News of the Cyber World

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Elon Musk, Joe Rogan mock MSNBC’s op-ed
linking home workouts to far right’s rise

MSNBC is going viral for warning about “the far right’s obsession with fitness” — with Elon Musk and Joe Rogan among those mocking the left-wing network’s comparison of the health craze to the Nazis.

MSNBC’s tweet Monday re-shared a year-old op-ed by extremism expert Cynthia Miller-Idriss claiming that the “far right has taken advantage of pandemic at-home fitness trends.”

In it, she even compared some fitness influencers to how Adolf Hitler “fixated on boxing and jujitsu” to garner followers.

MSNBC’s tweet soon got more than 34 million views — and a flurry of mockery.

“Being healthy is ‘far right.’ Holy f–k,” tweeted podcaster and UFC commentator Joe Rogan, a self-styled liberal and lifetime fitness fanatic.

Twitter boss Musk — who recently started training martial arts again to take on Facebook rival Mark Zuckerberg — replied to Rogan’s message by saying that “parody & reality are becoming indistinguishable.”

‘Dangerous Rhetoric’: Hunter Biden Lawyers Tell
Trump Cease and Desist Social Media Attacks

Hunter Biden’s lawyers have issued a cease and desist to Donald Trump’s legal team, demanding he not post about Mr. Biden anymore for fear of “physical and violent action” on the part of Mr. Trump’s followers against Mr. Biden or his family.
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Mr. Lowell wrote that Mr. Trump’s followers are “easy-to-trigger” and citing Jan. 6, 2021, events and their “tragic, even fatal, consequences” as a reason why something that would normally be a figure of speech cannot be considered so in Mr. Trump’s case.
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He compared Mr. Biden’s situation with that of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was attacked in his home last October. Federal officials alleged the attacker, David DePape, was a Canadian citizen who was in the country illegally after overstaying his visa and said he wanted to kidnap the Speaker.

“Mr. Biden was also on that attacker’s hit list,” Mr. Lowell wrote. “This is not a false alarm.”

He did not link the attacker to Mr. Trump’s social media activity, but referenced another case where Taylor Taranto was arrested in the vicinity of former President Barack Obama’s residence after reposting a post of Mr. Trump’s, which contained what he claimed was Mr. Obama’s address.
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Mr. Lowell cited multiple times when Mr. Trump posted about or reposted and commented on news events that involved the Biden family.

On June 22, two days after Mr. Biden pleaded guilty to federal crimes, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled the testimonies of two whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who had been part of the investigation into Mr. Biden’s taxes.

The investigators had validated text messages Mr. Biden sent to a Chinese business partner demanding payment and threatening to use his father’s power and influence in retaliation.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” the younger Biden wrote, according to Shapley’s testimony.

“Now means tonight,” Biden said, warning that if anyone other than Zhao, “Zhang, or the chairman” tried to reach out about the matter, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads App Sees Exodus of Users

“The Threads launch really did ‘break the internet,’ or at least the Sensor Tower models,” Anthony Bartolacci, the managing director at Sensor Tower, a marketing intelligence firm, told CNBC.

Bartolacci added that “in the 10-plus years Sensor Tower has been estimating app installs, the first 72 hours of Threads was truly in a class by itself.”

In a statement, Mr. Zuckerberg said on July 10 that Threads was able to obtain about 100 million users in about a week. “That’s mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet,” the Facebook founder said in a Threads post.

At the same time, Matthew Prince, CEO of internet infrastructure firm Cloudflare, shared a graph showing a similar trajectory in a tweet on July 10 and claimed Twitter’s traffic was “tanking.” But Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote Monday that the platform last week had its “largest usage day” since February. “There’s only ONE Twitter,” she tweeted.
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For example, according to Sensor Tower, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Threads’ number of daily active users was down 20 percent from Saturday. More seriously, the time spent by a user was down 50 percent, from 20 minutes to 10 minutes in that same time period, the company told CNBC.

“These early returns signal that despite the hoopla during its launch, it will still be an uphill climb for Threads to carve out space in most users’ social network routine,” Mr. Bartolacci said. “The backing of Meta and the integration with Instagram likely gives Threads a much higher flood than other services, but it will need a more compelling value proposition than simply ‘Twitter, but without Elon Musk.’”

New data from SimilarWeb, another analytics firm that measures web traffic, also showed a decline of more than 25 percent in daily active users between July 7, when it peaked, and Monday, July 10. That accounted for Threads users on Android phones worldwide, the company told CNBC, adding that it has not produced data for iOS devices.

Court Blocks Ruling That Barred Biden Admin
From Demanding Social Media Censorship

A federal appeals court has handed the Biden administration a temporary victory by agreeing to put a temporary hold on an earlier district court’s ruling that prohibited a range of federal agencies and their staff from contacting social media companies with requests to censor constitutionally protected free speech.

On Friday, a three-judge panel for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans issued a decision granting the Biden administration’s request to put the censorship-by-proxy ban on hold.

The “temporary administrative stay” will be in place until the case is referred to a different appeals panel, which will deliberate on the merits of a ruling that barred Biden administration officials from pressuring social media companies to censor free speech.
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Friday’s decision is the latest chapter in a saga that was sparked by a censorship-by-proxy lawsuit brought by Louisiana and Missouri against Biden administration agencies and top officials after evidence emerged that various federal agencies and some of their senior staff pressured social media companies to censor Americans’ free speech.

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FTC Appeals Again the Microsoft-Activision Merger

The FTC on Thursday night asked (pdf) the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from California and other states in the U.S. West, to issue a preliminary injunction that pauses the deal while the agency prepares to challenge it at a trial in August.

U.S. judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled on Tuesday that Microsoft can proceed with its planned acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion after the European Union (EU) approved the deal between the two gaming companies.

The FTC’s bid must clear some critical hurdles to succeed, legal experts said.

A U.S. federal appeals court will have a number of options available to it as it weighs that appeal, but legal professionals noted the rushed timing and the need to prove any alleged error by the district court judge merits overturning her decision could hinder the antitrust enforcer’s effort.

In its appeal, the FTC said Judge Corley’s order allowing Microsoft to move ahead with the deal incorrectly held the agency to a legal standard that was too high.
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Judge Corley’s temporary order prohibiting the deal expires at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, and so the appeals court will be expected to issue an order on Friday. Microsoft and Activision are set to close the deal on July 18.

The appeals court could “administratively” block the deal for at least a few days, allowing a panel of judges more time to study the dispute and to rule, several legal experts said.

The court alternatively could grant the FTC’s request for an injunction—which could create a much longer pause—or outright deny it.

Kathleen Bradish, who oversees legal advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute, said the FTC “certainly has valid grounds” to question the trial judge’s order.

Elon Musk’s X Corp Sues 4 Entities He Says Are Scraping Twitter Data

Elon Musk’s X Corp., the California-based company that owns and operates Twitter, has filed a lawsuit against four entities in Texas. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of data scraping from the social media site and causing issues for the platform’s users.

The lawsuit was filed in a Dallas County District Court on July 6 and is seeking more than $1 million in damages (pdf). The filing comes just days after the social media company’s recent policy change placing limits on the number of tweets a user can view each day.

“Several entities tried to scrape every tweet ever made in a short period of time. That is why we had to put rate limits in place,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter on Thursday, July 13, in a reply to T(w)itter Daily News about the lawsuit.
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X Corp claims that the defendants unlawfully collected data on Texas residents and impaired the experience of Twitter users.

“The volume of these requests far exceeded what any single individual could send to a server in a given period and clearly indicated that these automated requests were aimed at scraping data from Twitter,” according to the complaint. “These requests have severely taxed X Corp.’s servers and impaired the user experience for millions of X Corp.’s customers.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the companies scraping the data are able to repackage and profit from the information they collected unbeknownst to the Twitter user.
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They are identified by the aliases: John Doe 1, John Doe 2, John Doe 3, and John Doe 4; and described as “persons or entities” associated with specified IP addresses.

“To avoid detection, data scrapers deploy software and other technology to mask their identities and penetrate networks that would otherwise be private,” the document reads.

The software used by data scrapers sends a massive number of requests, making them difficult to detect while causing the platform to become less stable.

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Tesla Model Y Burst into Flames While Parked on London Street

A Tesla Model Y, valued at almost $60,000, spontaneously burst into flames on a residential street in Ilford, North London, sparking concerns about the safety of Elon Musk’s electric vehicles.

The Daily Mail reports that on Sunday morning, a Tesla Model Y was seen engulfed in flames and emitting black smoke. The electric vehicle, parked on the side of the street in Perth Road, Ilford, North London, appeared to have burst into flames without any apparent cause.

Electric car batteries use lithium-ion technology, which is potentially dangerous and fires in electric vehicles are already more frequent than for petrol and diesel vehicles
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Eugenio Mereu, a local resident and owner of a similar Tesla model, witnessed the incident. Mereu said that the fire was so strong his family could hear it crackling from their house.
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The local police and three fire engines attended the scene.

The London resident described the car as a Tesla Model Y, which reportedly has a starting price of around $60,000 in the UK.

This is not an isolated incident. Earlier in May this year, another Tesla dramatically erupted in flames on a California highway. The driver reported that the vehicle began to “shake” before smoke started billowing out from under the car.

China’s ‘Private’ Companies Expand Use of Communist Party Censorship A.I.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday that a growing number of “private” Chinese companies are interested in buying censorship artificial intelligence (AI) from the state-run People’s Daily.

One of the main reasons for this interest is that even the smallest deviation from the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian speech codes can mean huge fines for a corporation. A fully-trained A.I. commissar that can scan thousands of images, social media posts, and web pages for forbidden content — even something as minor as “the unintended inclusion of a disgraced official in a picture” — that might get a company fined or shut down could save the companies major fines or worse.

“To make matters worse, perceived offenders can be boycotted by angry internet users. The online community is also policed by nationalistic voices and even business competitors looking for the chance to torpedo a rival,” the SCMP noted.

The People’s Daily is leasing a “content moderation” system called Renmin Shenjiao that was launched last July. The name of the system translates to “People’s Proofreading.” It ostensibly uses a combination of A.I. algorithms and human censors to spot politically troublesome content in “written materials, photos, videos, and posts on social media platforms, including WeChat and Weibo.”

Since the People’s Daily is the chief media organ of the Chinese Communist Party, customers can rest assured Renmin Shenjiao has been updated with the latest speech codes, propaganda requirements, and lists of disfavored officials who are not supposed to be mentioned anymore. Renmin Shenjiao staff “may have knowledge of new taboos that were otherwise not known to the public,” according to one insider.

The service costs between $6,400 and $13,700 per year, depending on the volume of material produced by the customer. Clients proceed to upload all of their photos and writing to a website where the AI and human censors can screen it for “material related to ideology, religion, purged government officials, Chinese dissidents, and maps related to disputed border areas.”

Jim Jordan Extends Social Media Investigation to Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads

Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-OH) has reportedly asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hand over documents about content moderation on his new platform Threads as part of the House Judiciary’s ongoing investigation of tech platforms’ policies and contact with the Biden administration.
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While Facebook (now known as Meta) executives claim Threads isn’t supposed to be about politics, the platform nonetheless looks very similar to Twitter, a place where users are known to go to take part in political conversations.

“Indeed, Threads raises serious, specific concerns because it has been marketed as rival of Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has faced political persecution from the Biden Administration following Musk’s commitment to free speech,” Jordan wrote in his letter.

The congressman also pointed out a Wall Street Journal piece reporting that the Federal Trade Commission had asked Twitter to hand over internal communications about Musk and identify journalists who were allowed to access the company’s records.

This inquiry was part of a probe to into whether Twitter was competent enough to still protect user information.

“In contrast, there are reports that Threads will enforce ‘Instagram’s community guidelines,’ which resulted in lawful speech being moderated following pressure by the government,” Rep. Jordan added, pointing to a recent lawsuit against the Biden administration filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.

‘Extraordinarily Sensitive’ Personal Data
Handed Over to Meta by Tax-Preparation Firms

Three tax-preparation companies have shared sensitive personal information of millions of taxpayers with Meta and other Big Tech companies like Google, according to a new report by congressional Democrats.

The tax-prep companies—TaxAct, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer—are said to have “shared millions of taxpayers’ data with Meta, Google, and other Big Tech firms” using computer code known as pixels, according to the July 12 report (pdf). Pixels, used across the internet, is a piece of code on websites that is used to gather information about visitors that helps in understanding their interests and behaviors.

“Tax-prep companies shared extraordinarily sensitive personal and financial information with Meta,” the report said. Collected data include names, tax information, and details of dependents among others.

Though the tax firms and Big Tech claimed that the shared data were anonymous, the report pointed out that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and experts have suggested the data could be used to identify individuals.

During the investigation, Meta admitted that it used the collected data to target ads to taxpayers as well as train the company’s AI algorithms.
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“The Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice should fully investigate this matter and prosecute any company or individuals who violated the law,” the report said. The lawmakers sent a letter to these agencies demanding an investigation.

The data of users were collected via Meta Pixel and Google Analytics. TaxAct’s Meta Pixel deployment collected information including taxpayer’s full names, email, country, state, city, zip codes, phone numbers, gender, date of birth, filing status, approximate adjusted gross income, approximate refund amount, names of dependents, buttons clicked online, and web browser used.

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Director James Cameron Says He Warned
of the Dangers of AI in ‘Terminator’ Movie

Director James Cameron claims he tried to warn people about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI) in his 1984 movie “The Terminator” but that his concerns fell on deaf ears.
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The Oscar-winning director said he had attempted to raise his concerns about AI nearly 40 years ago when “The Terminator,” which he co-wrote and directed, hit screens.
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Mr. Cameron also said he believes it is also important to ensure that the individuals and companies working on advanced AI technology are doing so for the right reasons, otherwise, there could be deadly consequences.

“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” he said. “I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don’t build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it’ll escalate.”
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Mr. Cameron’s comments echo those of multiple experts including businessman and Twitter owner Elon Musk, who recently told U.S. lawmakers that regulations are needed for AI to prevent companies from taking “dangerous” shortcuts that could negatively impact humanity when rolling out advanced technology.

Speaking to Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) on July 12 shortly after unveiling his new AI company, xAI, Mr. Musk said he believes a “digital superintelligence” could exist within the next 5–6 years, although he stressed that it would not necessarily be “smarter than the sum of all humans.”
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According to a 2017 plan released by Beijing titled “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” China has ambitious goals when it comes to developing advanced technology, including achieving “major breakthroughs in basic theories for AI, such that some technologies and applications achieve a world-leading level and AI becomes the main driving force for China’s industrial upgrading and economic transformation” by 2025.

“The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) will profoundly change human society and life and change the world,” the 2017 plan states.

Ms. Khanna and Mr. Gallagher echoed comments made by other Republican lawmakers that the CCP may be looking to use its increasingly advanced technology to “perfect a technical totalitarian surveillance state” and for other negative reasons.

However, Mr. Musk, who recently visited China in May, told lawmakers that he believes China is “on team humanity,” when it comes to artificial intelligence, telling the lawmakers that he had spoken with senior Chinese officials during his trip and they had expressed an interest in working on a cooperative international regulatory framework for AI.

After reading the last paragraph, a  frog and a scorpion came to my mind. I wonder why.

Twitter Has ‘Negative Cash Flow’ and ‘Heavy Debt,’ Musk Reveals

Twitter is dealing with a “heavy debt load” after losing about 50 percent of its advertising revenue, and that has resulted in the app having a “negative cash flow,” Elon Musk, the company’s owner, wrote on July 14.

“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50 percent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter over the weekend.
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Ms. Yaccarino, who started working at Twitter in early June, has told investors that Twitter plans to focus on video, creator, and commerce partnerships and is in early talks with political and entertainment figures, payments services, and news and media publishers. Twitter stated on July 13 that select content creators will be eligible to receive a part of the ad revenue the company earns, in an attempt to draw more content creators to the site.

Mr. Musk wrote on July 16 in another post that his social media company didn’t see the increase in advertising revenue that was anticipated in June, writing that “July is a bit more promising.” Internal service Twitter Spaces also hasn’t generated revenue yet and is only costing the company money, he said.
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Earlier this month, he found himself competing with Meta Platforms’ Threads, an app that appears similar to Twitter, and had more than 100 million users sign up in the first several weeks. But recent analytics data suggest that engagement has dropped, while a number of users have left the platform altogether.

“The Threads launch really did ‘break the internet,’ or at least the Sensor Tower models,” Anthony Bartolacci, managing director at marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower, told CNBC last month.

But the company stated that the number of daily active users was down by 20 percent last week from July 8, noting that the time spent per user was down by 50 percent, to 10 minutes from 20 minutes in that same time period.

Tech Company Says Cars Collect 25 Gigabits of Data per Hour
Making Them Targets for Hacking

Cars today are like smartphones that have numerous apps connected to the internet which collect and share large amounts of data. Most owners do not know the amount of personal data that their vehicle collects and transmits, who collects it, for what purpose, and how it is used.

According to Privacy4Cars, a tech firm that aims to resolve privacy issues in the automotive ecosystem, a single modern car can have 60 onboard computers that run about 100 million lines of code and collect 25 gigabits of data per hour.

Andrea Amico, the founder and CEO of Privacy4Cars, told the New York Post there are two main sources of vehicle data. The first is the onboard sensors in the vehicles that collect data from the voice, fingerprints, retina, and iris, among others.

The second source involves various devices that are connected to the car like USBs and smartphones. When connecting such devices to cars, a host of data including text messages, social media posts, and photos can be downloaded.

Among the many pieces of information that are routinely left in car memory are phone books, call logs, passwords, biometrics, text messages, navigation history, home address, third-party apps, vehicle credentials, garage door codes, medical information, and financial details.

A growing number of companies are seeking to gain access to car data. Car manufacturers collect data that are used for maintenance and road assistance. Navigation and in-vehicle infotainment companies have access to data related to driving, music, and third-party applications.
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The Markup identified 37 such companies that are part of the vehicle data ecosystem.

These include entertainment and navigation services like SiriusXM, Telenav, OnStar, TomTom, and Xevo; insurance companies like Allstate, Geico, Arity, and Farmer’s; telecom corporations like AT&T and T-Mobile; vehicle data hubs like CCC X, High Mobility, and Inrix; and telematics providers like Ericsson, Cambridge Mobile, Munic, Samsara, and Geotab.

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Twitter Seeks to Subpoena Sen. Warren
After She Called SEC to Investigate Elon Musk, Tesla

Twitter filed a request to subpoena communications between Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), escalating a legal battle surrounding the social media company’s human resource practices after Elon Musk bought out the company.

Twitter’s subpoena request comes as a response to a letter Ms. Warren sent to the SEC on Monday, July 17, asking it to investigate another business entity owned by Mr. Musk, the Tesla electric car company. Ms. Warren wrote that Mr. Musk’s control over Twitter and Tesla “raised concerns about conflicts of interest, misappropriation of corporate assets, and other negative impacts to Tesla shareholders.”

“Despite recent and repeated calls from investors to address these actions, the [Tesla Board of Directors] appears to have failed to uphold its legal duty to ensure that Mr. Musk act in the best interest of Tesla,” Ms. Warren’s letter to the SEC continues. “The Board also does not appear to have adequately disclosed concerns about these issues to investors, undermining shareholders’ ability to make informed voting and investing decisions and to hold their fiduciaries accountable.”

On Thursday, Twitter’s legal representatives filed a request before the federal court for California’s Northern District, asking for copies of all communications between the Democrat senator and the two regulatory agencies after Mr. Musk bought out Twitter on Oct. 27, 2022. The subpoena notice seeks all documents relating to Ms. Warren’s July 17 letter to the SEC, including draft versions of the SEC letter and further communications between the senator and the FTC.

It’s not clear exactly what Twitter expects to find among Ms. Warren’s communications with the SEC and FTC. The documents could provide context as to the Democrat’s efforts to bring investigations against Mr. Musk’s businesses after he took over one of the most widely used social media platforms.

US Appeals Court to Reconsider Decision
on Elon Musk’s Tweet About Unions

A federal appeals court on Friday said it will reconsider its recent decision that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk violated federal labor law by posting on Twitter that employees would lose stock options if they joined a union.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans granted Tesla’s request to revisit the case “en banc,” meaning that its 16 active judges will take part.

A three-judge panel of the same court had in March upheld a National Labor Relations Board ruling that Mr. Musk’s May 20, 2018 tweet was an unlawful threat that could discourage unionization at his electric car company, and must be deleted.

Mr. Musk issued the tweet as the United Auto Workers sought to organize employees at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California.

“Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so [tomorrow] if they wanted,” he wrote. “But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”

The appeals court panel found “substantial evidence” that the tweet was “an implied threat to end stock options as retaliation for unionization.”

In seeking reconsideration, Tesla cited free speech concerns, and said the NLRB ignored that no employees claimed that Mr. Musk was threatening them, that Mr. Musk did not intend to threaten anyone, and that Mr. Musk later clarified his tweet was not a threat.

Vulnerabilities in Solar Panels Could Be Exposed
by Chinese Hackers: Australian Senator

The rush to net zero could leave gaping holes for Chinese-backed hackers to disrupt Australia’s energy grid, warns Senator James Paterson.

Solar power is a key pillar in the march towards reducing emissions with Australia estimated to need 2.7 billion solar panels to reach net zero by 2050, according to estimates from the University of Queensland and Circular PV Alliance (pdf).

An intrinsic part of using solar power is the installation of “smart inverters,” which connect panels to the electricity grid that can be controlled remotely over the internet.

Currently, 60 percent of Australia’s smart inverters are supplied by Chinese manufacturers Sungrow, Goodwe, and Huawei, which was banned from supplying 5G equipment to the country’s future telecommunications network.

All three firms are also subject to Beijing’s National Intelligence Laws, which require all Chinese companies to “support, assist, and cooperate” with the espionage and intelligence-gathering efforts of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Senator Paterson says the smart inverters supplied by Beijing contain “exploitable flaws which are vulnerable to cyber-attacks.”
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Similar concerns have also been raised about the United States’ energy grid, with U.S. utility companies importing 171 million inverters from China between 2002 to 2021.

While software can often be blocked and patched, hardware vulnerabilities are more difficult to deal with.

Chinese-built components can often have “back doors” built into the computer chips that can then be exploited by CCP-backed hackers.

Under the Trump presidency, the import of Chinese equipment for use in the country’s power grid was banned, however, this executive order was rescinded almost immediately under the Biden administration.

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Tesla Bursts into Flames on North Carolina Highway

A Tesla electric vehicle burst into flames after striking a piece of metal debris on the highway near Wilmington, North Carolina. The driver, Craig Lippe, was able to safely exit the vehicle and no injuries were reported.
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The driver, Craig Lippe, was returning home from work when the incident occurred. “A truck driver next to me opened up his window and was pointing frantically. So I pulled off into the breakdown lane. And when I got out you can see flames from underneath the car in the front,” Lippe recounted.
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Firefighters arrived promptly at the scene, but the nature of the electric vehicle fires present unique challenges. Unlike traditional vehicles that burn combustible materials, supposedly eco-friendly electric vehicles can expel immense energy from their batteries when they are damaged, leading to a much larger fire.

Raymond Griswold, the deputy fire marshal at New Hanover County Fire Rescue, explained the complexities of such situations. “You’re not burning combustibles like you are with normal cars,” Griswold said. He further noted that fire departments are still learning how to effectively deal with electric vehicle fires. “There are some learning curves that we are working on to figure out how to put these things out,” Griswold added.

Despite the dramatic incident, Lippe remains a staunch supporter of electric vehicles. He expressed his continued faith in Tesla, stating, “I still love the Tesla and probably going to order another one.”

Hackers Fraudulent Job offers to target University Students

Campaigns of Fraudulent Job offers target university students in North America, asking victims to pay a fee in exchange for work.

The campaigns began as early as March 2023 and continued through June 2023; the threat actors were purported to be related to bioscience and health entities.
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The main goal of this campaign is to extract money from the victims who fall into the trap of this scam.

The threat actors mostly target students of the university since the job easily attracts offers with a fascinating salary.

They sent an email containing an attachment of a job offer that explains the summary of the job role and responsibilities, similar to a legit offer.

In order to look legit, they create fake domains with appending “careers” in the company’s domain name.

Initially, the threat actor sent an email with the subject line of re: interview, interview invite, and an invitation to interview (FRND), offering an interview call with the attachment of the offer letter.

The spoofed PDFs contained the same text content overall, with some details changed, including the brand logo, company name, website, and location.

IT Security Analyst Jailed for Impersonating as a Hacker in Own Company

A 28 years old Former IT security analyst of an Oxford-based company has been sentenced to three years for deceiving the company to extort money.

On 27 February 2018, the man impersonated a ransomware group that targeted the company at the time and exploited this opportunity for his benefit.
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During the primary attack, Ashley worked on the incident response team and traced that the attacker demanded ransom payment through email.

Taking advantage of this, he commenced a secondary attack on his company and accessed the emails of senior members over 300 times.

He modified the original email from the attacker by adding his payment details and sender email address and sent that email to his company to demand ransom.

However, the company refused to pay the ransom and discovered an unauthorized access attempt to the private emails.

In the event of an investigation, it was identified that the access had originated from Liles’s home address.

GitHub Warns that Lazarus Hacker Group Targeting Developers User Account

A North Korea based threat actor targeting personal accounts of technology firms through low-profile social engineering attempts.

This campaign utilizes a combination of repository invitations and a malicious npm package to target the victim’s accounts associated with blockchain, cryptocurrency, or online gambling sectors.

According to the latest article by Github, this campaign actor is linked up with a group likely known as Jade Sleet by Microsoft Threat Intelligence and TraderTraitor by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

GitHub confirmed that no GitHub accounts or npm systems accounts were compromised in this campaign.

Initially, the threat actor impersonates a developer or recruiter by creating professional profiles on Github and some other social media websites.

They utilize both personal accounts as well as compromised accounts by jade sleet to contact the victims.

The actor may initiate contact on one platform and then switch the conversation to another platform.

Once connected with a target, the threat actor invites the target to collaborate on a GitHub repository and manipulates the target to clone and execute its contents.

In some cases, the actor may send the malicious software straight through a messaging or file-sharing service, skipping the step of inviting people to the repository and cloning it.

CISA Urge Gov Agencies to Apply Patch for Windows and Office zero-days Immediately

CISA urged government agencies to apply the patch immediately for Microsoft Office and Windows HTML remote code execution vulnerabilities exploited in the wild.

As a result, these vulnerabilities have frequently been exploited and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise.
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Microsoft is aware of exploitation by using specially-crafted Microsoft Office documents; the attackers enable them to perform remote code execution.
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Notably, Microsoft help to customers by providing a security update through our monthly release process or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

The severity range of this vulnerability:8.8 (High).

Hackers Could Deactivate Your WhatsApp Account With A Simple Email

It has been reported that any individual could potentially deactivate a WhatsApp account by sending an email, and currently, there is no known method to prevent this from happening. This information has been shared with all WhatsApp users.
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Particularly, WhatsApp has made it simple for users to deactivate their accounts. Yet, as one top security expert has cautioned, WhatsApp may have exposed every user to an all-too-simple denial of service attack by simplifying the procedure a bit too much.

According to Jake Moore, the global cybersecurity advisor at ESET and a former law enforcement head of digital forensics, it allows anybody with your phone number, including a malicious actor or just about anyone else, to remotely deactivate your WhatsApp account.

The account will be immediately deactivated, according to WhatsApp, by simply emailing the words “Lost/Stolen: Please deactivate my account” which also contains the phone number connected to that account to a given email address.

This deactivation request, according to Moore, might come from any email address, not simply the one belonging to the account holder.
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For up to 30 days following the deactivation, messages will be kept as pending. This is crucial since your account will be terminated if you don’t revive it within those 30 days.

By building a script that repeatedly sends the deactivation email over 30 days, this could be used to carry out a denial of service attack against a user, as Moore and others noted in the Twitter thread.
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WhatsApp seems to have finally appropriately backtracked from the automatic and instant termination of accounts.

Users now receive a follow-up message after receiving the notice mentioned above, asking for more account ownership proof before a deactivation may occur. Documentation, such as a copy of the phone bill or contract, is required for such verification.

Chrome 115 Update for Windows, MacOS, and Linux – 20 Vulnerabilities Patched

Google released Chrome 115 to the stable channel for Windows, MacOS, and Linux on Tuesday, patching 20 vulnerabilities, including 11 that were discovered by external researchers.

Four security issues were assessed to be of “high severity,” while six were determined to be of “medium severity.”

This browser update also fixes a ‘low-severity’ issue with Themes’ insufficient validation of untrusted input.
...
System failures or data corruption may result from a use-after-free vulnerability that enables an attacker to run arbitrary code.

On the other side, a vulnerability that allows for out-of-bounds memory access might allow a hacker to access data that they are not meant to, potentially resulting in data breaches.
...
Chrome 115 fixes six medium-severity vulnerabilities that were reported externally.

Inappropriate implementations of several components, including Picture in Picture, Custom Tabs, Notifications, Autofill, WebApp Installs, and Web API Permission Prompts, caused the flaws.

If exploited, these flaws might have adverse effects, including enabling attackers to get around access restrictions and take illegal acts.

MOVEit Hack: Over 400 Organizations’ Hacked by CL0P Ransomware Group

The Russian ransomware group ‘Clop’ exploits a flaw in Progress Software’s MOVEit product suite in late May to steal data from unprotected networks.

According to German cybersecurity research firm KonBriefing, as of now, the MOVEit hack has affected 421 organizations and 22 million people.
...
The criminal behind the hack, renowned for using the CL0P ransomware, have access to a vast amount of information that might be used in phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

Most of the MOVEit hacks appear to have occurred between May 30 and May 31, when CL0P targeted a zero-day vulnerability in MOVEit.
...
UK-based Zellis, a payroll and HR firm, suffered a direct impact while big organizations that rely on Zellis’ services, including the BBC and British Airways, suffered an indirect impact.

The US Department of Energy, other federal institutions, and large firms, including Shell, a leading energy provider, Deutsche Bank, PwC, and TJX Companies, a leader in the retail industry, were all impacted.

Additionally, Marshalls, HomeGoods, HomeSense, and Sierra are among the retail brands owned by TJX.

Emerson is another industrial corporation.
...
Siemens Energy and Schneider Electric have also been impacted. The cybersecurity company Netscout is also included on the Cl0p website.
...
Several German banks as well as the photo-sharing website Shutterfly have acknowledged being attacked.
...
The industrial giant Honeywell has now been added to the list
...
The number of people whose personal information – usually Social Security numbers – was compromised: Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co., 873,000 victims; 1st Source Bank in Indiana, 450,000 victims; Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union in Pennsylvania, 141,000 victims; TSG Interactive US Services Limited, which operates as PokerStars, 110,291 victims; Athene Annuity and Life Company in Iowa, 70,412 victims; and Massachusetts Mutual Life Co., aka MassMutual, 242 victims.

The ransomware group has begun disseminating files that were taken from several businesses that declined to pay. The hackers assert that they deleted all information taken from the affected government entities.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Progress Software is dealing with at least 13 lawsuits alleging that the MOVEit flaw was caused by inadequate security.

[kyonides]

Jim Jordan Obtains Facebook Files Showing White House Pressure to Censor Americans

Never before seen emails from within Facebook obtained by the House Judiciary Committee led by chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have shed further light on how the White House and Biden appointed government officials pressured the tech giant to infringe on the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Facebook initially resisted the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena of internal communications about White House pressure, leading the Committee to schedule a vote to hold Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress if his company did not turn over the documents.

...Facebook appears to have turned over the require documents, which reveal more of the Biden administration’s furious pressure campaign against the company to suppress discussion about important issues affecting Americans.
...
In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts.

In another April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, informed his team at Facebook that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post.

When Clegg “countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,” Slavitt disregarded the warning and the First Amendment.

What happened next? Facebook panicked. In another April 2021 email, Brian Rice, Facebook’s VP of public policy, raised the concern that Slavitt’s challenge felt “very much like a crossroads for us with the [Biden] White House in these early days.”

But Facebook wanted to repair its relationship with the White House to avoid adverse action: “Given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the [White House], and our internal methods too.”
...
Facebook also changed its policies in direct response to pressure from Biden's Surgeon General, censoring members of the “disinformation dozen.”

Rep. Jordan also revealed that the White House demanded to know why Facebook had not censored a clip from Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. In response, Facebook was “ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies.”

Meta Fined $20 Million for Undisclosed User Data Collection

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (formerly Facebook) and its subsidiary has been slapped with $20 million (US$13.54 million) in fines after an Australian court found it secretly harvested data from users.

Onavo Protect, which was acquired by Meta in 2013, is a free virtual private network service that promised to keep user data “safe online” and give customers “peace of mind” when browsing the internet.

However, in 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed a lawsuit against the company and Facebook Israel alleging that the app was secretly collecting “significant amounts” of data for commercial purposes from February 2016 to October 2017.

The consumer watchdog said Onavo Protect was tracking online activity and even recording the number of seconds spent on the app, alongside IP addresses.

Further, if users had a Facebook account, Meta would combine the data to learn “nearly everything” they were doing on their mobile device.

“Meta and Facebook Israel’s internal documents state that Onavo Protect was ‘a business intelligence tool’ for Meta, which provided Meta with ‘a sample of users who we are able to know nearly everything they are doing on their mobile device,'” wrote Federal Court Justice Wendy Abraham in her judgement on July 26.

Apple Faces $1 Billion UK Lawsuit by Apps Developers Over App Store Fees

Apple on Tuesday found itself the target of a 785-million-pound ($1 billion) class action lawsuit brought by more than 1,500 apps developers in the UK over its App Store fees.

Apple’s services business, which includes the App Store, has seen revenues grow at a rapid pace in the last few years and now hovers around $20 billion per quarter.

However, the commissions of 15 percent to 30 percent that the company charges some app makers for the use of an in-app payment system has been criticized by apps developers and targeted by antitrust regulators in several countries.

Apple has previously said that 85 percent of developers on the App Store do not pay any commission and that it helps European developers to access markets and customers in 175 countries around the world through the App Store.

The UK lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal is being brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the OECD, on behalf of 1,566 app developers.

Details of 5,500 Google Accounts Handed Over to Australian Authorities

In one year, tech giant Google received over 6,300 requests from Australian authorities to disclose user data.

According to Google’s “Global Requests for User Information” report, the search giant allows government agencies around the world to submit requests for information for “civil, administrative, criminal, and national security purposes.”

“In this Global Requests report, we share information about the number and type of requests we receive from government agencies where permitted by applicable laws,” Google says.

In Australia, over the course of 2022, the tech giant received 6,335 requests for information regarding the activities of 7,183 accounts.

Google ended up agreeing to 5,525 requests from Australian authorities, likely including law enforcement and online safety agencies.
...
Requests of this nature have increased yearly, notably since 2014, when there were just 1,711 requests for data.
...
In 2014, U.S. authorities issued 22,520 requests for data, which increased to 111,608 by 2022.

On average, Google will acquiesce to around 75 to 85 percent of requests.

A similar situation is playing out with Meta (formerly Facebook) across the UK, United States, and Australia.

In 2014 in Australia, Meta received just 1,439 requests for user information, and yet by 2020, this number increased to 2,965, and by 2022 reached 4,287.

While U.S. authorities issued 29,700 requests in 2014 and 133,500 in 2022.

Apple Releases iPhone Security Fix as Expert Urges Users to Update Their Devices Now

Apple Inc. on Monday released updates to its iOS and MacOS operating systems that fix multiple security vulnerabilities and bugs.

The Cupertino, California-based firm said it released iOS and iPadOS 16.6 and MacOS 13.5 to fix a range of “actively exploited” security bugs, along with a number of other security fixes for problems that have been reported to Apple. As usual, Apple said it would not disclose or discuss the nature of the security flaws that are being fixed.
...
The update provided several fixes for kernel vulnerabilities, including one that could allow a program to modify a kernel state and may have been actively exploited in the wild. According to Apple, the bug is now patched on all of its platforms.
...
The updates also patched a vulnerability to WebKit, the engine that powers the Safari browser, that Apple also said could have been actively exploited.

Boris Larin, a security researcher with antivirus software maker Kaspersky, urged users on Monday to update their devices after the Apple fix was issued.

Elon Musk Reveals New ‘X’ Logo to Replace Twitter’s Blue Bird

The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday, but the bird was still dominant across the smartphone app. At Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, meanwhile, workers were seen removing the iconic bird and logo Monday until police showed up and stopped them because they didn’t have the proper permits and didn’t tape off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.

As of early afternoon, the “er” at the end of Twitter remained visible.

Mr. Musk had asked fans for logo ideas and chose one, which he described as minimalist Art Deco, saying it “certainly will be refined.” He replaced his own Twitter icon with a white X on a black background and posted a picture of the design projected on Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter Sunday.

The X.com web domain now redirects users to Twitter.com, Mr. Musk said.
...
Linda Yaccarino, the longtime NBC Universal executive Musk tapped to be Twitter CEO in May, posted the new logo and weighed in on the change, writing on Twitter that X would be “the future state of unlimited interactivity—centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking—creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.”

[kyonides]

TikTok Pushes Chinese Propaganda Ads to Millions Across Europe

China-owned TikTok is pushing a slew of Chinese propaganda advertisements to millions of Europeans in recent months. The ads tout everything from support of Chinese coronavirus lockdowns to presenting the Xinjiang region, where Uyghur minorities are forced to work in concentration camps, as a wonderful tourist destination.
...
As of Wednesday, more than 1,000 ads from the communist regime’s state media outlets — such as People’s Daily and CGTN — have run on the platform since October 2022.

While the ad library does not yet display data on ads presented to users in the United States, Canada, and Australia, the data does show that the propaganda ads have appeared for millions of users across Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

References to the troubled Xinjiang region reportedly appeared in 92 of the 124 ads promoted by one of the state media accounts.

One propaganda advertisement, paid for by China News International, featured a man doing a traditional dance under the caption “Xinjiang is a good place!” Another ad showed a CGTN host visiting an elementary school in Xinjiang.

The school is reportedly located in the Pishan County of Xinjiang, where the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has tracked the construction of six detention facilities.

Another ad featured a member of academia criticizing U.S. and European resistance to China’s exploitative Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in which the communist regime offers predatory loans to poor countries meant to build infrastructure projects.

France Investigates Smuggling of Advanced Military Chips to China

French magistrates have filed preliminary charges against two Chinese citizens and two other people from France in an investigation of a leading chip supplier whose advanced technology with possible military uses was reportedly smuggled to China and Russia, allegedly skirting sanctions and export controls.

The probe of Ommic, a Paris-region semiconductor manufacturer now in American hands, was launched by France’s national prosecution service that specializes in cases involving arms proliferation.

The probe is now being led by magistrates investigating suspected illegal exports, forgery and other suspected crimes, according to a French judicial official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy laws that cover magistrates’ probes.

The official said four people – two French, two Chinese – have been placed under formal investigation since March. That means magistrates believe there is considerable evidence of potential crimes but want more time to investigate.

Two of the four people face preliminary charges of handing over protected know-how to a foreign power, the judicial official said. The official and the prosecution service, which also specializes in terrorism cases, refused to go into greater detail about the investigation.

The newspaper Le Parisien first reported on the case. It said investigators have uncovered nearly 12 million euros (more than $13 million) worth of suspected exports of technology.

It said the company’s French manager is suspected of having personally delivered chips to Russian clients. It said products were also exported to Chinese armament manufacturers with the help of forged paperwork.

Peak Body Calls for Stronger AI Regulations After Doctors Found Using ChatGPT

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is calling for stronger regulations and transparency around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare industry after doctors in Perth were ordered to cease using ChatGPT to write patient medical notes.

In a submission to the federal government on July 25, the AMA said that Australia is behind countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, in AI regulations and that rules need to be put in place to protect the privacy and safety of patients and healthcare professionals.

“We need to address the AI regulation gap in Australia, but especially in healthcare where there is the potential for patient injury from system errors, systemic bias embedded in algorithms and increased risk to patient privacy,” AMA President Professor Steve Robson said in a statement on July 27.
...
In May, some staff at Perth’s South Metropolitan Health Service (SMHS), which spans five hospitals, were reportedly using an AI Chatbot, ChatGPT, to write medical notes that were then uploaded to the patient record system, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

“Crucially, at this stage, there is no assurance of patient confidentiality when using AI bot technology, such as ChatGPT, nor do we fully understand the security risks,” according to an email obtained by the ABC that was sent to staff by SMHS’s chief executive, Paul Forden.

“For this reason, the use of AI technology, including ChatGPT, for work-related activity that includes any patient or potentially sensitive health service information must cease immediately.”
...
In a statement, Paul Forden, Chief Executive of the South Metropolitan Health Service, said the email sent to all staff in May was to remind staff of the importance of data integrity and patient confidentiality as a precautionary measure.

“This was in response to one doctor being found to have used artificial intelligence (AI) bot technology to generate a patient discharge summary. There are no grounds to believe there has been any breach in anyone’s individual identifiable patient confidential information. The information put into the AI program did not include patient identifiable information,” Mr. Forden said.

Rubio Introduces Bill Restricting US Genetic Tech Supply to China

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced new legislation aimed at halting the supply of U.S. genetic technology to China due to concerns that it could be used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to violate human rights.

Mr. Rubio said the Stopping Genetic Monitoring by China Act would stop the Chinese regime from using American genetic technology and “send a clear message that we will not tolerate China’s abuse of human rights.”

This came just a month after Mr. Rubio introduced the Genomics Expenditures and National Security Enhancement (GENE) Act to counter the CCP’s threat to collect Americans’ genomic data.

“China not only steals genetic data from Americans but also conducts biomedical research and represses its own people using genetic technology,” Mr. Rubio said in a press release on July 26.

“This includes forcefully taking genetic information from Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other ethnic groups as a ‘crime-fighting’ measure. Beijing relies on American companies for genetic technology,” he added.

The new legislation would add genetic sampling and testing kits, analytical technology, and software to the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security’s Commerce Control List, according to his statement.

[kyonides]

Chinese AI Must Be Banned or Regulated

The report, "De-Risking Authoritarian AI," from Simeon Gilding of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) warns of possible "remote, large-scale foreign interference, espionage and sabotage through AI-enabled industrial and consumer goods and services."

"If we’re wary about AI, we should be even more circumspect about AI-enabled products and services from authoritarian countries that share neither our values nor our interests," Mr. Gilding wrote.

"AI systems are embedded in our homes, workplaces, and essential services. More and more, we trust them to operate as advertised, always be there for us, and keep our secrets."

However, these products, which include common virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa, or even customer service chatbots, leave countries open to manipulation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Mr. Gilding argues that governments should look deeply into three types of exported Chinese AI technology, the first being products and services, which include infrastructure that could lead to surveillance or data theft.

Elon Musk Threatens to Sue Group That Pressures Big Tech to Ban Users

The group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), has made "troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter," Alex Spiro, one of Mr. Musk's lawyers, said in a warning letter to the center dated July 20 and made public on July 31.

After Mr. Musk bought Twitter, now known as X, the London-based center has repeatedly criticized moves he's made, including restoring accounts that had been banned and loosening moderation.

"By reinstating misogynists, racists, and violence-inciters ... Twitter is enabling a wave of hatred to spread on the platform - especially towards minoritized communities," it said in one statement.

In a recent article, the center claimed that Twitter had failed to act on 99 percent of verified accounts that were posting "hate." But the claim was based on reporting a single post from 100 verified users and tracking whether those posts had been removed or otherwise subject to moderation four days later.

"CCDH’s claims in this article are false, misleading, or both, and they are not supported by anything that could credibly be called research," Mr. Spiro said. "The article provides no methodology for its selection or testing of tweets, no baseline for Twitter’s enforcement time frame, and no explanation as to why the 100 chosen tweets represent an appropriate sample of the nearly 500 million tweets sent per day from which to generalize about the platform’s content moderation practices."

The article "leaves no doubt that CCDH intends to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims," Mr. Spiro added, noting that CCDH said that advertisers were giving their "tacit approval" for Mr. Musk "allowing hate to prosper" on Twitter.

San Francisco Officials Investigate
Elon Musk’s Giant Flashing ‘X’ Sign on Twitter HQ

The New York Times reports that city officials are looking into the giant X sign that was put on the roof of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters as part of its rebranding efforts because it did not have the appropriate permissions.

The X sign, which was installed on Friday, has sparked controversy due to flashing throughout the night. Whether or not the city has filed complaints about the light pollution, city officials have stated that a building permit is required to ensure the sign’s structural integrity and safe installation.

“A building permit is required to make sure the sign is structurally sound and installed safely,” said Patrick Hannan, a spokesman for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection. “Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign.”

Despite the city’s attempts to inspect the sign, Twitter has denied access to its roof. The social media giant has defended the sign as a “temporary lighted sign for an event,” according to a complaint filed with the city.

City inspectors attempted to gain access to the roof a second time on Saturday, but were again denied entry by the tenant. Twitter has yet to respond to requests for comment on the issue.
...
This is not the first time Twitter has faced controversy over its signage. Earlier, the San Francisco police halted the removal of the brand’s iconic bird logo from the side of the building, citing safety concerns for pedestrians. A complaint about that sign’s removal was also filed with the city. The ‘X’ sign was installed shortly after the original sign was removed.

Senator Calls for Artificial Intelligence Regulatory Agency
Citing ‘Scary’ Dangers of AI Tech

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) called for strong regulatory control over artificial intelligence (AI) during a Senate hearing on July 25, citing the grave potential dangers of the “scary” technology.
...
“We need some kind of regulatory agency.”

“But not just a reactive body … But actually investing proactively in research so that we develop countermeasures against the kind of autonomous, out-of-control scenarios that are potential dangers.”

As examples of such “potential dangers,” Blumenthal pointed to an AI device that can be programmed to resist any switching off, or a decision by an AI to begin a nuclear reaction to a nonexistent attack.

During the hearing, multiple witnesses warned about the dangerous consequences that rapid AI development can herald.

Dario Amodei, CEO of AI research company Anthropic, pointed out in his written testimony that “in two to three years, AI systems may facilitate extraordinary insights in broad swaths of many science and engineering disciplines. This will cause a revolution in technology and scientific discovery, but also greatly widen the set of people who can wreak havoc.”

“In particular, I am concerned that AI systems could be misused on a grand scale in the domains of cybersecurity, nuclear technology, chemistry, and especially biology.”

For instance, some biological methods can be used to harm human beings. However, such knowledge requires highly specialized knowledge at present and cannot be simply found on Google or textbooks, Mr. Amodei said.

But AI can now “fill in some of these steps,” albeit incompletely and unreliably. In two to three years, AI may actually be able to fill in “all the missing pieces,” he warned.

Intel Opens ‘Innovation’ Plant in China amid U.S. Chip Wars

U.S. chipmaker Intel on Saturday announced the launch of its Greater Bay Area Innovation Center in the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen.

The project, a partnership with the government of Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, arrives at a time when tensions between China and the United States are running high over semiconductor technology.
...
Intel is one of multiple US tech giants trying to maintain business in the world’s second-largest economy amid the souring of US-China ties that has seen Washington ramp up chip export restrictions. The tech war has also bolstered demand for electronic components in China, and for chips in particular.

Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger concluded a low-key trip to China earlier this month, his second to the country in three months.

For the Shenzhen center, Intel will partner with six local tech firms including gadget maker Ugreen and fabless integrated circuit firms Senary Technology Group and Chipsea Technologies, which all signed an agreement with the chip giant during the launch event. The companies will set up multiple joint labs to research areas including low-carbon and energy-saving IT solutions, PC and server chips, and smart transport.

China has been attempting to develop its domestic chip industry to reduce its reliance on U.S. imports, an endeavor that will undoubtedly be assisted by Intel’s “innovation center” in Shenzhen.
...
Intel and several other tech companies recently dispatched representatives to Washington to discuss the effect of export restrictions on their Chinese business operations. More restrictions could be coming, including a proposed tightening of rules for selling high-end chips to China’s tech giant Huawei — a major customer for the next-generation Intel A.I. chips mentioned by the SCMP.

“Many U.S. chip firms get more than one-fifth of their revenue from China, and industry executives have argued that reducing those sales would cut into profits that they reinvest into research and development,” Reuters reported in July.

Chinese officials in April pressured Intel to make bigger investments in China to “preserve the resilience of the global industrial supply chain” — in other words, to protect China from U.S. export restrictions and sanctions. The new Intel innovation center in Shenzhen was precisely the sort of cooperation Beijing had in mind.

Really, this is as traitorous as providing the Chinese or the Russians with missiles.
Actually, some of those chips could be used to make real missiles and drones there!

[kyonides]

Elon Musk Shut Down Starlink Access
for Ukrainian Drone Attack Plot Against Russian Navy

A Ukrainian plan to target a Russian naval vessel in the Black Sea was reportedly abandoned after Elon Musk denied Starlink satellite internet access to help facilitate the attack.

Amid increasing efforts from Kyiv to bring the war to the “territory of Russia”, with explosive-laden drones hitting Moscow twice since the weekend, Tesla chief Elon Musk has reportedly personally intervened to prevent his Starlink satellite internet technology from being used to aid in long-range drone attacks.

According to a report from the New York Times, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, recently raised concerns over Musk’s influence over the war with Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, after the latest refusal to assist in a long-distance offensive strike against a Russian ship off the coast of Crimea.
...
Starlink has also reportedly been blocked off for Ukrainian forces attempting to recapture territory from the Russians in the Donbas region with geofencing limits being placed around the area.

Earlier this year, Mr Musk said on Twitter: “We are not allowing Starlink to be used for long-range drone strikes.”

For now, it appears that Ukraine does not have much of an alternative, with Starlink having such dominance in the sector that it now comprises around 50 per cent of all active satellites in orbit around the Earth. The European Union has committed 2.4 billion euros last year to build its own satellite internet network, for both military and civilian use, however, it may be some time before it is operational.
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London’s Daily Telegraph, for example, cited Ulrike Franke, of the globalist European Council on Foreign Relations think tank as saying: “It doesn’t matter how you feel about Musk – no individual should have this power.”

There are mounting concerns over an escalation in the conflict. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive appearing to stall in places against the heavily entrenched Russian forces, Kyiv has apparently made the calculation to increase strikes on the Russian mainland.

Elon Musk’s X Corp Dismantles Giant Glowing Sign on San Francisco Twitter HQ

CNBC reports that the sign was erected on Friday but was quickly dismantled on Monday. The construction of the sign led to twenty-four complaints being filed with San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspections. Those filing the complaints stated that the sign was put up without a permit, was unsafe, and was a nuisance, with one individual even claiming that its flashing lights made it hard for residents to sleep.
...
A spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, Patrick Hannan, stated in an email, “This morning, building inspectors observed the structure being dismantled.” He further added that a building permit is required to take the sign down, but it can be secured later due to safety concerns. “The property owner will be assessed fees for the unpermitted installation of the illuminated structure,” Hannan said. “The fees will be for building permits for the installation and removal of the structure, and to cover the cost of the Department of Building Inspection and the Planning Department’s investigation.”
...
The saga over the glowing sign is not the first time Musk has clashed with San Francisco building inspectors. When the billionaire took over Twitter last year, he faced investigations by the city over building code violations, including allegations that some rooms at the office were turned into “hotel rooms.”

Facebook Exec Bragged that ‘Meta’ Name Change
Distracted from Company’s Bad Press

Business Insider reports that according senior Facebook executive Chris Cox, the company’s rebranding to Meta was successful in obscuring the media attention given to the so-called “Facebook Files,” a exansive set of whistleblower disclosures. This flies in the face of previous remarks from Mark Zuckerberg and others.
...
When Facebook announced its renaming to Meta in October 2021, the move was officially attributed to a new focus on the metaverse. However, the timing led to widespread speculation that the change was related to the whistleblower disclosures that were being reported globally. CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed such connections, calling them “ridiculous.”

Yet, executive Chris Cox did just that when asked by an employee about the success of the new name. During a company-wide Q&A with employees, Cox reportedly said the name change was successful, explaining his measure of success was the amount of press coverage of the name change compared to the whistleblower disclosures. “It was more than double the volume of the Facebook Papers coverage,” Cox said on the call. He added that the coverage was also “neutral to positive in tone.”

“That’s the kind of thing that we only could have dreamed of when we did the change in terms of press coverage,” he went on. “And it was a really big deal because Facebook Papers was a big story, especially inside the US.”

The rebranding came three weeks after whistleblower Frances Haugen went public, revealing information that was being reported on at the Wall Street Journal. The revelations were covered by the press globally, and the timing of the name change led to speculation that it was related to these disclosures.

General, West Point Professor Ran
Shadow Investigation to Hunt Down
and Silence Military Whistleblower for Mean Tweets

Army Training and Doctrine Command Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais and Army Maj. Jessica Dawson — who is also an “information warfare research scientist” at the Army Cyber Institute — used their official authority and access to government resources to track down the whistleblower and get him identified publicly and punished by his chain of command.

Despite the lack of evidence, they repeatedly accused the whistleblower of being a “counterintelligence” and “insider threat” in a seeming effort to trigger action by Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) — an independent federal law enforcement agency with expansive powers designed to investigate serious felonies.

Pat Wier, a civilian defense attorney and Navy reservist, said a CID investigation would require an assumption or designation of a serious threat and called Gervais and Dawson’s trumping up of accusations for exercising free speech rights “wrongful.”

“His alleged actions did not rise to the level of a serious crime, or any crime at all,” he said.

Rather, it appeared to be an attempt by rogue military officials seeking to use the levers of government to punish political dissent.

Gervais and Dawson ran their shadow investigation for nearly a year, enlisting help from a mob of online associates consisting of progressive current and former members of the military who disagreed with the whistleblower politically.

Their efforts led to the doxxing — or public “outing” — of the suspected whistleblower’s identity and an Army two-star general’s former aide filing an inspector general complaint against him, a weaponization of the IG system in retaliation for critical social media posts.
...
Shoemate, who is planning to begin speaking about his experience publicly, told Breitbart News in a statement:

The DOD publicly boasts about its adherence to the law with numerous checks and balances in place to prevent unlawful conduct, but the shadow policy it actually operates under allows senior officers and officials to act with impunity as seen here. A lieutenant general colluding with various other senior officials to conduct their own unofficial investigation, with the use of government resources, is emblematic of larger, systemic abuses observed within the DOD in recent years.