An executive order signed by President Joe Biden this week dropped a Trump-era measure that barred Americans from downloading TikTok and several other Chinese smartphone apps. But analysts say the order also broadens the scrutiny of foreign-controlled technology.Biden’s move replaced three Trump administration executive orders that sought to ban downloads of TikTok and WeChat and transactions with eight other Chinese apps. The FILE – A counter promoting WeChat, a product of Tencent, for reading books for the blind is displayed at a news conference in Hong Kong, March 18, 2015.”This means that TikTok may have to go through another review, and any decision won’t be easily challenged in court,” he added. “This is the start of Round 2, and TikTok may not get off as easily this time.”When asked during a briefing Wednesday if the White House still intended to ban TikTok or WeChat, an administration official told reporters that all apps listed on the revoked executive orders would be reviewed under the new process and criteria.Key order standsJulian Ku, a law professor at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, told VOA that Biden had maintained one of Trump’s most important executive orders. Trump signed the “Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain” order in May 2019, declaring a national emergency posed by foreign adversaries “who are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services.”Biden is “not revoking the basic framework, which is that the U.S. government should be trying to prevent transfer of personal data to a foreign adversary,” Ku told VOA in a phone interview. “He reserves the right in theory to come back and go after those companies or other companies that would potentially be threatening the personal data of America.”Both TikTok and WeChat did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.TikTok, a social networking app for sharing short, user-produced video clips, and WeChat, an app that includes messaging, social media and payment platforms, both collect extensive data on their users. The core concern is that the Chinese government will be able to access this data and potentially leverage it for espionage or blackmail. U.S. officials also worry that the heavy censorship of these apps will result in biased political opinions and increased spread of misinformation.A Ban on WeChat and TikTok, a Disconnected World and Two Internets Some policy analysts from America’s closest allies welcome the latest hardline approach by the Trump AdministrationThe American Civil Liberties Union applauded Biden’s move but warned against “taking us down the same misguided path by serving as a smokescreen for future bans or other unlawful actions” with the requirement of a new security review. The rights group considered the Trump-era bans a violation of First Amendment rights.BREAKING: The Biden administration has revoked Trump-era executive orders that targeted TikTok and WeChat and violated our First Amendment rights.— ACLU (@ACLU) June 9, 2021Senator Josh Hawley criticized Biden’s move, calling it a “major mistake.”It “shows alarming complacency regarding China’s access to Americans’ personal information, as well as China’s growing corporate influence,” he said on Twitter.This is a major mistake – shows alarming complacency regarding #China’s access to Americans’ personal information, as well as #China’s growing corporate influence https://t.co/AP8KswDHNW— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) June 9, 2021Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said in Thursday’s daily briefing that the revocation of Trump-era bans was “a step towards the right direction” and that officials hoped to see Chinese companies “treated fairly.”
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The U.S. has condemned Nigeria’s continuing ban of Twitter in the country, saying the action “has no place in a democracy.”“Freedom of expression and access to information both online and offline are foundational to prosperous and secure democratic societies,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday in a statement calling for the African nation to reverse its Twitter suspension.He said the U.S. “condemns the ongoing suspension of Twitter by the Nigerian government and subsequent threats to arrest and prosecute Nigerians who use Twitter. The United States is likewise concerned that the Nigerian National Broadcasting Commission ordered all television and radio broadcasters to cease using Twitter.”The U.S. had joined the European Union, Britain, Ireland and Canada last weekend in criticizing the Nigerian action. The Abuja government indefinitely banned Twitter after the U.S. social media company deleted a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari’s account for violating its rules.Tweet about unrestBuhari’s tweet referred to the country’s civil war four decades ago in a warning about recent unrest, referring to “those misbehaving” in violence in the southeastern part of the country. Officials there blame the prohibited separatist group IPOB for attacks on police and election offices.”Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” the president had posted on Twitter.Buhari’s office denied the Twitter suspension was a response to the removal of that post.”There has been a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real-world violent consequences,” presidency spokesperson Garba Shehu said in a statement.Shehu said the removal of Buhari’s tweet was “disappointing” and that “major tech companies must be alive to their responsibilities.”Twitter said it was working to restore the social media network in Nigeria, but government officials warned they would prosecute violators.
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A “swarm” of bug-tracking drones and tiny radars are being developed to help conservation of rare insects in New Zealand.  The new tag-and-track technology is being developed at the University of Canterbury on New Zealand’s South Island. Researchers hope it could lead to a deeper understanding of New Zealand’s threatened and endangered insects. The research draws on years of experience in the area of bird conservation, where radio tracking methods have helped to protect many vulnerable species. Experts have said that at a stretch the technology could also be used to study large invertebrates such as giant land snails but was simply too big and heavy for most insects. Researchers have now made about 20 tiny so-called harmonic radar tags that are fitted to insects. They would then be tracked by a “swarm” of drones. Steve Pawson, from the university’s College of Engineering, says bird-tracking technology has been a major inspiration. “They have been doing radio tracking on many of these species over several decades now and the information that they learn from that really informs the conservation management. So, understanding how far do these things move, where do they go foraging, what are their foraging behaviors? Even things as simple as how long things live for. Unfortunately, the radio tracking technologies that are out there at the moment are too heavy to use on small insects. There is only a handful of our heaviest insects that can carry those and so we are really limited in our understanding of how invertebrates are moving through the environment, and if we have that knowledge then we can incorporate it in our decision making and our planning for conservation management operations,” Pawson said.  Trials will start on ground-based insects before the New Zealand team tries to tackle the complexities of tracking insects in flight. Field testing could begin in 2023. Academics have said the study could also have applications in other disciplines, from biosecurity to medical imaging. Among New Zealand’s endangered insects is the iconic Wētā. They are one of the South Pacific nation’s most recognizable creatures with their large bodies, spiny legs, and curved tusks.  Several species of Wētā are under threat from predation by birds and reptiles, and habitat loss. 
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Former president Donald Trump’s executive order that attempted to ban Chinese video app TikTok has been replaced by the Biden administration, which has implemented its own executive orders to review several Chinese apps for possible national security and privacy risks. President Joe Biden’s executive order directs the Commerce Department to analyze TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese apps to see if they collect personal data or if they are connected to the Chinese military. According to a White House statement about the order, Commerce, in consultation with other federal agencies, can “make recommendations to protect against harm from the sale, transfer of, or access to sensitive personal data, including personally identifiable information and genetic information — to include large data repositories — to persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, foreign adversaries.”  
“The administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet and to protecting human rights online and offline, and to supporting a vibrant global digital economy,” a senior administration official said Wednesday, according to The Verge, which first reported the story. “The challenge that we’re addressing with this [executive order] is that certain countries, including China, do not share these commitments or values and are instead working to leverage digital technologies and American data in ways that present unacceptable national security risks,” the official added. Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok in the summer of 2020 were blocked by the courts, and the issue was soon overshadowed by the 2020 presidential election. US Judge Halts Government Ban on TikTok Trump administration wants TikTok and WeChat removed from app stores  
Discussions that a U.S. company might take over TikTok operations in the U.S. never resulted in concrete action. 
 
Last week, the Biden administration expanded a Trump-era ban on American companies investing in Chinese firms with ties to the Chinese military. The order lists 59 Chinese companies that reportedly develop surveillance technology to be used against Muslim minorities and pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. 
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Former president Donald Trump’s executive order that attempted to ban Chinese video app TikTok has been replaced by the Biden administration, which has implemented its own executive orders to review several Chinese apps for possible national security and privacy risks. President Joe Biden’s executive order directs the Commerce Department to analyze TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese apps to see if they collect personal data or if they are connected to the Chinese military. According to a White House statement about the order, Commerce, in consultation with other federal agencies, can “make recommendations to protect against harm from the sale, transfer of, or access to sensitive personal data, including personally identifiable information and genetic information — to include large data repositories — to persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, foreign adversaries.”  
“The administration is committed to promoting an open, interoperable, reliable, and secure internet and to protecting human rights online and offline, and to supporting a vibrant global digital economy,” a senior administration official said Wednesday, according to The Verge, which first reported the story. “The challenge that we’re addressing with this [executive order] is that certain countries, including China, do not share these commitments or values and are instead working to leverage digital technologies and American data in ways that present unacceptable national security risks,” the official added. Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok in the summer of 2020 were blocked by the courts, and the issue was soon overshadowed by the 2020 presidential election. US Judge Halts Government Ban on TikTok Trump administration wants TikTok and WeChat removed from app stores  
Discussions that a U.S. company might take over TikTok operations in the U.S. never resulted in concrete action. 
 
Last week, the Biden administration expanded a Trump-era ban on American companies investing in Chinese firms with ties to the Chinese military. The order lists 59 Chinese companies that reportedly develop surveillance technology to be used against Muslim minorities and pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. 
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Facebook’s recent decision to ban former president Donald Trump for two years sends a message to world leaders that Facebook is stepping up its role as sheriff on its service. Tina Trinh reports.Produced by Tina Trinh
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The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production and the development of artificial intelligence and other technology in the face of growing international competition, most notably from China. The 68-32 vote for the bill demonstrates how confronting China economically is an issue that unites both parties in Congress. That’s a rarity in an era of division as pressure grows on Democrats to change Senate rules to push past Republican opposition and gridlock. The centerpiece of the bill is a $50 billion emergency allotment to the Commerce Department to stand up semiconductor development and manufacturing through research and incentive programs previously authorized by Congress. The bill’s overall cost would increase spending by about $250 billion with most of the spending occurring in the first five years. Supporters described it as the biggest investment in scientific research that the country has seen in decades. It comes as the nation’s share of semiconductor manufacturing globally has steadily eroded from 37% in 1990 to about 12% now, and as a chip shortage has exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at the Capitol in Washington, March 6, 2021.”The premise is simple — if we want American workers and American companies to keep leading the world, the federal government must invest in science, basic research and innovation, just as we did decades after the Second World War,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.”Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going to be the global economic leader, with profound consequences for foreign policy and national security, as well,” he added. FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 25, 2021.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the bill was incomplete because it did not incorporate more Republican-sponsored amendments. He nonetheless supported it. “Needless to say, final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate’s final word on our competition with China,” he said. “It certainly won’t be mine.” President Joe Biden applauded the bill’s passage in a statement Tuesday evening, saying, “As other countries continue to invest in their own research and development, we cannot risk falling behind. America must maintain its position as the most innovative and productive nation on Earth.”  Senators slogged through days of debates and amendments leading up to Tuesday’s final vote. Schumer’s office said 18 Republican amendments will have received votes as part of passage of the bill. It also said the Senate this year has already held as many roll-call votes on amendments than it did in the last Congress when the Senate was under Republican control. While the bill enjoys bipartisan support, a core group of Republican senators has reservations about its costs. One of the bill’s provisions would create a new directorate focused on artificial intelligence and quantum science with the National Science Foundation. The bill would authorize up to $29 billion over five years for the new branch within the foundation, with an additional $52 billion for its programs. Senator Rand Paul said Congress should be cutting the foundation’s budget, not increasing it. He called the agency “the king of wasteful spending.” The agency finances about a quarter of all federally supported research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. “The bill is nothing more than a big government response that will make our country weaker, not stronger,” Paul said. FILE – Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 5, 2020.But Senator Maria Cantwell noted that a greater federal investment in the physical sciences had been called for during the administration of President George W. Bush to ensure U.S. economic competitiveness. “At the time, I’m pretty sure we thought we were in a track meet where our competitor was, oh, I don’t know, maybe half a lap behind us. I’m pretty sure now as the decade has moved on, we’re looking over our shoulder and realizing that the competition is gaining,” said Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The lead Republican on the committee also weighed in to support the bill. “This is an opportunity for the United States to strike a blow on behalf of answering the unfair competition that we are seeing from communist China,” Senator Roger Wicker said. Senators have tried to strike a balance when calling attention to China’s growing influence. They want to avoid fanning divisive anti-Asian rhetoric when hate crimes against Asian Americans have spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Other measures spell out national security concerns and target money-laundering schemes or cyberattacks by entities on behalf of the Chinese government. There are also “Buy America” provisions for infrastructure projects in the U.S.  Senators added provisions that reflect shifting attitudes toward China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. One would prevent federal money for the Wuhan Institute of Virology as fresh investigations proceed into the origins of the virus and possible connections to the lab’s research. The city registered some of the first coronavirus cases. It’s unclear whether the measure will find support in the Democratic-led House, where the Science Committee is expected to soon consider that chamber’s version. Congressman Ro Khanna, who has been working with Schumer for two years on legislation that’s included in the bill, called it the biggest investment in science and technology since the Apollo space flight program a half century ago. “I’m quite certain we will get a really good product on the president’s desk,” Schumer said. Biden said he looked forward to working with the House on the legislation, “and I look forward to signing it into law as soon as possible.” 
 
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The global sting operation billed as “Trojan Shield” that led to the arrests of hundreds of criminals this week began with the takedown of an encrypted device maker catering to drug traffickers around the world.  In 2018, the FBI dismantled Canada-based Phantom Secure, forcing its customers — at the time estimated at more than 10,000 — to look for other encrypted apps.   To fill the void, the FBI in late 2019 recruited a “confidential human source” to launch its own hardened encrypted device company called ANOM, putting a new, secure communications product on the market. The informant in turn introduced the device to his network of trusted distributors, allowing the use of the device to grow organically, according to an FBI affidavit. The ANOM app quickly took off in the criminal underworld. So confident were ANOM’s distributors and administrators in the secrecy of the devices that “they openly marketed them to other potential users as designed by criminals for criminals,” Andy Grossman, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, said at a press conference Tuesday in San Diego, announcing charges against 17 foreign nationals accused of administering and distributing the app.  The ANOM logo is displayed on the screen of a smartphone in Paris, June 8, 2021.Law enforcement officials stand in front of an Operation Trojan Shield logo at a news conference, in San Diego, June 8, 2021.The data was then provided to the FBI, which reviewed the communications for criminal activity and shared them with law enforcement agencies around the world. Law enforcement officials said they obtained more than 27 million messages in 45 different languages exchanged over the ANOM app during the 18 months of the investigation.   “The supreme irony here is that the very devices that these criminals were using to hide from law enforcement were actually beacons for law enforcement,” Grossman said. While the FBI had previously infiltrated encrypted communications platforms used by criminals, Operation Trojan Shield marked the first time the bureau operated its own platform, which at the time of its takedown on Monday had more than 9,000 active users.  The operation was unprecedented in its scale, innovative strategy, international coordination and investigative outcome, Grossman said. Law enforcement agencies from 16 countries took part in the investigation, searching 700 locations and arresting more than 800 people, including 300 over the last two days, on a range of criminal charges. In addition, more than 32 tons of narcotics and more than $48 million in international currencies were seized.  In the U.S., prosecutors unsealed federal charges against 17 foreign nationals, including Ayik, with drug trafficking, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Eight of the 17 were taken into custody late Monday. The rest remain at large.  Law enforcement officials said the sting operation’s real significance lay beyond the arrests and seizures.   “The immense and unprecedented success of Operation Trojan Shield should be a warning to international criminal organizations: Your criminal communications may not be secure, and you can count on law enforcement worldwide working together to combat dangerous crime that crosses international borders,” said Suzanne Turner, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego field office. 
 
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The top executive for the biggest fuel pipeline operator in the United States told lawmakers he felt like he had no choice but to pay off hackers after a ransomware attack shut down operations along the East Coast. Testifying Tuesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Colonial Pipeline Chief Executive Joseph Blount took responsibility for agreeing to pay the Russian-based DarkSide Network approximately $5 million to minimize potentially disastrous delays to fuel delivery. “I know how critical our pipeline is to the country, and I put the interests of the country first,” Blount said. “It was the hardest decision I’ve made in my 39 years in the energy industry,” he added. “We wanted to stay focused on getting the pipeline back up and running. I believe with all my heart it was the right choice to make.” The May 7 DarkSide ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline spawned fuel shortages and panic-buying across parts of the U.S., pushing prices higher as drivers hunted for gas stations that had not run out of fuel. FILE – A man with a gas container greets a motorist waiting in a lengthy line to enter a gasoline station during a surge in the demand for fuel following the cyberattack that crippled the Colonial Pipeline, in Durham, North Carolina, May 12, 2021.U.S. law enforcement, including cyber experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), routinely warn companies against paying ransoms to hackers. But Blount said that even though the company was in contact with the FBI, he felt paying DarkSide was the most prudent option. “It was our understanding that the decision was solely ours as a private company,” he told lawmakers. “Considering the consequences of potentially not bringing the pipeline back on as quickly as I possibly could, I chose the ransom.” Blount said Colonial did not deal with DarkSide directly and instead hired legal experts and negotiators to act as intermediaries. The payment was delivered May 8 to the ransomware network in the form of the bitcoin cryptocurrency.  In return, DarkSide provided Colonial with a decryption key that helped the company regain access to its systems and eventually resume operations, Blount said, noting that some systems are just now coming back online. Blount’s testimony comes just a day after the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI announced that they managed to track the ransom and recover the majority of the bitcoin, which was valued at about $2.3 million.  FILE – A Colonial Pipeline station is seen in Smyrna, Ga., near Atlanta, May 11, 2021.Other experts worry that companies, organizations and governments, like Colonial Pipeline, are putting themselves at a disadvantage. “With ransomware, the misconception is that there’s two options: pay criminals or don’t pay criminals,” said Raj Samani, co-founder of No More Ransom, an organization that distributes decryption keys for free. “Many of the decryptors that are developed by the ransomware groups are actually rubbish,” said Samani, who is also the chief scientist at McAfee, a U.S.-based cybersecurity company. “So, even if you pay a fee, you may not get your data back.” In the case of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, the decryption key did allow the company to start getting some systems up and running.   “It’s not a perfect tool,” Blount told lawmakers Tuesday, adding that the company is working to further harden its cyber defenses. Blount said DarkSide was able to access Colonial’s systems by exploiting a virtual private network (VPN) that was no longer in use and which was protected only by a single password. CISA recommends using what is known as multifactor authentication, which requires users use a password and then complete a second step, such as replying to a text message, in order to access critical systems. 
 
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A number of major websites could not be reached early Tuesday because of an outage at the cloud services company Fastly.The affected sites included news agencies CNN, The Guardian and The New York Times, streaming platform Twitch, and the British government website.  All were back online within a period of hours.The outage also forced CNN’s website offline in the Asian cities of Hong Kong and Singapore. There was little mention of the outage on social media platforms in China, where most foreign media websites are permanently blocked.About an hour after acknowledging the problem, Fastly said, “The issue has been identified, and a fix has been applied.”The company said a service configuration issue caused the disruptions, suggesting it was an internal glitch.Based in San Francisco, California, Fastly is a content-delivery network that provides cloud computing servers to many popular internet sites.The servers store images, video and other content in various places around the world to be closer to users. Closer proximity to the servers enables users to access content more quickly.The outage occurred about a month after a cyberattack caused the largest fuel pipeline operator in the United States to stop operating for six days.
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U.S. law enforcement officials say they have hit back at the Russian-based criminal network that caused gas pipelines to shut down across parts of the country last month, seizing much of the multimillion-dollar ransom payment before it could be used.The Justice Department announced Monday it recovered $2.3 million of the approximately $5 million Colonial Pipeline paid to the DarkSide Network following the ransomware attack, which resulted in fuel shortages along the U.S. East Coast.“We turned the tables on DarkSide,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, describing the seizure as a “significant development.”“Ransomware attacks are always unacceptable, but when they target critical infrastructure, we will spare no effort in our response,” she added.Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, May 12, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C.Colonial Pipeline, the target of DarkSide’s May 7 attack, is the top fuel pipeline operator in the U.S., responsible for about half of the fuel supply for the East Coast.Following the attack, the company made the decision to meet DarkSide’s demands, paying out about $5 million in Bitcoin cryptocurrency. But U.S. government officials said Colonial also worked closely with law enforcement agencies, who were able to track the payment to a virtual wallet.Specifically, officials said they were able to obtain a virtual key that unlocked the contents of the wallet.As a result, the Justice Department said it was able to recover about 80% of the cryptocurrency, which has dropped in value in recent weeks, before DarkSide could access it.“We deprived a cybercriminal enterprise of the object of their activity,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “For financially motivated cybercriminals, especially those presumably located overseas, cutting off access to revenue is one of the most impactful consequences we can impose.”Officials said this is not the first time they have been able to recover ransom payment made to groups like DarkSide, and encouraged other companies to cooperate with the government if they are targeted.“The message we are sending today is that if you come forward and work with law enforcement, we may be able to take the type of action that we took today to deprive the criminal actors of what they’re going after,” Monaco said.But she added that this type of operation is a “significant undertaking” and “we cannot guarantee, and we may not be able to do this, in every instance.”The FBI has been investigating DarkSide since last October, blaming the network for attacks against 90 victims across critical sectors such as manufacturing, health care and energy.DarkSide and its affiliates have also been connected to ransomware attacks in at least 14 other countries. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported the group made almost $60 million in seven months, including $46 million in the first three months of this year.In a statement late Monday, Colonial Pipeline President Joseph Blount said the company was grateful for the help from both the Justice Department and the FBI, calling them “instrumental in helping us to understand the threat actor and their tactics.”“Holding cyber criminals accountable and disrupting the ecosystem that allows them to operate is the best way to deter and defend against future attacks of this nature,” Blount added. “As our investigation into this event continues, Colonial will continue its transparency in sharing intelligence and learnings with the FBI and other federal agencies.”The Justice Department announcement also earned praise from some private cybersecurity firms, with one calling the seizure of the ransom payment a “welcome development.”“In addition to the immediate benefits of this approach, a stronger focus on disruption may disincentivize this behavior, which is growing in a vicious cycle,” John Hultquist, vice president of analysis at Mandiant, said in a statement. “Law enforcement agencies need to broaden their approach beyond building cases against criminals who may be beyond the grasp of the law.”U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to raise the issue of the DarkSide ransomware attack when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, next week.Biden has previously said Moscow bears “some responsibility” to deal with the attack.“The president’s message will be that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals, and responsible countries take decisive action against these ransomware networks,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week.National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that Biden will also use meetings next week with G-7 leaders to discuss “increasing the robustness and resilience of our defense against ransomware attacks.”Sullivan said the U.S. also hopes to discuss ways to better share information about ransomware attacks.Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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Apple on Monday said a new “private relay” feature designed to obscure a user’s web browsing behavior from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China for regulatory reasons.The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference Monday.It will also be unavailable in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines, Apple said.The “private relay” feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of its IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website.The use of an outside party in the second hop of the relay system is intentional, Apple said, to prevent even Apple from knowing both the user’s identity and what website the user is visiting.Apple has not yet disclosed which outside partners it will use in the system but said it plans to disclose them in the future. The feature will not likely become available to the public until later this year. 
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Western military experts are assessing whether an autonomous drone operated by artificial intelligence, or AI, killed people — in Libya last year — for the first time without a human controller directing it remotely to do so.
 
A report by a United Nations panel of experts issued last week that concluded an advanced drone deployed in Libya “hunted down and remotely engaged” soldiers fighting for Libyan general Khalifa Haftar has prompted a frenetic debate among Western security officials and analysts.  
 
Governments at the United Nations have been debating for months whether a global pact should be agreed on the use of armed drones, autonomous and otherwise, and what restrictions should be placed on them. The U.N.’s Libya report is adding urgency to the debate. Drone advances have “a lot of implications regionally and globally,” says Ziya Meral of the Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank.
 
“It is time to assess where things are with Turkish drones and advanced warfare technology and what this means for the region and what it means for NATO,” he said at a RUSI-hosted event in London.  
 
According to the U.N. report, Turkish-made Kargu-2 lethal autonomous aircraft launched so-called swarm attacks, likely on behalf of Libya’s Government of National Accord, against the warlord Haftar’s militias in March last year, marking the first time AI-equipped drones accomplished a successful attack. Remnants of a Kargu-2 were recovered later.  
 
The use of autonomous drones that do not require human operators to guide them remotely once they have been programmed is opposed by many human rights organizations. There were rumors that Turkish-supplied AI drones, alongside remote-guided ones, were used last year by Azerbaijani forces in their clashes with Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding territories.
 Myriad of dilemmas
If AI drones did launch lethal swarm attacks it would mark a “new chapter in autonomous weapons,” worries the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Critics of AI drones, which can use facial-recognition technology, say they raise a number of moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.  
 
“These types of weapons operate on software-based algorithms ‘taught’ through large training datasets to, for example, classify various objects. Computer vision programs can be trained to identify school buses, tractors, and tanks. But the datasets they train on may not be sufficiently complex or robust, and an artificial intelligence (AI) may ‘learn’ the wrong lesson,” the non-profit Bulletin warns.  
 
The manufacturer of the Kargu-2, Defense Technologies and Trade (STM), told Turkish media last year that their drones are equipped with facial-recognition technology, allowing individual targets to be identified and neutralized without having to deploy ground forces. And company executives say Kargu-2 drones can swarm together overwhelming defenses.
 
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lauded the success of Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), saying the results they had produced “require war strategies to be rewritten.” Turkey has deployed them in military operations in northern Syria, Turkish officials have acknowledged.  
 
Speaking at a parliamentary meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey plans to go further and is aiming to be among the first countries to develop an AI-managed warplane. Recently the chief technology officer of Baykar, a major Turkish drone manufacturer, announced the company had slated 2023 for the maiden flight of its prototype unmanned fighter jet.
 ‘A significant player’
Sanctions and embargoes on Turkey in recent years have been a major driving force behind Ankara pressing ahead to develop a new generation of unconventional weapons, says Ulrike Franke of the European Council for Foreign Relations. “Turkey has become a significant player in the global drone market,” she said at the RUSI event. When it comes to armed drones, she noted, there are four states dominating drone development — the U.S., Israel, China and Turkey. The latter pair, the “new kids on the block,” are driving drone proliferation because unlike the U.S. they are not reticent about export sales, she said.  
 
“Turkey has shown that a mid-sized power, when it puts its mind and money behind it, can develop very sophisticated armed drones,” says Franke.
 
Last October when the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh saw the worst fighting there since 1994, Turkish drones were assessed as having given Azerbaijan a key edge over the Armenians. Turkish drones sliced through Armenia’s air defenses and pummeled its Russian-made tanks.  
 
Analysts calculate around 90 countries have military drones for reconnaissance and intelligence missions and at least a dozen states have armed drones. Britain is believed to have ten; Turkey around 140. The U.S. air force has around 300 Reaper drones alone. The deployment of armed drones to conduct targeted killings outside formal war zones has been highly contentious. But AI drone development is adding to global alarm.
 
“With more and more countries acquiring armed drones, there is a risk that the controversies surrounding how drones are used and the challenges these pose to international legal frameworks, as well as to democratic values such as transparency, accountability and the rule of law, could also increase,” Britain’s Chatham House noted in a research paper published in April.  
 
“This is accentuated further, given that the use of drones continues to expand and to evolve in new ways, and in the absence of a distinct legal framework to regulate such use,” say the paper’s authors Jessica Dorsey and Nilza Amaral.   
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A slew of crypto-related accounts in China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform were blocked over the weekend, as Beijing stepped up a crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining. More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator. Last month, China’s State Council, or cabinet, vowed to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading, escalating a campaign against cryptocurrencies days after three industry bodies banned crypto-related financial and payment services. Over the weekend, access to several of widely followed crypto-related Weibo accounts was denied, with a message saying each account “violates laws and rules.” “It’s a Judgment Day for crypto KOL,” wrote a Weibo bitcoin commentator, or key opinion leader (KOL), who calls herself “Woman Dr. bitcoin mini.” Her main account was also blocked on Saturday. “The government makes it clear that no Chinese version of Elon Musk can exist in the Chinese crypto market,” said NYU Law School adjunct professor Winston Ma, referring to the Tesla founder and cryptocurrency enthusiast. Ma, author of the book “The Digital War,” also expects China’s supreme court to publish a judicial interpretation soon that may link crypto mining and trading businesses with China’s body of criminal law. The view was echoed by a financial regulator, who said that such an interpretation would address the legal ambiguity that has failed to clearly identify bitcoin trading businesses as “illegal operations.” All the rules against cryptocurrencies so far in China have been published by administrative bodies. The Weibo freeze comes as Chinese media have stepped up reporting against crypto trading. The official Xinhua News Agency has published articles that exposed a series of crypto-related scams. State broadcaster CCTV has said cryptocurrency is a lightly regulated asset often used in black market trade, money laundering, arms smuggling, gambling and drug dealings. The stepped-up crackdown also comes as China’s central bank is accelerating testing of its own digital currency. 
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Microsoft Corp. blamed “accidental human error” for its Bing search engine briefly not showing image results for the search term “tank man” on the anniversary of the bloody military crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.Users in different parts of the world, including the U.S., said Friday that no image results were returned when they searched for the term “tank man.””Tank man” refers to the iconic image of a standoff between an unidentified civilian and a line of military tanks leaving Beijing’s Tiananmen Square after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. The photo has become a symbol of defiance around the world.After being alerted by reporters, Microsoft said in a statement that the issue was “due to an accidental human error and has been resolved.” Hours later, images of “tank man” photographs were returned by the search engine.The company did not elaborate on what the human error was or how it had happened. Nor did it say how much of its Bing development team is China-based. The company’s  largest research and development center outside the United States is in China, and it posted a job in January for a China-based senior software engineer to lead a team that develops the technology powering Bing image search.Chinese authorities require search engines, websites and social media platforms operating within the country to censor keywords and results deemed politically sensitive or critical of the Chinese government.References to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 are blocked in China, as are images relating to the event, such as “tank man.”Microsoft’s Bing is one of the few international search engines that operate in China, where it abides by local censorship laws and competes with larger Chinese search engines such as Baidu and Sogou.Bing has a 2.5% market share in China, according to data site Statcounter.Rival Google exited the Chinese market in 2010 after four years of operation, following disputes over censorship and a major hacking attack that Google believes originated in China.
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Foreign keyboard criminals with scant fear of repercussions have paralyzed U.S. schools and hospitals, leaked highly sensitive police files, triggered fuel shortages and, most recently, threatened global food supply chains.Escalating havoc caused by ransomware gangs raises an obvious question: Why has the United States, believed to have the world’s greatest cyber capabilities, looked so powerless to protect its citizens from these kind of criminals operating with near impunity out of Russia and allied countries?The answer is that there are numerous technological, legal and diplomatic hurdles to going after ransomware gangs. Until recently, it just hasn’t been a high priority for the U.S. government.That has changed as the problem has grown well beyond an economic nuisance. President Joe Biden intends to confront Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, about Moscow’s harboring of ransomware criminals when the two men meet in Europe later this month. The Biden administration has also promised to boost defenses against attacks, improve efforts to prosecute those responsible and build diplomatic alliances to pressure countries that harbor ransomware gangs.Calls are growing for the administration to direct U.S. intelligence agencies and the military to attack ransomware gangs’ technical infrastructure used for hacking, posting sensitive victim data on the dark web and storing digital currency payouts.Fighting ransomware requires the nonlethal equivalent of the “global war on terrorism” launched after the Sept. 11 attacks, said John Riggi, a former FBI agent and senior adviser for cybersecurity and risk for the America Hospital Association. Its members have been hard hit by ransomware gangs during the coronavirus pandemic.”It should include a combination of diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence operations, of course, and military operations,” Riggi said.A public-private task force including Microsoft and Amazon made similar suggestions in an 81-page report that called for intelligence agencies and the Pentagon’s U.S. Cyber Command to work with other agencies to “prioritize ransomware disruption operations.””Take their infrastructure away, go after their wallets, their ability to cash out,” said Philip Reiner, a lead author of the report. He worked at the National Security Council during the Obama presidency and is now CEO at The Institute for Security and Technology.A JBS Processing Plant stands dormant after halting operations on June 1, 2021, in Greeley, Colorado. JBS facilities around the globe were impacted by a ransomware attack, forcing many of its facilities to shut down.But the difficulties of taking down ransomware gangs and other cybercriminals have long been clear. The FBI’s list of most-wanted cyber fugitives has grown at a rapid clip and now has more than 100 entries, many of whom are not exactly hiding. Evgeniy Bogachev, indicted nearly a decade ago for what prosecutors say was a wave of cyber bank thefts, lives in a Russian resort town and “is known to enjoy boating” on the Black Sea, according to the FBI’s wanted listing.Ransomware gangs can move around, do not need much infrastructure to operate and can shield their identities. They also operate in a decentralized network. For instance, DarkSide, the group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack that led to fuel shortages in the South, rents out its ransomware software to partners to carry out attacks.Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Red Canary, said identifying and disrupting ransomware criminals takes time and serious effort.”A lot of people misunderstand that the government can’t just willy-nilly go out and press a button and say, well, nuke that computer,” she said. “Trying to attribute to a person in cyberspace is not an easy task, even for intelligence communities.”Reiner said those limits do not mean the United States cannot still make progress against defeating ransomware, comparing it with America’s ability to degrade the terrorist group al-Qaida while not capturing its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over after U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden.”We can fairly easily make the argument that al-Qaida no longer poses a threat to the homeland,” Reiner said. “So, short of getting al-Zawahiri, you destroy his ability to actually operate. That’s what you can do to these [ransomware] guys.”The White House has been vague about whether it plans to use offensive cyber measures against ransomware gangs. Press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that “we’re not going to take options off the table,” but she did not elaborate. Her comments followed a ransomware attack by a Russian gang that caused outages at Brazil’s JBS SA, the second-largest producer of beef, pork and chicken in the United States.FILE – Tanker trucks are parked near the entrance of Colonial Pipeline Company, May 12, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C. The operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline paid $4.4 million to a gang of hackers who broke into its computer systems.Gen. Paul Nakasone, who leads U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said at a recent symposium that he believes the U.S. will be “bringing the weight of our nation,” including the Defense Department, “to take down this [ransomware] infrastructure outside the United States.”Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who is a legislative leader on cybersecurity issues, said the debate in Congress over how aggressive the U.S. needs to be against ransomware gangs, as well as state adversaries, will be “front and center of the next month or two.””To be honest, it’s complicated because you’re talking about using government agencies, government capabilities to go after private citizens in another country,” he said.The U.S. is widely believed to have the best offensive cyber capabilities in the world, though details about such highly classified activities are scant. Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show the U.S. conducted 231 offensive cyber operations in 2011. More than a decade ago a virus called Stuxnet attacked control units for centrifuges in an underground site in Iran, causing the sensitive devices to spin out of control and destroy themselves. The cyberattack was attributed to America and Israel.U.S. policy called “persistent engagement” already authorizes cyberwarriors to engage hostile hackers in cyberspace and disrupt their operations with code. U.S. Cyber Command has launched offensive operations related to election security, including against Russian misinformation officials during U.S. midterm elections in 2018.After the Colonial Pipeline attack, Biden promised that his administration was committed to bringing foreign cybercriminals to justice. Yet even as he was speaking from the White House, a different Russian-linked ransomware gang was leaking thousands of highly sensitive internal files — including deeply personal background checks — belonging to the police department in the nation’s capital. Experts believe it’s the worst ransomware attack against a U.S.-based law enforcement agency.”We are not afraid of anyone,” the hackers wrote in a follow-up post. 
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Millions of Nigerians struggled Saturday to access Twitter, a day after authorities suspended the service in response to the company’s deletion of a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari for violating its terms of service.The Twitter ban took effect Saturday morning. Millions of users in Lagos and Abuja said they were unable to access their accounts.Authorities said Friday that they had banned Twitter because it was persistently being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”Twitter responded to the ban, saying it was “deeply concerning.”‘Reverse the unlawful suspension’Many citizens and rights groups objected to the ban. Amnesty International said it was a threat to free speech and must be reversed without delay. “Amnesty International condemns the Nigerian government’s suspension of Twitter in Nigeria,” said Seun Bakare, a spokesperson for the organization. Bakare said Amnesty had called on Nigerian authorities “to immediately reverse the unlawful suspension and other plans to gag the media, to repress the civic space and to undermine human rights of the people. The Nigerian government has an obligation to protect and promote International human rights laws and standards.”FILE – Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari attends a press briefing in Pretoria, South Africa, Oct. 3, 2019.The ban mostly affected the country’s largest network providers, MTN and Airtel.Some users Saturday were able to access Twitter using Wi-Fi connections. Others were avoiding the shutdown by using virtual private networks that make them appear to be using Twitter from another country.VPN providers have since Friday seen a surge in usage. Abuja resident Basil Akpakavir was among Twitter users getting around the government ban.”They are relentless in their intolerant attitude toward people that have contrary opinion to theirs,” Akpakavir said. “But the truth is that we’re equal to the task, as well. Whichever way they want it, we’re going to give it to them. We want a Nigeria that is prosperous, that is built on the tenets of true democracy.”Separatist group singled outBuhari had threatened earlier in the week to crack down on separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in a manner similar to the civil war waged in 1967 when 3 million Biafrans were estimated to have died in battle against the Nigerian government.The president’s tweet was criticized as a war threat to separatist groups, and Twitter deleted it.Amnesty’s Bakare said the government must be held accountable for comments capable of instigating division and violence.”It is important that government platforms, and in this particular instance the president, do not invite violence or division,” Bakare said. “The government must be alive to the increased tensions in the country, given the spate of insecurity.”The Nigerian government has often attempted to regulate the use of social media to reduce criticism.Late last year, the government proposed a social media regulation bill after the End SARS protests against police brutality, when social media were used by young Nigerians to mobilize and challenge what they said was bad governance.
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Do you know how much data your car is collecting? VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are among those eager to dig into the automobile data gold mines.
Camera: Veronica Balderas Iglesias      Producer: Veronica Balderas Iglesias
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Nigeria’s government said Friday it was suspending Twitter indefinitely in Africa’s most populous nation, a day after the company deleted a controversial tweet President Muhammadu Buhari made about a secessionist movement.It was not immediately clear when the suspension would go into effect as users could still access Twitter late Friday, and many said they would simply use VPNs to maintain access to the platform.Others mocked the government for using the platform to announce the action.”You’re using Twitter to suspend Twitter? Are you not mad?” one user tweeted in response.Information Minister Lai Mohammed said Friday that government officials took the step because the platform was being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”Mohammed criticized Twitter for deleting the post. “The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious,” he said, adding that Twitter had in the past ignored “inciting” tweets against the Nigerian government.Twitter deleted Buhari’s post on Wednesday, calling it abusive, after the president threatened suspected separatist militants in the southeast.More than 1 million people died during the 1967-70 civil war that erupted when secessionists sought to create an independent Biafra for the ethnic Igbo people. Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, was on the opposing side in the war against the Igbos.In recent months, pro-Biafra separatists have been accused of attacking police and government buildings, and Buhari vowed to retaliate and “treat them in the language they understand.”
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Facebook said Friday it would suspend Donald Trump’s accounts for at least two years, retaining a ban on the former U.S. president that it imposed after determining he incited the deadly January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. “At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,” Facebook Vice President Nick Clegg wrote in a blog post Friday.  The social media giant’s independent oversight board upheld its block on Trump, which was enacted after the riot because the company said his posts were inciting violence. On January 6, Trump implored thousands of supporters who had come to Washington for a “Save America March” to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat, just before the riot aimed at preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Five people died, including a federal police officer. The ban expires on January 7, 2023, two years after Facebook first blocked the former president. The timing of Facebook’s decision will reduce Trump’s ability to influence midterm congressional elections in November 2022, but his account could be restored well before voters go to polls in 2024 should Trump decide to seek the presidency again that year. In response to Facebook’s decision, Trump said in a statement it is “an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing and ultimately, we will win.” FILE – The founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the 56th Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 15, 2020.In a separate statement he added, “Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!” Zuckerberg is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Facebook. At the White House briefing Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki said the ban was the company’s decision. “Our view continues to be, though, that every platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, any other platform that is disseminating information to millions of Americans, has a responsibility to crack down on disinformation, to crack down on false information whether it’s about the election or even about the vaccine, as we are trying to keep the American public safe.” 
 
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Facebook plans to end a contentious policy championed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that exempted politicians from certain moderation rules on its site, according to several news reports.The company’s rationale for that policy held that the speech of political leaders is inherently newsworthy and in the public interest even if it is offensive, bullying or otherwise controversial. The social media giant is currently mulling over what to do with the account of former President Donald Trump, which it “indefinitely” suspended Jan. 6, leaving it in Facebook limbo with its owners unable to post.The change in policy was first reported by the tech site The Verge and later confirmed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.Facebook has had a general “newsworthiness exemption” since 2016. But it garnered attention in 2019 when Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs and communications, announced that speech from politicians will be treated as “newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard.”The newsworthiness exemption, he explained in a blog post at the time, meant that if “someone makes a statement or shares a post which breaks our community standards we will still allow it on our platform if we believe the public interest in seeing it outweighs the risk of harm.”This hasn’t given politicians unlimited license, however. When Facebook suspended Trump in January, it cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as the reason. The company says it has never used the newsworthiness exemption for any of Trump’s posts.Facebook declined to comment.
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Twitter announced a new premium service for users in Canada and Australia that allows paying users to adjust tweets, among other features.Called Twitter Blue, the service allows users to preview and modify a tweet up to 30 seconds before publishing it. Users can also bookmark and organize tweets, making them easier to find.Twitter Blue will also format threads, or series of tweets, into a more readable format.”We’ve heard from the people that use Twitter a lot, and we mean a lot, that we don’t always build power features that meet their needs,” two Twitter product managers, Sara Beykpour and Smita Mittal Gupta, wrote in a blog post about the new service.Twitter Blue will cost $4.49 a month in Australian dollars and $3.49 in Canadian dollars.Twitter says that more features are forthcoming and that users in other parts of the world will have access to Twitter Blue in the “near future.” 
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The White House on Thursday urged American businesses to take new precautions to combat disruptive ransomware attacks that have increasingly hobbled companies throughout Western economies.Jen Psaki, President Joe Biden’s press secretary, urged private industry to harden access to their computer systems, saying the government “can’t do it alone.”Anne Neuberger, a White House cybersecurity official, said in a statement that the “most important takeaway” from the recent attacks, including those affecting a key gasoline pipeline and a meat production company in the U.S., is that “companies that view ransomware as a threat to their core business operations rather than a simple risk of data theft will react and recover more effectively.”“Many ransomware criminals are aggressive and sophisticated and will find the equivalent of unlocked doors,” Neuberger said. “The threats are serious, and they are increasing.”She urged businesses to “back up your data, system images, and configurations, regularly test them, and keep the backups offline.”Neuberger said companies should “ensure that backups are regularly tested and that they are not connected to the business network, as many ransomware variants try to find and encrypt or delete accessible backups.”The deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging tech also said U.S. businesses should “test your incident response plan” because “there’s nothing that shows the gaps in plans more than testing them.”Neuberger said companies should use third parties to test their own security work, segment corporate business functions from manufacturing and production operations and regularly test contingency plans “so that safety critical functions can be maintained during a cyber incident.” 
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The European Union (EU) Thursday unveiled its plans for a digital ID wallet that would hold all official documents residents would need to allow them access to the information at home or anywhere across the 27-nation bloc.
 
At a news briefing on the proposal in Brussels, European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said the European Digital Identity Wallet would be a smartphone app that would let users store electronic forms of identification and other official documents, such as driver’s licenses, prescriptions and school diplomas.
 
Vestager said the plan would enable the bloc’s 450 million residents to do anything they would at home — rent an apartment, open a bank account — in any EU member state. She was quick to add that the plan would not be mandatory and that citizens could put as much or as little data in the app as they felt comfortable with.  
 
She said technical work was already underway to ensure the app had the latest encryption technology available and could not be hacked.  
 
As many as 14 EU countries already have their own national digital ID systems, and EU officials say the app is being developed for compatibility with those systems. The commission plans to discuss the digital wallet with the EU’s 27 member countries and aims to get them to agree on technical details by fall so pilot projects can begin.
 
The proposal is part of a wider plan by the EU to go more digital and is a key part of its post-COVID-19 recovery package. The bloc has set a target of having all public services in the EU available online by 2030 and ensuring that every EU citizen has a digital medical record.
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