Potential hybrid attacks on two Baltic Sea cables | Biden & Xi affirm need prohibit use of AI in nuclear weapons | 1000 days of Russian Invasion & the rise of automated warfare

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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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• Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure. CNN

• President Xi Jinping of China and President Joe Biden of the USA have pledged to continue working together to ensure AI does not harm humanity. In the Chinese and American accounts of their meeting, both leaders affirmed the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons. The Register

• When Yuriy Shelmuk co-founded a company last year making drone signal jammers, he said there was little interest in the devices. It now produces 2,500 a month and has a six-week waiting list. Demand shifted after the failure of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 that was meant to put invading Russian forces on the back foot. Reuters

ASPI

Information, facts, journalism and security
The Strategist
Justin Bassi
Bad actors are indeed spreading disinformation, and authoritarian states indeed have no regard for the freedom of the press. And here’s why, as a national security guy, I like this pitch: because a society in which people want to pay for quality news is also a society that will be more resilient to disinformation, misinformation and the gradual erosion and pollution of our information environment. This resilience is a key pillar of our security; you might say it’s the strength on which all of our other capabilities are founded.

Australia

Tender awarded for age assurance trial
Australian Government
A consortium headed by the world-leading Age Check Certification Scheme has been awarded the tender for the Australian Government’s age assurance trial. The Age Assurance Technology Trial is a key plank of the Government’s online safety agenda and aims to determine the effectiveness of available technologies to better protect young people by limiting their access to harmful and inappropriate content online.

• Australian parliamentary inquiry stops short of backing social media ban for under-16s
  The Guardian
  Josh Taylor
  A parliamentary committee examining the impact of social media on Australian society has recommended users be given the power to alter, reset or turn off algorithms, as well as be provided with greater privacy protection, but has stopped short of recommending a ban on under-16s accessing social media.

• Requiring ID to access social media ‘is for politicians to decide’, says gov’s tech tester
  Crikey
  Cam Wilson
  Whether Australians will need to use Digital ID, hand over their drivers licence, scan their face or provide any other proof of their age to use social media is a decision that’s up to the politicians, says the head of a company running the government’s trial of the technologies.

Australia ranks among the worst in the world on government cybersecurity
Canberra Times
Brittney Levinson
Australia ranked 15th out of 67 countries in the annual ranking by the International Institute for Management Development, moving up one place since last year. However, in the category of government cyber security, Australia dropped seven places to rank 46th among the other nations. The report suggested the Australian government lacks sufficient skills and resources to mitigate harm from cyber security threats, Committee for Economic Development of Australia senior economist Melissa Wilson said.

Cyber security bill recommended for 'urgent' parliamentary approval
iTnews
Eleanor Dickinson
Introduced last month by cyber security minister Tony Burke, the Cyber Security Bill 2024 aims to enforce mandatory reporting of ransomware payments to “build [the government’s] understanding of the ransomware threat”. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended the bill be urgently passed by parliament. However, the committee caveated that the proposed ransomware reporting obligations apply only to the “extent that a ransomware incident relates to the reporting business entity’s operations in Australia”.

Getting Australia’s digital Trust Exchange right
The Strategist
Rajiv Shah
To realise the potential of the Digital ID Act and the recently unveiled Trust Exchange, the government must move past political soundbites and develop a comprehensive identity and credentials strategy that includes building technical architecture and conducting an end-to-end security assessment. The government is yet to publish the rules and standards in relation to the Digital ID Act, which was finally passed May. Based on the limited details released so far, TEx could be on the verge of repeating many of the same missteps.

AI, bioterrorism and the urgent need for Australian action
The Strategist
Greg Sadler
Experts worry that, within a few years, AI will put that capability into the hands of tens of thousands of people. Without a new approach to regulation, the risk of bioterrorism and lab leaks will soar. The US acted a year ago to reduce that risk. With the return of President Trump and his commitment to repeal important executive orders, it’s time for Australia to take action. The key action, adopted in an executive order signed by President Biden, is to control not the AI but the supply of the genetic material that would be needed for the design of pathogens.

China

China’s ‘mind-blowingly’ cheap shopping app Temu hits roadblocks in south-east Asia
The Guardian
Luca Ittimani
Chinese online marketplace Temu has enjoyed explosive international growth off the back of an eye-catching and often absurdly cheap range of products, but those cut-price tactics have met increasing roadblocks as it seeks to conquer new markets in south-east Asia. Indonesia ordered Temu to be taken down from app stores in October, a move it said would protect the country’s smaller merchants. Last week, Vietnam threatened to ban Temu and fellow Chinese-owned fast-fashion outlet Shein by the end of the month, saying they had not been approved to do business in the country.

Chinese influencers in Taiwan face wave of threats from Chinese nationalists
New Bloom
Brian Hioe
Chinese influencers residing in Taiwan, often the spouses of Taiwanese, have reported receiving threats in the last month from Chinese online nationalists. It is thought that there are around 80 YouTubers in Taiwan, among 380,000 Chinese spouses who are living in Taiwan. The reason as to why their videos would become targets for Chinese nationalists is because they sometimes depict Taiwan in a favorable light to China, such as regarding the national healthcare system or the efficient functioning of Taiwan’s government.

China’s smartphone makers head upmarket in European push
Financial Times
William Langley and Gloria Li
Chinese smartphone manufacturers are intensifying efforts to gain a stronger foothold in Europe and sell higher-margin premium devices, with one of the world’s fastest-growing brands aiming to more than double its market share on the continent in the next three years. Shenzhen-based Realme, which has increased European sales by 275 per cent from 2020 to last year, according to analysts, says it is targeting a market share of more than 10 per cent in the next three to five years, up from 4 per cent.

USA

Trump designates FCC veteran Brendan Carr as chair of agency
Bloomberg
Romy Varghese and Kelcee Griffis
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as its chair, he said in a statement. “Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms, and held back our Economy,” Trump said in a statement. In a statement after Trump’s election victory, Carr highlighted his priorities, saying that the agency should have a “an important role to play reining in Big Tech, ensuring that broadcasters operate in the public interest, and unleashing economic growth.”

A US Ban on investing in Chinese AI startups could escalate under Trump
WIRED
Zeyi Yang
Late last month, the US Treasury Department finalized new restrictions limiting what kinds of Chinese tech startups US venture capital firms can invest in for national security reasons. When they go into effect in January, the long-awaited measures will stop American VCs and other investors from pouring money into cutting-edge Chinese AI models. After president-elect Trump takes office a few weeks later, his administration may expand the rules and make them even tougher.

Robo price-fixing: Why the Justice Department is suing a software company to stop landlords colluding on rents
The Conversation
Roger Alford
Several factors drive the high cost of rentals, including increasing demand, a dwindling supply of low-rent units, the rising cost of capital to build new rentals, and regulatory barriers restricting the construction of multifamily units. But there’s another surprising factor driving up rental prices: landlords colluding with the help of technology. The U.S. Justice Department is suing the company RealPage, Inc., accusing it of selling software to landlords that allows them to collectively set prices – the illegal practice of price-fixing.

North Asia

Bridging the gap: How innovation will see Japan become the first nation integrated into AUKUS Pillar II
UWA
Diego Castillo
Japan’s potential involvement in AUKUS Pillar II presents significant opportunities to enhance regional security and technological cooperation within the Indo-Pacific region. The focus of AUKUS Pillar II, being technology advancement and military innovation, could benefit from Japan’s extensive technological prowess, simultaneously fabricating a cooperative and interconnected security landscape.

Southeast Asia

Singapore cyber defenders fight simulated attacks on AI-enabled systems in 4-day exercise
The Strait Times
Ng Wei Kai
To improve Singapore’s ability to counter these emerging threats, soldiers from the Singapore Armed Forces and civilians from various agencies and key industries took part in a four-day exercise from Nov 12 to 15. They had to identify and stop threats to a system operating on cloud and AI technology, and six other key services – power, water, gas pipelines, the 5G network, airports and the rail system.

Robots and rails give Vietnam supply chains facelift
Nikkei Asia
Lien Hoang
Robots and railways are giving logistics an upgrade in Vietnam, where manufacturers are expanding supply chains and e-commerce -- notably brands Shopee and Shein -- is taking off. Viettel Post recently showed off delivery drones and sorting robots that it said are helping to raise its processing capability by 40%. Citing the example of smarter border gates, the military-owned courier plans to invest in infrastructure, something the government plans to improve overall for a country that as one of the lowest-scoring logistics sectors in the region.

South & Central Asia

India orders Meta to curb WhatsApp data sharing, levies $25M fine
TechCrunch
Manish Singh
India’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other Meta units for advertising purposes for five years and also levied a fine of $25.4 million for antitrust violations related to WhatsApp’s controversial 2021 privacy policy. The Competition Commission of India, which began the investigation in 2021, found that WhatsApp’s “take-it-or-leave-it” privacy update constituted an abuse of Meta’s dominant position by forcing users to accept expanded data collection without an opt-out option.

You are under digital arrest': Inside a scam looting millions from Indians
BBC
Soutik Biswas
For a harrowing week in August, Ruchika Tandon, a 44-year-old neurologist at one of India’s top hospitals, was ensnared in what felt like a high-stakes federal crime investigation. Yet, it was an elaborate scam - a web of deceit spun by scammers who manipulated her every move and drained her and her family’s life savings. Under the pretence of “digital arrest”- a term fabricated by her perpetrators - Dr Tandon was coerced to take leave from work, surrender her daily freedoms, and comply with nonstop surveillance and instructions from strangers on the phone, who convinced her she was at the centre of a grave investigation.

Ukraine-Russia

‘War of robots’: How 1,000 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spurred an automation boom
Reuters
Max Hunder
When Yuriy Shelmuk co-founded a company last year making drone signal jammers, he said there was little interest in the devices. It now produces 2,500 a month and has a six-week waiting list. Demand shifted after the failure of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 that was meant to put invading Russian forces on the back foot. Kyiv cited Russia's extensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles to spot and strike targets, as well as vast numbers of landmines and troops.

Europe

Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted, sparking warnings of possible ‘hybrid warfare’
CNN
Ivana Kottasová, Billy Stockwell and Paul P. Murphy
Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure. A communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut on Sunday morning around 10:00 a.m. local time, a spokesperson from telecommunications company Telia Lithuania confirmed to CNN.

Facebook users affected by data breach eligible for compensation, German court says
Reuters
A German court said on Monday that Facebook users whose data was illegally obtained in 2018 and 2019 were eligible for compensation. The Federal Court of Justice ruled that the loss of control over one's data online was grounds for damages without having to prove specific financial losses. Thousands of Facebook users in Germany are demanding compensation from parent company Meta for insufficient protection of their data after unknown third parties were able to access user accounts by guessing phone numbers.

Ericsson Chief looks for growth in US as Europe falls behind
Bloomberg
Jillian Deutsch
Europe is one of the weakest telecom markets in the world. And unless policymakers encourage more consolidation and cut regulation there, Ericsson AB Chief Executive Officer Börje Ekholm said his company will continue to shift investments to markets abroad. Ericsson’s strategic importance drew the attention of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration during his first term, when the White House floated the possibility of the US buying a controlling stake in Ericsson or Nokia to weaken China’s dominance over telecom supplies.

Big Tech

Is this (finally) the end for X? Delicate Musk-Trump relationship and growing rivals spell trouble for platform
The Guardian
Siân Boyle
Was that the week that marked the death of X? The platform formerly regarded as a utopian market square for exchanging information has suffered its largest exodus to date. Bluesky, emerging as X’s newest rival, has amassed 16 million users, including 1 million in the course of 24 hours last week. Hundreds of thousands of people have quit the former Twitter since Donald Trump’s election victory on 6 November.

• How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth
  The New York Times
  Mike Isaac
  In February 2023, a half-dozen techies introduced a social network prototype in an invitation-only launch. They deliberately debuted their creation, Bluesky, with little fanfare so that they could closely manage its growth. But lately, it has been anything but slow and steady. Over the past week, Bluesky’s growth has exploded, more than doubling to 15 million-plus users as people seek alternatives to X, Facebook and Threads.

Substack’s great, big, messy political experiment
The New York Times
Jessica Testa and Benjamin Mullin
Tens of thousands of free and paid newsletters are published on Substack each day on topics as varied as salad recipes, Bitcoin strategy and vintage fashion. But in terms of readership and revenue, the platform’s most prized category is politics. Increasingly, Substack has been selling itself as a home for cogent analysis and civilized discussion — an alternative to the decay of social media discourse. “There’s a desperate need for a quality platform with trusted voices, where honest-to-God political discussion, debate, disagreement can happen without it either disappearing into the ether or taking place on a platform where there’s constant knife fights and flame wars,” Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, said in an interview.

Artificial Intelligence

US, China agree machines must not be allowed to control nuclear weapons
The Register
Laura Dobberstein
President Xi Jinping of China and President Joe Biden of the USA have pledged to continue working together to ensure AI does not harm humanity. The two met on Saturday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru. In the Chinese and American accounts of their meeting, both leaders affirmed the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons. The two leaders also made remarks about continuing work to ensure AI is used productively.

Elon Musk asked people to upload their health data. X users obliged.
The New York Times
Elizabeth Passarella
Over the past few weeks, users on X have been submitting X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and other medical images to Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, asking for diagnoses. The reason: Elon Musk, X’s owner, suggested it. “This is still early stage, but it is already quite accurate and will become extremely good,” Musk said in a post. The hope is that if enough users feed the A.I. their scans, it will eventually get good at interpreting them accurately. Patients could get faster results without waiting for a portal message or use Grok as a second opinion.

Tech investor Xavier Niel urges Europe’s AI start ups not to cash out
Financial Times
Xavier Niel, one of Europe’s top technology investors, believes the region can succeed in creating leading artificial intelligence companies even without the billions in capital raised by US competitors — as long as founders are not tempted to cash out too early. Such optimism about European tech is notable given that the continent lost to US and Chinese giants during previous waves of disruption from the internet to social networks, leading the region to distinguish itself more on regulation than innovation.

Norwegian startup Factiverse wants to fight disinformation with AI
TechCrunch
Rebecca Bellan
In the wake of the U.S. 2024 presidential election, one fact became clear: Disinformation proliferated online at a startling rate, shaping Americans’ views about each candidate as well as a diverse set of topics, including public health, climate change, and immigration. Generative AI – with its ability to produce deepfakes in seconds and its propensity to hallucinate facts – only stands to exacerbate the problem. Factiverse, a startup that participated in TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield 200 in October, is bracing itself for the onslaught. The company, which won best pitch in the Security, Privacy, and Social Networking category, has developed a business-to-business tool that provides live fact-checking of text, video, and audio.

AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience
The Guardian
Robert Booth
Significant “social ruptures” between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said. Last week, a transatlantic group of academics predicted that the dawn of consciousness in AI systems is likely by 2035 and one has now said this could result in “subcultures that view each other as making huge mistakes” about whether computer programmes are owed similar welfare rights as humans or animals.

Research

America’s News Influencers
Pew Research Centre
Galen Stocking, Luxuan Wang, Michael Lipka, Katerina Eva Matsa, Regina Widjaya, Emily Tomasik and Jacob Liedke
In the heat of the 2024 election, news influencers seemed to be everywhere. Both Republicans and Democrats credentialed content creators to cover their conventions – and encouraged influencers to share their political messages. Influencers also interviewed the candidates and held fundraisers for them. The project includes an in-depth examination of a sample of 500 popular news influencers and the content they produce, derived from a review of more than 28,000 social media accounts.

Events & Podcasts

Navigating digital safety: Exploring security and trust in online spaces for young Australians
ASPI
Join us from 6:00 – 8:30pm on 27 November at ASPI in Canberra for an important discussion on the challenges of privacy, internet security, and online safety. As users of online platforms, young Australians are exposed to varied and increasing risks, including risks to their personal data privacy.

Inspiring the next Drone generation with Keirin Joyce
Tactics & Tech Podcast
In this episode, WGCDR Keirin Joyce shares his journey from aspiring fighter pilot to a key figure in the Australian Defence Force’s UAS capabilities. A dedicated advocate for drone education, Keirin discusses founding the ADF Drone Racing Team to inspire new talent and how programs like the drone literacy initiative have trained hundreds of operators, bringing advanced drone tech to the Australian Army. Keirin emphasizes the critical role of UAS and robotics in modern warfare, not just for tactical advantage but for taking on the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” tasks that save lives.

The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.