Top cyber official expecting to be fired as White House frustrations hit agency protecting elections | U.S. Backs Down on TikTok | Card payment data to be used to track people in coronavirus hotspots
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The U.S. government's top cybersecurity official has told people that he expects the White House to fire him, three people familiar with the situation told POLITICO, as the Trump administration continues a purge of officials deemed disloyal to the president. Politico.
The Commerce Department said Thursday it wouldn’t enforce its order that would have effectively forced the Chinese-owned TikTok video-sharing app to shut down, in the latest sign of trouble for the Trump administration’s efforts to turn it into a U.S. company. WSJ.
Credit card payments will be used to track visits to coronavirus hotspots while people will have to provide contact details to enter restaurants, workplaces and public venues to help authorities stay ahead of any outbreaks. SMH.
World
Microsoft says three APTs have targeted seven COVID-19 vaccine makers
ZD Net
The three state-sponsored hacker groups (APTs) are Russia's Strontium (Fancy Bear) and North Korea's Zinc (Lazarus Group) and Cerium.
Australia
Aussie Crackdown on China's TikTok
Daily Telegraph
Australians could soon see “in-your-face” TV ads akin to the 1980s AIDS campaign, this time warning the public about the harms of social media apps such as China-owned TikTok and ByteDance. Home Affairs, ASIO and the Australian Signals Directorate have provided the federal government with a confidential review as the basis for a strategy to combat risks of personal data theft and fraud by foreign-owned app entities. They have noted the “lack of transparency” about the data the apps collect and pass on to other entities, as well as the potential for misuse.
Card payment data to be used to track people in coronavirus hotspots
SMH
Credit card payments will be used to track visits to coronavirus hotspots while people will have to provide contact details to enter restaurants, workplaces and public venues to help authorities stay ahead of any outbreaks.
Telstra 4G towers coming to 11 remote NT locations including Stuarts Well Roadhouse
ABC
Owner Peter 'Spud' Murphy says the roadhouse has a landline and some limited 3G coverage — but the planned upgrades will be a "godsend".
China
Opinion - China's new wolf warrior diplomacy is a Maoist resurrection
SMH
The CCP external propaganda machine has gone on the attack. Western social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were long ago banned in China. Yet Chinese diplomats and foreign propaganda outlets have set up accounts and launched a combative new style of foreign messaging, known as “Wolf Warrior diplomacy”... The CCP government and telecommunications company Huawei pointedly sent bulk supplies of PPE to countries in Europe that had not yet made a final decision on Huawei in their 5G systems.
China’s President Xi Jinping Personally Scuttled Jack Ma’s Ant IPO
WSJ
Chinese President Xi Jinping personally made the decision to halt the initial public offering of Ant Group, which would have been the world’s biggest, after controlling shareholder Jack Ma infuriated government leaders, according to Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter.
USA
Top cyber official expecting to be fired as White House frustrations hit agency protecting elections
Politico
Chris Krebs is in the White House's crosshairs in part because of a website he created to debunk election-related misinformation.
US Backs Down on TikTok
WSJ
The Commerce Department said Thursday it wouldn’t enforce its order that would have effectively forced the Chinese-owned TikTok video-sharing app to shut down, in the latest sign of trouble for the Trump administration’s efforts to turn it into a U.S. company.
Zuckerberg defends not suspending ex-Trump aide Bannon from Facebook: recording
Reuters
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company's policies to justify his suspension when he urged the beheading of two senior U.S. officials, according to a recording heard by Reuters.
How Trump uses Twitter to distract the media – new research
The Conversation
Our new study presents the first empirical evidence that President Trump’s tweets systematically divert attention away from topics that are potentially harmful to him.
Parler Makes Play for Conservatives Mad at Facebook, Twitter
WSJ
As Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have taken a more assertive role in curbing content on their platforms, prominent conservatives on both platforms have responded with a frequent retort: Follow me on Parler.
Democratic think tank: cybercrime enforcement lacks attention, money and resources
SC Magazine
A new report from Democratic think tank Third Way argues that the United States “faces an unrelenting cybercrime wave that affects nearly every sector of the American economy and threatens U.S. security.” The challenge, the report claims, is fueled in part by an inability to meaningfully enforce cybercrime laws within the United States and across international borders.
Pacific
Covid-19 could lead to telehealth revolution in Fiji
ASPI Strategist
The pandemic has underscored both the real and the potential importance of making better use of technology, especially telehealth and telemedicine. Telehealth denotes the use of technology to deliver remote healthcare advice, while telemedicine is focused more narrowly on delivering clinical services remotely.. Regional telehealth networks have provided an important mechanism to share information and advice about Covid-19 within the Pacific region and across Fiji despite travel restrictions. Unfortunately, telemedicine capacity lagged far behind the need for it.
Europe
Speech by German Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas at the conference “2020. Capturing Technology. Rethinking Arms Control”
Federal Foreign Office
As a first step, we suggest a strategic process within the European Union on the responsible military use of new technologies. Such a process could assess how EU policies in this area can contribute to security in a new technological age. We want to build a common European understanding of future conflict.
Misc.
Bumble Vulnerabilities Put Facebook Likes, Locations And Pictures Of 95 Million Daters At Risk
Forbes
Bumble prides itself on being one of the more ethically-minded dating apps. But is it doing enough to protect the private data of its 95 million users? In some ways, not so much, according to research shown to Forbes ahead of its public release.
Botnet Attackers Turn to Vulnerable IoT Devices
Threatpost
Cybercriminals are leveraging the multitudes of vulnerable connected devices with botnets that launch dangerous distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
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.
Senior Strategic Communications Manager
ASPI
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has an outstanding opportunity for a highly experienced, strategic comms professional to contribute to the launch of a new, high profile global project. The Senior Strategic Communications Manager will be an integral member of a bespoke team that will liaise with the Australian government, foreign governments, industry and civil society to build up this exciting new project from scratch. The position will work closely with the Executive Director and the Institutes’s International Cyber Policy Centre.
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