China arrests South Korean chip engineer on espionage charges | US efforts to contain Xi’s push for tech supremacy are faltering | Japan and Australia gear up for boosted defense ties
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China has detained a South Korean chip engineer on espionage charges, Beijing confirmed on Tuesday, escalating a brewing tech war between the east Asian neighbours over the critical semiconductor industry. The South Korean foreign ministry said it was providing the engineer and his family with consular services. The Financial Times has confirmed that the individual remains in detention in China. Financial Times
The world outside the US is increasingly driving Chinese electric vehicles, scrolling the web on Chinese smartphones and powering their homes with Chinese solar panels. Bloomberg
The next 18 to 24 months will see Japan and Australia not only test and share new technologies and capabilities, including during more frequent and complex exercises. It will also see increased military deployments to each other’s territories. That move will be facilitated by a visiting-forces pact — formally known as a Reciprocal Access Agreement — that entered into force in August last year. The Japan Times
Australia
Japan and Australia gear up for boosted defense tie-ups over next two years
The Japan Times
Gabriel Dominguez
Tokyo and Canberra will take defense cooperation and industry tie-ups to fresh highs over the next 18-to-24 months, a senior Australian defense official told The Japan Times in a recent interview, as the strategic partners grow increasingly concerned about the fraught international security environment. The next 18 to 24 months will see the quasi-allies not only test and share new technologies and capabilities, including during more frequent and complex exercises, he said it will also see increased military deployments to each other’s territories. That move will be facilitated by a visiting-forces pact — formally known as a Reciprocal Access Agreement — that entered into force in August last year.
China
China arrests South Korean chip engineer on espionage charges
Financial Times
China has detained a South Korean chip engineer on espionage charges, Beijing confirmed on Tuesday, escalating a brewing tech war between the east Asian neighbours over the critical semiconductor industry. The South Korean foreign ministry said it was providing the engineer and his family with consular services. The Financial Times has confirmed that the individual remains in detention in China. The arrest was the first of a South Korean national under China’s revised anti-espionage laws that have rattled foreign business in the country. It also comes as South Korea, home to the world’s leading two memory chip companies, battles to maintain its technological edge in the $158bn sector.
Founder of TikTok owner ByteDance jumps to top of China's rich list
Reuters
Casey Hall
ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming is China's richest person, with personal wealth of $49.3 billion, an annual rich list showed on Tuesday, although counterparts in real estate and renewables have fared less well.
USA
US efforts to contain Xi’s push for tech supremacy are faltering
Bloomberg
Rebecca Choong Wilkins
The world outside the US is increasingly driving Chinese electric vehicles, scrolling the web on Chinese smartphones and powering their homes with Chinese solar panels.
Election betting site Polymarket gives Trump a 67% chance of winning but is rife with fake ‘wash’ trading, researchers say
Fortune
Leo Schwartz
Analysts found that Polymarket activity exhibited signs of wash trading, a form of market manipulation where shares are bought and sold, often simultaneously and repeatedly, to create a false impression of volume and activity. Chaos Labs found that wash trading constituted around one-third of trading volume on Polymarket’s presidential market, while Inca Digital found that a “significant portion of the volume” on the market could be attributed to potential wash trading, according to its report.
How X users can earn thousands from US election misinformation and AI images
BBC
Marianna Spring
Some users on X who spend their days sharing content that includes election misinformation, AI-generated images and unfounded conspiracy theories say they are being paid "thousands of dollars" by the social media site. The BBC identified networks of dozens of accounts that re-share each other's content multiple times a day - including a mix of true, unfounded, false and faked material - to boost their reach, and therefore, revenue on the site.
Six senators tell Biden administration UN cybercrime treaty must be changed
The Record by Recorded Future
Suzanne Smalley
The Biden administration must fix several provisions threatening human rights and cybersecurity in the United Nations cybercrime convention that is heading to the General Assembly for a vote, six Democratic senators said in a letter sent to administration officials Tuesday.
Americas
China 'compromised' Canadian government networks and stole valuable info: spy agency
CBC
Catharine Tunney
CSE's latest report, which casts ahead to the 2025-2026 fiscal year, names the People's Republic of China as "the most comprehensive cyber security threat facing Canada today" and says the scale, tradecraft and ambitions China demonstrates online are "second to none." The report says Chinese state-sponsored actors repeatedly conduct cyber espionage campaigns against federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous government networks in Canada.
North Asia
Top Taiwan chip designer MediaTek says geopolitical risks 'difficult' subject
Reuters
Ben Blanchard
Taiwan is facing increased military pressure from China, which views the island as its own territory, and the prospect Donald Trump could win the Nov. 5 presidential election, who has criticised Taiwan on the campaign trail for stealing U.S. chip business and proposed tariffs on all imports. Questioned on an earnings call about how MediaTek plans to manage geopolitical risks and tensions such as Trump tariffs and more restrictions on the tech industry, the company's Chief Executive Rick Tsai said it was something they thought about. "This is of course a very big and a very difficult subject, and I don't think any company can elaborate on this risk very well, not to mention there are critical elections coming in one week, so I will not really comment on the specific risk," he said.
Southeast Asia
Singapore's quiet rise in the global 'deep tech' race
Nikkei Asia
Tsubasa Suruga
Deep tech investment volume in Singapore rose 31% in 2023 from the previous year.
Meta says Malaysia's social media licencing plan lacks clarity, threatens innovation
Reuters
Danial Azhar
A Meta Platforms official on Wednesday criticised Malaysia's plan to require social media platforms to apply for a regulatory licence by January, saying the proposal lacked clear guidelines and gave social companies little time to comply, risking digital innovation and growth in the country. Malaysia said in July it will require social media platforms and messaging services with more than eight million users to obtain a licence, as part of efforts to curb financial scams, cyberbullying and sexual crimes online.
South & Central Asia
A win for press freedom: court allows Reuters to republish story on shady Indian firm
TechDirt
Mike Masnick
You may recall last December when we wrote about the somewhat shocking news that an Indian court had ordered Reuters to take down an entire article investigating a company, Appin and its founder Rajat Khare, that were accused of running a giant “hacking for hire” operation. Ten months later, that article is back online with a new editor’s note.
Amazon launched a program for Indian handicrafts. Local artisans say it’s not working
Rest of World
Nipun Prabhakar
Amazon Karigar was launched in India in 2017. The program now has 1.6 million handicraft sellers. Artisans in Kutch, a region with a strong handicrafts tradition, say their sales through Amazon are lackluster. Artisans say the site treats their crafts like any other industrially produced product.
Ukraine-Russia
Australia supports UK, EU efforts to call out Russian disinformation and malicious activity
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Russia has used disinformation to incite anti-Ukraine protests and weaken support for Ukraine’s defence of its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression. This includes the concerning activities of the Social Design Agency and Structura – two firms funded by the Kremlin – and their leadership. These firms are running a large disinformation network known as “Doppelgänger”. It has targeted the US and Europe with a high volume of fake articles published as legitimate news.
Russia arrests hacker accused of preventing electronic voting during local election
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Russia’s Federal Security Service announced that it had detained a Moscow resident for conducting distributed denial-of-service attacks during local elections in September, targeting infrastructure in the capital and the Moscow region.
Europe
AI boom thrusts Europe between power-hungry data centers and environmental goals
CNBC
April Roach
Michael Winterson, chair of the European Data Center Association, warned lowering water temperatures in data centers will eventually “fundamentally drive us back to an unsustainable situation that we were in 25 years ago.”
Russia and China-linked state hackers intensify attacks on Netherlands, security officials warn
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Russian and Chinese state threat actors are ramping up their cyberattacks against Dutch organizations, according to a new government report. Most of these attacks primarily aim to gain a foothold within critical infrastructure for potential future sabotage, as well as to obtain sensitive information, the Dutch principal counterterrorism unit said in research published Monday.
Strava, the exercise app filled with security holes
LeMonde
Martin Untersinger
In recent years, journalists and curious observers have discovered that individuals tasked with sensitive operations, particularly soldiers, have shared their physical activity on Strava, endangering their mission, their identity and even their safety.
Big Tech
The rise and decline of Intel
Reuters
Noel Randewich, Max A. Cherney and Arsheeya Bajwa
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger inherited a troubled company that had lost its edge in manufacturing skills and had ceded to rivals the hugely lucrative markets for chips used in mobile phones and artificial intelligence.
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