Using A.I. to detect breast cancer that doctors miss
The New York Times
Adam Satariano and Cade Metz
Hungary has become a major testing ground for A.I. software to spot cancer, as doctors debate whether the technology will replace them in medical jobs.
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
MIT Technology Review
Will Douglas Heaven
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, with zero fanfare, in late November 2022, the San Francisco–based artificial-intelligence company had few expectations. Certainly, nobody inside OpenAI was prepared for a viral mega-hit. The firm has been scrambling to catch up—and capitalize on its success—ever since.
ChatGPT broke the EU plan to regulate AI
POLITICO
Gian Volpicelli
The chatbot dazzled the internet in past months with its rapid-fire production of human-like prose. It declared its love for a New York Times journalist. It wrote a haiku about monkeys breaking free from a laboratory. It even got to the floor of the European Parliament, where two German members gave speeches drafted by ChatGPT to highlight the need to rein in AI technology. But after months of internet lolz — and doomsaying from critics — the technology is now confronting European Union regulators with a puzzling question: How do we bring this thing under control?
A fake news frenzy: why ChatGPT could be disastrous for truth in journalism
The Guardian
Emily Bell
It has taken a very short time for artificial intelligence application ChatGPT to have a disruptive effect on journalism. A technology columnist for the New York Times wrote that a chatbot expressed feelings (which is impossible). Other media outlets filled with examples of “Sydney” the Microsoft-owned Bing AI search experiment being “rude” and “bullying” (also impossible). Ben Thompson, who writes the Stratechery newsletter, declared that Sydney had provided him with the “most mind-blowing computer experience of my life” and he deduced that the AI was trained to elicit emotional reactions – and it seemed to have succeeded.
Musk: 'AI stresses me out'
Reuters
Joseph White
Elon Musk has clashed often with securities regulators and highway safety authorities, but there's one area the Tesla and Twitter chief says the government should regulate now: Artificial Intelligence.
Misc
Does technology win wars?
Foreign Affairs
Jacquelyn Schneider
It is ironic that, despite two decades of U.S.-led conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, it took just a few months of Russia’s war in Ukraine to finally draw attention to the depleted state of U.S. weapons stocks and the vulnerabilities in U.S. military supply chains.
Humanity is sleepwalking into a neurotech disaster
Financial Times
Camilla Cavendish
Many of us have a vague, creeping feeling that our devices might work against us. In 2016 a man was accused of burning down his home in Ohio after his heart pacemaker shed doubt on his insurance claim of an accidental fire. Two years later, US military personnel were found to be inadvertently divulging secret army base locations via their Strava fitness apps. Such stories, however, have not deterred us from giving our data away. We blithely allow apps to access our location, call records and other information because we are impatient to get to whatever fleeting new function we desire. But we need to wise up, because a new challenge is coming: how to protect our brain data.
They shared erotic images in a group chat. The fine: $17,000
The New York Times
Sui-Lee Wee
A couple in Singapore created a Telegram account where they posted risqué content for subscribers. They were convicted of violating nudity and obscenity laws.
Events & Podcasts
Jobs
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.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the team at ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre.