Zuckerberg met Trump during DC visit | Alibaba, Tencent refuse to hand loans data to Beijing | Huawei suspended from global forum aimed at combating cybersecurity breaches
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an unannounced meeting with President Trump during his visit to Washington on Thursday. Axios
China’s tech giants Tencent and Alibaba are refusing to co-operate with a government-backed credit scoring programme by withholding access to their troves of customer loans data, according to two people familiar with the project. The People’s Bank of China launched Baihang, a private credit scoring company, in March 2018 in order to create a national system that would cover the 460m Chinese who have no formal credit histories but who may be relying on the country’s vast fintech sector for loans. The Financial Times
Huawei Technologies has been suspended from membership in a global trade group of companies, governments and experts set up to tackle computer security breaches. The Wall Street Journal
ASPI ICPC
Australia's Cyber Strategy, version 2.0
ASPI ICPC
Back in 2016, Australia launched its first national cybersecurity strategy. The strategy covers a four-year period to 2020, and given the changes in the security environment, an update is now clearly warranted. To that end, the government has just launched a discussion paper to kick off the public consultation. The closing date for submissions on the discussion paper is 1 November.To complement the public submission process, ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre is initiating a public debate on what should be included in the next cybersecurity strategy. Contributions will be compiled into a report that we will deliver to the Department of Home Affairs to inform the strategy’s development.
Why China isn’t as skillful at disinformation as Russia
Quartz
@echohuangy
“You sort of scratch the surface and you see something is not right,” said Elise Thomas, a researcher at Canberra-based think tank Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) who is one of the authors of a report this month analyzing Twitter activity aimed at discrediting the protests.
China to expand controversial Social Credit System to 33 million companies ahead of 2020
ABC News
@ChristinaZhou44 @BangXiao_
Samantha Hoffman, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told the ABC that 2020 wasn't a deadline where the SCS is expected to be a perfect system, rather it marked the end of a planning period. "There are certain objectives that were set out in that 2014-2020 plan [like setting a legal framework], but the actual system itself will still be evolving after that," she said. "What is expected [in 2020] is already pretty much in place in that if you look at every provincial, and even city municipal governments, they have their own implementation legislation."
Australian universities are accused of trading free speech for cash
The Economist
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think-tank, reckons 300-odd scientists tied to China’s armed forces have visited Australia since 2007, studying subjects such as quantum physics and navigation technology. In one “particularly worrying” case, a professor at the University of New South Wales worked with a Chinese general to develop supercomputers used in nuclear-weapons tests, notes Alex Joske of ASPI.
Spooks should brief journalists: expert
The West Australian
@finbaromallon
Regular briefings of journalists by spooks would improve the transparency of Australia's intelligence agencies while balancing national security and public interest. ASPI national security director Michael Shoebridge told a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday the briefings could cover foreign interference, counter-terrorism and military deployments.. Mr Shoebridge said the debates around Australia's defamation laws and national security were "parallel" because of the inability to call out perpetrators of foreign interference. He also criticised the government's "country-agnostic" approach to name nation's behind espionage attacks, saying it didn't pass the pub test.
World
Why can’t we agree on what’s true any more?
The Guardian
@davies_will
It’s not about foreign trolls, filter bubbles or fake news. Technology encourages us to believe we can all have first-hand access to the ‘real’ facts – and now we can’t stop fighting about it.
Australia
Australia’s Toughest Question: How Close Is Too Close to China?
The New York Times
@jamietarabay
But after years of vocal China boosterism, Australia’s leaders have said little to the public about why they have taken these steps. They have instead issued vague statements, for instance accusing “sophisticated state actors” of carrying out intrusions like the cyberattack on Parliament this year. On Monday, Reuters reported that the country’s intelligence agencies had concluded that China was behind that attack, but that government officials had recommended keeping the finding secret to avoid hurting trade ties. The government’s ambivalence and lack of transparency has discouraged open public debate, experts say, leading to oversimplified arguments and conspiratorial rumors.
Australian House Committee to examine 5G deployment
ZDNet
@achanthadavong
The committee will examine the opportunities and challenges of 5G in Australia.
Compensation pledge as funds tighten security after data hack claims
The Sydney Morning Herald
Stephen Miles & @sdanck
Australians who have had their super accounts drained by crime gangs will be fully compensated as some of the country's biggest funds ramp up cyber-security in the wake of an alleged $10 million international identity theft scam.
Cyber security leaders seek solutions for 'dire' skills shortage
ABC Radio AM
@GavinCoote
Cyber security experts are warning that Australia is losing the battle to upskill the workforce to prevent growing cyber threats. They're meeting in Sydney to discuss ways to tackle a dire skills shortage, and popular culture has emerged as a popular tool for attracting young people into science and technology.
ACS acquires ADMA
Information Age
ACS, Australia’s peak professional body for the IT sector, has snapped up data-driven associations ADMA (Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising), IAPA (Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia), D+TC (Digital + Technology Collective) and DGA (Data Governance Australia).
Making Sense of 'Cyber-Restraint': The Australia-China Case
The Diplomat
@drfarls
Why did Australia react to an apparent Chinese hack the way it did?
Students are fighting climate change, one TikTok video at a time
ABC
@arielbogle
Its Chinese parent entity Bytedance has been criticised for censoring content that is not politically popular in its home country —like videos about the Hong Kong protests, for example. Yet despite such serious concerns, its young Australian users continue to create — and increasingly, agitate.
MPs say stress from social media warranted their large pay rises
The Age
@noeltowell @CharlotteGriev1
State politicians say they deserve the generous pay rises they got this week in part because Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have made their working lives harder.
China
China’s Access to Foreign AI Technology
Center for Security and Emerging Technology
William Hannas & Huey-meei Chang
China’s technology transfer programs are broad, deeply rooted, and calculated to support the country’s development of artificial intelligence. These practices have been in use for decades and provide China early insight and access to foreign technical innovations.
Alibaba and Tencent refuse to hand loans data to Beijing
The Financial Times
China’s tech giants Tencent and Alibaba are refusing to co-operate with a government-backed credit scoring programme by withholding access to their troves of customer loans data, according to two people familiar with the project. The People’s Bank of China launched Baihang, a private credit scoring company, in March 2018 in order to create a national system that would cover the 460m Chinese who have no formal credit histories but who may be relying on the country’s vast fintech sector for loans.
Editor of nationalist Global Times questions Beijing’s online censorship – then deletes the post
South China Morning Post
@simonelmc
The editor of mainland nationalist newspaper Global Times pushed back against Beijing’s tightened internet controls in the lead-up to China’s 70th anniversary celebrations in a now-deleted social media post on Wednesday. “National Day is approaching and it’s extremely difficult to access the web; even our work at the Global Times is affected,” Hu Xijin wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
USA
Scoop: Mark Zuckerberg met Trump during visit to D.C.
Axios
@mikeallen
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an unannounced meeting with President Trump during his visit to Washington on Thursday, Axios has learned.
U.S. cyber-offensive against ISIS continues, and eyes are now on Afghanistan, general says
Cyberscoop
@shanvav
As loyalties among Afghanistan’s Islamic extremists continue to shift, the U.S. military may be poised to rely more heavily on offensive cyber capabilities to target one group in particular — the dispersed but still active membership of ISIS, according to one military cyber commander.
Huawei Suspended From Global Forum Aimed at Combating Cybersecurity Breaches
WSJ
@annaisaac
Huawei Technologies has been suspended from membership in a global trade group of companies, governments and experts set up to tackle computer security breaches.
FBI Arrests Chinese Official for Visa Fraud
The Washington Free Beacon
Bill Gertz
The FBI has arrested a Chinese government official as part of China's massive scheme to illegally obtain American technology by recruiting experts in high-tech fields. Zhongsan Liu was arrested after a lengthy investigation into his role in directing a Chinese government front group in New Jersey called the China Association for International Exchange of Personnel (CAIEP), the Justice Department said in a statement. A criminal complaint in the case dated Sept. 13 also linked the visa fraud charges to a Chinese government-funded Confucius Institute at a U.S. university.
The Mysterious Death Of The Hacker Who Turned In Chelsea Manning
NPR
@NPRDina
Adrian Lamo was a hero in the hacker community for years. Everything changed when he began exchanging messages with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Adrian Lamo (center) walks out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., where Chelsea Manning's court-martial was held, on Dec. 20, 2011. Patrick Semansky/AP
Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law. Good.
TechCrunch
@zackwhittaker
Silicon Valley is terrified. In a little over three months, California will see the widest-sweeping state-wide changes to its privacy law in years.
A facial recognition ban is coming to the US, says an AI policy advisor | MIT Technology Review
US Army Base To Buy Banned Honeywell Surveillance
IPVM
@ipvideo
The U.S. Army's Fort Gordon, home to their Cyber Center of Excellence, has issued a solicitation to purchase Honeywell products that are US government banned. This is virtually certain to be canceled but the fact that it was published by the GSA shows the dangers of OEMing, the complicity of large American companies like Honeywell, and the problems of policing cyber supply chains. For those unfamiliar with the video surveillance industry, this would understandably seem confusing. The problem is that, for many years, quietly, Honeywell has relabelled Chinese products passing them off under the Honeywell brand.
Southeast Asia
Malaysia open to Huawei for 5G equipment, authority chief says
Nikkei
Security agency has 'no objection' after investigating cyberespionage claims.
Pacific Islands
Department installs cyber security stack technology to protect IC
Papua New Guinea Post-Courier
The Health Department now has a cyber security stack technology that will protect and secure the health sector’s information communication technology (ICT) network resources and data systems.. “Working with PNG to strengthen cyber security on the region is an important component of Australia’s broader support to PNG’s digital sector, which also includes the Coral Sea Cable project. Australia and PNG are committed to working closely together to protect our shared interests in cyberspace,” he said.
Misc
This Article Is Spying on You
The New York Times
@tim_libert
The press has performed admirably in reporting on privacy violations by the National Security Agency and major internet companies. But news sites often expose users to the same surveillance programs and data-collection companies they criticize. Even articles that explained how the N.S.A. was using Google cookies to “pinpoint targets for hacking” often included the exact same cookies revealed by Edward Snowden. Likewise, articles about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica often include Facebook tracking code, allowing Facebook to keep tabs on what people read.
Defending Information Integrity with Renee DiResta, Mozilla Fellow
Mission Podcast
On this episode, Stephanie and Renee dive deep into the red flags or anomalous activity Renee identifies online to point to misinformation campaigns, the responsibility of tech companies to protect users, and so much more.
Events
The Digital Revolution in the Pacific
ASPI ICPC
ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre warmly invites you to attend a panel discussion to consider how governments and businesses in the Pacific Islands are reaping the benefits and tackling the challenges stemming from increased internet and mobile connectivity.
NetThing – the Aussie internet governance forum renewed
NetThing
NetThing – the Aussie internet governance forum renewed. On 28 October, NetThing is taking place at UTS Sydney. NetThing is an annual forum to strengthen Australia’s Internet community and consists of robust Australia-based Internet policy exploration and discussion. Anyone with an interest is encouraged to join and engage in the panels and workshops.
Jobs
Research Fellow In Cyber Security (Threats And Risks)
Charles Sturt University
High profile role to help develop Australian capability in cyber security
Focus on law, criminology and policy
Unique opportunity to engage with cyber security researchers The Role Fixed Term (up to 2 years), Full Time AU$96,178 to AU$114,117 pa (plus 17% superannuation) Wagga Wagga
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