• “Internet of Things” Could Be an Unseen Threat to Elections

    By Laura DeNardis

    The app failure that led to a chaotic 2020 Iowa caucus was a reminder of how vulnerable the democratic process is to technological problems – even without any malicious outside intervention. Far more sophisticated foreign hacking continues to try to disrupt democracy, as a rare joint federal agency warning advised prior to Super Tuesday. Russia’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 election has already revealed how this could happen: social media disinformation, email hacking and probing of voter registration systems. The threats to the 2020 election may be even more insidious.

  • American Observers Threatened over Guyana Election Results

    Tensions are rising in newly oil-rich Guyana with nearly 100 percent of the votes now reported from Monday’s national election. The governing APNU party appears to have lost to the opposition Peoples Progressive Party (PPP). International elections observers – mostly Americans – are now being menaced and threatened by APNU to leave or face arrest. Guyana’s election is being watched closely because the winner will be in control of a coming oil boom which will transform Guyana. In December Exxon began commercial exploitation of a huge 2016 oil discovery off the coast, and production is expected to grow from 52,000 barrels per day to over 750,000 by 2025.

  • Lawmaker Presses Clearview AI on Foreign Sales of Facial Recognition

    Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts earlier this week raised new concerns about Clearview AI’s facial recognition app. Markey initially wrote to Clearview in January 2020 with concerns about how the company’s app might violate Americans’ civil liberties and privacy. Clearview is marketing its product to users in foreign countries with authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia. The company might also be collecting and processing images of children from social media sites.

  • Judge Rebukes Barr’s Handling of Mueller Report

    U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton Thursday sharply criticized the way Attorney General William Barr handled the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, saying Barr had made “misleading public statements” to spin the investigation’s findings in favor of President Donald Trump. AP reports that the scolding from the judge was unusually blunt, with the judge saying that “he struggled to reconcile Barr’s public characterizations of the report — which included his statement that Mueller found ‘no collusion’ between the Trump campaign and Russia — with what the document actually said.”

  • No Foreign Meddling in Super Tuesday Primaries: U.S. Officials

    By Jeff Seldin

    U.S. voters who headed to the polls to cast ballots in Super Tuesday primaries encountered scattered problems, some causing long lines or delays, but nothing that could be attributed to foreign interference, U.S. officials said. As a precaution, U.S. security and intelligence officials warned voters Monday to expect foreign actors to try to sway their views as they prepared to vote in key presidential primaries. The U.S. intelligence community, and the exhaustive Mueller investigation, found incontrovertible evidence that Russia engaged in a broad and successful campaign to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election. Earlier Tuesday, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told lawmakers that the threat, whether it manifested during Tuesday’s primary elections or during the general election in November, is growing. “We see an ongoing influence campaign by Russia,” he said, adding “We would not be surprised if other adversaries are not also looking at what they’re doing.”

  • Understanding Russian Subversion

    Since 2014, Russia has undertaken a wide range of subversive activities intended to influence the domestic politics of the United States, its partners, and its allies. A new RAND study synthesizes previous work, discussing what Russian subversion is and the capabilities Russia uses to undertake it today.

  • Germany: 14 Soldiers, Defense Ministry Employees, Designated as Extremists

    The German Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) has classified 14 members of the armed forces as extremists in 2019. Eight soldiers were members of far-right extremist groups; four soldiers had ties with Islamist organizations; and two soldiers belonged to a violent anarchist movement which does not recognize the German state and its laws. The cases of more than 500 other soldiers and civilian employees of the Defense Ministry suspected of extremism are still being investigated. In the last three years, MAD has increasingly focused on combatting the spread of far-right extremism in the ranks of the Bundeswehr – especially in the ranks of elite units — in the wake of soldiers being found to have been involved in acts of terrorism against migrants.

  • Bipartisan Bill Would Reimburse Telcoms for Replacing Huawei’s, ZTE’s Equipment

    New bipartisan legislation aims to protect American communications networks from threats presented by foreign suppliers like Huawei and ZTE. The “rip and replace” part of the legislation would offer relief to reimburse smaller telecommunications providers – largely in rural areas – by reimbursing them for the costs of removing and replacing untrusted foreign equipment.

  • Tool Identifies, Exposes Violent Extremists Online

    In an increasingly connected world, there are plenty of opportunities for extremists to communicate, recruit, spread propaganda, and incite violence. From videos being shared on Facebook and Twitter, to more niche instant-messaging services such as Telegram, to coded postings on Gab, 4 Chan, and 8chan — the number and reach of communications channels available to extremists has never been greater. The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a non-partisan organization, has developed a platform – Contextus – which uses machine-learning to track and expose extremist discourse online.

  • 2019: Far-Right Extremists Killed 38 People in the U.S., More than All Other Murderous Extremists

    Right-wing extremists were responsible for the vast majority of extremist-related murders in the United States in 2019, with the El Paso shooting capping off a bloody decade during which the far right was responsible for 76 percent of all extremist-related murders. A new report found that of the 42 extremist-related murders in the U.S. last year, 38 were committed by individuals subscribing to various far-right ideologies, including white supremacy.

  • Trump Puts VP Pence in Charge of COVID-19 Response

    In a televised speech to the nation last night, President Donald Trump addressed the growing threat of COVID-19 and put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of a task force to lead US response efforts. The speech comes a day after officials from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said community spread was all but inevitable in the United States, while Trump said during a press conference in India that the situation was under control stateside. Trump also said that “We will essentially have a flu shot for this very soon,” said Trump, but experts cautioned that no vaccine will be ready for use for at least another year to 18 months.

  • Sen. Rubio Wants Review of Sale of AT&T Unit Operating in Central Europe to a “China proxy”

    Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is asking U.S. officials to review the national-security implications of AT&T’s planned sale of its majority stake in Central European Media Group Enterprises (CME) to PPF Group, a Czech-owned conglomerate, because of PPF’s record of acting as “China’s proxies” inside the Czech Republic. Rubio charges that PPF has “supported China’s malign activities abroad.”

  • Tools to Help Fight Disinformation Online

    Today’s information ecosystem brings access to seemingly infinite amounts of information instantaneously. It also contributes to the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation to millions of people. Researchers at RAND’s Truth Decay initiative worked to identify and characterize the universe of online tools targeted at online disinformation, focusing on those tools created by nonprofit or civil society organizations.

  • Protecting Sensitive Metadata So It Cannot Be Used for Surveillance

    By Rob Matheson

    MIT researchers have designed a scalable system that secures the metadata of millions of users in communications networks, to help protect the information against possible state-level surveillance. The system ensures hackers eavesdropping on large networks cannot find out who is communicating and when they’re doing so.

  • Digital Threats to Democracy

    A new study surveyed hundreds of technology experts about whether or not digital disruption will help or hurt democracy by 2030. Of the 979 responses, about 49 percent of these respondents said use of technology “will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade,” while 33 percent said the use of technology “will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy.”