Trump issues flurry of day-one executive orders | Poland fumes over US block of AI chip exports | China warns against US-China AI competition
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President Donald Trump's flurry of day-one actions included a reprieve for TikTok, the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an order on social media "censorship," a declaration of an energy emergency, and reversal of a Biden order on artificial intelligence.Ā ArsTechnica
As a frontline, long-time adversary of Russia, Warsaw is proportionally the biggest military spender in NATO and has prioritized ties to the United States. It therefore came as a shock when Warsaw was the most notable European Union victim of the decision by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden last week to cap coveted AI chip exports. POLITICO
Chinaās vice-premier warned that the development of artificial intelligence could pose a major risk if it is not carefully managed, amid a rivalry with the US that has seen the emerging technology take centre stage. South China Morning Post
Australia
Disaster experts call for more funding for new technologies to fight future fires in Australia
ABC
Digby Werthmuller
Firefighting drones and water gliders. AI-powered fire detection. Remote sensors, satellites and live feeds to firefighters. It's the future of firefighting and in the wake of the catastrophic Los Angeles blazes, disaster experts are urging Australian governments to invest heavily in these new technologies.
Canberrans flock to high-paying, in-demand sector with free qualifications
Canberra Times
Connor Pearce
Cyber security is the most popular course in the ACT, as the critical sector grapples with an ongoing skills shortage. Figures from Skills Minister Andrew Giles's office show that a Certificate IV in Cyber Security is the most popular vocational course in the ACT for enrolments, followed by qualifications in early childhood education in care, business, community services and mental health.
China
China has raised the cyber stakes
Foreign Affairs
Adam Segal
Chinese-sponsored cyber-espionage is not new, but Salt Typhoon was unprecedented in its breadth. The full extent of the breach, and the degree to which hackers still have access to that information, remains unknown, but the vice chair of the Select Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner, has called the attack āthe worst telecom hack in our nationās history.ā
USA
Trump issues flurry of orders on TikTok, DOGE, social media, AI, and energy
ArsTechnica
Jon Brodkin and John Timmer
President Donald Trump's flurry of day-one actions included a reprieve for TikTok, the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an order on social media "censorship," a declaration of an energy emergency, and reversal of a Biden order on artificial intelligence.
Trump revokes Biden executive order on addressing AI risks
Reuters
David Shepardson
Biden's order required developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government, in line with the Defense Production Act, before they were released to the public.Bidenās sweeping AI order scrapped by Trump in regulatory reset
Bloomberg
Jackie Davalos and Oma Seddiq
The move immediately halts the implementation of key safety and transparency requirements for AI developers.Trump signs executive order in attempt to stall TikTok ban
The New York Times
David McCabe
President Trump signed an executive order on Monday to delay enforcing a federal ban of TikTok for 75 days, even though the law took effect on Sunday and it is unclear that such a move could override it.Whatās next for EVs under President Trump?
Associated PressAlexa St. John and Matthew Daly
Trumpās order, entitled āUnleashing American Energy,ā' revokes a non-binding goal set by Biden that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. The order also seeks to terminate a federal exemption that allows California to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
Bannon says tech billionaires have 'surrendered' to Trump
ABC News
Caleigh Bartash and Eric Fayeulle
Meta's Zuckerberg and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos are among the tech executives set to appear at the inauguration, alongside close Trump ally Elon Musk, the world's richest man. Meta and Amazon are just two of the tech giants who have given money to President-elect Trump's inaugural fund. In the wake of Trump's victory in November a handful of tech's most powerful executives have made trips to Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for meetings with the president-elect.
Ukraine - Russia
Russian ransomware hackers increasingly posing as tech support on Microsoft Teams
The Record by Recorded Future
Alexander Martin
Russian cybercriminals are adopting a scam in which they pose as tech support on Microsoft Teams to convince victims they have an IT issue before tricking employees into allowing them to install ransomware on the targetsā computer networks. British cybersecurity company Sophos reported on Thursday to have seen more than 15 incidents in which two separate groups used Microsoft Office 365ās default service settings to socially engineer their way onto a victimās system.
Hackers impersonate Ukraineās CERT to trick people into allowing computer access
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Ukrainian researchers have identified a new cyber campaign in which attackers posed as tech support from Ukraine's computer emergency response team (CERT-UA) to gain unauthorized access to victims' devices. The intruders used AnyDesk, a legitimate remote desktop software, to establish remote access to their computers over the internet, according to CERT-UA's latest report.
Europe
Poland fumes over US block on AI chips
POLITICO
Pieter Haeck
As a frontline, long-time adversary of Russia, Warsaw is proportionally the biggest military spender in NATO and has prioritized ties to the United States. It therefore came as a shock when Warsaw was the most notable European Union victim of the decision by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden last week to cap coveted AI chip exports.
Europol chief says Big Tech has āresponsibilityā to unlock encrypted messages
Financial Times
Suzi Ring and Laura Dubois
Technology giants must do more to co-operate with law enforcement on encryption or they risk threatening European democracy, according to the head of Europol, as the agency gears up to renew pressure on companies at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
Donāt go soft on US Big Tech, European Parliament urges
POLITICO
Pieter Haeck
European Union lawmakers are pushing enforcers to resist any pressure from the United States over laws that curb Big Tech. Influential members of the European Parliament are worried that the European Commission may back off from tough enforcement of rules that regulate social media, digital competition and artificial intelligence for fear of retaliation from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
UK
Starmer warns of online radicalization in wake of Southport murders
POLITICO
Laurie Clarke
Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued a fresh warning about the dangers of online radicalization, as he pointed out that the teenager who carried out Julyās deadly Southport attack, Axel Rudakubana, watched violent online content before killing three young girls in a knife attack last summer. āThe responsibility for this barbaric act lies, as it always does, with the vile individual who carried it out,ā Starmer said on Tuesday, one day after the 18-year-old pleaded guilty to his crimes.
Big Tech
Elon Musk complains about China ban on X as Donald Trump prepares TikTok reprieve
Financial Times
Ryan McMorrow and Joe Leahy
Musk, who has long sought to maintain close ties with Communist party officials in China, a core market and production centre for his electric-car company Tesla, has for years been careful in his statements about Beijing. But he said on Sunday that āsomething needs to changeā after Trump said he would āmost likelyā extend a deadline for Chinese tech group ByteDance to divest from TikTok, which faced a ban under a US law that briefly forced it offline.
I secretly worked from Mexico for Big Tech companies like Meta. The lower cost of living was worth the risk
Business Insider
Kimanzi Constable
When the pandemic started, we were told remote work would be mandatory. That made the decision to go to Mexico much easier. I started that contract in California but didn't tell my bosses about my decision to move to Mexico. I moved with just some luggage, set up my life and workstation in CancĆŗn, and started working for Meta remotely from Mexico. I had no time-zone challenges. The cost of living was incredible compared to California ā it was the total package for me.
Artificial Intelligence
Chinaās vice-premier says chaotic competition on AI could bring āgrey rhinoā
South China Morning Post
Victoria Bela and Enoch Wong
Chinaās vice-premier warned that the development of artificial intelligence could pose a major risk if it is not carefully managed, amid a rivalry with the US that has seen the emerging technology take centre stage.
There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race
MIT Technology Review
Alvin Wang Graylin and Paul Triolo
The belief that the US can win in such a race was based mostly on the early advantage it had over China in advanced GPU compute resources and the effectiveness of AIās scaling laws. But now it appears that access to large quantities of advanced compute resources is no longer the defining or sustainable advantage many had thought it would be.Huawei seeks to grab market share in AI chips from Nvidia in China
Financial Times
Eleanor Olcott
Instead of challenging Nvidia in training, Huawei is positioning its latest Ascend AI processors as the hardware of choice for Chinese groups running āinferenceā, the computation undertaken by LLMs to generate a response to a prompt.
Goldman Sachs CEO says that AI can draft 95% of an IPO prospectus in minutes
Fortune
Paolo Confino
Writing documents for the SEC is the exact sort of work that public and private companies of all sizes have historically relied on investment banks to advise them on. Investment banks often had the deep financial and legal expertise to properly navigate the intricacies of complex financial transactions that would have to be reported to regulators. With the rise of AI, investment banks like Goldman are rethinking their value proposition to clients.
The hidden risks we scroll past: the problem with TikTokāand RedNote
The Strategist
Jason Van der Schyff
Australians often focus on visible threats, but the digital realm poses less obvious yet equally significant dangers. Yet, when it comes to the digital landscape, a blind spot remains: the hidden risks posed by platforms such as TikTok and RedNote (Xiaohongshu). These apps are more than just harmless entertainment; theyāre tools in a global battle for data and influence. And we, as a society, remain largely unaware.
The global struggle over how to regulate AI
Rest of World
Katie McQue, LaĆs Martins, Ananya Bhattacharya and Carien du Plessis
AIās proselytizers say it will revolutionize industries, supercharge scientific research, and make many aspects of life and work more efficient. On the other side of the debate, politicians, tech experts, representatives of industries affected by AI, and civil society advocates argue forcefully for far stricter regulations. They want early implementation of rules around copyright, data protections, and fair labor practices, as well as uses that affect public safety such as generative deepfakes, the creation of chemical and biological weapons, and cyberattacks.
Misc
The Japanese tech titan who came to kiss Trumpās ring
POLITICO
Lionel Barber
One by one, they lined up to pay tribute to President Donald Trump. Business leaders, critics, media pundits and vanquished political opponents: All made the trek to Mar-a-Lago, Trumpās retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. The scenes evoked the court of a medieval king. Among the visitors in mid-December was Masayoshi Son, the Japanese founder and CEO of media technology conglomerate SoftBank. Son is probably the most powerful tech mogul who is not a household name. After playing six hours of golf with Trump, Son pledged to invest $100 billion in the U.S. economy ā twice the amount he pledged at a carbon copy meeting in Trump Tower in December 2016.
Events and Podcasts
Safeguarding Australian elections: Addressing AI-enabled disinformation
ASPI
As artificial intelligence advances, it creates new challenges for democracy and electoral integrity. AI-enabled disinformation, deepfakes, and influence operations are increasingly being weaponised to distort political discourse and erode public trust. This event on Thursday 6 February, 5:30-6:30pm, co-hosted by ASPI and CETaS, will focus on the intersection of AI, electoral integrity and democratic resilience.
Jobs
ASPI Deputy Director ā Cyber, Technology & Security Program
ASPI
ASPI is seeking a talented leader for the Deputy Director of Cyber, Technology & Security (CTS) Operations. This is an exceptional opportunity to contribute to one of the Indo-Pacificās leading think tanks, focused on advancing policy and research at the intersection of cyber, technology, and national security. The CTS Program is ASPIās largest program, and includes ASPIās China Investigations and Analysis team. The closing date for applications is Friday, 24 January 2025 ā an early application is advised as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if suitable applications are received.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.
