#US China cyberattacks

[allthegeopolitics]

A Chinese cybersecurity company and one of its researchers have been sanctioned by the United States over a 2020 cyberattack that sought to exploit a computer software vulnerability in company firewalls, potentially resulting in deaths from system malfunctions, the US Treasury Department has announced. Guan Tianfeng, an employee of Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company, deployed malicious software to 81,000 firewalls run by thousands of companies worldwide in April 2020, including 23,000 in the US, the Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday. The US Department of Justice also unsealed an indictment on Guan on Tuesday for his role in the cyberattack. Additionally, the US Department of State is offering a $10m reward for information about Sichuan Silence or Guan.

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[todayonglobe]

US-Japan Intelligence Sharing Endures Amid Chinese Hacking Concerns

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[mariacallous]

For American companies grousing about new cybersecurity rules, spyware firms eager to expand their global business, and hackers trying to break AI systems, Donald Trump’s second term as president will be a breath of fresh air.

For nearly four years, president Joe Biden’s administration has tried to make powerful US tech firms and infrastructure operators more responsible for the nation’s cybersecurity posture, as well as restrict the spread of spyware, apply guardrails to AI, and combat online misinformation. But when Trump takes office in January, he will almost certainly eliminate or significantly curtail those programs in favor of cyber strategies that benefit business interests, downplay human-rights concerns, and emphasize aggressive offense against the cyber armies of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

“There will be a national security focus, with a strong emphasis on protecting critical infrastructure, government networks, and key industries from cyber threats,” says Brian Harrell, who served as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s assistant director for infrastructure security during Trump’s first term.

From projects whose days are numbered to areas where Trump will go further than Biden, here is what a second Trump administration will likely mean for US cybersecurity policy.

Full Reversal

The incoming Trump administration is likely to scrap Biden’s ambitious effort to impose cyber regulations on sectors of US infrastructure that currently lack meaningful digital-security safeguards. That effort has borne fruit with railroads, pipelines, and aviation but has hit hurdles in sectors like water and health care.

Despite mounting cyberattacks targeting vital systems—and despite this year’s Republican Party platform promising to “raise the security standards for our critical systems and networks”—conservatives are unlikely to support new regulatory mandates on infrastructure operators.

There will be “no more regulation without explicit congressional authorization,” says James Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Harrell says “more regulation will be dismantled than introduced.” Biden’s presidency was “riddled with new cyber regulation” that sometimes confused and overburdened industry, he adds. “The new White House will be looking to reduce regulatory burdens while streamlining smart compliance.”

This approach may not last, according to a US cyber official who requested anonymity to discuss politically sensitive issues. “I think they’ll eventually recognize that the efforts focused on regulation in cyber are needed to ensure the security of our critical infrastructure.”

“Regulation is the only tool that works,” Lewis says.

Some Biden cyber rules might be overturned in court, now that the Supreme Court has eliminated the deference that judges previously gave to agencies in disputes over their regulations. John Miller, senior vice president of policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, a major tech trade group, says it’s also possible that Trump officials “might not wait for the courts” to void those rules.

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, predicts that the Trump administration will emphasize cooperation and incentives in its efforts to protect vulnerable industries. He points to a House GOP plan for water cybersecurity standards as an example.

Trump’s election also likely spells doom for CISA’s work to counter mis- and disinformation, especially around elections. After Trump lost the 2020 election, he fired CISA’s first director for debunking right-wing election conspiracy theories, and the conservative backlash to anti-misinformation work has only grown since then.

In 2022, Trump outlined a “free speech policy initiative” to “break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so-called ‘mis-’ and ‘dis-information.’” Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and X whom Trump has tapped to colead a “government efficiency” initiative, enthusiastically shared the plan last week.

CISA has already dramatically scaled back its efforts to combat online falsehoods following a right-wing pressure campaign, but Trump appointees are almost certain to smother what remains of that mission. “Disinformation efforts will be eliminated,” Montgomery predicts.

Harrell agrees that Trump would “refocus” CISA on core cyber initiatives, saying the agency’s “priorities have mistakenly bordered on social issues lately.”

Also likely on the chopping block: elements of Biden’s artificial intelligence safety agenda that focus on AI’s social harms, like bias and discrimination, as well as Biden’s requirement for large AI developers to report to the government about their model training.

“I expect the repeal of Biden’s executive order on AI, specifically because of its references to AI regulation,” says Nick Reese, a director of emerging technology policy at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump and Biden. “We should expect a change in direction toward less regulation, which would mean less compulsory AI safety measures.”

Trump is also unlikely to continue the Biden administration’s campaign to limit the proliferation of commercial spyware technologies, which authoritarian governments have used to harass journalists, civil-rights protesters, and opposition politicians. Trump and his allies maintain close political and financial ties with two of the most prolific users of commercial spyware tools, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and he showed little concern about those governments’ human-rights abuses in his first term.

“There’s a high probability that we see big rollbacks on spyware policy,” says Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Trump officials are likely to care more about spyware makers’ counterterrorism arguments than about digital-rights advocates’ criticisms of those tools.

Spyware companies “will undoubtedly receive a more favorable audience under Trump,” Feldstein says—especially market leader NSO Group, which is closely affiliated with the Trump-aligned Israeli government.

Dubious Prospects

Other Biden cyber initiatives are also in jeopardy, even if their fates are not as clear.

Biden’s National Cybersecurity Strategy emphasized the need for greater corporate responsibility, arguing that well-resourced tech firms must do more to prevent hackers from abusing their products in devastating cyberattacks. Over the past few years, CISA launched a messaging campaign to encourage companies to make their products “secure by design,” the Justice Department created a Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative to prosecute contractors that mislead the government about their security practices, and White House officials began considering proposals to make software vendors liable for damaging vulnerabilities.

That corporate-accountability push is unlikely to receive strong support from the incoming Trump administration, which is almost certain to be stocked with former business leaders hostile to government pressure.

Henry Young, senior director of policy at the software trade group BSA, predicts that the secure-by-design campaign will “evolve to more realistically balance the responsibilities of governments, businesses, and customers, and hopefully eschew finger pointing in favor of collaborative efforts to continue to improve security and resilience.”

A Democratic administration might have used the secure-by-design push as a springboard to new corporate regulations. Under Trump, secure-by-design will remain at most a rhetorical slogan. “Turning it into something more tangible will be the challenge,” the US cyber official says.

Chipping Away at the Edges

One landmark cyber program can’t easily be scrapped under a second Trump administration but could still be dramatically transformed.

In 2022, Congress passed a law requiring CISA to create cyber incident reporting regulations for critical infrastructure operators. CISA released the text of the proposed regulations in April, sparking an immediate backlash from industry groups that said it went too far. Corporate America warned that CISA was asking too many companies for too much information about too many incidents.

Trump’s election could throw a wrench in CISA’s ambitious incident-reporting plans. New appointees at the White House, DHS, and CISA itself could force agency staff to rewrite the rules to be more industry-friendly, exempting entire swaths of critical infrastructure or eliminating requirements for companies to report certain data. Trump’s team has months to revise the final rule before its required publication in late 2025.

BSA’s Young expects Trump’s team to scale back the regulations, which he says “take a very broad view of the authority CISA believes Congress granted it.”

The current rule is “particularly vulnerable to a court challenge” because it exceeds Congress’s intent, ITI’s Miller warns, and Trump’s team “may direct CISA to scale it back” if the agency doesn’t “proceed cautiously” on its own.

New Urgency

One area where Trump might pick up the baton from the Biden administration is the government’s use of military hacking operations and its response to foreign adversaries’ cyberattacks.

Under Biden, the military’s US Cyber Command has scaled up its overseas hacker-hunting engagements with allies. But Republicans have pressed Biden to respond more muscularly to Chinese, Russian, and Iranian hacks, and Trump is likely to embrace that approach—particularly after picking representative Mike Waltz, an advocate for cyberattacks on Russia, North Korea, and Mexican cartels, as his national security adviser.

“A much more aggressive stance will be taken against China, which is sorely needed,” Harrell says, predicting that Chinese hackers penetrating US critical infrastructure “will be held to account.”

Montgomery agrees that Trump may “adopt a more aggressive approach” to national cyber defense, including giving the National Guard “a more significant role” in protecting domestic infrastructure.

Montgomery also says he expects more frequent and more muscular offensive operations by Cyber Command, which Trump elevated to a full combatant command during his first term. He predicts the Trump administration will “look more favorably” on creating a separate military cyber service, which the Biden administration opposed, and “take a more skeptical view” of the joint leadership of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, which the Biden administration supported.

Trump could also harness other tools to constrain China, including authorities he created during his first term to block the use of risky technology in the US. “The Trump administration will look at the full set of policy levers when deciding how to push back on China in cyberspace,” says Kevin Allison, a consultant on geopolitics and technology.

[triviallytrue]

I don't really want to get in another spat with communist tumblr so I'll just say this here - the weird part of posts like this one to me is the lack of engagement with the actual criticism of Red Star OS (that it makes a mockery of all the principles behind Linux by being spyware for the North Korean government)

Most people who follow cybersecurity even distantly will acknowledge that the DPRK punches far above its weight in software and is only a step behind players like the US and China in terms of their ability to execute cyberattacks. North Korea is impressively sophisticated, especially given its isolation!

And I also think it's fair to say that the sanctions on North Korea and its continued marginalization aren't helping anything - they aren't helping the North Korean people or the world.

But it seems... unserious, to say the least, to make that point without engaging with the fact that the government exercises a tremendous and unacceptable level of control over its citizens, especially given that communists will (rightfully) protest far milder restrictions in the West.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

#20yrsago AnarchistU, Toronto’s wiki-based free school https://web.archive.org/web/20040911010603/http://anarchistu.org/bin/view/Anarchistu

#20yrsago Fair use is a right AND a defense https://memex.craphound.com/2004/09/09/fair-use-is-a-right-and-a-defense/

#20yrsago Bounty for asking “How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?” https://web.archive.org/web/20040918115027/https://onesimplequestion.blogspot.com/

#20yrsago What yesterday’s terrible music https://www.loweringthebar.net/2009/09/open-mike-likely-to-close-out-legislators-career.htmlsampling ruling means https://web.archive.org/web/20040910095029/http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002153.shtml

#15yrsago Conservative California legislator gives pornographic account of his multiple affairs (including a lobbyist) into open mic https://www.loweringthebar.net/2009/09/open-mike-likely-to-close-out-legislators-career.html

#15yrsago Shel Silverstein’s UNCLE SHELBY, not exactly a kids’ book https://memex.craphound.com/2009/09/09/shel-silversteins-uncle-shelby-not-exactly-a-kids-book/

#10yrsago Seemingly intoxicated Rob Ford gives subway press-conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbcETJRoNCs

#10yrsago Amazon vs Hachette is nothing: just WAIT for the audiobook wars! https://locusmag.com/2014/09/cory-doctorow-audible-comixology-amazon-and-doctorows-first-law/

#10yrsago Dietary supplement company sues website for providing a forum for dissatisfied customers https://www.techdirt.com/2014/09/08/dietary-supplement-company-tries-suing-pissedconsumer-citing-buyers-agreement-to-never-say-anything-negative-about-roca/

#10yrsago New wind-tunnel tests find surprising gains in cycling efficiency from leg-shaving https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/the-curious-case-of-the-cyclists-unshaved-legs/article20370814/

#10yrsago Behind the scenes look at Canada’s Harper government gagging scientists https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/federal-scientist-media-request-generates-email-frenzy-but-no-interview-1.2759300

#10yrsago Starred review in Kirkus for INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cory-doctorow/information-doesnt-want-to-be-free/

#10yrsago Steven Gould’s “Exo,” a Jumper novel by way of Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel” https://memex.craphound.com/2014/09/09/steven-goulds-exo-a-jumper-novel-by-way-of-heinleins-have-spacesuit-will-travel/

#5yrsago Important legal victory in web-scraping case https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/web-scraping-doesnt-violate-anti-hacking-law-appeals-court-rules/

#5yrsago Whistleblowers out Falwell’s Liberty University as a grifty, multibillion-dollar personality cult https://web.archive.org/web/20190910000528/https://www.politico.com/magazine/amp/story/2019/09/09/jerry-falwell-liberty-university-loans-227914

#5yrsago Pinduoduo: China’s “Groupon on steroids” https://www.wired.com/story/china-ecommerce-giant-never-heard/

#5yrsago Notpetya: the incredible story of an escaped US cyberweapon, Russian state hackers, and Ukraine’s cyberwar https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/

#5yrsago NYT calls for an end to legacy college admissions https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/end-legacy-college-admissions.html

#5yrsago Purdue’s court filings understate its role in the opioid epidemic by 80% https://www.propublica.org/article/data-touted-by-oxycontin-maker-to-fight-lawsuits-doesnt-tell-the-whole-story

#1yrago Saturday linkdump, part the sixth https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

[furyblaze76tm]

🪐QTNaturäL ®©™

TM @instagram @waynestate @dukeuniv @greenpartyoftheunitedstates-blog @greenpeaceusa @reddit-tales @twitterstatus @twitterthecomic @youtube @blueskydrops

🚺#ERANow

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is the duly ratified 28th Constitutional Amendment that guarantees equal rights to all people, regardless of sex.

In 2020, the ERA satisfied all the requirements to be ratified but was wrongfully blocked by Trump's administration.

@era @womenartistszine @woman

🪐🗿 Ancient Perstory ®️

TM @ancientart @ancientsstudies

🇧🇸 🏢 Bahamas: Trump🤨

@bahama

Overview of the FBI Warning

@fbi-agent-assigned-to-you @fbi-basement-buddies @fbi-swiftunit

The FBI has recently issued a **serious warning** regarding a significant cyberattack affecting major telecommunications companies in the United States, including AT&T and Verizon. This incident is being described as one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history, prompting officials to advise against sending standard text messages.

Recommended Action: Use Encrypted Messaging

To protect personal data and communications, U.S. officials are urging citizens to switch to **encrypted messaging apps**. These apps, such as WhatsApp and Signal, provide end-to-end encryption, which helps ensure that messages remain private and secure from potential foreign hackers. The FBI's recommendation comes in light of the ongoing threat posed by cybercriminals, particularly those linked to foreign governments, such as China.

In summary, during this critical time of heightened cyber threats, it is essential for individuals to prioritize their communication security by utilizing encrypted messaging services. This step is crucial in safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access and potential breaches.

[newstfionline]

Monday, October 7, 2024

Still Searching for Their Loved Ones, a Week After Hurricane Helene (NYT) The last time Drew McLean’s parents saw him, he was marveling at the power of Tropical Storm Helene as it washed over their home in the mountains of North Carolina. He and his mother found that a large tree had split in the front yard and another had been pushed by surging water into Mr. McLean’s car, tipping it on its side. Amid the chaos, Mr. McLean, 45, offered his mother a comforting thought: “God is still on his throne,” he said. Mr. McLean has been missing for a week now, ever since he apparently walked off into the storm last Friday. Sitting on the back porch of their secluded home in the hills of Black Mountain on Thursday, his parents were holding out hope that he would be found, even as they wiped tears from their eyes and increasingly feared the worst. The McLeans are in a fraught and fragile state shared by many across western North Carolina and other regions crushed by Hurricane Helene. The vastness of the devastation, coupled with a lack of phone and internet service after the storm, has left families unsure of what happened to their loved ones. The storm’s death toll has climbed past 225, but many people remain unaccounted for and searching for them is complicated. Their families are desperate for answers.

U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack (WSJ) A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests. For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter, which amounts to a major national security risk.

Brazil drought sinks Amazon rainforest port river level to 122-year low (Reuters) The river port in the Amazon rainforest’s largest city of Manaus on Friday hit its lowest level since 1902, as a drought drains waterways and snarls transport of grain exports and essential supplies that are the region’s lifeline. Below-average rainfall—even through the rainy season—has plagued the Amazon and much of South America since last year, also feeding the worst wildfires in more than a decade in Brazil and Bolivia. Scientists predict the Amazon region may not fully recover moisture levels until 2026. Last year, the drought became a humanitarian crisis, as people reliant on rivers were stranded without food, water or medicine. This year authorities are already on alert. In hard-hit Amazonas state, at least 62 municipalities are under states of emergency with more than half a million people affected, according to the state’s civil defense corps.

Is Europe Becoming Ungovernable? (WSJ) At a recent debate, a German voter had some pointed criticism for Chancellor Olaf Scholz: The German government is unable to govern and its ministers are bickering like children. Instead of pushing back, Scholz conceded the point. “The truth is: You are right,” he said. “But what would be your solution? I mean, I’m asking for a friend.” The exchange triggered little controversy in Europe’s largest economy, once considered a paragon of good governance. It is now all but taken for granted that politicians can agree on little here, and implement even less. France, which for decades has been the engine of the European Union along with Germany, has found itself in a similar state of political paralysis after elections in June left Parliament divided between a multitude of parties. Political fragmentation and polarization have tied the hands of political leaders, who can govern only in unwieldy coalitions between left- and right-leaning parties. Governments have struggled to find common ground on even basic issues, much less some of their most acute problems, such as handling growing numbers of immigrants, the war in Ukraine and stagnant economies. As a result, the EU and its governments have been failing to fulfill their commitments to voters and risk falling further behind competitors such as the U.S. and China.

Macron urges countries to ‘stop delivering weapons’ to Israel for war in Gaza (Washington Post) French President Emmanuel Macron urged countries to stop providing weapons to Israel for its war in the Gaza Strip and expressed concern that the civilians of Lebanon could face a similar fate as those in Gaza. “The priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to carry out fighting in Gaza,” Macron said in an interview with France Inter, a public radio station, that aired Saturday. France itself, Macron said, was not delivering any weapons. Macron’s call comes amid mounting public scrutiny of the high death toll in Gaza and the widening regional conflict to Lebanon. At a summit for francophone leaders in Paris on Saturday, Macron appeared to take a jab at the United States, by far Israel’s largest supplier of weapons: “If we call for a cease-fire, consistency is to not provide weapons of war,” he said. “And I think that those who provide them cannot every day call for a cease-fire alongside us and continue to supply them.”

Russia retrains ex-soldiers heading back to the battlefield (Reuters) Nearly 20 years after he last served in Russia’s army, “Mara” is back in uniform. The bearded ex-driver and foundry worker, who identified himself only by his call sign, signed up with the army on Monday. By Friday, he was going through his paces at a training ground in Russia’s southern Rostov region, practising firing from an automatic rifle and simulating the storming of a building. Two and a half years into its war with Ukraine, Russia is offering one-off bonuses of up to 1.9 million roubles ($20,000)—22 times the average monthly wage—to men prepared to sign volunteer contracts as professional soldiers. Being able to attract people like Mara is crucial to Moscow’s ability to replenish its forces and avoid resorting to another round of compulsory mobilisation. The drafting of 300,000 reserves in October 2022 proved hugely unpopular and prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country.

International rescue teams arrive in Bosnia after devastating floods and landslides (AP) Rescue teams from Bosnia’s neighbors and European Union countries on Sunday were joining efforts to clear the rubble and find people still missing from floods and landslides that devastated parts of the Balkan country. Bosnia sought EU help after a heavy rainstorm overnight on Friday left entire areas under water and debris destroyed roads and bridges, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens. Officials said that at least 10 people are still unaccounted for.

Ukraine in security limbo (Washington Post) More than a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented his “victory plan” for how to end the war with Russia to top U.S. officials, details of the strategy and how it was received remain hazy. The trip, which was viewed as a key opportunity by Ukrainian officials for Zelensky to sell the United States on how to support Ukraine going forward, failed to resonate in Washington. Biden held his stance on prohibiting U.S.-provided longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia and Zelensky found himself caught in a political crossfire as influential Republicans largely criticized or snubbed him. Zelensky’s U.S. swing reinforced the sort of unsettling limbo Ukraine now finds itself in going forward—reliant on the United States as its main ally to arm it against Russia yet unsure how long that support will continue as attention on the war fades in its third year and with the new escalation in the Middle East.

‘My dreams are about bombs’ (NYT) The Israeli airstrikes are worst at night. By day, residents walk the city with haggard faces, trying their best to fight fatigue and calm their nerves. Empty cigarette packets pile up in handbags and in the footwells of cars. Anti-anxiety medication is shared among friends. “When will this end?” the 7-year-old daughter of Farah Choucair, an economist who spent 14 years working for the United Nations, asked her mother last week. For the child, the pounding Israeli strikes are a flashback to the deadly Beirut port blast, which ripped through the Lebanese capital just over four years ago and destroyed entire neighborhoods. Ms. Choucair, who now works for a media technology company, said it took years of psychological support for her to process the trauma, but her daughter never did. For many in Beirut, the continuing conflict is just one in a long line of human catastrophes. The city’s bullet-ridden apartment buildings serve as a daily reminder of Lebanon’s bloody 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990. A crippling economic collapse that struck decades later has left much of the country in poverty, and residents are still grappling with chronic power cuts even as the capital is bombarded. Many residents say they loathe the stereotype that the Lebanese are resilient. “I wish sometimes that we could just sit and cry our eyes out and not know what to do, but we always know what to do—what to pack, what we need,” said Ms. Choucair. “It has nothing to do with resilience or any positive trait. It’s a natural survival mode that we have been trained to automate.” She added: “This is how it is living in Beirut. It will never change. I am 41. It has been like this for as long as I remember.” “All my dreams are about bombs,” said Heba Jundi, 36, who was staying at a friend’s house in the mountains above Beirut with her cat, Benji.

Health workers in Lebanon describe deadly Israeli attacks on colleagues and fear more (AP) Israel’s military struck outside the gates of a hospital in southern Lebanon without warning on Friday, killing seven paramedics and forcing the facility to close, the hospital director told The Associated Press a day after one of the most deadly attacks on health workers in the weeks since fighting escalated between Israel and Hezbollah. The account of the Friday airstrikes that flung hospital doors off their hinges and shattered glass was the latest to detail attacks that Lebanon’s health ministry says have killed dozens of health workers. Marjayoun hospital director Mounes Kalakesh said that even before Friday’s attack, ambulance crews in the area were so reluctant to operate that the facility had not received anyone wounded for days. Friday’s attack came hours before Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesman accused the Hezbollah militant group, based in southern Lebanon, of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, and warned medical teams to stay clear of the group. The spokesman provided no evidence.

A year of fleeing across Gaza (AP) Ne’man Abu Jarad sat on a tarp on the ground. Around him, canvas sheets hung from cords, forming the walls of his tent. For the past year, Ne’man; his wife, Majida; and their six daughters have trekked the length of the Gaza Strip, trying to survive as Israeli forces wreaked destruction around them. It’s a far cry from their house in northern Gaza—a place of comforting routine, of love, affection and safety. A place where loved ones gathered around the kitchen table or on the roof on summer evenings amid the scent of roses and jasmine flowers. The Abu Jarad family lost that stability when Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. They did exactly as the Israelis ordered in the devastating weeks and months of war that followed. They obeyed evacuation calls. They moved where the military told them to move. Seven times they fled, and each time, their lives became more unrecognizable to them, crowding with strangers in a school classroom, searching for water in a vast tent camp or sleeping on the street. Israel’s campaign has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza—1.9 million of its 2.3 million Palestinians—and killed more than 41,600 people. Like the Abu Jarads, most families have been uprooted multiple times. For this family, the journey has taken them from a comfortable middle-class life to ruin.

[zerosecurity]

Crown Equipment Corporation a Major Forklift Manufacturer Hacked

Key Takeaways

- Crown Equipment Corporation, a major forklift manufacturer, faces a suspected cyberattack and global IT outage. - Production plants have been shut down, and employees report unpaid due to IT issues. - While the company remains tight-lipped, employees and online discussions suggest a potential ransomware attack. - The lack of official communication has fueled speculation and criticism of Crown's incident handling. - The situation highlights the importance of cybersecurity preparedness and transparent communication during data breaches or cyberattacks.According to reports, Crown Equipment Corporation, one of the world's largest manufacturers of forklift trucks and industrial equipment, has been the victim of a suspected cyberattack. The incident has resulted in a global IT outage, forcing the company to shut down production plants worldwide and leaving employees without access to critical systems. About Crown Equipment CorporationCrown Equipment Corporation, headquartered in New Bremen, Ohio, United States, is the fifth-largest manufacturer of forklift trucks, industrial trucks, and high-rack conveyors globally. The company has regional headquarters in Australia, China, Germany, and Singapore, with its European headquarters located in Feldkirchen near Munich, Germany. Crown also operates a production facility in Roding, Bavaria, Germany. Worldwide IT Systems Down and Production HaltedSince Monday, June 10, 2024, production at Crown's sites in Roding, Germany, has been at a standstill due to a reported IT system outage. The company's websites (crown.com) are inaccessible, with attempts to visit resulting in an error message stating "crown.com is temporarily unavailable." Additionally, the company's phone lines appear to be down, making it challenging to reach them. Suspicions of a Cyberattack and Ransomware InvolvementWhile Crown Equipment Corporation's management remains tight-lipped about the situation, reports from employees and online discussions suggest a potential cyberattack, possibly involving ransomware. Employees have taken to social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit to express their frustrations, claiming they have not been paid due to the IT issues One Twitter user, allegedly a Crown employee, stated, "thanks for letting your servers be hacked and not paying your employees. It's not like we have bills or anything. I thought I worked for a better company." Another tweet from a purported employee read, "Hey Jon, I work for Crown Equipment, a billion-dollar company with 19,000 plus employees. We were hit with a cyberattack and are currently not working. Now they tell us no pay! This after bragging about being an employee-first company, have to love corporate America." A Reddit thread was started to discuss the hack:https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1denozy/crown_lift_trucks_experiencing_phishing_hack/ Lack of Official Communication and SpeculationCrown Equipment Corporation has yet to release an official statement regarding the nature of the incident or the extent of the impact. This lack of communication has fueled speculation and rumors within the cybersecurity community and among employees. Reports indicate that the company has advised employees not to clear data from their tablets and has implemented additional security measures, such as reducing the timeout function for multi-factor authentication (MFA) and restricting access to Office 365 applications like email, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive to company devices only. Handling of the Incident CriticizedThe way Crown Equipment Corporation has handled this incident has drawn criticism from cybersecurity experts and observers. The lack of transparency and clear communication has left customers and employees in the dark, leading to widespread speculation and concerns about the potential data breach and its implications. Read the full article

[xtruss]

Foreign Policy Priorities: Kamala Devi Harris’s Positions

— By Council on Foreign Relations

AI and Technology

Harris has played a leading role in developing U.S. policy toward artificial intelligence (AI). The Biden-Harris administration has framed supporting the U.S. technology sector as a matter of national security, even as it has sought to confront large tech companies for alleged unfair market practices.

Harris led the formulation of an executive order requiring companies to share with the government risks they are facing and outlining a framework for the safe use of AI that federal agencies can follow.

She reportedly suggested that leading AI firms agree to voluntary safety commitments, including a pledge to submit their most powerful models for government review; fifteen of them did so in 2023. She also led efforts to develop rules surrounding military use of AI that have been agreed to by more than fifty countries.

The Biden-Harris administration passed the CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022, directing more than $280 billion in funding toward domestic production of advanced technologies and the hardware that underpins their development, such as semiconductors.

The same year, the administration published an “AI Bill of Rights” identifying five principles for the responsible deployment of the technology. Harris says U.S. policy toward AI should both stimulate innovation and protect against “profound harm.”

Harris represented the United States at the first international AI governance summit in London in 2023. The summit produced a joint declaration that seeks to ensure the technology is “human-centric, trustworthy, and responsible.” China has also signed the statement.

The Biden-Harris administration unveiled a new National Cybersecurity Strategy in 2023 that urges U.S. companies to take responsibility for ensuring that their systems cannot be hacked and suggests that they could be held legally liable for not protecting “digital infrastructure.” The strategy also called for expanding U.S. military authorization to preempt foreign cyberattacks.

The administration has asked Congress to create legislation strengthening antitrust enforcement that can be used against large technology firms. The Department of Justice has pursued antitrust cases against Apple, Amazon, Google, and other big tech firms.

The administration has cracked down on cryptocurrencies due to concerns over their utility in evading sanctions, laundering money, and financing terrorism. It has directed the Federal Reserve to explore developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Harris is reportedly seeking a “reset” with the crypto sector.

China

Harris says China is responsible for stealing intellectual property and distorting the global economy with unfairly subsidized exports. The Biden-Harris administration has argued that China’s growing influence and aggression in some areas are the leading national security threat to the United States.

Harris says she will ensure that “America, not China, wins the competition for the twenty-first century.” The Biden-Harris administration has placed stringent restrictions on exports of high-tech products to China that it deems critical to national security. It has pressed U.S. partners in the European Union and elsewhere to impose similar measures on Chinese tech.

She argues that the United States should “de-risk,” not decouple, from China, arguing that Washington lost the trade war that began under Trump. The administration has retained $360 billion worth of tariffs on China imposed by Trump and introduced a raft of its own.

These restrictions followed major legislation that subsidized domestic manufacturing of computer chips, electric vehicle parts, and other new technologies. Firms that produce such goods in China are not eligible for U.S. subsidies.

Harris says the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok poses national security concerns. In April 2024, Biden signed a bill that will ban TikTok from the United States if it is not sold by 2025; Harris has said a ban is not the administration’s intention.

In 2022, she said the United States would “continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense” in line with long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the island that China claims as its own.

Her campaign says she helped lead administration efforts to ensure freedom of navigation through the South China Sea and sought closer ties with American allies in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. In April 2024, Harris hosted the first-ever trilateral summit between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines.

Harris met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2022, urging him to “maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.” Under the Biden-Harris administration, the United States and China agreed to pursue policies aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity.

The Biden-Harris administration unveiled two programs aimed at building infrastructure in lower-income countries to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

As a senator, Harris cosponsored legislation calling on several U.S. agencies to investigate China’s crackdown on the Uyghur ethnic group and the autonomy of Hong Kong.

Climate Change

Harris describes the climate crisis as an “existential threat.” She has supported many of Biden’s climate policies, including his decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement, and cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate to pass the largest clean energy and climate investment bill in U.S. history.

Harris backed Biden’s decision to return the United States to the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which nearly two hundred countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise.

She cast the tiebreaking vote on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest investment in climate-related policies in U.S. history. The bill budgets roughly $370 billion for emissions-reduction efforts, including tax credits and subsidies for clean energy projects. The IRA builds on the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), a $1.2 trillion law to upgrade U.S. infrastructure and spur the adoption of electric vehicles, among other measures.

As part of the IIJA, the Biden-Harris administration created the Civil Nuclear Credit Program to invest $6 billion in existing nuclear energy facilities. In March 2024, the administration announced it will lend $1.5 billion to Michigan to restart a shuttered nuclear plant, the nation’s first such recommissioning.

Harris launched a new partnership between the United States and Caribbean countries that seeks to strengthen energy security, critical infrastructure, and local economies in the region.

At the 2023 UN climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Harris announced a $3 billion pledge from the United States to the UN Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest fund dedicated to helping developing countries address climate change.

The Biden-Harris administration created the American Climate Corps, a jobs program that aims to train tens of thousands of young people in high-demand skills for careers in climate action and clean energy. The program is modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps.

The Biden-Harris administration has approved a range of new fossil fuel projects, including an $8 billion oil drilling project in northern Alaska. However, it also announced restrictions on new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares) of an Alaskan federal petroleum reserve. Under the administration, oil and gas production has continued to grow to historic highs, with the United States becoming the world’s largest crude oil producer.

As a 2020 presidential candidate, Harris put forth a $10 trillion plan that called for net-zero emissions by 2045 and a carbon-neutral electricity sector by 2030. She also pledged to end federal support for the fossil fuel industry and called for a carbon tax and a ban on fracking. Her 2024 campaign said she will not ban fracking.

As a senator in 2019, Harris was an early co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, a nonbinding congressional resolution that aimed to help the United States transition to 100 percent clean energy within a decade, and said she would eliminate the Senate filibuster to pass the deal if needed.

Defense and North Atlantic Terrorist Organization (NATO)

Harris has positioned herself as a strong supporter of multilateral cooperation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She has emphasized the U.S. commitment to Ukraine and furthered U.S. space policy as chair of the White House National Space Council.

The Biden-Harris administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy [PDF] broadly maintained the Trump administration’s focus on great-power competition with China and Russia. Harris has pledged to ensure the United States “always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”

At the Munich Security Conference in 2024, Harris reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO, calling it the “greatest military alliance the world has ever known.” Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Biden-Harris administration supported NATO enlargement by pushing for approval of Finland’s and Sweden’s accession bids. (The countries joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively.)

The Biden-Harris administration also formulated an updated Indo-Pacific Strategy [PDF], which pledges to support “a free and open Indo-Pacific.” To that end, the United States has inked a new defense pact with Papua New Guinea and advanced an existing defense agreement with the Philippines. The Biden-Harris administration has also deepened security cooperation with Japan and South Korea, and it held the inaugural in-person summit of the so-called Quad—an alliance comprising the United States, Australia, India, and Japan—which aims to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

The administration announced a new trilateral pact with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS, that seeks to bolster the countries’ allied deterrence and defense capabilities against China, including by supplying Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

Harris has called for greater involvement with Africa, and in 2023, led a weeklong trip to the continent. In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration published a new Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa [PDF] that emphasizes democracy protection, economic development, and the clean energy transition; that same year, a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit produced commitments to increase U.S. military aid and training for African governments.

Harris chairs the White House’s National Space Council, which advises the president on space policy and strategy. In 2022, she announced the U.S. commitment to halt anti-satellite weapons tests, which create dangerous atmospheric debris. She has also overseen a large increase in the number of signatories to the Artemis Accords, a global agreement governing space-related activity.

In 2019, she told CFR that the war in Afghanistan “must come to an end.” The Biden-Harris administration withdrew all remaining U.S. troops from the country in August 2021 as part of an earlier deal struck by Trump.

She also told CFR that she would consider some sanctions relief to improve life for North Koreans in exchange for Pyongyang taking “serious, verifiable steps” to denuclearize.

As a senator, Harris voted against reauthorizing parts of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because it did not require warrants for the government to access U.S. citizens’ information.

Fiscal Policy and Debt

The Biden-Harris administration has focused on making public investments in infrastructure and green energy, expanding the middle class, and challenging monopolistic consolidation. To pay for a surge in spending, it has sought to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Harris supported legislation signed by Biden that authorized trillions of dollars in new public spending. In 2021, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the largest infrastructure spending bill in decades, authorized $1.2 trillion in spending toward U.S. roads, railways, airports, and other infrastructure. Additional subsidies for semiconductor and climate investments have surpassed $800 billion.

Nonpartisan watchdogs expect that the administration’s spending programs will increase the growing federal deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. The deficit is now $1.7 trillion, and the national debt has climbed past $30 trillion, or more than 100 percent of U.S. economic output.

She has backed Biden’s proposals to institute $5 trillion worth of tax increases. She supports raising the top income tax rate, taxing capital gains like income for Americans making more than $1 million, and implementing a wealth tax that would impose a 25 percent levy on individuals with more than $100 million worth of total assets, including unrealized gains. She also favors raising the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent.

Harris says that building the middle class will be a “defining goal” of her presidency. Her proposed policies include raising the minimum wage, eliminating taxes on tips, and creating a newborn child tax credit of up to $6,000 per year. The economic proposals in a fact sheet released by the Harris campaign would add $1.7 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, according to some estimates.

In 2018, she proposed legislation that called for reversing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Many of these cuts are set to expire in 2025; Biden has proposed maintaining cuts for Americans making less than $400,000, a plan Harris now supports.

In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration brokered a global agreement to tax corporations at a minimum of 15 percent, though it is yet to be implemented. A year later, the administration introduced a 15 percent corporate minimum tax on U.S. companies with annual income over $1 billion. Harris supports raising that rate to 21 percent.

The administration has made antitrust policy a priority, challenging alleged monopolies in the aviation, energy, and technology sectors. In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice recorded the most challenges to proposed mergers since the United States began requiring premerger reviews in 1976.

Global Health and Pandemic Prevention

Harris has prioritized national and international health-care issues. She has long been an outspoken supporter of reproductive rights, advocating for new legislation to restore abortion rights overturned by the Supreme Court. She has also played a role in the administration’s efforts to address the opioid epidemic.

The Biden-Harris administration pursued an aggressive COVID-19 vaccination policy that included free vaccine access and a nationwide vaccine mandate that would have affected most large employers. (The Supreme Court later struck down the mandate.) In 2021, the administration released a national pandemic strategy [PDF] that focused on quickly ramping up vaccine production, protecting essential workers, and expanding access to testing and treatment.

The administration issued an executive order retracting Trump’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization, to which the United States is one of the largest donors.

In 2023, Harris convened state attorneys general from across the country to discuss state and federal efforts to address the U.S. opioid epidemic. The Biden-Harris administration has declared synthetic opioid trafficking a national emergency; sanctioned firms and individuals in China, a critical node in the drug’s supply chain; and pushed China and Mexico to do more to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration unveiled a new national biodefense strategy [PDF] that aims to help the United States better prepare for large-scale biological or viral threats that could emerge in the future. The strategy led to the creation of the White House’s Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, tasked with coordinating, leading, and implementing pandemic preparedness efforts.

Harris has been a leading voice on reproductive rights. She criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision which recognized a constitutional right to abortion, and supports new legislation to enshrine Roe into federal law. In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration rescinded the so-called Mexico City policy blocking abortion-related programs from receiving U.S. foreign aid, saying that it undermined U.S. efforts to support women’s health.

As a senator, Harris cosponsored legislation that sought to ban states from imposing restrictions on abortion rights, and she voted against a bill that aimed to ban abortions after twenty weeks.

Immigration

Harris advocates for comprehensive immigration reform. She was tasked with leading the federal effort to address the root causes of migration from Central America, though her comments dissuading would-be migrants from traveling to the United States have created controversy.

Harris has promised to reform the “broken” immigration system, including by bringing back and signing into law the bipartisan border security bill that failed twice in Congress.

Biden tapped Harris to lead the administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Since 2021, Harris has helped secure some $5 billion in private sector investment to promote economic opportunities and curb violence in Central America.

During her first international trip to Guatemala and Mexico in 2021, she told would-be migrants thinking about making the dangerous trek to the southern U.S. border “do not come” given the likelihood they would be turned away by border authorities.

The Biden-Harris administration reinstated the Central American Minors program, which has allowed thousands of children from the Northern Triangle to gain refugee status or temporary legal residence before traveling to the southern U.S. border.

The Biden-Harris administration has sought to rebuild the U.S. refugee resettlement program after Trump made large cuts. In fiscal year 2023, the United States welcomed more than sixty thousand refugees, over double the previous year. The administration also created new parole programs that have welcomed tens of thousands of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to the United States.

The administration has sought to restore asylum access, including by ending daily limits on asylum applications and restoring protections to victims of domestic and gang violence. However, it unveiled a new policy in 2023 that allows the government to deny asylum to migrants who did not previously apply for it in a third country and to those who cross the border illegally. This approach includes new screening centers in several Latin American countries.

In 2024, the administration also issued an order temporarily blocking people who illegally cross the border from seeking asylum once the number of daily crossings exceeds a certain threshold—which it has for much of Biden’s presidency. A separate order also expanded green card access for certain undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens.

The administration has expanded and renewed temporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of eligible nationals of several countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Ukraine.

The Biden-Harris team has expanded the capacity of some guest worker visa programs in response to the increasing demand for temporary workers.

As a presidential candidate in 2019, she put forth an immigration plan that called for the creation of a path to citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, a program launched by former President Barack Obama that provides deportation relief and work permits to undocumented migrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

In 2020, she reintroduced the Access to Counsel Act, which would ensure that people held or detained while entering the United States have access to legal counsel. She originally introduced the bill—her first as a senator—in 2017. She also supported legislation that would have expedited the reunification of immigrant families.

Middle East

Harris backs Israel’s right to self-defense but has also been outspoken about the toll on Palestinian civilians amid the war between Israel and Hamas. She supports an immediate cease-fire and hostage release as well as a two-state solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Harris reiterated her support for Israel in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July 2024. She has welcomed U.S. military aid to Israel, which has topped $12 billion since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, and her campaign says she does not support an arms embargo on the country.

Harris called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in March 2024, one month before Biden did. She said she supports “Israel’s legitimate military objectives to eliminate the threat of Hamas” but decried the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. She has pressed Israeli leaders to do more to protect civilians and has pushed the Israeli government to allow more aid into Gaza.

She says a two-state solution is the best way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has called for a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority to govern a unified Gaza and West Bank. She also says Israel needs to hold “extremist settlers” in the West Bank accountable for violence against Palestinians. In February 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned four Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank.

In 2021, she affirmed U.S. support for the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization deals between Israel and Arab countries negotiated by the Trump administration.

Before Hamas attacked Israel, the Biden-Harris administration was seeking a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In exchange, Riyadh had asked for formalized U.S. security guarantees, cooperation on a civilian nuclear program, and Israeli concessions toward Palestinians.

As a senator, she supported a 2018 resolution calling on the president to end all military actions in Yemen and voted to block weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. The Biden-Harris administration froze certain offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 2021 before resuming them in August 2024 with a $750 million weapons sale.

She says she will take “whatever action is necessary” to defend U.S. troops against Iran and its proxies. After Iran-aligned forces killed three U.S. service members in Jordan in January 2024, U.S. military forces struck more than eighty-five Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria.

In 2019, she told CFR that she would rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal if Iran returned to compliance. The Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to rejoin the deal were hindered by Iran’s support of Hamas, the Houthis, and other groups antagonistic to the United States. After Iran-aligned forces killed three U.S. service members in Jordan in January 2024, U.S. military forces struck more than eighty-five Iran-linked targets in Iraq and Syria.

Russia–Ukraine

Harris says the United States will back Ukraine’s defensive efforts against Russia for “as long as it takes” to counter the threat that a Russian victory would pose to the rest of Europe. She has represented the United States at peace talks on Ukraine and encouraged Congress to give Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance.

Harris has condemned Russia’s invasion, saying the United States is “committed to helping Ukraine rebuild” and achieve “a just and lasting peace.” Since 2022, the United States has provided Ukraine with some $175 billion in assistance, including financial, humanitarian, and military support.

In June 2024, Harris represented the United States at a peace summit organized by Ukraine in Switzerland, where she sought to rally global support to pressure Russia to end its war. At the summit, she pledged close to $2 billion in additional aid for Ukraine.

Harris argues that a failure to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine would embolden other countries considering invasions. She has helped coordinate with Western allies to impose sweeping sanctions, export controls, and other penalties on Russian entities and individuals, including the Russian private military company Wagner Group. The measures have focused on isolating Russia from the global financial system, limiting its energy exports, and hampering its military capabilities.

She says Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. In 2019, she told CFR that Russia’s occupation of Crimea is a “severe violation of international norms.”

In 2018, Harris was among more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers who objected to Trump’s decision to withdraw from a 1987 treaty that required the United States and Russia to eliminate their stockpiles of midrange, ground-launched nuclear missiles.

Trade

Harris says trade is important for economic growth but argues that trade deals should shield American workers from unfair practices abroad. The Biden-Harris administration has applied new guardrails on trade aimed at promoting U.S. manufacturing, countering China’s economic rise, and addressing worsening climate change.

Before becoming vice president, Harris said she is “not a protectionist Democrat” and opposed widespread tariffs, which she has argued contribute to inflation. However, the Biden-Harris administration has maintained some $360 billion in tariffs on China that were implemented by Trump and introduced tens of billions of dollars in additional duties.

The Biden-Harris administration has argued that previous trade deals focused too much on boosting corporate profits while exposing U.S. workers to unfair competition. It has sought to strengthen investment in U.S. manufacturing and infrastructure to increase the country’s economic competitiveness.

As a senator, Harris opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama and from which Trump withdrew, arguing the deal would harm American workers and the climate. The Biden-Harris administration has instead sought to negotiate a successor deal that includes cooperation on supply chains but does not eliminate tariffs or increase access to the U.S. market.

She was one of ten senators to oppose the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was negotiated by Trump and supported by Biden. In 2019, she said that she would not sign a trade deal “unless it protected American workers and it protected our environment.”

The Biden-Harris Administration has mobilized the federal government to support strategic domestic industries, an effort known as industrial policy. Harris cast the tiebreaking vote in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which contained roughly $370 billion in federal grants, loans, and tax incentives for clean energy. To obtain access to IRA funding, companies must agree to limit operations in China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

In 2022, the administration passed the CHIPS and Science Act directing hundreds of billions of dollars toward U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. It has also imposed a slew of new restrictions aimed at curtailing Beijing’s access to advanced technologies and pushed U.S. allies, including major semiconductor suppliers Japan and the Netherlands, to implement similar restrictions.

Harris has said that she wants to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Biden-Harris administration has pushed for changes to the WTO’s dispute-settlement mechanism even as it has continued Trump’s and Obama’s practice of blocking nominees to its appeals court, saying that China is gaming the system.

[dertaglichedan]

The growth of space and cyber technologies worldwide is raising the likelihood that war — or at least its ripple effects — will crash onto America's doorstep.

Why it matters: Centuries of national security strategy, relying on protection provided by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, are being rattled by these weapons that conquer vast distances.

America has long had the edge in space and cyberspace, but China and other powers are closing the gap. A global surveillance showdown is underway.

Hackers tied to the People's Liberation Army abscond with countless files detailing stateside arsenals. That theft propels its modernization.

Other saboteurs stalk critical infrastructure, including in Guam, a key U.S. foothold. A digital onslaught there would sap military responses in the Indo-Pacific.

Russian hacks plague Ukraine, earning it a "testing ground" moniker. U.S. lawmakers expressed concern about spillover in the months following the 2022 invasion.

North Korean cyberattacks rake in money and other assets, funding the regime's weapons programs.

A record-setting 2,877 spacecraft were launched in 2023. While most were attributed to the U.S. and its booming commercial sector, Chinese and European numbers were on the rise.

Both China and Russia have made strides in developing space weapons that could knock out satellites essential to navigation, overhead imaging and long-distance communications. Destructive testing of anti-satellite weapons has produced dangerous debris, as well.

A senior Pentagon official earlier this year warned of Moscow's efforts to put a nuclear device into space.

"I would say China is well ahead of us there. They've got the full suite of counter-space capabilities, as does Russia," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "The United States has a lot at stake in space."

By the numbers: The Department of Defense's spending illuminates its thinking

[ausetkmt]

The Daily Hodl: Hackers Hit World’s Largest Bank, Forcing Financial Giant to Rely on USB Stick to Settle Trades: Report

Engineers are investigating how hackers managed to crack the New York arm of the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) – a financial institution with $5.74 trillion in total assets.

The hack forced the ICBC to settle trades using a USB stick while forcing banks, brokerages and market makers to reroute trades, reports Bloomberg.

The attack also disrupted the bank’s ability to participate in the Treasury’s bond auction on Thursday.

Investigators believe the ransomware gang Lockbit, which has ties to Russia, is behind the attack.

Without naming names, Bloomberg says banking leaders admit the hack highlights fears that a system-wide attack could one day bring the traditional financial system to a halt.

“The incident spotlights a danger that bank leaders concede keeps them up at night — the prospect of a cyberattack that could someday cripple a key piece of the financial system’s wiring, setting off a cascade of disruptions.”

The ICBC says it’s debating whether to ask for assistance from China’s Ministry of State Security.

The number of ransomware attacks on the financial industry has increased in recent years, according to a report from the cybersecurity firm Sophos.

“The 2023 survey revealed that the rate of ransomware attacks in financial services continues to rise. It went up from 55% in the 2022 report to 64% in this year’s study, which was almost double the 34% reported by the sector in the 2021 report. Although the sector experienced an increased attack rate, it was below the cross-sector average of 66%.”

Sophos says financial institutions are stepping up their efforts to stay secure.

The firm’s survey of 3,000 cybersecurity/IT leaders, including 336 in the financial services sector, found 81% of organizations say their data is encrypted, a 50% rise over the previous year.

[hearth-and-veil]

I know it "wasn't" a cyberattack that compromised the two largest internet service providers in the United States, removing AT&T service completely, and causing both AT&T and Verizon to run inconsistently for four days, just a few short days after a data breach revealed a lot of compromising information about China....

...but keep an eye on your credit monitoring anyway, ok? Because if we can't trust these companies to admit they were hacked, we can't trust them to tell us if anything was stolen.

[mariacallous]

If Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November, the guardrails could come off of artificial intelligence development, even as the dangers of defective AI models grow increasingly serious.

Trump’s election to a second term would dramatically reshape—and possibly cripple—efforts to protect Americans from the many dangers of poorly designed artificial intelligence, including misinformation, discrimination, and the poisoning of algorithms used in technology like autonomous vehicles.

The federal government has begun overseeing and advising AI companies under an executive order that President Joe Biden issued in October 2023. But Trump has vowed to repeal that order, with the Republican Party platform saying it “hinders AI innovation” and “imposes Radical Leftwing ideas” on AI development.

Trump’s promise has thrilled critics of the executive order who see it as illegal, dangerous, and an impediment to America’s digital arms race with China. Those critics include many of Trump’s closest allies, from X CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen to Republican members of Congress and nearly two dozen GOP state attorneys general. Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, is staunchly opposed to AI regulation.

“Republicans don't want to rush to overregulate this industry,” says Jacob Helberg, a tech executive and AI enthusiast who has been dubbed “Silicon Valley’s Trump whisperer.”

But tech and cyber experts warn that eliminating the EO’s safety and security provisions would undermine the trustworthiness of AI models that are increasingly creeping into all aspects of American life, from transportation and medicine to employment and surveillance.

The upcoming presidential election, in other words, could help determine whether AI becomes an unparalleled tool of productivity or an uncontrollable agent of chaos.

Oversight and Advice, Hand in Hand

Biden’s order addresses everything from using AI to improve veterans’ health care to setting safeguards for AI’s use in drug discovery. But most of the political controversy over the EO stems from two provisions in the section dealing with digital security risks and real-world safety impacts.

One provision requires owners of powerful AI models to report to the government about how they’re training the models and protecting them from tampering and theft, including by providing the results of “red-team tests” designed to find vulnerabilities in AI systems by simulating attacks. The other provision directs the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to produce guidance that helps companies develop AI models that are safe from cyberattacks and free of biases.

Work on these projects is well underway. The government has proposed quarterly reporting requirements for AI developers, and NIST has released AI guidance documents on risk management, secure software development, synthetic content watermarking, and preventing model abuse, in addition to launching multiple initiatives to promote model testing.

Supporters of these efforts say they’re essential to maintaining basic government oversight of the rapidly expanding AI industry and nudging developers toward better security. But to conservative critics, the reporting requirement is illegal government overreach that will crush AI innovation and expose developers’ trade secrets, while the NIST guidance is a liberal ploy to infect AI with far-left notions about disinformation and bias that amount to censorship of conservative speech.

At a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December, Trump took aim at Biden’s EO after alleging without evidence that the Biden administration had already used AI for nefarious purposes.

“When I’m reelected,” he said, “I will cancel Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order and ban the use of AI to censor the speech of American citizens on Day One.”

Due Diligence or Undue Burden?

Biden’s effort to collect information about how companies are developing, testing, and protecting their AI models sparked an uproar on Capitol Hill almost as soon as it debuted.

Congressional Republicans seized on the fact that Biden justified the new requirement by invoking the 1950 Defense Production Act, a wartime measure that lets the government direct private-sector activities to ensure a reliable supply of goods and services. GOP lawmakers called Biden’s move inappropriate, illegal, and unnecessary.

Conservatives have also blasted the reporting requirement as a burden on the private sector. The provision “could scare away would-be innovators and impede more ChatGPT-type breakthroughs,” Representative Nancy Mace said during a March hearing she chaired on “White House overreach on AI.”

Helberg says a burdensome requirement would benefit established companies and hurt startups. He also says Silicon Valley critics fear the requirements “are a stepping stone” to a licensing regime in which developers must receive government permission to test models.

Steve DelBianco, the CEO of the conservative tech group NetChoice, says the requirement to report red-team test results amounts to de facto censorship, given that the government will be looking for problems like bias and disinformation. “I am completely worried about a left-of-center administration … whose red-teaming tests will cause AI to constrain what it generates for fear of triggering these concerns,” he says.

Conservatives argue that any regulation that stifles AI innovation will cost the US dearly in the technology competition with China.

“They are so aggressive, and they have made dominating AI a core North Star of their strategy for how to fight and win wars,” Helberg says. “The gap between our capabilities and the Chinese keeps shrinking with every passing year.”

“Woke” Safety Standards

By including social harms in its AI security guidelines, NIST has outraged conservatives and set off another front in the culture war over content moderation and free speech.

Republicans decry the NIST guidance as a form of backdoor government censorship. Senator Ted Cruz recently slammed what he called NIST’s “woke AI ‘safety’ standards” for being part of a Biden administration “plan to control speech” based on “amorphous” social harms. NetChoice has warned NIST that it is exceeding its authority with quasi-regulatory guidelines that upset “the appropriate balance between transparency and free speech.”

Many conservatives flatly dismiss the idea that AI can perpetuate social harms and should be designed not to do so.

“This is a solution in search of a problem that really doesn't exist,” Helberg says. “There really hasn’t been massive evidence of issues in AI discrimination.”

Studies and investigations have repeatedly shown that AI models contain biases that perpetuate discrimination, including in hiring, policing, and health care. Research suggests that people who encounter these biases may unconsciously adopt them.

Conservatives worry more about AI companies’ overcorrections to this problem than about the problem itself. “There is a direct inverse correlation between the degree of wokeness in an AI and the AI's usefulness,” Helberg says, citing an early issue with Google’s generative AI platform.

Republicans want NIST to focus on AI’s physical safety risks, including its ability to help terrorists build bioweapons (something Biden’s EO does address). If Trump wins, his appointees will likely deemphasize government research on AI’s social harms. Helberg complains that the “enormous amount” of research on AI bias has dwarfed studies of “greater threats related to terrorism and biowarfare.”

Defending a “Light-Touch Approach”

AI experts and lawmakers offer robust defenses of Biden’s AI safety agenda.

These projects “enable the United States to remain on the cutting edge” of AI development “while protecting Americans from potential harms,” says Representative Ted Lieu, the Democratic cochair of the House’s AI task force.

The reporting requirements are essential for alerting the government to potentially dangerous new capabilities in increasingly powerful AI models, says a US government official who works on AI issues. The official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, points to OpenAI’s admission about its latest model’s “inconsistent refusal of requests to synthesize nerve agents.”

The official says the reporting requirement isn’t overly burdensome. They argue that, unlike AI regulations in the European Union and China, Biden’s EO reflects “a very broad, light-touch approach that continues to foster innovation.”

Nick Reese, who served as the Department of Homeland Security’s first director of emerging technology from 2019 to 2023, rejects conservative claims that the reporting requirement will jeopardize companies’ intellectual property. And he says it could actually benefit startups by encouraging them to develop “more computationally efficient,” less data-heavy AI models that fall under the reporting threshold.

AI’s power makes government oversight imperative, says Ami Fields-Meyer, who helped draft Biden’s EO as a White House tech official.

“We’re talking about companies that say they’re building the most powerful systems in the history of the world,” Fields-Meyer says. “The government’s first obligation is to protect people. ‘Trust me, we’ve got this’ is not an especially compelling argument.”

Experts praise NIST’s security guidance as a vital resource for building protections into new technology. They note that flawed AI models can produce serious social harms, including rental and lending discrimination and improper loss of government benefits.

Trump’s own first-term AI order required federal AI systems to respect civil rights, something that will require research into social harms.

The AI industry has largely welcomed Biden’s safety agenda. “What we're hearing is that it’s broadly useful to have this stuff spelled out,” the US official says. For new companies with small teams, “it expands the capacity of their folks to address these concerns.”

Rolling back Biden’s EO would send an alarming signal that “the US government is going to take a hands off approach to AI safety,” says Michael Daniel, a former presidential cyber adviser who now leads the Cyber Threat Alliance, an information sharing nonprofit.

As for competition with China, the EO’s defenders say safety rules will actually help America prevail by ensuring that US AI models work better than their Chinese rivals and are protected from Beijing’s economic espionage.

Two Very Different Paths

If Trump wins the White House next month, expect a sea change in how the government approaches AI safety.

Republicans want to prevent AI harms by applying “existing tort and statutory laws” as opposed to enacting broad new restrictions on the technology, Helberg says, and they favor “much greater focus on maximizing the opportunity afforded by AI, rather than overly focusing on risk mitigation.” That would likely spell doom for the reporting requirement and possibly some of the NIST guidance.

The reporting requirement could also face legal challenges now that the Supreme Court has weakened the deference that courts used to give agencies in evaluating their regulations.

And GOP pushback could even jeopardize NIST’s voluntary AI testing partnerships with leading companies. “What happens to those commitments in a new administration?” the US official asks.

This polarization around AI has frustrated technologists who worry that Trump will undermine the quest for safer models.

“Alongside the promises of AI are perils,” says Nicol Turner Lee, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, “and it is vital that the next president continue to ensure the safety and security of these systems.”

[newslynet]

US Navy Sailor Receives 27-Month Jail Sentence for Sharing Military Data with China

Sentencing of U.S. Navy Sailor Involved in Sharing Classified Information

A U.S. Navy sailor has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for accepting bribes amounting to nearly $15,000 from a Chinese intelligence officer. This exchange involved providing photos containing unclassified yet sensitive U.S. military data. Conviction Details Petty Officer Wenheng "Thomas" Zhao, aged 26, entered a guilty plea last October on charges of conspiracy and receiving a bribe. Despite facing a maximum prison term of 20 years, Zhao was sentenced to 27 months in jail and fined $5,500, as revealed by the U.S. Justice Department. Zhao, stationed at Naval Base Ventura County in California, confessed to transmitting plans of U.S. military exercises in the Indo-Pacific area, operational directives, and detailed diagrams and blueprints of a radar system situated on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan. Authorities' Statements Larissa Knapp, the Executive Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Security Branch, expressed disdain for Zhao's actions, stating, "Zhao chose to betray the oath he took to our country and put others at risk." Knapp highlighted the significance of the sentencing, emphasizing China's intelligence services' failure to prevent the FBI and allied entities from identifying and prosecuting individuals recruited as spies by China. Tensions Between Nations The United States has repeatedly accused China of engaging in extensive espionage activities and cyberattacks. Beijing, however, consistently refutes these allegations, creating a backdrop of escalating tensions between the two countries on matters of national security and international espionage. Read the full article