China to launch quantum satellite constellation in 3 years | North Koreans use fake US IDs to infiltrate workforce | Iceland is housing illicit online activities
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China is aiming to launch an ultra-secure global communications service by 2027, with the completion of its quantum satellite constellation and its integration with ground-based networks, according to leading physicist Pan Jianwei. South China Morning Post
North Korean IT Engineers are using AI and other more sophisticated technology to gain overseas employment, fooling governments and corporations as they earn dollars for Kim Jong Un's regime. Nikkei Asia
Withheld for Privacy and other so-called proxy services have turned Iceland into a global hub for illicit activity far out of proportion to the country’s size. The New York Times
The World
America v China: who controls Asia’s internet?
The Economist
The competition is being fought over the control and ownership of the data centres, undersea cables and wiring that together form the physical underpinnings of the internet. Since the second world war, America has dominated communications infrastructure. But its grip has slipped. China has become far more technologically autonomous in the past decade, according to a composite index of “digital dependence” that assesses hardware, software and intellectual property put together by two analysts, Maximilian Mayer and Yen-Chi Lu.
Australia
Introduction of landmark Cyber Security Legislation Package
Department of Home Affairs
The Cyber Security Legislative Package will implement seven initiatives under the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy, addressing legislative gaps to bring Australia in line with international best practice and take the next step to ensure Australia is on track to become a global leader in cyber security. These measures will address gaps in current legislation to: mandate minimum cyber security standards for smart devices; introduce mandatory ransomware reporting for certain businesses to report ransom payments; introduce a ‘limited use’ obligation for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and the Australian Signals Directorate; and establish a Cyber Incident Review Board.
Social media bans discussed in classrooms as TikTok reveals a million underage accounts were 'removed' from platform
ABC News
Sophie Landau and Daniel Keane
As national leaders grapple with ways to best protect young minds from the potentially harmful effects of social media, TikTok has revealed that, last year alone, it "removed" a million Australian accounts suspected of breaching its age guidelines. It's a figure that would come as no surprise to students in classrooms at Loreto College, where teenagers are learning that the online platforms with which they've all grown up are not without their downsides — and that they can, in fact, be intrusive, addictive, deceptive and unsafe.
NSW renews IBM whole-of-gov deal for three more years
iTnews
Eleanor Dickinson
According to IBM Australia and New Zealand managing director Nicholas Flood, the renewal will “streamline access” to IBM’s artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud portfolio. IBM said at the time that the agreement would “provide a more streamlined process for agencies to access emerging technology”, making specific reference to IBM hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence and security.
Quantum start-up breaks records with blockbuster funding round
The Sydney Morning Herald
David Swan
Quantum computing start-up Q-CTRL has set multiple records with its latest funding round, with rugby legend John Eales joining heavyweight global investors in tipping more than $100 million into the futuristic Sydney-based technology company. At the forefront is Q-CTRL, which spun out of the University of Sydney and is not building its own quantum computers but instead building the software to make quantum computers more stable.
China
China’s ‘father of quantum’ says global secure communications just 3 years away
South China Morning Post
China is aiming to launch an ultra-secure global communications service by 2027, with the completion of its quantum satellite constellation and its integration with ground-based networks, according to leading physicist Pan Jianwei. By combining the satellite constellation with ground-based optical-fibre quantum networks across the country, they expect to “deliver something truly practical” for large-scale communications in the next five to 10 years, he said.
China to launch new quantum communications satellites in 2025
Space News
Andrew Jones
Pan, head of the Institute of Quantum Information and Quantum Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated that a further satellite will be launched into medium Earth orbit in 2027. He added that China expects to make breakthroughs in quantum relay technologies in the next five to six years to enable a quantum communications network. China launched the pioneering Mozi satellite in 2016 to test quantum physics in space, particularly focusing on quantum communication and encryption. Developed under CAS, it demonstrated quantum key distribution and quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances.
China explores cross-border uses for digital yuan in new trial
Nikkei Asia
Kentaro Shiozaki
China has kicked off a trial for cross-border payments using central bank digital currencies with Saudi Arabia and other partners, eyeing alternative uses for the digital yuan amid its struggles in the home market. Other participants include Hong Kon, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. Such international organisations as the International Monetary Fund are also taking part as observers.
USA
Elon Musk is piling onto all the hurricane disinformation, hampering relief efforts
POLITICO
Adam Aton and Scott Waldman
Elon Musk is using his social media network to spread election conspiracy theories about U.S. disasters — just as online falsehoods are complicating the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Musk has helped spread accusations that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “actively blocked” donations to victims of Helene and is “seizing goods … and locking them away to state they are their own” — allegations that FEMA officials call false and which run afoul of state and local Republican leaders’ praise for the assistance from Washington.
American Water cyberattack renews focus on protecting critical infrastructure
Associated Press
Bruce Shipkowski
A cyberattack continues to affect the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States, renewing a focus on the importance of protecting critical infrastructure sites. New Jersey-based American Water paused billing to customers as it announced the cyberattack on Monday. It said it became aware of the unauthorized activity on Thursday and immediately took protective steps, including shutting down certain systems. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency urged water systems to take immediate actions this year to protect the nation’s drinking water.
US plan to break up Google's search dominance threatens profit engine, AI growth
Reuters
Zaheer Kachwala and Akash Sriram
The U.S. Department of Justice's proposed remedies to break up Google's search dominance could weaken its main profit engine and stall its advances in artificial intelligence, even though a final outcome may be years away, analysts said. Barring Google from collecting sensitive user data, requiring it to make search results and indexes available to rivals, letting websites opt out of their content being used to train AI products and making Google report to a "court-appointed technical committee" are also on the table.
Americas
Mexico faces over half of Latin American cybercrimes due largely to US ties
Reuters
Aida Pelaez-fernandez
Mexico accounted for just over half of all cyber threats reported in Latin America in the first half of 2024, cybersecurity firm Fortinet said in a study. As Mexico undergoes a nearshoring boom, in which companies shift production closer to their primary markets, cybercriminals have been targeting sectors such as logistics and automotive and electronics manufacturing to maximize the impact and benefits of their attacks.
North Asia
North Koreans harness AI, fake American IDs to land remote IT work
Nikkei Asia
Atsushi Teraoka
North Korean IT Engineers are using AI and other more sophisticated technology to gain overseas employment, fooling governments and corporations as they earn dollars for Kim Jong Un's regime. The US Justice Department said it had indicted a man in Tennessee for facilitating the fraudulent employment of North Korean information technology engineers at US and UK companies using a laptop farm.
Southeast Asia
Meta AI chatbot coming to Thailand
Bangkok Post
Meta Platforms, the parent of Facebook, is getting ready to roll out its artificial intelligence chatbot, Meta AI, in 21 new markets including Thailand, with Thai language support. Major technology companies have been trying to attract consumers to their AI chatbots by introducing new features and making them more accessible with support for different languages as they seek to grab market share from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Digital downstream strategies for Indonesia’s corporations
OpenGov Asia
Samaya Dharmaraj
In a significant address at the BNI Investor Daily Summit 2024, held at the Jakarta Convention Centre, Deputy Minister of Communication and Informatics Nezar Patria highlighted the imperative for corporations in Indonesia to adopt digital downstream strategies. Deputy Minister Patria emphasised that simply adopting technology is not sufficient. “Adopting technology is just the first step,” he stated. “The crucial factor is fostering research and development to generate innovations that lead to value creation.” He underscored that the push for innovation in the digital sector is essential for achieving the government’s ambitious economic growth target of 8%.
South & Central Asia
Samsung India workers reject settlement offer as strike enters 2nd month
Nikkei Asia
A group of more than 1,000 striking workers at the Samsung Electronics factory in southern India has rejected a settlement offer made by the company on wage hikes, with the sit-in protest entering its second month on Wednesday. The strike is the biggest such labor dispute in recent years in India and has cast a shadow over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive to lure investors to set up local manufacturing. Tamil Nadu state, where many foreign companies including Foxconn operate, has been unsuccessful in resolving the matter so far.
Empowering India: upskilling for a smart workforce
OpenGov Asia
Samaya Dharmaraj
The National Skill Development Corporation has partnered with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to launch a cutting-edge skill centre in Mumbai. This state-of-the-art facility in Kandivali is set to play a key role in equipping individuals with the skills required for the digital economy. The facility’s focus on digital and industry-relevant skills addresses the growing demand for a workforce capable of thriving in a tech-driven world.
Europe
Some of the web’s sketchiest sites share an address in Iceland
The New York Times
Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu
Withheld for Privacy and other so-called proxy services have turned Iceland into a global hub for illicit activity far out of proportion to the country’s size. Because Withheld for Privacy uses the building’s address as a default for its clients, Kalkofnsvegur 2 has been linked to online forums used by a white supremacist group in the United States, Patriot Front, to sell counterfeit hormone drugs to trans women; to phishing sites posing as companies such as Amazon, Coinbase and Spotify to steal money and personal information from visitors; and to Russian influence campaigns intended to spread fake narratives to unsuspecting Americans.
Europe’s privacy patrol is spoiling Big Tech’s AI party
POLITICO
Sam Clark and Pieter Haeck
More than six years after it took effect, Europe’s mighty data-protection rulebook is getting its second wind — by stymieing the artificial intelligence plans of Big Tech giants. In just a few months, Google, Meta, X and LinkedIn have paused or delayed AI projects in the European Union, blaming an old yet familiar foe: Brussels red tape. The regulatory flex is coming mainly from data protection authorities, which have the power to enforce the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Turkey blocks instant messaging platform Discord
Reuters
Turkey has blocked access to instant messaging platform Discord following a court decision, the country's infotech regulator said on Wednesday. Turkey's Information Technologies and Communication Authority published the access ban decision on its website. The access ban decision comes after public outrage caused by the murder of two women, perpetrated by a 19-year-old man earlier this month.
Gender & Women in Cyber
Artificial intelligence: rooting out bias and stereotypes
UN News
“When it comes to the industries and the fields that are really driving the future – STEM, the green economy, AI – we see women significantly underrepresented and not making sufficient progress in closing that gap”, she warned. Ms. Steinberg added that, in her view, AI will create new forms of employment, but “we have to be aware of the fact that it's going to reshape the jobs and skills that we already have”: in the shorter term, she declared, “women are at a greater risk of losing their jobs than men, due to the introduction of AI tools in the wider economy”.
Big Tech
Asia to remain center of chip industry despite West's push: ASML CEO
Nikkei Asia
Cheng Ting-Fang
The buildup of chip production in Western countries is unlikely to shift the industry's balance of power away from Asia according to Christophe Fouquet, president and CEO of ASML, the Dutch maker of highly prized semiconductor making machinery.
Tick Tock for TikTok
ChinaFile
Kevin Xu, Ivy Yang, Donald Clarke and Rui Ma
TikTok was in federal court last month arguing against a law that U.S. President Biden signed in April giving TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, 90 days to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or be banned nationwide. The deadline is January 19, 2025, a Sunday. “After several hours of questioning, however,” NPR reported, “it was difficult to gauge which way the court is leaning in the high-stakes legal saga that is the most dire-yet challenge TikTok has faced.”
Bitcoin’s inventor is a mystery. An HBO filmmaker thinks he found him.
The Washington Post
Will Sommer and Drew Harwell
The identity of the inventor of bitcoin might be the internet’s most enduring and consequential mystery — especially because that person could personally control a cryptocurrency stash worth tens of billions of dollars. Cullen Hoback, the documentarian who made a convincing argument for the real names of the men behind the QAnon conspiracy theory in 2021’s “Q: Into the Storm,” believes he may have uncovered “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the alias that bitcoin’s inventor used online.
Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI sees continued attempts by threat actors to use its models for election influence
Reuters
Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI tools, including ChatGPT, to aid in their malicious activities such as creating and debugging malware, and generating fake content for websites and social media platforms, the startup said. So far this year it neutralized more than 20 such attempts, including a set of ChatGPT accounts in August that were used to produce articles on topics that included the U.S. elections, the company said. It also banned a number of accounts from Rwanda in July that were used to generate comments about the elections in that country for posting on social media site X.
Nvidia kicks off AI summit in D.C., with two more in Asia to follow
Nikkei Asia
Yifan Yu
Nvidia is going on a world tour to showcase how artificial intelligence can address issues such as climate change and health care as the US chip giant ramps up production of its next generation AI chip Blackwell. Bob Pette, Nvidia's vice president of enterprise platform, kicked off a three-day AI summit in Washington on Tuesday morning by demonstrating ways Nvidia's customizable AI interference service can help the public and private sectors.
Uber gives users option to only hail full-electric cars, launches AI chatbot for EV-curious drivers
CNBC
Ryan Browne and Lora Kolodny
The company previously launched an “Uber Green,” service which has historically included a mix of battery-electric vehicles, and hybrid electric models. Now, Uber can offer battery-electric vehicles as the sole “green” option in more than 40 cities globally, executives said at Uber’s annual Go Get Zero sustainability conference in London on Tuesday.
Hacked ‘AI Girlfriend’ data shows prompts describing child sexual abuse
404media
Joseph Cox
The data, taken from a site called Muah.ai and viewed by 404 Media, includes chatbot prompts that reveal users’ sexual fantasies. In many instances, users are trying to create chatbots that roleplay child sexual abuse scenarios. These prompts are in turn linked to email addresses, many of which appear to be personal accounts with users’ real names. Muah.ai is one of many AI relationship bots, in which users pay for the ability to create and interact with AI companions of their choice.
Misc
These car brands are collecting and sharing your data with third parties
ABC News
James Purtill
An investigation by consumer advocacy group Choice found most of Australia's popular car brands collect and share "driver data", ranging from braking patterns to video footage. Kia and Hyundai collect voice recognition data from inside their cars and sell it to an artificial intelligence software training company. Privacy and consumer rights advocates are pushing for law reform to limit data collection to what is "fair and reasonable".
Events & Podcasts
AI and Inclusion – Stories from the frontlines of tech
WeAreTechWomen
As AI continues to redefine the landscape of technology, the need for diverse perspectives has never been more crucial. Join us for an insightful fireside chat where Black, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent women share their experiences navigating and shaping the AI-driven tech industry.
Jobs
Head of Events
ASPI
ASPI has an exciting opportunity for an experienced and motivated events professional to join the organisation as Head of Events. Lead a small, dedicated, tight-knit team to deliver a program of internationally renowned events on a variety of topics ranging from defence and national security to critical technologies and space. The closing date for applications is 18 October 2024
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