What Do Consumers Really Need to Know About Tech-Leading Activities in the Age of U.S. Drone Warfare?
Ukrainian forces have been able to mount many strong attacks against Kremlin forces in the war. But as the conflict evolves, it is entering an ominous phase of drone warfare. Russia has begun launching a series of recent attacks using Iranian “suicide drones” to inflict damage that is difficult to defend against. NATO officials are keeping an eye on Russia in the event of a potential nuclear strike, as well as Russian president Vladimir Putin’s threat of a strike, and we examine what indicators are out there for the global community.
There are a number of serious Exchange Server vulnerabilities that have left researchers concerned and customers who use the service to host their email should seriously consider moving to cloud email hosting. New research examines the ways in which Wikipedia’s custodians ferret out state-sponsored misinformation in its entries.
If you’re worried about the ongoing threat of ransomware attacks around the world, researchers pointed out this week that middle-of-the-pack groups like the notorious gang Vice Society are maximizing profits and minimizing their exposure by investing very little in technical innovation. Instead, they simply run the most sparse and unremarkable operations they can to target under-funded sectors like health care and education. We have a guide for beginners to change passwords and install “passkeys” on the web in order to keep their personal data safe.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-bytedance-americans-data-security-roundup/
TikTok – Is It Still Hot? The Times are Hot, but You Might Need to Take It Off Your App Stores
Wait, there is more! We highlight the news we didn’t cover in-depth. Click on the headlines below to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
The parent company of TikTok has certain responsibilities under Chinese law that pose a specific threat to US national security. I urge you to take TikTok off your app stores immediately.
Microsoft said this week that a misconfiguration exposed the data of some prospective customers of its cloud services. Researchers from the threat intelligence firm SOCRadar disclosed the leak to Microsoft on September 24, and the company quickly closed the exposure. According to a report, the exposed information covers as far back as the year of 2017. The researchers linked the data to more than 65,000 organizations from 111 countries. Microsoft said the exposed details included names, company names, phone numbers, email addresses, email content, and files sent between potential customers and Microsoft or one of its authorized partners. Cloud misconfigurations are a security risk that lead to many exposures.
The White House is working on a labeling scheme for internet of things security: Sensitive information related to Iran’s nuclear program and Chinese intelligence operations in China
There is no easy solution to fixing the longstanding security dumpster fire created by the cheap internet of things devices around the world. After a long time of problems, countries like Singapore and Germany have found that security labels can be added to internet- connected video cameras, printers, and more. The labels give consumers a better understanding of the protections built into different devices—and give manufacturers an incentive to improve their practices and get a gold seal. The United States took a step in the correct direction this week. The White House is working on a scheme that will label things like EnergyStar for internet of things digital security. The administration held a summit with industry organizations and companies this week to discuss standards and guidelines for the labels. “A labeling program to secure such devices would provide American consumers with the peace of mind that the technology being brought into their homes is safe, and incentivize manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards, and retailers to market secure devices,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Sources told The Washington Post this week that sensitive information related to Iran‘s nuclear program and the United States’ own intelligence operations in China were included in documents seized by the FBI this summer at former President Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Experts say unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents pose multiple risks. The Post stated that people helping US intelligence efforts could be at risk. The information could also potentially motivate retaliation by other countries against the US.
Jamie Dimon said that he is more concerned about global geopolitics than about slowing economic growth in the US.
There are a lot of things on the horizon which could hurt the US, but could also hurt other countries, as he said at the Future Investment Initiative conference.
“That’s not the most important thing we think about. We will manage through that. He told Richard Quest that he was more concerned about the future of the world today than in the past.
Dimon said he was referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine and fraught relations between the United States and China, where leader Xi Jinping has just cemented his grip on power and sidelined officials who have pushed for reform and opening up the world’s second biggest economy.
The relationship between the Western world and the United States would have me more concerned about that than a mild or slightly severe recession.
The negative consequences for national security and energy supply, as well as food security, were themes that were persistent during the discussion. The ability to learn from one another has been affected by the isolation of the Pandemic.
There is an inherent risk of international war, according to the billionaire founder of hedge fund Bridgewater. What is needed is a “strong political middle” that is “stronger than the extremes,” he added.
“If you don’t have strong American leadership — not ugly American leadership, not ‘our way or the highway’ — just as a coalescing thing for the Western world, you’re going to have chaos like you see in Ukraine,” he said.
Dimon said he was confident that the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia will remain strong, despite tensions that escalated following the decision by OPEC+ to slash oil production earlier this month.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have been allies for 75 years. I can’t imagine any allies agreeing on everything and not having problems. He said they would work it through and that they remained allies going forward.
Future Investment Initiative: Jaymon Dimon, David Solomon, and the Challenges of Social Media in Washington, D.C., April 20
While the US economy is doing well, Dimon believes Americans will run out of money in the middle of next year.
“There’s no question that economic conditions are going to tighten meaningfully from here,” Solomon said, referring to interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. He commented that Europe may already be in a recession, and that if inflation is embedded it will be hard to get out of it.
“One of the things that we’re almost not aware of is how difficult it is for governments to function in a world of social media,” Schwarzman said. Initiatives to make the world a better place are undermined by some minority people who try to accomplish something for the benefit of the world.
People need verification to access the bank, so it makes sense for social media users to be the same way.
Social media users should also be given a “menu of choices” for algorithms that explains how each one works. “They should give you a choice as opposed to manipulating you,” he added.
The panelists were optimistic about the power of innovation despite the downsides of social media and political divisions.
He explained that technological progress on a number of fronts could help lift us up and move us forward.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/business/jamie-dimon-david-solomon-future-investment-initiative/index.html
The Saudi-Arabian Future Investment Initiative: Threats from the State Government to the U.S., and a New Measure by Sen. Marco Rivera
Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative, which runs until October 27, started in 2017 under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “Vision 2030,” a plan to attract international investment and wean the economy off oil.
The Chinese-owned short-form video platform is the target of a new bill by Florida Sen. Marco Rivera that would ban the app used by millions of Americans.
The proposed legislation would forbid transactions in the US by social media companies that have at least one million monthly users based in countries that are considered enemies by the US, such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba.
Many states have jumped on the bandwagon, increasing pressure on Congress to act. More than a dozen states have now banned TikTok on state government devices, from Maryland to South Dakota.
Growing concerns from government officials over the Chinese ownership of TikTok has prompted it to become a dominant force in pop culture.
McQuaide said they would keep updating congress on the plans developed under the oversight of the country’s top national security agencies.
The article was in theReliable Sources newsletter. Sign up for our daily digest to understand the changing media landscape.
TikTok: Where to go? Why do we need to stop using the app? Commentary on a Zoom call with Berkman and Psaki
Lawmakers are concerned about location tracking services within the app, which they fear could be used for espionage. When it comes to social media apps, location tracking is a standard feature.
The Senate-passed bill would provide exceptions for “law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security researchers.”
Berkman acknowledges that it would be difficult to get users to stop using the app. A year ago, the app reported that a billion users visited its site each month.
On March 10, two weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the White House convened a Zoom call with 30 prominent TikTok creators. Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, and members of the National Security Council staff briefed the creators, who together had tens of millions of followers, on the latest news from the conflict and the White House’s goals and priorities. It was similar to the previous summer when the White House tried to get young people to get vaccine against Covid.
At least 14 states have recently banned the application from being used on government devices; some state-run public universities followed suit, banning or blocking the app on their campuses.
Byte Dance is required by Chinese law to help the government and so it may include sharing user data from anywhere in the world.
There is no more time to waste on meaningless negotiations with a company,” he said. It is time to end Beijing’s control of TikTok.
Do We Need to Be Closer to the Army? Sensitivities to the Issue of Privacy in the United States and the Implications for Smart Cities and the Internet
It makes sense for the U.S. soldiers to be warned not to use the app because it might allow other entities to see your location information. “But that’s also true of the weather app and then lots of other apps that are existing in your phone, whether they’re owned by China or not.”
Ryan Calo is a professor at the University of Washington. He says that, while data privacy in the United States still needs much improvement, the proposed legislation is more about geopolitical tensions and less about TikTok specifically.
“It’s always easy – and this happens across the world – to say that a foreign government is a threat, and ‘I’m protecting you from that foreign government,’ he says. I think we should be careful about how politicized it can be, in order to achieve political ends.
Both Chander and Calo are skeptical that an outright TikTok ban would gain much political momentum, and both argue that even if it were to move forward, banning a communication platform would raise First Amendment concerns. Calo believes that the conversation could push policy in a positive direction.
“I think that we’re right in the United States to be finally thinking about the consequences of having so much commercial surveillance taking place of U.S. citizens and residents,” he said. We need to address it, but not by posturing or other means, but by passing laws that would address privacy, something that the Federal Trade Commission is interested in doing.
Lobbying is one of the reasons that some of the bills are hard to pass. It is more difficult to impose sweeping regulation on an entire industry than it is to make a bill about how the US government handles technology.
The stark difference between the two illustrates how simple narratives, well-funded lobbying and genuinely thorny policy questions can make or break a bill. It also hints at how a select few Big Tech companies continue to maintain their dominance in the market and their centrality in the lives of countless US households.
The ByteDance lobbying budget is overblown: How much did AICOA and Meta spend in 2018, and where should we go from here?
There are some issues that the government negotiations can resolve, but Beckerman thinks that a lot of the concerns are overblown.
In 2019, ByteDance had 17 lobbyists and spent $270,000 on lobbying, according to public records gathered by the transparency group OpenSecrets. By the end of last year, the company had spent more than five million dollars on lobbying.
The internet industry lobbying giant, Meta, spent upwards of $20 million last year. Amazon was the next company with a total of $19 million. Combined, that’s roughly $49 million in lobbying — almost 10 times what was spent by TikTok’s parent, which nevertheless clocked in at number four on the list.
For much of this year, supporters of AICOA insisted the legislation had enough votes to pass, and they called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring it to a floor vote. The bill never got the floor time its supporters wanted because of the tech lobbying and doubts about whether the bill had the votes. A bill that would have forced Apple to give users a choice of where to download iPhone applications was one of many tech focused antitrust bills that ended up being defeated.
The bill that could force websites to pay for news organizations a bigger share of ad revenues appeared to be on the verge of being passed. But the legislation stumbled after Meta warned it could have to drop news content from its platforms altogether if the bill passed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/tech/washington-tiktok-big-tech/index.html
TikTok: Why We Haven’t Learned in a Long Time? When Tech Users Can Get Their Own Laws, or Should They?
Silicon Valley’s biggest players have skillfully defended their turf in Washington in the past, when lawmakers wanted to knock them down a peg.
By contrast, decisions about the rules government might impose on tech platforms have called into question how those regulations may affect different parts of the economy, from small businesses to individual users to the future of the internet itself.
In some cases, as with proposals to revise the tech industry’s decades-old content moderation liability shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, legislation may raise First Amendment issues as well as partisan divisions. Democrats have said Section 230 should be changed because it gives social media companies a pass to leave some hate speech and offensive content unaddressed, while Republicans have called for changes to the law so that platforms can be pressured to remove less content.
The cross-cutting politics and the technical challenges of regulating an entire sector of technology, not to mention the potential consequences for the economy of screwing it up, have combined to make it genuinely difficult for lawmakers to reach an accord.
Lawmakers are pursuing their own solutions with TikTok’s future still unknown. Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced that Chew would appear at a March hearing focused on US user safety and security.
Earlier this month, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was reportedly considering offering a bill to ban a broader “category of applications” that could be applied to other apps that pose security risks, according to Axios.
In a letter to the CEOs of Apple and Google, Sen. Michael Bennet demanded that they remove TikTok from their app stores immediately.
In an exclusive interview with The New York Times DealBook summit last year, the chief executive officer of TikTok spoke about a plan to move all data from Virginia and Singapore to the US, headed by a new subsidiary named TikTok US.
The movement to ban the app increased after it was revealed that employees at ByteDance have accessed the data of US users over the last few years.
Responding to Monday’s hearing announcement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter welcomed “the opportunity to set the record straight.” Oberwetter said TikTok plans to discuss its “comprehensive plans” to protect US user safety during the March 23rd hearing.
What Are Apple’s Plans to Do? Sen. Marco Rubio’s Senate Intelligence Committee Appropriately Explains the Idea of Appearance
Apple has lots to lose regarding it’s relationship with the US and China. Cook has a lot of success at Apple because of his relationships with Chinese government and manufacturers.
The company has previously said that it welcomes the opportunity to set the record straight, and that they are making commitments.
“We hope that by sharing details of our comprehensive plans with the full Committee, Congress can take a more deliberative approach to the issues at hand,” the TikTok spokesperson added.
If you decide to fly a balloon over your airspace, what would you do to discourage people from looking at it? Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wants to use an app that is on the phone of 60 million Americans to influence political debate in this country.
Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota said that the government is trying to gather as many data as they can about all aspects of the country. “There’s a huge amount of data out there, which will never be touched, never be used, but it’s the small pieces that add up. They’re working it. They are patient. But they clearly see us as a threat, and they’re collecting data.”
The senator from Colorado said that none of the efforts were relevant to his concerns.
“What is the problem with China?” – Sen. Paul Nakasone in his testimony at the House of Representatives to the House Select Committee
Gen. Paul Nakasone said in testimony before the Senate committee that he could turn off the message and influence something if he had a large population to listen to.
The status is being debated in a manner that ignores the facts of the agreement and what has already been achieved. We will continue to do our part to deliver a comprehensive national security plan for the American people,” Brooke Oberwetter from TikTok said in statement.
The Commerce Department would be given the authority to developmitigation measures to meet the risk posed by foreign-linked technologies under a bill that Virginia Democrat Mark Warner is expected to unveil on Tuesday.
When asked to demonstrate public proof of Chinese government involvement with ByteDance, US officials often do not have a lot of information.
The director of the National Security Agency says people are looking for the “smoking gun” in new technologies. I think it’s a loaded gun.
Social Media and Banking: Explaining the Silicon Valley Bank Increment Exit Crisis on a Social Network Site, and How Many Americans Use Social Media to Unleash Economic and Social Media?
Some of the regulations put in place after the financial crisis were rolled back by 16 Senate Democrats. The Dodd-Frank rules were put in place to prevent a repeat of the disasters of 2009, and outline how banks manage risk and how much capital they have to keep in reserve. Kaine thought they were too onerous. He says he’d never seen a bank run start on a social networking site.
Silicon Valley Bank collapsed earlier in March after it became clear it had made a bad bet on long-dated government debt, which meant it no longer had enough capital to comfortably pay back depositors. Many of its customers were venture capital and tech company founders, who spread news on social media in order to cause a panic that accelerated the bank’s demise.
“I’m nervous,” Kaine says while walking onto the Senate floor, his voice dropping as if he doesn’t want too many people at the Capitol to overhear. I am nervous.
Banking regulators have been aware of social media’s potential to drive wild movements in public markets since 2021, when shares in Gamestop, a video game retailer, shot from $20 to $483 over a two-week period, before plummeting back down. The SEC said investment forums on the site were to blame for the episode.
In recent years, members of the Intelligence Committee have received a number of briefings on the potential for manipulating US markets with deepfakes.
Foreign actors have been using social media in order to hurt America at least since 2016, according to Senator Gillibrand. “Russia, China, Iran, use social media to divide Americans, to create disruption in economic issues and social issues, and they do it to undermine the United States and our civility. So yes, that’s a risk.”