U.S. charges members of Chinese military in connection with Equifax hack | 6.4 million Israelis data exposed | Aus MP delivers stunning rebuke to UK Dominic Raab on Huawei
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The Justice Department has charged four members of the Chinese military with a 2017 hack at the credit reporting agency Equifax, a massive data breach that compromised the personal information of nearly half of all Americans. Washington Post
A misconfiguration in an election day app developed by Likud, the party of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, may have potentially exposed and compromised the personal details of almost 6.5 million Israeli citizens. ZDNet
A key member of Australia's Parliamentary intelligence committee has strongly criticised British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in a private meeting over British intelligence claims they can safely allow Chinese telco Huawei to build the country's 5G mobile network. Sydney Morning Herald
ASPI ICPC
Last week, ASPI ICPC was in Manila working on building a common framework that demonstrates the adoption and implementation of cyber norms.
Australia
Australian MP delivers stunning rebuke to UK's Dominic Raab on Huawei
Sydney Morning Herald
@latikambourke
A key member of Australia's Parliamentary intelligence committee has strongly criticised British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in a private meeting over British intelligence claims they can safely allow Chinese telco Huawei to build the country's 5G mobile network. Labor MP Anthony Byrne delivered the rebuke during a 25-minute meeting on Thursday in Canberra between Mr Raab and some members of the intelligence committee, underlining tensions between the UK and its allies over Huawei. Australian and US officials are frustrated Britain said in late January that it would not ban equipment made by Huawei from being used in its new high-speed 5G network.
Huawei linked to research grants totalling $262m
The Australian
@bennpackham
The Australian Research Council has handed out more than $262m in taxpayer-funded grants over the past five years to projects involving Chinese organisations, including four involving “high risk” telco Huawei.
China
Chinese Tech Responds to the Coronavirus
CFR
@Lauren Dudley @adschina
As the new coronavirus has spread from Wuhan to the rest of China, and the central government has mobilized to control an outbreak that has so far killed more than 560 people, Chinese technology firms have played a prominent role in the battle against the epidemic. These efforts are designed to reinforce the government’s response and insulate the companies from public backlash. They are also likely to tie the tech sector to the state even more tightly than before.
China's massive security state is being used to crack down on the Wuhan virus
CNN
As Chinese authorities struggle to contain the deadly Wuhan coronavirus, they are turning to a sophisticated authoritarian playbook honed over decades of crackdowns on dissidents and undesirables to enforce quarantines and lockdowns across the country.
US
U.S. charges four members of Chinese military in connection with 2017 Equifax hack
Washington Post
The Justice Department has charged four members of the Chinese military with a 2017 hack at the credit reporting agency Equifax, a massive data breach that compromised the personal information of nearly half of all Americans. In a nine-count indictment filed in federal court in Atlanta, federal prosecutors alleged that four members of the People’s Liberation Army hacked into Equifax’s systems, stealing the personal data as well as company trade secrets. Attorney General William P. Barr called their efforts “a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people.”
Facebook and Twitter reject Pelosi's request to remove edited Trump video
The Guardian
@vicbekiempis
Facebook and Twitter have refused House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request to remove a video posted by Donald Trump that was misleadingly edited to show her repeatedly tearing a paper copy of his State of the Union address while he was honoring a Tuskegee airman and other attendees.
Vice President Pence: ‘We’ll see’ if UK decision on Huawei is a deal breaker for a trade pact
CNBC
@AMANDA_M_MACIAS
Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged Friday that the United Kingdom's recent decision to grant Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei access to its 5G mobile networks could jeopardize trade talks between the United States and the U.K. Asked whether the Huawei decision was a deal breaker, Pence told CNBC's Wilfred Frost: "We'll see." "We are profoundly disappointed because look, when I went at the president's direction in September I met with Prime Minister Johnson and I told him the moment the U.K. was out of Brexit we were willing to begin to negotiate a free trade arrangement with the U.K.," Pence said. “But we just don't believe that utilizing the assets and technologies of Huawei is consistent with the security or privacy interests of the U.K., of the United States and it remains a real issue between our two countries," he added.
Why The Feds Are Raiding Tech Companies For Medical Records
Forbes
@iblametom
When a U.S. government demand for genetic data from Ancestry.com was revealed earlier this week, it caused anxiety around the kinds of access police have to people’s DNA data. But there’s something else that Americans should be paying attention to: the government’s secretive plundering of citizens’ medical histories.
Alibaba leads Chinese retreat from Silicon Valley
Financial Times
China’s biggest tech company did not make any publicly disclosed investments in the US last year, as the increasing hostility between Washington and Beijing brought a multiyear spending spree by Chinese companies in Silicon Valley to an end.. The worsening climate for Chinese investors has been blamed on the increased scrutiny of deals from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or Cfius, which has expanded its oversight since a reform act was passed in 2018.
Google, LinkedIn and Other Tech Firms Send Employees Into New York Classrooms
Wall Street Journal
@KCARLINIKING
Tech-in-Residence program aims to help students expand skills and boost chances for finding jobs after graduation.
North Asia
North Korea’s Internet Use Surges, Thwarting Sanctions and Fueling Theft
New York Times
@SangerNYT
North Korea has vastly expanded its use of the internet in ways that enable its leader, Kim Jong-un, to evade a “maximum pressure” American sanctions campaign and turn to new forms of cybercrime to prop up his government, according to a new study.. The surge has a clear purpose, according to the report released Sunday by Recorded Future, a Cambridge, Mass., group known for its deep examinations of how nations use digital weaponry: circumventing financial pressure and sanctions by the West. Over the past three years, the study concluded, North Korea has improved its ability to both steal and “mine” cryptocurrencies, hide its footprints in gaining technology for its nuclear program and cyberoperations, and use the internet for day-to-day control of its government.
UK
What Did the United Kingdom Just Decide on Huawei and 5G?
CSIS
@James Andrew Lewis
Is this a defeat for the United States? It is definitely a rebuff and will be spun as a defeat, but this is not a clear win for either side. The United States was unprepared for the decision to go against it and now must recover. The greatest damage to the U.S. push for a total ban will be that other countries that remain undecided about Huawei, like Germany, will now use the UK decision as a rationale for adopting some variant of a partial ban, and it is possible that in some cases, any ban will be much weaker.
Senior Tories form group dubbed the 'Wolverines' to oppose Huawei and call on MPs to express concerns over 5G deal The Telegraph
Is there a halfway for Huawei? Western allies can’t agree on role for Chinese giant in 5G networks The Globe and Mail
China admonishes Boris Johnson over lack of free market approach to Huawei Sydney Morning Herald
Europe
China says Huawei is the victim of a 'witch hunt' as it warns European countries not to freeze the company out of their 5G networks
Business Insider
Charlie Wood
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, China’s ambassador to the UK described British politicians voicing concerns about Huawei’s role in the country’s 5G network as a “witch hunt.”
Canada
Canada’s military wants Ottawa to ban Huawei from 5G
The Globe and Mail
@stevenchase @RobertFife
Canada’s military wants the federal government to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. from supplying equipment for the next generation of wireless infrastructure, according to a senior Canadian official with knowledge of the matter.
Middle East
Netanyahu's party exposes data on over 6.4 million Israelis
ZD Net
A misconfiguration in an election day app developed by Likud, the party of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, may have potentially exposed and compromised the personal details of almost 6,5 million Israeli citizens.
Misc
How Big Companies Spy on Your Emails
Vice
@josephfcox
Multiple confidential documents obtained by Motherboard show the sort of companies that want to buy data derived from scraping the contents of your email inbox.
Research
Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards: Committee publishes report
Gov.uk
The Committee on Standards in Public Life today published its report on artificial intelligence and its impact on public standards.