White House kicks off meeting to rally world leaders against ransomware | Telegram is becoming a cesspool of anti-Semitic content | Facebook to change rules on attacking public figures on its platform
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Between Wednesday and Thursday, the Biden administration is holding virtual meetings with ministers and senior officials from over 30 countries and the European Union to discuss combating ransomware attacks. Yahoo! Finance
A new report shows that channels devoted to anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are growing at an alarming rate. Why won’t the platform take action? WIRED
Facebook Inc will now count activists and journalists as "involuntary" public figures and so increase protections against harassment and bullying targeted at these groups, its global safety chief said in an interview this week. Reuters
ASPI ICPC
Companies will be required to report cyber ransom attacks
The Sydney Morning Herald
@Gallo_Ways
Businesses will be forced to inform the federal government when they have been hit by a ransomware attack under a major change to Australia’s cyber security regime. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews will on Wednesday release a ransomware plan that includes mandatory reporting requirements for companies with turnover of $10 million or more a year... An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report in July warned Australian organisations were “soft targets” for ransomware attackers and called on the government to establish a mandatory reporting regime.
Read our report ‘Exfiltrate, encrypt extort: The global rise of ransomware and Australia’s policy options’ here.
What's being done about fake vaccine passports?
ABC Radio National
We’ll soon be walking around with them and flashing them to wine, dine and travel – but how easy will it be to spot a legitimate vaccine passport compared to a fake one? We discuss what could have prevented a security flaw and what’s being done about fake vaccine passports. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia will be using an artificial intelligence tool to stem abusive messages being sent on electronic payments. Plus, Facebook and Instagram introduce new features in an effort to protect young users from harmful content. Guests: Ariel Bogle, Analyst at ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre.
World
Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show
Reuters
@adityakalra @stecklow
Amazon.com Inc has been repeatedly accused of knocking off products it sells on its website and of exploiting its vast trove of internal data to promote its own merchandise at the expense of other sellers. The company has denied the accusations. But thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters – including emails, strategy papers and business plans – show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company’s largest growth markets.
Telegram Is Becoming a Cesspool of Anti-Semitic Content
WIRED
@Gmvolpi
In the past few months, Telegram has skyrocketed in popularity, hitting 550 million monthly active users in July 2021, which makes it the fifth-most-used messaging app in the world. And as a wave of government-mandated internet shutdowns washes over the world, the app has been praised for its resistance to censorship and its role in helping protesters from Belarus to Myanmar organize. But Telegram’s libertarian ethos has a darker side, says the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate: The app is one of the vilest pits of anti-Semitism you can find on the internet. And the problem is growing worse by the day.
Australia
Home quarantine apps spark privacy fears over facial recognition and geolocation technology
The Guardian
@joshgnosis
Apps used to ensure overseas arrivals are complying with home quarantine requirements as part of Australia’s opening up need stronger privacy protections, technology and human rights groups have told state and federal health ministers.
Nick Xenophon under fire over Huawei links amid planned return to politics
The Australian
National security advocates have expressed concern at the prospect of former independent Senator Nick Xenophon making a return to parliament after his work for “high risk” Chinese telco Huawei.
China
Made in China' chip drive falls far short of 70% self-sufficiency
Nikkei Asia
Shunsuke Tabeta
The Chinese government's goal of meeting 70% of its semiconductor needs through domestic supply remains a long way off, private-sector research shows, with an estimated self-sufficiency rate of 16% last year despite an all-out government push to boost production.
Exclusive: China readies plan to elevate status of antitrust unit - sources
Reuters
China is considering boosting the status of its antitrust bureau within the market regulatory agency as it steps up a campaign against anti-competitive behaviour, two people familiar with the matter said. Urged on by President Xi Jinping, the once low-profile State Administration for Market Regulation has made headlines this year with a push to root-out and penalise anticompetitive behaviour, particularly in the vast online "platform" economy.
China to Expand Anti-Monopoly Bureau as Crackdown Widens, Sources Say
Bloomberg
China’s competition watchdog is planning to hire more people in its Beijing head office and creating departments to better oversee deals and probes, keeping up the pressure after a yearlong crackdown on monopolies.
Billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma reappears in Hong Kong - sources
Reuters
@GeniusWu @Julie Zhu
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, largely out of public view since a regulatory clampdown started on his business empire late last year, is currently in Hong Kong and has met business associates in recent days, two sources told Reuters.
USA
White House kicks off 2-day meeting to rally world leaders in push against ransomware
Yahoo! Finance
Jennifer Schonberger
Between Wednesday and Thursday, the Biden administration is holding virtual meetings with ministers and senior officials from over 30 countries and the European Union to discuss combating ransomware attacks. According to administration officials, the two-day summit is the first of many meetings and conversations. Dubbed the Counter-Ransomware Initiative, the talks will address using virtual currency to launder ransom payments, efforts to disrupt and prosecute ransomware criminals, and using diplomacy to counter those attacks.
EXCLUSIVE Facebook to change rules on attacking public figures on its platforms
Reuters
@eculliford
Facebook Inc(FB.O) will now count activists and journalists as "involuntary" public figures and so increase protections against harassment and bullying targeted at these groups, its global safety chief said in an interview this week. The social media company, which allows more critical commentary of public figures than of private individuals, is changing its approach on the harassment of journalists and "human rights defenders," who it says are in the public eye due to their work rather than their public personas.
Reducing Political Content in News Feed
Facebook
We are expanding the political content ranking tests to more countries around the world. As we get more insights from these tests, we’ll share updates on what we’re learning and will continue to make changes accordingly.
John Oliver tackles WhatsApp misinformation among immigrants
NBC News
@sakshi_saroja
John Oliver tackled misinformation circulating in immigrant communities during a segment Sunday on HBO's “Last Week Tonight,” calling attention to Facebook, WhatsApp and WeChat as top offenders in allowing fake news to make the rounds. While Facebook, which owns Instagram and the popular global messaging service WhatsApp, makes headlines over its handling of fake news, Oliver noted that the company’s efforts often leave out content that isn't in English.
Facebook safety measures 'should have already been in place'
9 News
@livingstone_tj
The site has responded to growing criticism with new measures to give parents greater control over content being viewed by their children and a take-a-break feature for Instagram.But experts say Facebook is in damage control putting profit over people, after a major global outage last week... E-safety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant says these kind of safety measures should already be in place, "not after the damage has already been done".
Facebook clamps down on its internal message boards.
The New York Times
@RMac18
Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it was making some of its internal online discussion groups private, in an effort to minimize leaks.
Woman Allegedly Hacked Flight School, Cleared Planes With Maintenance Issues to Fly
VICE
@lorenzofb
A woman allegedly hacked into the systems of a flight training school in Florida to delete and tamper with information related to the school's airplanes. In some cases, planes that previously had maintenance issues had been "cleared" to fly, according to a police report. The hack, according to the school's CEO, could have put pilots in danger.
Trump-Era Pentagon Official Sues as Suspension Reaches 5 Months
Bloomberg
The Pentagon official who led a new cybersecurity initiative for defense contractors sued the department Tuesday for failing to tell her about allegations that led security officials to place her on administrative leave five months ago.
Americans Need a Bill of Rights for an AI-Powered World
WIRED
@EricLander46 @AlondraNelson46
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is developing principles to guard against powerful technologies—with input from the public.
Ted Cruz says bitcoin will stabilize Texas electric grid—here’s why he’s wrong
Ars Technica
@tdechant
Numbers and potential incentives just don't add up.
There Is No Bipartisan Consensus on Big Tech
WIRED
@jshermcyber
The media's rose-colored rhetoric about cooperation across the aisle is overblown—and threatens the road to substantive regulation.
North Asia
TSMC and Sony considering joint chip factory, Japan gov't to help
Yahoo! Finance
Taiwan's TSMC and Japan's Sony Group Corp are considering jointly building a chip factory in Japan, with the government ready to pay for some of the investment of about 800 billion yen ($7.15 billion), the Nikkei reported on Friday.
Southeast Asia
Thai monks' livestream mixes Buddhism and jokes but not all are laughing
Reuters
@patpichatan @panuw
Two Buddhist monks in Thailand have become social media stars with Facebook livestreams that combine traditional teachings with non-traditional jokes and giggles. Some of the country’s religious conservatives, however, are not so amused.
Europe
Facebook whistleblower behind major leak is going to testify in Europe
CNBC
@RYAN_BROWNE_
Hot on the heels of her appearance in Congress, Frances Haugen is now set to give evidence to lawmakers in British Parliament. EU lawmakers have also invited her to a hearing. Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, told a Senate panel last week that leadership at the company prioritizes “profits before people,” and called on lawmakers to intervene. It comes at a key moment for Big Tech companies. Both the U.K. government and the EU are introducing new regulatory regimes for digital giants.
Factbox: Macron's 30 billion euro "France 2030" investment plan
Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday unveiled a 30 billion euro ($35 billion) investment roadmap dubbed “France 2030”, aimed at fostering industrial champions and innovation. Here are some of the key measures he announced.
Meet Wu Dao 2.0, the Chinese AI model making the West sweat
POLITICO
Europe is increasingly worried it’s being left out of the global race for artificial intelligence.
Ireland’s draft GDPR decision against Facebook branded a joke
TechCrunch
@riptari
Privacy campaign not-for-profit noyb today published a draft decision by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) on a complaint made under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The DPC’s draft decision proposes to fine Facebook $36 million — a financial penalty that would take the adtech giant just over two and a half hours to earn in revenue, based on its second quarter earnings (of $29 billion).
Russia
Russia excluded from virtual White House meeting on ransomware
The Hill
@mchalfant16 @magmill95
The White House on Wednesday will convene a virtual meeting on countering ransomware with senior officials representing 30 countries and the European Union, Biden administration officials said, as part of President Biden’s effort to work with global partners to address cyber threats. Ministers and senior officials from a range of countries will take part in the virtual meeting, though the attendees do not include representatives from Russia, which has been a key focus of the Biden administration in trying to root out criminal ransomware groups.
Russia sends warning to cyber security sector with arrest of Ilya Sachkov
Financial Times
Three people in Russia’s cyber security community said the Kremlin was signalling that it did not want to co-operate with the west on cyber crime — and would punish those who stepped out of line. “It looks like a totally hostile action against the Americans,” one of the people said. “He was the only person who loudly accused people of ransomware activity.”
Middle East
Oracle opens Israel cloud centre to withstand rocket attacks
Reuters
@StevenMScheer
Oracle opened the first of two planned public cloud centres in Israel on Wednesday, enabling companies and other Israeli customers to keep their data on local servers rather than rely on other countries.
Africa
ICANN Strengthens its Technical Engagement in Africa and the Middle East
ICANN
Beginning in 2020, the ICANN organization's (org's) Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) has been strengthening its team in charge of technical engagement with the Internet community. The result, in part, is that we have joined ICANN as technical engagement specialists and are actively providing training, promoting research, and disseminating standards and best practices related to the security, stability, and resiliency of the DNS in the African and the Middle Eastern (MEA) regions.
Misc
Rocking down to Electric Avenue? Good luck charging your car
Reuters
Nick Carey @TinaBellon
European and U.S. cities planning to phase out combustion engines over the next 15 years first need to plug a charging gap for millions of residents who park their cars on the street.
Experts Horrified by Military Contractor Installing Gun on Robodog
Futurism
@Jon_Christian
Yesterday, we reported that the military hardware company Ghost Robotics had debuted a robodog with an attached sniper rifle. Now, experts are speaking out against the heavily armed robodog, which they say marks an inflection point in the development of killer robots — and should represent an urgent opportunity to reflect on whether the tech should be allowed at all.
Payments giant Stripe says its reentering the crypto market
TechCrunch
@sarahintampa
Payments company Stripe announced it’s building out a new crypto team to help build out the “future of Web3 payments,” according to public statements posted to Twitter on Tuesday. Stripe, which had once been among the first to support Bitcoin payments before leaving the market a few years ago, has been watching for the right time to get back in. But how those plans will play out is still largely unknown.
Reckoning with cyberpolicy contradictions in great power politics
Brookings
Robert D. Williams
Reckoning with the challenge of digital coexistence should begin with a candid acknowledgment of the inconsistencies in great powers’ cyberpolicies.
Events
International cyber landscape and Australia’s place in it
.auDA
Fergus Hanson, the Director of the International Cyber Policy Centre at ASPI, joins auDA CEO, Rosemary Sinclair AM, to discuss the International cyber landscape and Australia’s place in it.
Mon Oct 25, 2021
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. Analysts usually have at least 5 years, often 7-10 years’ of work experience. Senior analysts usually have a minimum of 15 years relevant work experience and, in addition to research, they take on a leadership role in the centre and tend to be involved in staff and project management, fundraising and stakeholder engagement.