Google loses $2.7B antitrust appeal; EU also wins $15B Apple case | PM backs social media ban | US accuses China of giving ‘very substantial’ help to Russia
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Google has once again lost in its bid to overturn a 2017 antitrust decision by the European Commission. The bloc found its shopping comparison service had broken competition rules — hitting Alphabet, Google’s parent, with an at-the-time record-breaking €2.42 billion penalty (around $2.7 billion at current exchange rates) and ordering changes to how it operates the service. TechCrunch
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has expressed support for raising the minimum age for social media access to 16, as the federal government aims to legislate an age-based ban by year’s end. He favors a "higher limit" between 14 and 16, emphasizing the need for a national approach after South Australia backed a ban for 14-year-olds. The Australian
Beijing is providing "very substantial" support to bolster Moscow's military, while Russia shares sensitive submarine and missile technology in return, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Tuesday. Speaking to journalists after meetings with EU and NATO officials in Brussels, Campbell increased pressure on Beijing. POLITICO
ASPI
Cables under the sea: Pacific island countries need integrated electricity grids
The Strategist
Molly Pflaum and Jonah Bock
Australia should supercharge the development of Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and contribute to their lasting economic security by investing in inter-island electricity grids and diversified energy sources. A green energy project in Vanuatu completed this August demonstrates the opportunity—and the need for action on a much larger scale.
Australia
Anthony Albanese signals social media ban until 16 years under online harm crackdown
The Australian
Rhiannon Down
Anthony Albanese has signalled his preference for increasing the minimum age when teenagers can access social media platforms to 16, amid a federal government push to legislate an age-based ban by the end of the year. The Prime Minister said the right age to impose a limit was between 14 and 16 years with his personal view being that the “higher limit” should be pursued, while stressing the importance of a nationally consistent approach after South Australia backed a ban for 14-year-olds.
‘Fundamental strategic error’ in plan to ban teens from social media
The Australian Financial Review
Paul Smith
Australian technology veteran Daniel Petre says the Albanese government should force social media giants such as Facebook and Snapchat to develop systems to block underage access if it is serious about protecting children and teenagers from online harms. Mr Petre said spending $6.5 million to trial technologies to restrict social media to older teenagers, rather than making the tech companies do it themselves, was a mistake.
Chatbots ‘grooming children’, parliamentary inquiry finds
The Australian
Natasha Bita
Students should adopt artificial intelligence (AI) as a “study buddy’’ despite alarming evidence of child grooming, cheating and deep fakes, a federal parliamentary inquiry has recommended. Generative AI “chatbots’’ used in schools should be trained only on Australian curriculum data to shield children from dangerous, wrong or biased information harvested from the internet, the inquiry found. It warns that AI tools are being used to monitor children’s moods, create convincing deep fakes, rig research results and present fiction as fact.
RansomHub claims Aussie fundraising outfit as alleged victim
CyberDaily
David Hollingworth
The RansomHub ransomware gang has listed Australian company BSG Australia to its darknet leak site overnight and is claiming to have successfully exfiltrated 79 gigabytes of data from the firm. The affiliate likely responsible for the hack – RansomHub is a ransomware-as-a-service operation, essentially a hiring its services out to anyone willing to purchase their infrastructure and malware – has not editorialised about the attack, simply sharing a description of the company taken from its own website.
China
Bill restricting US contracts with Chinese biotech firms among first to pass House in ‘China Week’
South China Morning Post
Bochen Han
In the first legislative moves of “China week”, the US House passed a bill on Monday that would restrict the federal government from contracting with Chinese biotech firms involved in the US medical supply chain, along with over a dozen bills targeting Beijing’s political, economic and technological influence. The Biosecure Act, which passed 306-81, targets five Chinese companies – BGI Group, Complete Genomics, MGI, Wuxi AppTec and Wuxi Biologics – and establishes an inter-agency process for identifying additional companies.
China’s ambitions for global AI governance
East Asia Forum
Huw Roberts
Over the past year, China has published several documents that outline and begin implementing a vision for global AI governance. These initiatives are often framed as a proactive strategy to shape the emerging governance landscape in line with China’s political ideology. In reality, key weaknesses lie at the heart of this newfound emphasis on global AI governance, with efforts largely a reaction to technological and political developments in the West. As China’s vision continues to mature, prioritising pragmatic engagement across multiple international institutions will be essential for achieving effective global AI governance.
Thanks, Edward Snowden: you propelled China to quantum networking leadership
The Register
Simon Sharwood
China has an undeniable lead in quantum networking technology – a state of affairs that should give the US pause, despite its lead in quantum computing. So says think thank the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), which on Monday published a report titled "How Innovative Is China in Quantum?" Its answer is "very" – at least when it comes to quantum communication, a field president Xi Jinping prioritized after the 2013 Snowden leaks so that Beijing can keep more of its secrets.
Alibaba will receive boost from China’s mainland traders
Financial Times
June Yoon
China’s largest ecommerce group has been one of the worst performing stocks in the region in recent years. But up until its 2020 peak, there were long stretches where Alibaba stock delivered handsomely for its shareholders. Alibaba’s 2014 listing in the US meant that mainland Chinese investors — those most familiar with the company’s business — have had to miss out on those stellar returns. Now, they may just turn out to be Alibaba’s last hope of stopping the slide in the stock price.
WuXi companies say they’re not a security risk as U.S. House passes draft of biosecure act
The Wall Street Journal
Jiahui Huang and Sherry Qin
The U.S. House of Representatives took another step to curb Chinese companies’ U.S. operations by passing a draft of the Biosecure Act, prompting China-based biotech company WuXi AppTec and its affiliate to again deny they are threats to security. The draft bill, which designates the WuXi companies as a “biotechnology company of concern,” is preemptive and unjustified without due process, WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics said Tuesday.
USA
US accuses China of giving ‘very substantial’ help to Russia’s war machine
POLITICO
Stuart Lau
Beijing is giving Moscow "very substantial" help to beef up its war machine, and in return Russia is handing over its closely guarded military tech on submarines and missiles, the United States' Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Tuesday. Speaking with a group of journalists, including POLITICO, after meetings with European Union and NATO counterparts in Brussels, Campbell upped the ante on Beijing. The U.S. previously focused on Beijing's supply of what's known as dual-use technologies — which can be applied for military or civilian purposes.
How a secret right-wing network spread sexual smears about Harris
The New Republic
Paige Oamek
A secret network of influencers were paid big bucks to spread sexual rumors about Kamala Harris, according to a new Semafor investigation. The investigation delves into a weird political network of posters, led by an unknown individual, who made it their mission to smear Kamala Harris about her sex life. One person made as much as $20,000 for being a part of the scheme.
US says alleged white supremacists tried to use Telegram to spark race war
Reuters
Andrew Goudsward
U.S. prosecutors unveiled criminal charges on Monday against two alleged leaders of a white supremacist gang, saying they used the Telegram social media site to solicit attacks on Black, Jewish, LGBTQ people and immigrants aiming to incite a race war. The group, dubbed "The Terrorgram Collective", used the site to celebrate white supremacist attacks around the world and solicit racially motivated violence, prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Sacramento, California.
Losses from crypto scams grew 45% in 2023, FBI says
Reuters
Hannah Lang
Losses from cryptocurrency-related frauds and scams increased 45% in 2023 from 2022, totaling more than $5.6 billion, as scammers increasingly took advantage of the speed and irreversibility of digital asset transactions, the U.S. FBI said Monday. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether have become more popular as token prices have soared to new highs and as exchange-traded funds tracking their prices have hit the U.S. market this year.
Russian, Kazakhstani men living in Miami indicted over cybercrime training service
CyberScoop
AJ Vicens
A pair of alleged cybercriminals who prosecutors say were key administrators of a cybercrime marketplace and training service were indicted Friday and each face up to 20 years in federal prison. Alex Khodyrev, 35, and Pavel Kublitskii, 37, were charged Aug. 10 for their role in administering WWH Club, a Russian-language cybercrime forum that an FBI agent likened to “a cross between Ebay and Reddit … that exists for the sole purpose of of promoting and facilitating crime.”
South & Central Asia
Pakistan’s China-style firewall is rattling its tech industry
Rest of World
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
Pakistani entrepreneur Ahmed Khan has spent the past nine years building Cheetay, a last-mile delivery startup. Khan had previously co-founded Daraz, a leading e-commerce platform in South Asia which was acquired by China’s Alibaba in 2018, and felt confident in his new company’s success. At one point, Cheetay had real momentum: It raised around $30 million in several rounds from venture capitalists, and expanded its services to include grocery delivery. The company even won multiple tech industry awards in 2019.
Europe
EU to trim proposed tariffs on Tesla, other EVs from China
Reuters
The European Union will lower proposed final tariffs on Tesla (TSLA.O) and slightly trim rates for other electric vehicles from China after taking into account submissions by the companies, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Tesla's proposed tariff rate will drop to 7.8%, from 9%, the source said. For BYD, there was no change to its 17% tariff. For Geely, the new rate would be 18.8% from a previous 19.3%. A peak rate of 35.3% would apply to SAIC and other companies not cooperating with EU investigation, the source said.
Russia to spend $646 million to block VPNs, Forbes Reports
Bloomberg
Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor plans to spend 59 billion rubles ($644 million) over the next five years to upgrade its internet traffic-filtering capabilities, the Russian edition of Forbes reported on Tuesday. The money will be used to upgrade hardware used to filter internet traffic, as well as block or slow down certain resources, Forbes reported, citing documents.
Big Tech
Google loses appeal against EU’s $2.7B Shopping antitrust case, as bloc also wins $15B Apple state aid appeal
TechCrunch
Natasha Lomas
Google has once again lost in its bid to overturn a 2017 antitrust decision by the European Commission. The bloc found its shopping comparison service had broken competition rules — hitting Alphabet, Google’s parent, with an at-the-time record-breaking €2.42 billion penalty (around $2.7 billion at current exchange rates) and ordering changes to how it operates the service.
Artificial Intelligence
Sixty countries endorse 'blueprint' for AI use in military; China opts out
Reuters
Joyce Lee
About 60 countries including the United States endorsed a "blueprint for action" to govern responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military on Tuesday, but China was among those which did not support the legally non-binding document. The Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summit in Seoul, the second of its kind, follows one held in The Hague last year. At that time, around 60 nations including China endorsed a modest "call to action" without legal commitment.
A first step on the long road to global AI regulation
The Interpreter
José-Miguel Bello y Villarino, Ramona Vijeyarasa and Kimberlee Weatherall
The first ever binding international treaty on artificial intelligence was agreed last week, bringing together the European Union, the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and six other European (but not-EU) countries. Despite the name – the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law (CETS No. 225) – the treaty is open to all countries, and while not a signatory (yet), Australia participated in its negotiation.
Husic defends govt’s track record on AI investment
InnovationAus
Justin Hendry
Industry minister Ed Husic says millions in existing funding for artificial intelligence is available to local firms willing to “step up”, rejecting criticism leveled at the government over its lack of investment to date. As proposed mandatory guardrails and a new voluntary safety standard were unveiled on Thursday, Mr Husic defended the government’s track record in the wake of a disappointing federal Budget.
MI6 and CIA are combatting tech-savvy criminals with generative AI
TechRadar
Ellen Jennings-Trace
Representatives from MI6 and the CIA have revealed the agencies have adopted generative AI in the fight to improve intelligence activities. In a joint opinion piece, the agencies pointed to the ‘sea of data’ they need to comb through in order to identify and tackle security threats. The intelligence chiefs describe the ‘accelerated’ challenges brought about by advances in technology, with an ‘unprecedented array of threats’ that the two countries face. The pair identify the war in Ukraine as the first of its kind in combining open-source warfare with ‘cutting-edge battlefield technology [..] high and low sophistication cyber warfare, social media, open-source intelligence”
BP extends use of AI in five-year deal with spy tech firm Palantir
The Guardian
Alex Lawson
The oil and gas supermajor BP is to use artificial intelligence to speed up the decision-making of its engineers, after signing a five-year deal with the US spy technology company Palantir. The British company plans to use large language models to automatically analyse data from its sites and produce advice to help humans come to conclusions.
Misc
Kids are digital natives. They have ideas to help protect children from being harmed online
The Conversation
Faith Gordon
The vast expanse of internet connectivity, online media, social media platforms, gaming platforms, and new forms and uses of artificial intelligence (AI) have opened enormous opportunities for commerce and communication. The sheer convenience and ubiquity of online connectivity have made the internet a new way of life for nearly everyone in the 21st century. This is especially the case for children, whose social lives have almost entirely migrated online.
Jobs
ASPI Research Internship
ASPI
Have you recently completed your studies (undergraduate or postgraduate) and want to develop your expertise in defence, foreign and national security policy, including in areas such as strategic competition, defence, deterrence, foreign interference, technology, and security? Do you want to inform the public and government on the critical strategic choices facing Australia and learn what it takes to be a professional analyst? If so, apply for the ASPI Research Internship Program! Please note that this is a paid internship program. Applications will close at midnight Friday 27 September 2024.
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