US issued latest export regulation for chips makers | India plans to expand EV manufacturing | Germany launches task force to combat foreign election influence
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The US launched its third crackdown in three years on China's semiconductor industry, curbing exports to 140 companies. The move is one of the Biden administration's last large-scale efforts to stymie China's ability to access and produce chips that can help advance artificial intelligence for military applications, or otherwise threaten US national security. Reuters
India plans to expand electric vehicle incentives to automakers building models at existing factories in the country, instead of limiting the benefits to automakers willing to build new plants. India's EV policy, which is still being finalised, was originally designed to encourage Tesla to enter the market and manufacture locally but the US automaker backed off from those plans earlier this year. Reuters
Prepparing for snap election on February 23, Germany’s domestic intelligence service has established a task force to counter potential cyberattacks, espionage, sabotage and disinformation campaigns. Russia-aligned threat groups, including APT28 and Ghostwriter, have been particularly active during previous elections. The Record by Recorded Future
ASPI
Australia’s lack of defence primes isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity
The Strategist
Erik Davis
Australia is uniquely suited to help solve the greatest defence acquisition challenge of our time. While the world is innovating at an unmatched pace, the old scions of the defence industry are not. Western armed forces need equipment that is developed and built not just more cheaply and quickly but with evolution built in. China is investing heavily in these technologies and, according to ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker, is now outpacing the AUKUS partners. AUKUS Pillar 2 represents an unmatched opportunity for Australia’s firms.
The World
How 2024’s tech trends changed our lives
Rest of World
Lam Le, Damilare Dosunmu and Viola Zhou
In 2024, Rest of World covered some of the biggest shifts in the tech industry that have changed lives around the world: the rise of AI, Chinese companies expanding overseas, the widespread adoption of EVs, the evolving creator economy, more startups becoming regional champions, and growing scrutiny of the activities of Silicon Valley tech giants around the world. Our reporters have spoken with people who experienced these changes firsthand. They started businesses, took on new majors, and moved across the Pacific to seek better prospects in the tech industry.
Australia
Proposed Australia law would fine Big Tech over digital competition
Reuters
Australia proposed a law on Monday that could impose fines of up to A$50 million or $33 million on global technology companies if they suppress competition and prevent consumers from switching between services. The proposed law would empower Australia's competition regulator to oversee compliance, investigate anti-competitive practices online and fine companies, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said in excerpts of a speech due later on Monday.
Social media can harm children's mental health. The question now is whether a ban will help or make it worse
ABC News
Maani Truu
Australia is now in unchartered territory — no other nation has successfully implemented an outright ban on children and teens under 16 accessing social media, with some international media describing the laws as a "test case" for the rest of the world. With all eyes on Australia, the big questions now are whether the government of the day can pull it off before the laws come into force in a year, and perhaps more importantly, whether it will make it easier to be a kid — or if it will make it worse.
Australia's under-16 social media ban sparks anger and relief
Reuters
Alasdair Pal and Cordelia Hsu
Australians reacted with a mixture of anger and relief to a social media ban on children under 16 that the government says is world-leading, but which tech giants like TikTok argue could push young people to "darker corners of the internet". The law forces tech giants to stop minors from logging in or face fines of up to A$49.5 million. A trial of enforcement methods will start in January, with the ban to take effect in a year. Countries including France and some US states have passed laws to restrict access for minors without a parent's permission, but the Australian ban is absolute.
Telstra acquires Boost Mobile in $140m deal
The Australian Financial Review
Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Australia’s biggest telco, the $45 billion Telstra Group, is back on the M&A trail. Street Talk can reveal Telstra boss Vicki Brady has signed an agreement to acquire the 24-year-old Boost Mobile, a mobile virtual network operator whose pre-paid SIM cards are sold in 10,000 shops around Australia, including Coles and Woolworths. Of note, the two already had a partnership under which Boost utilised Telstra’s network.
China
China’s intelligence ministry warns of security risks from open-source information
South China Morning Post
Vanessa Cai
Sensitive data that is not properly declassified or assessed for risks can be publicly spread online and “become an important source of open-source intelligence” for overseas spy agencies, the Ministry of State Security said in an article posted on its official WeChat account. The MSS highlighted three areas of concern and urged caution during procurement bidding, where sensitive information could be disclosed during the process. It cited construction project cases that involved confidential information and digitisation of confidential archives, which required security measures during procurement to protect national secrets.
China launches first next-gen Long March 12 rocket, christens private spaceport
The Register
Simon Sharwood
China launched a new class of rocket last week, and for the first time used a commercial spaceport for the mission. The rocket is the Long March 12, and can carry payloads of 12 tons to low-Earth orbit or hoist half that to Sun-synchronous orbit. The two-stage launcher is a single-core affair powered by a quartet of liquid oxygen-kerosene engines and on this mission used a 3.8-meter payload faring. China's government has touted innovations including sensors that allow diagnosis of its performance, liquid oxygen-compatible cold helium pressurization, and aluminum-lithium alloy tanks.
China’s generative AI users reach 230 million as start-ups, Big Tech roll out LLM services
South China Morning Post
The number of generative AI users in China reached 230 million at the end of June, as a crop of start-ups and Big Tech firms rushed to offer their large language model services, according to government data. That means around one in every six users in the world’s biggest internet market are using a GenAI product, according to a report released on Saturday by the China Internet Network Information Centre, a state-run agency. Chinese tech giant Baidu’s Ernie Bot, known as Wenxiaoyan in Chinese, is the most frequently used GenAI product by domestic users, followed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
USA
Latest US strike on China's chips hits semiconductor toolmakers
Reuters
Karen Freifeld and David Shepardson
The US will launch its latest crackdown on China's semiconductor industry, curbing exports to 140 companies. The move is one of the Biden administration's last large-scale efforts to stymie China's ability to access and produce chips that can help advance AI for military applications, or otherwise threaten US national security. The package includes curbs on China-bound shipments of high bandwidth memory chips, critical for high-end applications like AI training; new curbs on 24 additional chipmaking tools and three software tools; and new export curbs on chipmaking equipment made in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia.
Biden’s farewell to China’s tech sector: A new type of forbidden chip
The Wall Street Journal
Liza Lin and Warren P. Strobel
The latest export regulations prevent makers of advanced memory chips, referred to as high-bandwidth memory, from shipping their products to China without permission from the Commerce Department. Such chips work in tandem with AI processors in the computations behind generative AI systems. There are three major manufacturers of HBM: SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics of South Korea and U.S.-based Micron Technology. Previous rounds of American restrictions targeted shipments of AI chips and advanced chip-making equipment. Some US allies, including the Netherlands, home to critical chip-machinery company ASML, have followed suit with their own export controls on China.
The great Pokémon go spy panic
Foreign Policy
Zach Dorfman
That summer, the Pokémon Go craze was in full bloom. Every day, tens of millions of Americans took to the streets, phones held aloft, impelled by the urge to “catch ’em all.” Hundreds of millions of users were playing the game worldwide. The game’s rise dovetailed with a new era of digital spying. The information users were freely surrendering to private companies to play digital games, or to use cool new apps or other online platforms, was making intelligence services drool. Don McGowan, the Pokémon Company’s former chief legal counsel, found himself dealing with problems nobody had anticipated, such as the day he saw a news report that players were hunting for pokémon in Bosnian minefields.
Americas
Costa Rica state energy company calls in US experts to help with ransomware attack
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Grieg
Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo, known by most as RECOPE, imports, refines and distributes fossil fuels across the country while also operating pipelines stretching from its Caribbean to Pacific coasts. The organization said it discovered a ransomware incident last week and began an investigation. Officials said they were forced to conduct fuel sales manually in light of the attack, which took down all of the digital systems used to facilitate payments. Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications sent messages out on social media reiterating that there were no shortages of fuel.
North Asia
Interpol nabs thousands, seizes millions in global cybercrime-busting op
The Register
Brandon Vigliarolo
Interpol and its financial supporters in the South Korean government are back with another round of anti-cybercrime arrests via the fifth iteration of Operation HAECHI, this time nabbing more than 5,500 people suspected of scamming and seizing hundreds of millions in digital and fiat currencies. HAECHI V, an operation which ran from July to November of this year, was funded by South Korea but involved cooperation with law enforcement in 40 countries.
Southeast Asia
Thailand and Singapore focus on tech, trade and transformation
OpenGov Asia
Samaya Dharmaraj
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong recently engaged in high-level talks in Bangkok, focusing on deepening cooperation in digital transformation, technology, and economic innovation. In 2021, Thailand and Singapore launched the PayNow-PromptPay linkage, the world’s first instant cross-border payment system. Building on this success, the leaders celebrated the introduction of the ASEAN-first Depository Receipts Linkage, which allows stocks to be traded across their respective stock exchanges.
South & Central Asia
India to expand EV manufacturing incentives after Tesla disappointment, source says
Reuters
Aditi Shah
India plans to expand electric vehicle incentives to automakers building models at existing factories in the country, instead of limiting the benefits to automakers willing to build new plants, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. India's EV policy, which is still being finalised, was originally designed to encourage Tesla to enter the market and manufacture locally but the US automaker backed off from those plans earlier this year. Under the policy announced in March, an automaker investing at least $500 million to manufacture EVs in India with 50% of components sourced locally is entitled to a huge cut on import taxes - a drop to 15% from as high as 100% for up to 8,000 electric cars per year.
Indian online ID verification firm Signzy confirms security incident
TechCrunch
Jagmeet Singh and Manish Singh
Signzy, a popular vendor offering online “know your customer” ID verification and customer onboarding services to several top financial institutions, commercial banks, and fintech companies, has confirmed a security incident, TechCrunch can exclusively report. The Bengaluru-based startup, which serves over 600 financial institutions globally — including the four largest Indian banks, was hit by a cyberattack last week.
Can artificial rain, drones, or satellites clean toxic air?
WIRED
Arunima Kar
The Delhi government’s real-time pollution-source monitoring supersite, R-AASMAN, has been inactive since November last year. Without reliable data, enforcing policies becomes even more difficult. Better calibration and maintenance of monitoring equipment is also needed, says Kumar. “We need to ensure that air quality monitors are placed away from obstructions, and regularly calibrated as per Central Pollution Control Board criteria to get reliable data for air quality management.” Amid all of these concerns, the city has been turning to drones to monitor pollution hotspots, in addition to those spraying water to suppress PM2.5.
NZ & Pacific Islands
Fight against disinformation
The Fiji Times
Rakesh Kumar
The Fijian Elections Office has signed a Terms of Reference with stakeholders for collaboration in the implementation of unified strategies to prevent disinformation in electoral processes. The ToR was signed on Friday between FEO and Fiji Media Association, Fiji Media Council, FemLink Pacific, Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, Online Safety Commission and the Electoral Commission of Fiji. The signing comes as Fiji is headed towards the 2026 polls.
Ukraine-Russia
Ukraine sees use of uncrewed ground vehicles, AI-targeting drones surging next year
Reuters
Tom Balmforth
Ukraine will need tens of thousands of uncrewed robotic ground vehicles next year to shuttle ammunition and supplies to infantry in the trenches and evacuate wounded soldiers, a senior government minister told Reuters. The buggy-like vehicles, an example of how technology is transforming trench warfare in Ukraine, would spare troops from operating in areas near the front where Russian shelling and drones are rife, Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said. Ukrainian production of long-range drones has increased dozens of times since 2023, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy targeting output of 30,000 of the deep-strike weapons next year, Fedorov said.
Russian government confirms rare criminal charges against ransomware hacker
TechCrunch
Zack Whittaker
The Russian government has confirmed the indictment of a 32-year-old resident, who authorities accuse of creating and launching ransomware attacks. Russian prosecutors said last week that they charged the unnamed hacker, who lives in the Russian province of Kaliningrad, with the creation of ransomware to gain “illegal profit.” Russian media outlet RIA named the suspect as Mikhail Matveev, who is on the FBI’s most wanted list for allegedly launching ransomware attacks against US companies.
Europe
German intelligence launches task force to combat foreign election interference
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Germany’s domestic intelligence service BfV has established a special task force to counter potential cyberattacks, espionage, sabotage and disinformation campaigns ahead of the upcoming federal election. Germany is set to hold a snap election on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition earlier this November. According to the BfV, Russia likely has “the greatest and most obvious interest” in influencing the election, particularly given the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Bulgarians plead guilty to spying for Russia using ‘advanced technology’
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Two Bulgarian nationals have pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom to being part of a spy ring run by a Russian agent in the UK. The defendants used hundreds of devices, including drones, jammers and hidden bugs to target individuals and locations of interest to Moscow, prosecutors told a London jury last week. According to UK prosecutor Alison Morgan, the spy ring was operating under the direction of Austrian national Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former chief operating officer of the collapsed fintech giant Wirecard.
Italian football club Bologna FC says company data stolen during ransomware attack
The Record by Recorded Future
Jonathan Greig
A ransomware attack on Italian football club Bologna FC exposed data that will likely be leaked by the hackers, the organization said in a statement last week. Bologna FC, one of Italy’s oldest football teams, did not respond to requests for comment earlier this week but published a statement confirming the incident. The group said it stole 200GB of data that included financial documents, medical records of players, confidential data on customers and employees as well as business plans.
UK
UK counter-terrorism unit demands ban on pro-Palestinian shooter
Games Industry
James Batchelor
Eurogamer reports that UK players can no longer purchase Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a title that explores the conflict between Israel and Palestine from the latter's perspective. According to the report, Steam emailed Nidal Nijm – the game's Brazilian-Palestinian developer – saying it had "received a request from authorities in the UK to block the game and have applied such country restrictions."
Africa
Uganda confirms cyberattack on central bank but minimises extent of breach
The Record by Recorded Future
Daryna Antoniuk
Ugandan officials confirmed last week that the country’s central bank system was hacked by financially-motivated cybercriminals. The statement from Uganda’s Minister of State for Finance, Henry Musasizi, followed several media reports claiming that a Southeast Asian hacker group breached the Bank of Uganda’s accounts and stole as much as $17 million. Musasizi acknowledged that the Bank of Uganda had suffered a cyber incident, which likely occurred two weeks ago, but he did not confirm the reported amount of stolen funds.
Big Tech
The pressure is on for big tech to regulate the broken digital advertising industry
WIRED
Claire Atkin
Digital advertising is a whopping $700 billion industry that remains largely unregulated, with few laws in place to protect brands and consumers. Companies and brands advertising products often don’t know which websites display their ads. I run Check My Ads, an ad tech watchdog, and we constantly deal with situations where advertisers and citizens have been the victims of lies, scams, and manipulations. We have removed ads from websites with serious disinformation about Covid-19, false election content, and even AI-generated obituaries.
Amazon Web Services opens physical outlets that let customers upload their data
TechCrunch
Kyle Wiggers
At its re:Invent 2024 conference in Las Vegas, Amazon on Sunday announced a somewhat unusual new service for Amazon Web Services customers: Data Transfer Terminal, a set of physical locations where customers can plug in their storage devices to upload data to the AWS cloud. So how does it work, exactly? From the AWS management console, customers can reserve a time slot, optionally assign process and data transfer specialists from their organization, and visit a Data Transfer Terminal location to upload their data.
Amazon Web Services CEO promises ‘needle-moving’ AI updates
The Wall Street Journal
Belle Lin
Like Amazon has done in retail, AWS is aiming to be a bit of everything for everyone in AI models. In late November, the company announced that it invested an additional $4 billion in Anthropic—doubling its investment in the AI startup to $8 billion. Google last year agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic. Trainium is Amazon’s in-house AI chip, first launched in 2020, which the company has touted as the most “cost-effective” chip for training AI models. As part of its new investment, Anthropic will use Amazon’s chips to train and run its future AI models, the companies said.
Artificial Intelligence
What the departing White House chief tech advisor has to say on AI
MIT Technology Review
James O'Donnell
President Biden’s administration will end within two months, and likely to depart with him is Arati Prabhakar, the top mind for science and technology in his cabinet. She has served as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since 2022 and was the first to demonstrate ChatGPT to the president in the Oval Office. Prabhakar was instrumental in passing the president’s executive order on AI in 2023, which sets guidelines for tech companies to make AI safer and more transparent, though it relies on voluntary participation. The article discussed AI risks, immigration, the CHIPS Act, and eroding trust in science.
World Labs’ AI can generate interactive 3D scenes from a single photo
TechCrunch
Kyle Wiggers
World Labs, the startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has unveiled its first project: an AI system that can generate video game-like, 3D scenes from a single image. Lots of AI systems can turn a photo into 3D models and environments. But World Labs’ scenes are unique in that they’re interactive — and modifiable. World Labs’ system is a part of an emerging category of AI called “world models.” Many of these models can simulate games and 3D environments — but with artifacting and consistency issues.
OpenAI explores advertising as it steps up revenue drive
Financial Times
Madhumita Murgia, Cristina Criddle and George Hammond
OpenAI is discussing plans to introduce advertising to its artificial intelligence products, as the ChatGPT maker seeks new revenue sources as it restructures as a for-profit company. Sarah Friar, chief financial officer at OpenAI, told the Financial Times in an interview that the $150bn AI start-up was weighing up an ads model, adding that it planned to be “thoughtful about when and where we implement them [ads]”. The San Francisco-based group, which in October secured $6.6bn in new funding, has been hiring advertising talent from big tech rivals such as Meta and Google.
European AI infra company Nebius nabs $700M from Nvidia, Accel, others
TechCrunch
Paul Sewers
Nebius, the publicly traded European AI infrastructure company formerly known as Yandex N.V., has raised $700 million to fuel its US expansion. The fundraise comes some six weeks after Nebius resumed trading on the Nasdaq following a near three-year hiatus imposed due to sanctions against Russia-affiliated companies. The Netherlands-based business had been the holding company of Yandex, “the Google of Russia,” and after an extensive divestment process, it emerged as Nebius in July with plans to offer “full stack” infrastructure for AI companies.
Tsinghua University-incubated start-up to widen test of virtual hospital with ‘AI doctors’
South China Morning Post
Xinmei Shen
A Chinese start-up incubated at the prestigious Tsinghua University has started internal tests of its virtual hospital platform powered by AI, as the country extends the technology’s application to the medical sector. The platform developed by Tairex, a company set up in September under the university’s Institute for Al Industry Research, features 42 AI doctors covering 21 departments that include emergency, respiratory, paediatrics and cardiology.
Rebellions, Sapeon merge to create Korea's first AI chip unicorn
The Korea Herald
Jie Ye-eun
Artificial intelligence startup Rebellions said Monday that it has completed a merger with Sapeon Korea, SK Telecom’s AI chip subsidiary, to officially form Korea’s first AI chip unicorn under the unified name Rebellions. The merger was finalized about six months after the plan was announced in June. Rebellions has valued the merged entity at around $929 million. Park Sung-hyun, who has been leading Rebellions, will serve as the sole CEO of the merged entity.
Misc
Malicious ads in search results are driving new generations of scams
WIRED
Lily Hay Newman
Malicious digital advertisements and “SEO poisoning” that gets those ads to prime spots in search results have been mainstays of the digital scamming ecosystem for years. But as online crime evolves and malicious trends like “pig butchering” investment scams and infostealing malware proliferate, researchers say that so-called “malvertising” is still a key technique for scammers—and still a growing problem. The bulk of the activity, though, traces back to South Asia and Southeast Asia, Malwarebytes says, with 90 percent of the ad fraud coming from Pakistan and Vietnam.
Research
UK broadband digital divide persists
Computer Weekly
Joe O’Halloran
Research from Point Topic has found that the quality of the entry-level broadband plans that consumers can access in different areas of the UK continues to be variable, with so-called “digital deprivation” still evident. The analyst’s UK broadband affordability tracker was based on residential fixed broadband tariffs marketed by retail internet service providers. The aim was to identify the lowest available broadband subscription that consumers can access in every postcode irrespective of broadband technology.
Events & Podcasts
AI industry connection: AI in manufacturing and robotics
AI Group
This event that will be held on 4 Dec at Sydney Department of Industry, Science and Resources building is tailored for professionals and decision-makers from businesses looking to explore the practical applications of AI and Robotics in Manufacturing and Automation. The aim of this engagement is to demonstrate to industry the current capabilities that AI has to offer. We will identify opportunities and challenges for the responsible adoption of AI such as computer vision, robotics and generative AI for operational efficiency, cost reduction, safety and innovation.
International conference on AI in work, innovation, productivity and skills
OECD
The event that will be held on 12-13 Dec online will bring leading voices from policy, business, academia, and civil society to explore the impact of AI on employment, skills, productivity, and innovation, as well as how policy can adapt to these changes. Discussions will cover AI’s potential, its diffusion in various sectors, its impact on productivity, and the risks and opportunities for all workers. Participants will also address training systems for AI adoption in the workplace, the use of AI in public employment services, the link between competition and AI developments, high-stakes exams in the Age of AI and AI incidents.
Jobs
ASPI Director – Defence Strategy Program
ASPI
ASPI is recruiting for one of its key leadership positions - the Director of its Defence Strategy Program. This is an exceptional opportunity for a talented senior leader to contribute to the work of one of the Indo-Pacific’s top think-tanks with a focus on military strategy and capability, emerging security issues and our region. The incoming Director of Defence Strategy is expected to have strong knowledge in at least some of the issues covered by the team, in addition to superior management (including project and stakeholder management) skills, a proven ability to build senior and global relationships and the capacity to fundraise to support the team’s work.
The Daily Cyber & Tech Digest is brought to you by the Cyber, Technology & Security team at ASPI.