Musk's DOGE expands Grok AI use in US government | Pakistan allocates 2,000 MW to bitcoin mining and AI centres | Nvidia plans cheaper Blackwell AI chip post-export curbs
Plus, Anthropic's new AI model turns to blackmail when engineers try to take it offline
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The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest focuses on the topics we work on, including cybersecurity, critical technologies, foreign interference & disinformation.
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Elon Musk’s DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the US federal government to analyse data, potentially violating conflict-of-interest laws and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans. Reuters
Pakistan has allocated 2,000 megawatts of electricity in the first phase of a national push to support Bitcoin mining and AI data centres, as the country moves to legalize cryptocurrency and attract foreign investments. Bloomberg
Nvidia will launch a new artificial intelligence chipset for China at a significantly lower price than its recently restricted H20 model and plans to start mass production as early as June. InnovationAus
ASPI
Regulating X isn’t censorship. It’s self-defence
ASPI
Fergus Ryan
In 2024, during the fiercely fought US presidential election campaign, current US Vice President JD Vance made an extraordinary ultimatum: if Europe wanted the United States to remain committed to NATO, it should stop regulating Elon Musk’s X. Vance wasn’t just objecting to regulation; he was recasting it as a threat to democracy itself. But in reality, regulation is what defends democracy.
World
US, Europol arrest 270 dark web drug traffickers in Operation RapTor
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
International law enforcement agencies joined together to arrest 270 peoples as part of a global operation to take down a criminal network that sold drugs through the dark web. US and EU law enforcement seized more than $200 million and 144 kilograms of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics alongside 180 firearms as part of the international effort dubbed Operation RapTor. The action built upon the previous takedowns of dark web marketplaces like Incognito, Nemesis, Tor2Door, Bohemia and Kingdom Markets.
Defence spending is up — but on all the wrong things
Financial Times
Rana Foroohar
Defence is the new tech when it comes to hot sectors. Or is it the other way round? That’s a question worth asking as defence stocks have rallied in recent weeks on everything from news of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence shield, to the new UK-EU security pact that would give UK defence companies access to Europe’s €150bn defence fund, to the broad understanding that US-China strategic competition is here to stay and Europe will be spending more on its own defence. The issue is whether all this new spending will pay off, or whether technology disruption is changing not only the nature of war but the business of defence itself.
Australia
Eyes over the paddock: farm monitoring with Chinese drones is a national security risk
ASPI
Jason Van der Schyff
Australia’s national security conversation often focuses on critical minerals, undersea cables, sovereign cloud and satellite capabilities. Yet one area remains underexamined: the quiet, high-resolution eyes flying above our farms. Drones are increasingly used to survey farmland. They measure soil health, water use, crop stress and harvest progress. Most, however, are made by Shenzhen-based DJI, the dominant global drone supplier. This raises a key question: who else might be gaining insight from these operations?
Central Queensland town at centre of 'battery boom' pushes for more input
ABC News
Katrina Beavan
Nestled among dry rainforest at the base of a mountain range in Central Queensland, a small country town is fighting what it sees as a battle threatening to transform its rural tranquillity: a national battery boom. Five companies are planning to build or expand large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems in Bouldercombe, or nearby.
Junk food ads are flooding your teenager's social media feeds and it's influencing what they choose to eat
ABC News
Anastasia Safioleas and Eddy Diamond
Social media's harmful impact on the mental health of children and teenagers is well documented. Now, new research suggests that the widespread marketing of unhealthy food and drinks on social media is influencing the food choices of young people and potentially impacting their physical health.
From DNA to intellectual property - the new frontier of genetic ownership
Young Australians in International Affairs
Vijhai Grayan
The convergence of biology and computing has accelerated rapidly. Tools like CRISPR-Cas9 have enabled precise, scalable genome editing, while synthetic biology — the engineering of new biological components and systems — continues to grow, with projections estimating it could generate up to USD$4 trillion in direct economic value every year for the next 10 to 20 years. In this new landscape, DNA is no longer seen solely as a biological given. It is programmable. Editable. Commercial. This shift reframes genetic material as intellectual property.
AI data security
Australian Signals Directorate
This Cybersecurity Information Sheet provides essential guidance on securing data used in artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. It also highlights the importance of data security in ensuring the accuracy and integrity of AI outcomes and outlines potential risks arising from data integrity issues in various stages of AI development and deployment.
China
‘Alarming’ rise in regional internet censorship in China
The Guardian
Amy Hawkins
China’s authorities appear to have implemented an enhanced version of the country’s internet censorship regime in the central province of Henan, subjecting tens of millions of residents to even stricter controls on access to information than people in the rest of the country.
China’s battery giant eyes global domination in Trump era
The Australian Financial Review
Last week, Contemporary Amperex Technology Company's plans for global domination of cutting-edge batteries were given a major boost with the world’s largest share offering so far this year. CATL raised $HK35.7 billion in a secondary listing in Hong Kong. But the company has found itself caught in the crossfire of a deepening rift between the United States and China, as Donald Trump’s administration and Beijing lob sanctions, blacklists and tariffs at each other.
USA
Musk’s DOGE expanding his Grok AI in US government, raising conflict concerns
Reuters
Marisa Taylor and Alexandra Ulmer
Billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE team is expanding use of his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the US federal government to analyze data, said three people familiar with the matter, potentially violating conflict-of-interest laws and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans. Such use of Grok could reinforce concerns among privacy advocates and others that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team appears to be casting aside long-established protections over the handling of sensitive data as President Donald Trump shakes up the US bureaucracy.
Musk says he'll resume working '24/7' at his companies, X outage mostly restored
Reuters
Elon Musk's social media platform X was largely restored for most users after an outage that impacted tens of thousands of users in the United States on Saturday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, following which he said that he is "back to spending 24/7" at his companies.
‘Little, little screws’ one of many hurdles to US-made iPhones
Reuters
Jody Godoy, Karen Freifeld and David Shepardson
President Donald Trump’s bid to bring manufacturing of Apple’s iPhone to the United States faces many legal and economic challenges, experts said on Friday, the least of which are the insertion of “little screws” that would need to be automated. Trump threatened on Friday to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Apple for any iPhones sold, but not made, in the United States, as part of his administration’s goal of reshoring jobs.
Trump says his tariffs on Apple will also apply to Samsung
Reuters
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that a 25% tariff he says he will impose on Apple will also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers. Trump, talking to reporters in the Oval Office, also said he was fine with leaving a 50% tariff in place on the European Union absent a trade deal.
Commvault clients should beware of campaign targeting cloud applications, CISA says
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
Federal cyber defenders are warning that hackers are targeting the cloud environments of clients of data management giant Commvault. The New Jersey-based company previously said it was notified by Microsoft in February of a data breach caused by an unnamed nation-state threat actor that allowed access to “a subset of app credentials that certain Commvault customers use to authenticate their M365 environments.”
Texas moves forward with expansive social media ban for minors, reigniting debate over platform restrictions
NBC News
Adam Edelman
Texas is poised to become the second state to enact an across-the-board ban on social media for minors before its state legislative session ends in a little over a week. Advocates on both sides of the issue have said the bill would be the strictest state-level regulation yet on social media platforms if enacted.
North Asia
The rise of AI manufacturing in China and South Korea
The Diplomat
Rajiv Kumar
Artificial intelligence is the most important technology of our time, one that is rapidly transforming economies and societies. East Asia, led by China and South Korea, is a region that is implementing AI in manufacturing at a pace and scale not seen elsewhere. This rapid adoption is likely to help East Asia maintain its manufacturing edge amid efforts by the West and Global South to shift production in their direction.
For more on China's pressure campaign against Taiwan—including military threats, interference and cyberwarfare, check out ASPI’s State of the Strait Weekly Digest.
Southeast Asia
Telegram 'surprised' as Vietnam orders messaging app to be blocked
Reuters
Francesco Guarascio and Phuong Nguyen
Vietnam's technology ministry has ordered telecommunication service providers to block the messaging app Telegram for not cooperating in combating alleged crimes committed by its users, in a move that Telegram said was surprising. In a document, dated May 21 and signed by the deputy head of the telecom department at the technology ministry, telecommunication companies were ordered to take measures to block Telegram and report on them to the ministry by June 2.
SoftBank's Son makes proposal for Japan-US sovereign fund
Nikkei Asia
SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son is proposing to establish a Japan-US sovereign wealth fund that would make technology and other investments across the US, the Financial Times reported Sunday. The Japanese Ministry of Finance and the US Department of the Treasury would jointly own and operate the fund, with private investors potentially also having a chance to participate.
Caught in a $60b scam, these workers tried to flee but the soldiers were waiting
The Sydney Morning Herald
Zach Hope and Kate Geraghty
They were told their government wasn’t coming for them, and this was true. Months had passed since they had been hauled from the scam compounds of Myanmar’s lawless borderlands and put here, a holding camp, of sorts; a place to wait under the watch of militiamen until their names appeared on a list designating those who were soon to be free.
South & Central Asia
Pakistan Allocates 2,000-MW Capacity to Power Bitcoin Mining
Bloomberg
Faseeh Mangi and Ashutosh Joshi
Pakistan has allocated 2,000 megawatts of electricity in the first phase of a national push to support Bitcoin mining and AI data centers, as the country moves to legalize cryptocurrency and attract foreign investments. The initiative, led by the Pakistan Crypto Council, will also help monetize surplus energy and create high-tech jobs, the finance ministry said in a statement. Coal-based power projects like Sahiwal, China Hub, and Port Qasim, currently operating at 15% capacity, are among those expected to be repurposed for this effort, the ministry said.
Naukri exposed recruiter email addresses
TechCrunch
Jagmeet Singh
Naukri.com, a popular Indian employment website, has fixed a bug that exposed the email addresses of recruiters using its platform to search and hire talent online. The issue, discovered by security researcher Lohith Gowda, affected the API that Naukri used on its Android and iOS apps. The API exposed the email addresses of recruiters visiting profiles of potential candidates on Naukri’s platform.
Misinformation war rages online amid India-Pakistan tensions
ABC News
Libby Hogan
As a deadly attack shook the tourist town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, triggering military conflict between India and Pakistan, another battle erupted online — a war over truth. Fake videos using artificial intelligence, recycled war footage and fabricated narratives spread like wildfire across X, WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube — fuelling fear, outrage and confusion on both sides of the border.
Europe
Russian-led cybercrime network dismantled in global operation
The Guardian
Lisa O'Carroll and Kate Connolly
European and North American cybercrime investigators say they have dismantled the heart of a malware operation directed by Russian criminals after a global operation involving British, Canadian, Danish, Dutch, French, German and US police. International arrest warrants have been issued for 20 suspects, most of them living in Russia, by European investigators while indictments were unsealed in the US against 16 individuals.
Ransomware hackers charged, infrastructure dismantled in international law enforcement operation
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
European and North American law enforcement agencies disrupted key infrastructure this week used to launch ransomware attacks as part of an ongoing effort dubbed “Operation Endgame.” Europol said 300 servers and 650 domains were taken down worldwide, while about $3.5 million was seized during raids throughout the week. Multiple arrest warrants were issued for nearly two dozen people allegedly involved in the ransomware industry.
UK
Live facial recognition cameras may become ‘commonplace’ as police use soars
The Guardian
Daniel Boffey and Mark Wilding
Police believe live facial recognition cameras may become “commonplace” in England and Wales, according to internal documents, with the number of faces scanned having doubled to nearly 5m in the last year. A joint investigation by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates highlights the speed at which the technology is becoming a staple of British policing.
Africa
South Africa town leader 'sad' about Trump's misuse of white crosses video
Reuters
Nellie Peyton and Bhargav Acharya
A local representative of an area shown in a video played at the White House said she was "sad" that US President Donald Trump used the footage of hundreds of white crosses as false evidence of mass killings of white South African farmers. Trump showed an aerial shot of a procession of cars moving along a road lined with white crosses during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, as he doubled down on false claims of a white genocide in South Africa. He said the crosses were "burial sites" for over 1,000 white farmers.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security Programs team at ASPI and supported by partners.
Big Tech
Nvidia to launch cheaper Blackwell AI chip for China
InnovationAus
Liam Mo and Fanny Potkin
Nvidia will launch a new artificial intelligence chipset for China at a significantly lower price than its recently restricted H20 model and plans to start mass production as early as June, sources familiar with the matter said. The GPU or graphics processing unit will be part of Nvidia’s latest generation Blackwell-architecture AI processors and is expected to be priced between $6,500 and $8,000, well below the $10,000-$12,000 the H20 sold for, according to two of the sources.
Tim Cook called Texas governor to stop online child-safety legislation
The Wall Street Journal
Rolfe Winkler, Amrith Ramkumar and Meghan Bobrowsky
Apple stepped up efforts in recent weeks to fight Texas legislation that would require the iPhone-maker to verify ages of device users, even drafting Chief Executive Tim Cook into the fight. The CEO called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week to ask for changes to the legislation or, failing that, for a veto, according to people familiar with the call.
‘Microsoft is the AI ringleader’: tech rivals flock to software giant’s stage
Financial Times
Rafe Uddin
Microsoft sought to tighten its grip on the artificial intelligence industry this week, unveiling a raft of new products and partnerships with OpenAI, Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI in a bid to emerge a winner among those profiting from the cutting-edge technology. The $3.4tn tech giant held its annual Build conference in Seattle, where it revealed a series of AI-related advances, including a powerful coding “agent” that works using simple instructions and a tool for businesses to build and manage multiple of these so-called digital assistants.
Can Google still dominate search in the age of AI chatbots?
Financial Times
Stephen Morris, Melissa Heikkilä and Cristina Criddle
At Google’s flagship conference for developers this week, co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance to emphasise just how important artificial intelligence will be to the company’s future. Brin revealed that he was working in Google’s AI lab every day, pushing its engineers to be the first to achieve artificial general intelligence, a system that surpasses the ability of humans.
At Amazon, some coders say their jobs have begun to resemble warehouse work
The New York Times
Noam Scheiber
As AI spreads through the labor force, many white-collar workers have expressed concern that it would lead to mass unemployment. But while joblessness has ticked up and widespread layoffs might eventually come, the more immediate downside for software engineers appears to be a change in the quality of their work. Some say it is becoming more routine, less thoughtful and, crucially, much faster paced.
Valve CEO Gabe Newell’s Neuralink competitor is expecting its first brain chip this year
The Verge
Sean Hollister
Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell, the company behind Half-Life and DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike and preeminent PC game distribution platform Steam, has long toyed with the idea that your brain should be more connected to your PC. In 2019, he quietly incorporated a new brain-computer interface startup, Starfish Neuroscience — which has now revealed plans to produce its very first brain chip later this year.
Artificial Intelligence
Anthropic’s new AI model turns to blackmail when engineers try to take it offline
TechCrunch
Maxwell Zeff
Anthropic’s newly launched Claude Opus 4 model frequently tries to blackmail developers when they threaten to replace it with a new AI system and give it sensitive information about the engineers responsible for the decision, the company said in a safety report released Thursday. During pre-release testing, Anthropic asked Claude Opus 4 to act as an assistant for a fictional company and consider the long-term consequences of its actions. Safety testers then gave Claude Opus 4 access to fictional company emails implying the AI model would soon be replaced by another system, and that the engineer behind the change was cheating on their spouse.
Women three times more vulnerable to having job taken by AI than men, new report warns
Euronews
Anna Desmarais
Women's jobs are at a higher risk of automation by artificial intelligence than those occupied by men, according to a new study from the United Nations. The recent report from the UN's International Labour Organisation and Poland's National Research Institute of the Ministry of Digital Affairs found that automation could replace just under 10 per cent of female-dominated positions in high-income countries compared to the 3.5 per cent it could replace for men.