-
Rising and Falling Tides: How Russia Has Benefited from Cuts to US Government-Funded Media in Moldova
On 28 September, the Moldovan parliamentary election ended with a decisive victory for the pro-Europe, pro-democracy party. The victory was especially satisfying because it was the first election held since the Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. capabilities to track, monitor, and respond to Russian and Chinese anti-American disinformation campaigns and election interference around the world and in the United States.
-
-
Remote Work Has Opened Australia’s Cyber Backdoor
The choice is stark. Either we treat remote-work infiltration as a national security priority now, or hostile operatives will continue slipping into networks under the cover of legitimate employment. By modernizing vetting, tightening oversight and raising awareness, we can turn the remote workforce from a vulnerability into a frontline defense.
-
-
China’s “Super Embassy” Proposal in London Sparks Spying Fears
Fiber optic cables running near the proposed Chinese embassy’s Royal Mint Court site could make it “very easy” for hostile actors to intercept communications, says an expert. “This is what makes the proposed embassy site’s proximity to telecoms infrastructure significant from a security perspective.”
-
-
The American TikTok Deal Doesn’t Address the Platform’s Potential for Manipulation, Only Who Profits
If we want to protect democratic information systems, we need to focus on reducing the vulnerabilities in our relationship with media platforms – platforms with surveillance power to know what we will like, the algorithmic power to curate our information diet and control of platform incentives, and rules and features that affect who gains influence. The biggest challenge is to make platforms less riggable, and thus less weaponizable, if only for the reason that motivated the TikTok ban: we don’t want our adversaries, foreign or domestic, to have power over us.
-
-
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Took Money Directly from Chinese Investors, Company Insider Testifies
The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most important military contractors.
-
-
Pentagon Bans Tech Vendors from Using China-Based Personnel After ProPublica Investigation
The Defense Department has tightened cybersecurity requirements for its cloud services providers. The changes come after ProPublica revealed how Microsoft’s use of China-based engineers left sensitive government data vulnerable to hacking.
-
-
Pentagon Warns Microsoft: Company’s Use of China-Based Engineers Was a “Breach of Trust”
The Defense Department is opening an investigation to determine if the tech giant’s use of overseas engineers to maintain sensitive U.S. government computer systems compromised national security.
-
-
What Just Happened? Dismantling the Intelligence Community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the functions of the intelligence community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) would be significantly reduced. Gabbard has thus dismantled the last remaining U.S. federal government organ dedicated to tracking and analyzing state-sponsored efforts to interfere in U.S. institutions, elections, and society – following the Trump administration’s shutting down of related units at the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and Department of Justice earlier this year.
-
-
Silencing America’s Voice
The Trump administration has taken a series of steps which have substantially weakened U.S. government-funded media outlets whose task it was to tell the American story and counter the global propaganda and disinformation efforts of U.S. adversaries. These moves greatly benefit the anti-American propaganda efforts of Russia and China, which will now go unchallenged.
-
-
Australia’s Deepfake Dilemma and the Danish Solution
Countries need to move beyond simply pleading with internet platforms for better content moderation and instead implement new legal frameworks that empower citizens directly. For a model of how to achieve this, policymakers should look to the innovative legal thinking emerging from Denmark.
-
-
Microsoft Failed to Disclose Key Details About Use of China-Based Engineers in U.S. Defense Work, Record Shows
The tech giant is required to regularly provide U.S. officials with its plan for keeping government data safe from hacking. Yet a copy of Microsoft’s security plan obtained by ProPublica makes no reference to the company’s China-based operations.
-
-
Israel Secretly Recruited Iranian Dissidents to Attack Their Country from Within
The Mossad made Iran its top priority in 1993 after Israelis and Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, seemingly ending decades of conflict. The main goal of Israel’s focus on Iran: To protect Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region.
-
-
Microsoft Used China-Based Engineers to Support Product Recently Hacked by China
Microsoft announced that Chinese state-sponsored hackers had exploited vulnerabilities in its popular SharePoint software but didn’t mention that it has long used China-based engineers to maintain the product.
-
-
The Taiwan Scenarios 2: Warning Signs
At first, it may not be easy to see what’s afoot. The difference between China’s routine coercion of Taiwan and early signs of serious escalation to take control of the island may not be clear.
-
-
Congress Has a Chequered History of Overseeing U.S. Intelligence and National Security
The role of Congress is to conduct oversight. It is the role of the governing administration to keep Congress informed of intelligence matters, particularly covert operations. History shows this has often been hard to achieve.
-
The long view
Allfare: China’s Whole-of-Nation Strategy
To analyze how states exert their influence, scholars often compartmentalize actions into rigid analytical frameworks, which obscures the holistic scope of the challenge.
France Strikes to Address Misinformation Weakening Western Alliance
The key destabilizing feature of today’s information environment is no longer simply that democracies are targeted by adversaries’ misinformation and disinformation. Increasingly, the danger is coming from uninhibited partners in the allied ecosystem itself.