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Russia and China’s Influence Campaigns During the War in Ukraine
Within weeks of the launch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin began pushing a conspiracy about U.S.-backed bioweapon laboratories in Ukraine, claiming that the labs were handling “especially dangerous pathogens” (including the coronavirus), that they were trying to make bioagents capable of targeting certain ethnic groups, and that they were training birds to deliver bioweapons to Russian controlled territories. These false claims were amplified by right-populist U.S. commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.
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Who Was the Cold War “Umbrella Assassin?”
A new Danish documentary sheds some light on the shadowy figure of Francesco Gullino, alias “Agent Piccadilly,” the prime suspect in the 1978 murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London.
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TikTok Faces Complete Ban in U.S. Unless ByteDance Separates from Chinese Owners
Amid concerns that the popular video app poses a security threat, TikTok was urged to part ways with its Chinese owners to avoid a national ban in the United States.
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Some Election Officials Refused to Certify Results. Few Were Held Accountable.
A ProPublica review of local officials who refused to certify 2022 election results found that most did not face formal consequences. Experts explain what that means for the future of American elections.
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Senior U.S. Intelligence Official Worries About TikTok, Chinese Tech
General Paul Nakasone, who heads both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told lawmakers there are many reasons to be wary of China’s rapid expansion in cyberspace, and Chinese-owned TikTok is but one example. “TikTok concerns me for a number of different reasons,” Nakasone. “One is that the data that they have. Secondly is the algorithm and the control. Who has the algorithm?”
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Russian Cyberattacks on U.S. Likely to Become Bolder, More Brazen
Repeated failures by Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns to inflict lasting damage during the Kremlin’s ongoing war against Ukraine is unlikely to dampen Moscow’s resolve and could instead spur a new wave of riskier efforts against a wider set of targets.
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How Germany’s Far-Right Politicians Became the Kremlin’s Voice
The AfD, Germany’s far-right populist party, has often been labelled as a party of “Putin-Versteher” (“Putin understanders”). Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the AfD has increasingly contributed to Russian disinformation campaigns.
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Havana Syndrome Not Caused by Directed-Energy Weapons: U.S. Intelligence
In 2016 in Havana, Cuba’s capital, a growing number of U.S. diplomats reported symptoms of unexplained ailment, and over the next five years, employees in many other U.S. embassies complained about identical symptoms, which included dizziness, nausea, headaches, ringing ears, and disorientation. A comprehensive investigation by several agencies of the U.S. intelligence community has now concluded that the symptoms of what came to be called the Havana Syndrome were not the result of an adversary nation using directed-energy or radiation weapons.
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Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology
Forget the “Malacca dilemma,” that is, how China protects the narrow strait linking the Indian and Pacific oceans, which is the conduit for around 60% of China’s oil imports. These days, Chris Miller writes in his new book, China’s leaders are more concerned about a blockade “measured in bytes rather than barrels.”
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China’s Militarization of Meteorological Balloons
Beijing’s spy balloon is a clear example of an emerging technology developed for military and intelligence operations but that crucially evolved out of civilian and scientific programs. China’s balloon-technology programs contain sober lessons about Beijing’s incremental acquisition of foreign intellectual property and its technology partnerships with Western research institutions.
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Spy Balloon Reveals China’s ‘Near Space’ Military Program
Chinese spy balloon drifting across the United States this month was a demonstration of a little-noticed program which has been discussed in China’s state-controlled media for more than a decade in articles extolling its potential military applications.
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Is China’s Huawei a Threat to U.S. National Security?
The Chinese telecommunications company, a world leader in 5G technology and smartphones, faces accusations that the Chinese intelligence services can use – and have used — its 5G infrastructure for espionage. The U.S. and other Western countries have effectively banned Huawei from building their 5G networks, but it remains popular in low-income countries. The outcome of the struggle could shape the world’s tech landscape for years to come.
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China-Owned Parent Company of TikTok Among Top Spenders on Internet Lobbying
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of social media platform TikTok, has dramatically upped its U.S. lobbying effort since 2020 as U.S.-China relations continue to sour and is now the fourth-largest Internet company in spending on federal lobbying as of last year, according to newly released data.
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Russia Continues to Spread Disinformation on Imaginary U.S. Biowarfare Facilities in Ukraine
On January 30, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) Warfare at the Russian Ministry of Defense, claimed once again in a briefing that the United States developed biological weapons in facilities in Ukraine. Kirillov went further than he had previously, this time referencing the EcoHealth Alliance in his claims that the U.S. has done work “enhancing the pathogenic characteristics of COVID-19.” Kirillov appeared to have tried to appeal to Western outlets that have trafficked in conspiracy theories about both the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine.
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What China’s Surveillance Balloon Says About U.S.-China Relations
The question of what information the Chinese were trying to uncover using a balloon – when China’s many satellites could glean this same information – is intriguing. A far more important issue, however, is what this episode says about the ability, or more accurately inability, of Washington and Beijing to manage a future crisis. Worryingly, it appears that neither the United States nor China is prepared for a serious crisis.
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More headlines
The long view
Fifty-Five Hours of Risk: The Dangerous Implications of Slow Attack Attribution
Assuming that its foreign adversaries’ recent violent threats are to be taken seriously, and that the likelihood of a direct attack against the United States is, if not on the rise, at least significant enough to warrant serious attention, the United States has an urgent mandate to prepare effective cognitive defenses. Foremost among these is the ability to quickly and accurately attribute attacks to their originators, and to deliver that information to the public through a trustworthy vehicle.