EU countries can restrict or exclude high-risk 5G providers from core parts of their telecoms network infrastructure under new guidelines to be issued by the European Commission next week, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The non-binding recommendations are part of a set of measures aimed at addressing cybersecurity risks at national and bloc-wide level, in particular concerns related to world No. 1 player Huawei Technologies.
The guidelines do not identify any particular country or company, the people said.
“Stricter security measures will apply for high-risk vendors for sensitive parts of the network or the core infrastructure,” one of the people said.
EU digital economy chief Margrethe Vestager is expected to announce the recommendations on Jan. 29.Other measures include urging EU countries to audit or even issue certificates for high-risk suppliers.EU governments will also be advised to diversify their suppliers and not depend on one company and to use technical and non-technical factors to assess them.
Europe is under pressure from the United States to ban Huawei equipment on concerns that its gear could be used by China for spying. Huawei, which competes with Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson has denied the allegations.
…

An immersive art installation in New York City has visitors captivated. The team behind the popular attraction? It’s part human and part machine-learning algorithms. VOA’s Tina Trinh looks at what happens when artificial intelligence becomes part of the creative process
…

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears set to give the go-ahead for Chinese telecom giant Huawei to play a role in the development of Britain’s 5G wireless network — a move that risks jeopardizing intelligence-sharing between Britain and America, according U.S. officials.  Despite last-ditch lobbying by the U.S. to block Huawei, British officials say it is a “foregone conclusion” Johnson will allow Huawei participation.That would confirm a “provisional” decision made by his predecessor, Theresa May. Last year, she said Huawei should be allowed to build some so-called “non-core” parts of Britain’s future 5G data network, discounting U.S. alarm.Johnson’s final decision could come as early as this week, officials say.For a year, the Trump administration has urged Britain to ban Huawei from participating in the development of Britain’s fifth-generation wireless network. U.S. officials say there’s a significant risk that the company, which has close ties to Chinese intelligence services, will act as a Trojan horse for Beijing’s espionage agencies, allowing them to sweep up data and gather intelligence.FILE – Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Oct. 16, 2019.Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have urged all Western allies to shun Huawei on security grounds. They have specifically warned Downing Street that Britain’s participation in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement — the U.S.-led Anglophone intelligence pact linking Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain — would be imperiled.Australia and New Zealand have banned Huawei from developing their 5G networks. As yet, Canada has not.Senior U.S. security officials flew to London last week and warned Johnson and his ministers that allowing Huawei to supply even some non-core equipment of the future 5G network would be “nothing short of madness.”Cost factorBut Johnson has faced strong counter lobbying from China — and also from British telecom providers and mobile phone companies. They have already been installing Huawei technology to start setting up the new network in more than 70 cities in Britain. They warn that delaying the rollout of 5G would cost the British economy billions of pounds. Ripping out masts and other equipment already in place would cost British providers hundreds of millions of pounds and could delay by up to five years the 5G network.Last week, Johnson expressed frustration with the U.S. over the issue, saying in a BBC radio interview that he didn’t want “to prejudice our national security or our ability to co-operate with Five Eyes intelligence partners,” but that he wanted Britain to have “access to the best possible technology. We want to put in gigabit broadband for everybody.”Johnson added, “If people oppose one brand or another, then they have to tell us what’s the alternative.”Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks at the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London, Britain, Jan. 20, 2020.U.S. officials reportedly told Johnson that Britain shouldn’t prioritize costs over security.Johnson has some U.S. supporters.”It is a difficult decision for a number of countries, the U.K. being one of them,” said Robert Manning, an analyst at the Atlantic Council.Huawei alternativesManning sympathizes with Johnson’s complaint that the U.S. isn’t offering any alternatives to Huawei.”On one level, this is all a fallout from America First policy. We should have sat down with our allies a long time ago to sort out what you have to worry about and what you might have some leeway on. There is a certain demonization going on, ” he told VOA.British technology experts say it is easier for the U.S. to avoid using Huawei equipment, as it is building a less sophisticated 5G network and doesn’t require the advanced antenna-sharing technology Huawei has developed. They say Huawei will provide not just faster mobile data connection but easier connectivity between internet-based devices, from laptops and smart refrigerators to self-driving cars.U.S. giants Cisco and Qualcomm are the go-to 5G equipment suppliers in America. But like Europe’s Ericsson and Nokia, they can’t currently provide the same advanced equipment as Huawei or at the same low price.Security risksBritish intelligence agencies are split on whether Huawei poses a security risk.  Andrew Parker, head of MI5, believes U.S. alarm is overblown. He has said publicly that the security risks can be managed if Huawei has access to the less sensitive parts of the new network, and is monitored closely and its equipment screened.He has also discounted U.S. threats to review intelligence-sharing, saying there is “no reason to think” Washington would follow through with its threat, as the U.S.-U.K. partnership is “very close and very trusted.”But U.S. officials have told VOA that Parker is wrong to think that U.S. intelligence agencies would overlook the spying fears. They also warn that a possible Johnson fudge, whereby Huawei’s equipment would be allowed in less sensitive parts of the network, wouldn’t assuage their concerns.Top officials at Britain’s GCHQ, the eavesdropping spy agency and the country’s largest intelligence, aren’t as sanguine as Parker, and remain worried about the risks of handing Huawei unprecedented access to British citizens’ sensitive data.FILE – An analyst points to a screen at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s electronic intelligence service, in London, March, 14, 2014.They agree with U.S. intelligence assessments that restricting Huawei to the “edges” of the new network would make little difference to the security risk. They told Britain’s Sunday Times that giving Huawei such access would be akin to “letting a fox loose in a chicken coop.”Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who when in office ruled out using Huawei for 5G development, said the nature of 5G technology made it impossible to separate the core from non-core elements of the future network. He said Huawei could be forced by Chinese law to hand over information to Beijing’s espionage agencies.”Do you want to give China the capability to materially interfere with what will become one of the most fundamental technological platforms in the modern economy?” he said in a radio interview last week.The Chinese government says Huawei is a private company and poses no security risk to the West. Huawei has dismissed U.S. allegations that it could undermine Britain’s national security as “baseless speculation.”Beijing has also made thinly veiled threats, suggesting a decision to ban Huawei could result in Britain being punished when it comes to trade and investment.Britain hopes to pull off post-Brexit trade deals with both Washington and Beijing to help compensate for reduced trade with Europe.
 
…

Malawi this month opened the first African Drone and Data Academy, with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.  The academy aims to improve drone technology skills across Africa, beginning with Malawi and neighboring countries.Karen Asaba developed an interest in drones at Uganda Flying Labs, a Kampala-based drone mapping and data hub. As a student at Malawi’s just opened African Drone and Data Academy, she gets to learn how to build one.”Right now, we are learning how to assemble a drone from the start, considering its weight, considering the central gravity, considering the GPS and all the electronics that are involved in making the drone,” she said.Asaba is one of 26 students from across Africa in the first three-month course at the academy, learning to construct and pilot drones.Instructors are seen teaching students at the African Drone and Data Academy in Malawi. (Lameck Masina/VOA)The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is backing the program, which this year is expected to train 150 students.UNICEF says the academy, and the launch of Africa’s first drone corridor in Malawi in 2016, will promote drones for development and humanitarian use.Rudolf Schwenk, the country representative for UNICEF in Malawi, says the drones will have broad practical applications.”For example, transporting medical supplies to remove areas or transporting samples very fast, where it will take a lot of time to transport them.  We have also worked on emergency preparedness and response because with data and drone imagery, you can see where flooding will happen,” Schwenk said.Thumbiko Nkwawa Zingwe, a student at the newly-launched African Drone and Data Academy, says the course he has taken there has insipred him to start a space agency in Malawi. (Lameck Masina/VOA)The drone course was developed with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech.Kevin Kochersberger, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, explained the course’s components.”We go through three modules in this program. They have gone [through] drone logistics, drone technologies so they become very functional in drone[s] – not only being pilots, but they operate and maintain the drones as well,” Kochersberger said.The drone academy has inspired some students like Thumbiko Nkwawa Zingwe to reach for the stars.I have a vision that I can start a first Malawian space agency, which can be utilizing geo-information data for different applications. For example, here in Malawi we are so susceptible to floods as a geo-hazardous anomaly,” Zingwe said.The African Drone and Data Academy’s first graduates are expected in March.The academy plans to partner with Malawi University of Science and Technology for a free master’s degree program in drone technology by 2022.   
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked her conservative lawmakers to wait until after a March EU summit before taking a position on whether China’s Huawei can take part in the rollout of Germany’s 5G network, sources involved in their talks said.Merkel believes European Union coordination on the issue is important and she has been unable to bridge differences within her CDU/CSU bloc, the sources said.Merkel’s conservatives are divided on whether to support a proposal by their Social Democrat (SPD) junior coalition partners that, if approved, would effectively shut out the Chinese technology giant from the network.
  
…

Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Monday, backing changes to global rules that are currently under consideration.The growth of internet giants such as Apple has pushed international tax rules to the limit, prompting the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to pursue global
reforms over where multinational firms should be taxed.
The reforms being examined center around the booking of profits by multinational firms in low-tax countries such as Ireland where they have bases — and where Cook was speaking on Monday — rather than where most of their customers are.
“I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I’m hopeful
and optimistic that they [the OECD] will find something,” Cook said.
“It’s very complex to know how to tax a multinational… We desperately want it to be fair,” the Apple CEO added after receiving an inaugural award from the Irish state agency responsible for attracting foreign companies recognizing the contribution of multinationals in the country.
Apple is one of Ireland’s largest multinational employers with 6,000 workers and both it and the Irish government have gone to court to fight a European Union order that Apple must pay 13 billion euros ($14.41 billion) in back taxes to Dublin.
The appeal to the EU’s second-highest court began in September and could run for years. Cook said Apple’s belief that “law should not retrofitted” was at the heart of the case and that the company had great faith in the justice system.
Apple’s commitment to Ireland, which became its first European operation in 1980, was “unshakable,” Cook said.
The Apple chief executive also said that more regulation was needed in the area of privacy and must go further than the 2018 European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws
that handed regulators there significantly more powers.
“I think more regulation is needed in this area, it is probably strange for a business person to be talking about regulation but it has become apparent that companies will not
self-police in this area,” he said.
“We were one of the first to endorse GDPR, we think it is overall extremely good, not only for Europe. We think it’s necessary but not sufficient. You have to go further and that further is required to get privacy back to where it should be.”
  
…

Google’s chief executive called Monday for a balanced approach to regulating artificial intelligence, telling a European audience that the technology brings benefits but also “negative consequences.”Sundar Pichai’s comments come as lawmakers and governments seriously consider putting limits on how artificial intelligence is used.“There is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. The question is how best to approach this,” Pichai said, according to a transcript of his speech at a Brussel-based think tank.He noted that there’s an important role for governments to play and that as the European Union and the U.S. start drawing up their own approaches to regulation, “international alignment” of any eventual rules will be critical. He did not provide specific proposals.Pichai spoke on the same day he was scheduled to meet the EU’s powerful competition regulator, Margrethe Vestager.Vestager has in previous years hit the Silicon Valley giant with multibillion-dollar fines for allegedly abusing its market dominance to choke off competition. After being reappointed for a second term last autumn with expanded powers over digital technology policies, Vestager has now set her sights on artificial intelligence, and is drawing up rules on its ethical use.Pichai’s comments suggest the company may be hoping to head off a broad-based crackdown by the EU on the technology. Vestager and the EU have been the among the more aggressive regulators of big tech firms, an approach U.S. authorities have picked up with investigations into the dominance of companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon.“Sensible regulation must also take a proportionate approach, balancing potential harms with social opportunities,” he said, adding that it could incorporate existing standards like Europe’s tough General Data Protection Regulation rather than starting from scratch.While it promises big benefits, he raised concerns about potential downsides of artificial intelligence, citing as one example its role in facial recognition technology, which can be used to find missing people but also for “nefarious reasons” which he didn’t specify.In 2018, Google pledged not to use AI in applications related to weapons, surveillance that violates international norms, or that works in ways that go against human rights. 
…

The first stage of an extradition hearing for a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei begins Monday in a Vancouver courtroom, a case that has infuriated Beijing, set off a diplomatic furor and raised fears of a brewing tech war between China and the United States.  Canada’s arrest of chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s legendary founder, in late 2018 at America’s request shocked Beijing.   Huawei represents China’s ambitions to become a technological power, but has been the subject of U.S. security concerns for years. Beijing views Meng’s case as an attempt to contain China’s rise.  “This is one of the top priorities for the Chinese government. They’ve been very mad. They will be watching this very closely,” said Wenran Jiang, a senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.  Washington accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng, 47, committed fraud by misleading HSBC Bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.   In this file photo taken on Nov. 6, 2019, the logo of Chinese telecom giant Huawei is pictured during the Web Summit in Lisbon.Meng, who is free on bail and living in one of the two Vancouver mansions she owns, denies the allegations. Meng’s defense team has pointed to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump they say suggest the case against her is politically motivated.  Meng was detained in December 2018 by Canadian authorities in Vancouver as she was changing flights — the same day that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for trade talks.  Prosecutors have stressed that Meng’s case is separate from the wider trade dispute, but Trump undercut that message weeks after her arrest when he said he would consider intervening in the case if it would help forge a trade deal with Beijing.   China and the U.S. reached a “Phase 1” trade agreement last week, but most analysts say any meaningful resolution of the main U.S. allegation — that Beijing uses predatory tactics in its drive to supplant America’s technological supremacy — could require years of contentious talks. Trump had raised the possibility of using Huawei’s fate as a bargaining chip in the trade talks, but the deal announced Wednesday didn’t mention the company.   Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for cellphone and internet companies. Washington has pressured other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft.  “I think this is the beginning of a technological war along ideological fronts,” said Lynette Ong, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “You are going to see the world divided into two parts. One side would use Chinese companies and the other side would not use Chinese companies because they are weary of the political implications of using Chinese platforms.”James Lewis at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the U.S. wanted to send a message with Meng’s arrest and that there is good evidence that Huawei willfully violated sanctions.  “The message that you are no longer invulnerable has been sent to Chinese executives,” Lewis said. “No one has held China accountable. They steal technology, they violate their WTO commitments and the old line is, ‘Oh, they are a developing economy, who cares.’ When you are the second-largest economy in the world you can’t do that anymore.”  The initial stage of Meng’s extradition hearing will deal with the issue of whether Meng’s alleged crimes are crimes both in the United States and Canada. Her lawyers filed a a motion Friday arguing that Meng’s case is really about U.S. sanctions against Iran, not a fraud case. Canada does not have similar sanctions on Iran.   The second phase, scheduled for June, will consider defense allegations that Canada Border Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI violated her rights while collecting evidence before she was actually arrested.  The extradition case could take years to resolve if there are appeals. Virtually all extradition request from Canada to the U.S. are approved by Canadian judges.   In apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest, China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor. The two men have been denied access to lawyers and family and are being held in prison cells where the lights are kept on 24-hours-a-day. “That’s mafia-style pressure,” Lewis said.   China has also placed restrictions on various Canadian exports to China, including canola oil seed and meat. Last January, China also handed a death sentence to a convicted Canadian drug smuggler in a sudden retrial.   “Canada is fulfilling the terms of its extradition treaty but is paying an enormous price,” said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “This is the kind of world we’re living in now, where countries like Canada are at risk of getting squeezed in major power contests.”
…

The new U.S.-China trade agreement includes provisions that are aimed at curbing forced technology transfers, in which companies hand over technical know-how to foreign partners. For many high-tech businesses, the intellectual property behind their products represents the bulk of their companies’ value.  To learn more about the risks of IP theft, Elizabeth Lee recently visited the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where companies talked about the risks to their technology secrets.
…

A legal adviser at the European Union’s highest court said Wednesday that the bloc’s data protection rules should prevent member states from indiscriminately holding personal data seized from Internet and phone companies, even when intelligence agencies claim that national security is at stake.
In a non-binding opinion on how the European Court of Justice, or ECJ, should rule on issues relating to access by security and intelligence agencies to communications data retained by telecommunications providers, advocate general Campos Sanchez-Bordona said “the means and methods of combating terrorism must be compatible with the requirements of the rule of law.”
Commenting on a series of cases from France, the U.K. and Belgium — three countries that have been hit by extremist attacks in recent years and have reinforced surveillance — Sanchez-Bordona said that the ECJ’s case law should be upheld. He cited a case in which the court ruled that general and indiscriminate retention of communications “is disproportionate” and inconsistent with EU privacy directives.
The advocate general recommended limited access to the data, and only when it is essential “for the effective prevention and control of crime and the safeguarding of national security.”
The initial case was brought by Privacy International, a charity promoting the right to privacy. Referring to the ECJ’s case law, it said that the acquisition, use, retention, disclosure, storage and deletion of bulk personal data sets and bulk communications data by the U.K. security and intelligence agencies were unlawful under EU law.
The U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal referred the case to the ECJ, which held a joint hearing with two similar cases from France and another one from Belgium.
“We welcome today’s opinion from the advocate general and hope it will be persuasive to the Court,” said Caroline Wilson Palow, the Legal Director of Privacy International. “The opinion is a win for privacy. We all benefit when robust rights schemes, like the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, are applied and followed.”
The ECJ’s legal opinions aren’t legally binding, but are often followed by the court. The ECJ press service said a ruling is expected within two months.
“Should the court decide to follow the opinion of the advocate general, ‘metadata’ such as traffic and location data will remain subject to a high level of protection in the European Union, even when they are accessed for national security purposes,” said Luca Tosoni, a researcher at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law. “This would require several member states — including Belgium, France, the U.K. and others — to amend their domestic legislation.”
  
…

The National Security Agency has discovered a major security flaw in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and tipped off the company so that it can fix it.Microsoft made a software patch to fix it available Tuesday and credited the agency as the flaw’s discoverer.The company said it has not seen any evidence that hackers have used the technique discovered by the NSA.”Customers who have already applied the update, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected,” said Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft, in a statement.Priscilla Moriuchi, who retired from the NSA in 2017 after running its East Asia and Pacific operations, said this is a good example of the “constructive role” that the NSA can play in improving global information security. Moriuchi, now an analyst at the U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said it’s likely a reflection of changes made in 2017 to how the U.S. determines whether to disclose a major vulnerability or exploit it for intelligence purposes.The revamping of what’s known as the “Vulnerability Equities Process” put more emphasis on disclosing unpatched vulnerabilities whenever possible to protect core internet systems and the U.S. economy and general public.Those changes happened after a group calling itself “Shadow Brokers” released a trove of high-level hacking tools stolen from the NSA.
…

It sounds like science fiction, but a number of tech wearables are letting users control devices with their thoughts. The implications for consumers and businesses are significant. But to start out, the goal of two developers is to simply enable more productivity. Tina Trinh meets the Brooklyn team behind a thought-powered headset.
 
…

China says its diplomats and government officials will fully exploit foreign social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter that are blocked off to its own citizens.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Monday likened the government to “diplomatic agencies and diplomats of other countries” in embracing such platforms to provide “better communication with the people outside and to better introduce China’s situation and policies.”
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have tried for years without success to be allowed into the lucrative Chinese market, where Beijing has helped create politically reliable analogues such as Weichat and Weibo. Their content is carefully monitored by the companies and by government censors.
Despite that, Geng said China is “willing to strengthen communication with the outside world through social media such as Twitter to enhance mutual understanding.” He also insisted that the Chinese internet remained open and said the country has the largest number of users of any nation, adding, “we have always managed the internet in accordance with laws and regulations.”
The canny use of social media by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong has further deepened China’s concern over the use of such platforms, prompting further crackdowns on the mainland, including on the use of virtual private networks.  
…

U.S. government officials are watching and waiting, with many believing it is only a matter of time before Iran lashes out in cyberspace for the U.S. drone strike that killed Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last week.According to the latest advisory from the Department of Homeland Security, there are still “no specific, credible threats” to the United States. But officials say Iran’s public assurances that it is done retaliating mean little.“Iran has been one of the most malicious actors out there,” a senior State Department official said Thursday. “We’re very concerned about Iran’s capabilities and activities.”U.S. government officials have been hesitant to comment in any detail on what Iranian cyber actors have been up to in recent days, though they note Iran’s capabilities are on par with Russia, China and North Korea when it comes to using cyber to target industrial control systems or physical infrastructure.“DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is operating under an enhanced posture to improve coordination and situational awareness should any specific threats emerge,” a department spokesperson told VOA.The spokesperson added DHS is coordinating with U.S. intelligence agencies, key private sector companies and organizations, and is ready to “implement enhanced security measures, as needed.”Iranian Cyber ActivityBracing for a ‘significant’ attackIntelligence officials say much of Iran’s cyber activity is driven by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sometimes using front companies or sometimes carrying out cyberattacks themselves.Past Iranian cyberattacks have ranged from distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which block access to websites by overwhelming the server hosting the site with internet traffic, to efforts to deface websites or attempts to steal personal data.An alert this week from the FILE – The Twitter and Facebook logos, Nov. 26, 2019.Ramping up disinformation campaignsAnd once the U.S. airstrike took out Soleimani, the Iranian disinformation machinery went into action.“As that news came out, we saw them ramp their program and start pushing that stuff out,” Hultquist said.The disinformation from Iran’s proxy forces in the Middle East further increased Tuesday during Iran’s retaliatory missile strike on Iraqi bases hosting U.S. and coalition forces — “in terms of reports coming in about certain hits that happened and numbers of casualties from the Iranian response,” said Phillip Smyth, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has been tracking social media activity by the Iranian-backed militias.But Iran-linked cyber actors have also eyed more ambitious campaigns.In October 2018, for example, Facebook and Instagram removed 82 accounts, pages and groups from their platforms.The posts, Facebook said, focused on “politically charged topics such as race relations, opposition to the [U.S.] president and immigration.”Facebook Removes 82 Iranian-Linked Accounts

        Facebook announced Friday that it has removed 82 accounts, pages or groups from its site and Instagram that originated in Iran, with some of the account owners posing as residents of the United States or Britain and tweeting about liberal politics.At least one of the Facebook pages had more than one million followers, the firm said. The company said it did not know if the coordinated behavior was tied to the Iranian government. 

Analysts said while those Iranian disinformation efforts paled in comparison to the campaign run by Russia in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the effort showed signs of increasing sophistication, which has continued to this day.Some former U.S. officials and analysts also suspect Iran may be targeting news outlets.The Kuwaiti government Wednesday said the Kuwait News Agency’s Twitter account was hacked after it posted false reports that the U.S. was withdrawing all troops based in the country.Separately, hackers claiming to be working on behalf of Iran defaced the website of the U.S. Federal Depository Library Program.Despite suspicions and concerns, though, officials have yet to definitely attribute either attack to Iran. And there is a risk that such attacks are actually the work of other cyber actors.For example, former officials said there have been instances in the past where Russian cyber operatives hijacked Iranian infrastructure or malware to launch intrusions of their own.Targeting AmericansIran, though, has other tools it can use to strike the U.S. and the West. “Iranian cyber actors are targeting U.S. government officials, government organizations and companies to gain intelligence and position themselves for future cyber operations,” U.S. intelligence agencies warned in their most recent threat assessment.Iran’s Cyber Spies Looking to Get Personal

        Iran appears to be broadening its presence in cyberspace, stealing information that would allow its cyber spies to monitor and track key political and business officials, including some in the United States.A new, U.S. intelligence report released Tuesday warned Iranian cyber actors "are targeting U.S. Government officials, government organizations, and companies to gain intelligence and position themselves for future cyber operations."The latest Worldwide Threat Assessment also said Tehran has been…

The U.S.-based cybersecurity firms FireEye and Symantec have said their research shows Iranian-linked cyber actors have paid particular attention to telecommunications and travel companies, mining them for personal data that could prove useful in such cyber campaigns.Not everyone, however, is convinced Iran is positioned to launch a major cyber offensive.“A lot of the doom and gloom headlines that are out there right now, I think, are overblowing or overhyping the immediate cyberthreat coming from Iran,” Hoover Institution Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider said.“The reality is that Iranians have been conducting these cyberattacks over the last year, if not longer,” she said, adding that while there may well be an uptick in attacks, “they’ve been trying this entire time.”Still, a former U.S. National Security Agency threat manager cautions even a small cyberattack can inadvertently do widespread damage.“There’s always the potential that an attack or an intrusion, which is physically or strategically designed to only impact a certain geography or certain network, creeps to other parts of the network,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, now head of nation-state research at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
…

Vietnamese startups are heading into the new year looking to avoid the mistakes of such companies as Uber and WeWork, which disappointed investors in 2019 for failing to turn a profit after so much buildup.Investors and entrepreneurs in the communist nation are taking a more critical look at their businesses after seeing others get burned overseas. WeWork, which rents out shared workspaces, was seen as a cautionary tale of a startup that did not live up to expectations and was not profitable.For years, investors were willing to back losing businesses to gain market share. But now, there is more scrutiny of new investments.Benchmarks setThe Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA) requires its technology startups to meet a list of benchmarks throughout their time in the program.“Apart from very intuitive selection criteria that all applying startups have to go through, the program has introduced a new development measurement method, which helps us to capture the progress of startups that are accepted into VIISA,” Hieu Vo, a board member and chief financial officer at VIISA, said. “I think this process will bring out the best in each person for the particular business they have founded and committed to.”Vo said his colleagues sit down with startups when they join the accelerator to discuss key performance indicators, or KPI, that will be set as goals. VIISA also does training for the young businesses so they have quantifiable skills, such as how to structure a business deal, or how to set up their accounting system.Having metrics and ratings, Vo said, supports “both business performance, as well as personal transformation of founders.”Founder scrutinyThe founder as an individual has become a point of scrutiny for investors, who used to be more forgiving of an eccentric or aggressive founder, seen as part of the package to have a tech genius head an innovative business. But there has been a backlash among those who think too much permissiveness can damage a business, from the sexual misconduct amid the workplace culture of Uber, to the conflicts of interest in business decisions at WeWork.It helps to not just think short term and to have an outside perspective, according to Pham Manh Ha, founder and chief executive officer of Beekrowd, an investment platform in Ho Chi Minh City.“As a first-time founder, it seems impossible for us to look beyond the first six months to a year of our business,” he said, adding that experienced third parties can help businesses take the long view. “They stand outside the trees that are blocking us from seeing the forest.”To see the forest, Vietnamese businesses like his are taking a more measured approach. Vietnam has seen an escalation of tech startups, as investors have rushed to put their money to work and take advantage of the economy’s fast growth.They also remember the dot-com bubble in the United States, and the more recent global tech bubble, two reminders for caution.
…

Building a tech startup is not easy, especially in countries with less-established tech industries. Nevertheless, many global entrepreneurs are determined to succeed, and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is their chance to prove themselves to the rest of the industry. VOA’s Tina Trinh met with startup founders from Senegal, Ukraine and Thailand.
…

Despite escalating pressure ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Facebook reaffirmed its freewheeling policy on political ads Thursday, saying it won’t ban them, won’t fact-check them and won’t limit how they can be targeted to specific groups of people.Instead, Facebook said it will offer users slightly more control over how many political ads they see and make its online library of political ads easier to use.These steps appear unlikely to assuage critics — including politicians, activists, tech competitors and some of the company’s own rank-and-file employees — who say that Facebook has too much power and that social media is warping democracy and undermining elections.And Facebook’s stance stands in contrast to what its rivals are doing. Google has decided to limit targeting of political ads, while Twitter is banning them outright.Facebook Ads Show Russian Effort to Stoke Political Division

        Democrats on the House intelligence committee have released more than 3,500 Facebook ads that were created or promoted by a Russian internet agency, providing the fullest picture yet of Russia's attempt to sow racial and political division in the United States before and after the 2016 election.

Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and gun rights, among other issues. A large number of them attempt to stoke racial divisions by mentioning police…
Since last fall, Facebook has insisted that it won’t fact-check political ads, a move that critics say gives politicians license to lie. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly argued that “political speech is important” and that Facebook doesn’t want to interfere with it.Google, the digital ads leader, is limiting political-ad targeting to broad categories such as sex, age and postal code.Facebook said in a blog post Thursday that it considered limiting custom audience targeting, known as microtargeting, for political ads. But it said it learned about the importance of such practices for “reaching key audiences” after talking with political campaigns from both major parties in the U.S., political groups and nonprofits.The company said it was guided by the principle that “people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”Facebook does plan to let users choose to see fewer political and social-issue ads, although it won’t let people exclude them entirely. It’s also going to let people choose whether or not to see ads, political or otherwise, from advertisers targeting them using their contact details, such as email address or phone number.US House Panel to Publicly Release Russia Facebook Ads

        The leaders of the U.S. 

The company is also tweaking its ad library so people can search for exact phrases and limit results using filters such as dates and regions reached.Facebook’s ad library currently lets anyone find out how much was spent on an ad, how many times it was seen, and the age, gender and location of the people who saw it.Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, an advocacy group researching political advertising, said Facebook is wise to permit microtargeting for political ads, despite calls for a ban.He said it is better to provide more background information on ads because it can give more insight into the actors behind them and their strategies. Facebook has made a start in that direction by adding information on an ad’s audience size, but he said it should give much more explanation about targeted ads.“By making it easier for you to understand what data’s in there, you can also understand what the advertiser’s intent was,” Jeffers said.The changes related to ad disclosures will go into effect over the next three months in the U.S. and other countries where Facebook puts the “paid for by” disclaimers on political ads. The political-ad controls won’t roll out in the U.S. until early summer.
…

A startup heavily backed  by Hollywood is wagering that you’re ready to set aside YouTube and TikTok to watch star-studded short videos on your phone — for a price.The company behind this billion-dollar bet is Quibi, which is preparing to offer movies, shows and other short-form video designed for viewing in short bursts on mobile devices. It’s an enormous gamble, especially considering that several earlier efforts in mobile entertainment — most notably Verizon’s ill-fated Go90 service — fell flat.Founded by former Disney studios chief and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and helmed by former Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, Quibi is heavy on big ideas and Hollywood muscle. It has backing from all the major movie studios and entertainment companies, $1 billion invested in original programming, and star power in the form of creators and producers from Steven Spielberg to Chrissy Teigen.Quibi plans to launch April 6. It will charge $5 a month for an ad-supported service, and $8 a month for an ad-free version.Company executives argued at CES that Quibi will offer the first entertainment platform designed exclusively for the phone. In an interview at CES, Katzenberg said it represents the first time “professional storytellers” have tackled the problem of delivering a high-quality viewing experience on mobile.Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg speaks during a Quibi keynote address at the 2020 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jan. 8, 2020.But the big question is whether a subscription service like Quibi can attract mobile viewers — particularly younger ones — already immersed in an ocean of free-to-watch short video on YouTube and other social-media services. It will also go up against roughly a half-dozen other paid streaming platforms from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu to Disney Plus and upcoming services from WarnerMedia and NBC Universal.Upcoming showsDuring the keynote, Quibi previewed shows including “Don’t Look Deeper,” a sci-fi show starring Don Cheadle and Emily Mortimer, and “#Freerayshawn” a crime thriller starring Laurence Fishburne as a cop and executive produced by “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua. Shows and movies, as well as other material like news and weather, are designed to be watched in “quick bites” of 10 minutes or less.”‘Paid premium short form (video)’ has never been in the same sentence, it has never really been proven,” said Seth Shapiro, managing partner at Pacific Strategy Partners. “That’s the challenge.” Among other things, he noted, it’s already possible for people to watch those other services in the same quick bites Quibi plans.Quibi executives at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas showed off technology on Wednesday designed to make video viewing on the phone easier. For instance, it will let you watch full-screen video whether you hold the phone upright or sideways.Filmmakers deliver two edits to the company, one vertical, one horizontal, and Quibi stitches them together with one audio track. Some creators have incorporated that feature into their productions, as in one show in which horizontal viewing delivers a traditional picture — but turning the phone upright displays a view from the main character’s phone camera.AdvertisingAdvertisers, at least, are on board. Quibi said it has sold out its $150 million first-year advertising slots to blue-chip companies including Procter & Gamble, Anheuser Busch, General Mills, Google, T-Mobile and Walmart. Ads will appear before shows and aren’t skippable.Jeff Wlodarczak, principal analyst at Pivotal Research Group, says he understands why advertisers are flocking to the product. Millennials can be hard to reach, he said, and when a brand places ads on YouTube or Snapchat, they never quite know what kind of video they might end up next to.Quibi offers a safe place for advertisers by delivering a known quantity “as opposed to people doing something stupid on YouTube,” he said.That advertising model will stick around, Whitman said. Quibi guarantees that all creators own their own intellectual property, and can repackage it and take it wherever else they want after seven years. It brought creators in, but it also means that Quibi needs both subscriber dollars and advertising revenue to stay afloat.The company just closed on another $400 million equity funding round from investors, Whitman said, and has a plan to be profitable “soon.”Others have tried short-form content, mostly in ad-supported form. Facebook Watch features original shows with episodes as short as 12 or 13 minutes, but none have garnered much buzz or mainstream attention so far. Verizon pulled the plug on Go90 in 2018, roughly three years after it launched; several concurrent efforts have also shut down. Meanwhile, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have all been experimenting with short-form offerings,  many of them in comedy.Quibi is “either brilliant or tone deaf,” said Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group. “I just don’t know what the answer is and I don’t think anybody does.”
 
…

When the nation’s largest electric utility preemptively shut off power last fall to prevent wildfires in California, customers lost more than just their lights — some lost their phones, too.Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows 874 cellphone towers were offline during an Oct. 27 power shutoff that affected millions of people. That included more than half of the cell towers in Marin County alone.
The outages mean people who depend solely on cellphones couldn’t call 911 or receive emergency notifications, compounding the dangers associated with an unprecedented power outage in an era dominated by wireless communication.
On Wednesday, some Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would require telecommunication companies to have at least 72 hours of back-up power for all cell phone towers in high-risk fire areas. Telecom companies would have to pay for it.
Sen. Mike McGuire said he wrote the bill after meeting with telecom company officials last summer, where he said they assured him they had plans to prevent widespread outages during a power shutoff.
“As we all know, this wasn’t true. They were wrong. And, candidly, lives were put at risk,” McGuire said.
The federal government has tried to mandate backup power for cell phone towers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But the industry successfully fought it.
“Do I believe we are in for a fight? Hell yes,” McGuire said, adding: “This is no longer a discussion about cost.”
McGuire announced his bill on the same day representatives from AT&T and Verizon were scheduled to testify before state lawmakers about the outages and ways to prevent them.  It’s the second time lawmakers will have hauled in private companies to account for the effects surrounding the widespread blackouts in the fall, the largest planned power outages in state history.
In November, lawmakers questioned executives from the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, including the leadership of troubled Pacific Gas & Electric, whose equipment has been blamed for sparking the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed roughly 19,000 buildings. The company filed for bankruptcy last year.
Telecommunications outages have worsened as wildfires have become more common and more destructive. A report from the California Public Utilities Commission found 85,000 wireless customers and 160,000 wired customers lost service during the 2017 North Bay Fires.
Most recently, the FCC says up to 27% of Sonoma County’s wireless cell sites were offline during a fire in October.
 In advance comments to the legislative committee, California’s four largest wireless companies — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — say they generally make sure their major telecommunication hubs have at least between 48 hours and 72 hours of on-site backup power. They use mobile generators at other sites, but said the generators don’t work at every cell tower.
Also, the companies said the electric company warns them about blackouts just two hours ahead of time, making it hard for them to get their mobile generators in place and to keep them fueled.
AT&T spokesman Steven Maviglio said the company is experienced in managing large-scale outages, but noted “the power companies’ decision to shut off power to millions of Californians in October was the largest event our state had ever seen.”
 “Today, we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in our network resiliency to address these new challenges and will continue to work to ensure our customers have the connectivity they need,” Maviglio said.
Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring telecommunications companies to report large outages to the Office of Emergency Services within one hour of discovering them. Officials are still developing regulations for that law.  
…

Wearable devices no longer just count steps. From startups to long established brands, companies are now developing wearables that can help improve one’s health, and prevent and predict problems before they occur.Technology in wearable devices is a growing category at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.Training the brainFrench startup Urgotech has developed URGOnight, a wearable headband and app to help with sleep.  “Basically, your brain emits brain waves all the time, and some of those waves are clinically proven to be linked to your sleep quality,” said Guirec Le Lous, president of Urgotech.Wearing the headband with electrodes inside for 20 minutes, users can train the brain to emit sleep-inducing brain waves by playing a game on the mobile app. Jellyfish float on the screen. By focusing on the jellyfish, users can make them disappear and get points when the right brain waves are produced.Le Lous said this kind of feedback, also known as neurofeedback, can teach a person to produce sleep-inducing brain waves. He said a user will start sleeping better after 15 sessions. The $500 device will be available in the U.S. in June.Another brain-training wearable are Narbis smartglasses that attempt to improve focus and attention.”With technology, we’re finding that people are reducing their ability to pay attention over long periods of time,” said Devon Greco, CEO and founder of Narbis.  The smartglasses use algorithms adopted from NASA, with the original purpose of monitoring the attention of pilots as they fly a flight simulator or a plane, Greco said.The Narbis glasses have three sensors — one behind each ear, and one on top of the head — that measure the electrical activity coming from the brain. When a user is focused on a task such as homework, the glasses are clear. As the brain gets distracted, the lenses on the glasses darken and clear up again when the glasses sense the brain paying more attention. Training the brain for 30 minutes, several times a week, also uses the concept of positive and negative reinforcement of neurofeedback.”The brain will naturally want to see light. So, light is a natural reward and dark is a penalty. And so, the brain just kind of learns through trial and error what is good and what is bad,” explained Greco, who said clinical studies of a dozen people have found that after 20 sessions, users experienced an improvement in attention.Greco said the ideal age for the smartglasses is between six to 17 years old. The company plans to begin shipping the $590 Narbis glasses in March.Watch-type wearablesMany wearable devices showcased at CES look like watches but can do much more.  They include IEVA’s 500 euro smartwatch, available later this year. The Time-C monitors the user’s environment, including temperature, humidity, sun exposure, noise and pollution. Linked to an app, it provides personalized beauty creams based on the environment.The ScanWatch from the French company Withings monitors the user’s heart rate and can detect an irregular heartbeat. Thesmart watch can also sense sleep apnea.”It can detect the saturation of oxygen in your blood, and detect the drops during your night,” explained Victoria Fabre, the company’s U.S. marketing manager.Starting at $249, ScanWatch will be available in the U.S. and Europe later this year, with the possibility of expanding to the Asia market.Omron, maker of  blood pressure monitors, has developed a wearable device, the Heart Guide, which looks like a watch. The band around the wrist can inflate and deflate, similar to how a traditional blood pressure monitor works around the arm. The monitor requires the user to raise the wrist next to the heart, and is convenient for use throughout the day.”We really wanted people to be able to go out and take their blood pressure at work, visiting friends and family. So, we just want to make sure that you can take it (blood pressure) anytime, anywhere,” said Jeff Ray, Omron’s executive director of product strategy.The device also monitors activity level, steps, calories, distance, and tracks sleep.  With a corresponding app, it can send a report of a user’s vitals to the doctor by email.Wearable for the young and oldBabies can get a wearable on their diaper. Launched at CES for U.S. residents is Lumi by Pampers. The $349 baby-monitoring system includes a sensor, camera and app and two packs of diapers.  The sensor attaches to a diaper with Velcro and tracks the baby’s sleep.”High motion is awake, slow motion is asleep,” said Mandy Treeby, who leads product development and communications for Lumi by Pampers.The reusable sensor also detects a wet diaper when the wetness indicator strip on the Pampers diaper changes color. The wearable device connects to an app or the camera and sends data to the cloud so parents and caregivers can get real-time information about the baby’s routine. The sensor lasts for three months and is $49 to replace.For the elderly, CarePredict has a wearable that can help predict potential health problems aimed at seniors who live in their own homes.Founder Satish Movva said he built the company because of his fiercely independent aging parents.”They had a lot of health issues that caused a lot of unpredictability in my life, because I never knew what was going to happen,” Movva said.The CarePredict device is worn around the wrist of the user’s dominant arm. With machine-learning and artificial intelligence, the device learns its user’s unique gestures and behaviors over the course of two weeks.”It can track all of the gestures of the dominant arm,” Movva said. “It knows when they’re lifting a fork to the mouth or a chopstick to the mouth. It knows when they’re drinking, when they’re brushing teeth, when they’re brushing hair. And it knows where they are in the home.”He added,  “Anytime there’s a decline or a deviation in these activities and behaviors, it usually precedes a health issue. So for example, somebody going into depression will stop taking a bath, will stop brushing their hair, will stay away from bright lights and sunlight, will stay in their own room.”When a behavior changes, the device will notify loved ones through a mobile app, which can give adult children peace of mind.Available in group homes since 2017, the $449 device is now available for individual home use with a battery that can be changed without having to take off the device.  
…

Wearable devices no longer just count your steps, companies have now developed wearables that can do much, much more.
…

The first batch of space-baked cookies is back on Earth, along with muscle-bound “mighty” mice and other space station experiments.SpaceX provided the ride home Tuesday, a month after its Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station. The capsule parachuted into the Pacific, returning 3,800 pounds of gear.Researchers want to inspect the handful of chocolate chip cookies baked by astronauts in a special Zero G oven just in time for Christmas. The oven launched to the space station in November, so astronauts could pop in pre-made cookie dough provided by DoubleTree. A spokesman for the hotel chain said five cookies were baked up there, one at a time. The company plans to share details of this first-of-its-kind experiment in the coming weeks.”We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year,” NASA astronaut Christina Koch tweeted late last month from the space station, posing with one of the individually wrapped cookies.Scientists also are getting back 40 mice that flew up in early December, including eight genetically engineered to have twice the normal muscle mass. Some of the non-mighty mice bulked up in orbit for the muscle study; others will pack it on once they’re back in the lab.”We’re anxious to welcome the mice home! ” Dr. Se-Jin Lee of the Jackson Laboratory in Connecticut said in an email.
…

The nation’s largest consumer electronics show on Tuesday hosts Ivanka Trump as a keynote speaker — a choice that drew scorn from many women in technology.The annual CES tech gathering in Las Vegas has long taken criticism over diversity issues. In recent years, the show’s organizer, the Consumer Technology Association, has invited more women to speak and sought to curb some of the show’s more sexist aspects, such as scantily clad “booth babes” hired to draw attention of the mostly male attendees.FILE – Ivanka Trump, the daughter and senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rabat, Morocco, Nov. 8, 2019.But for critics and activists who have long pushed for broader recognition of the less-heralded women, the inclusion of President Donald Trump’s daughter, who is also a White House adviser, sends exactly the wrong message.”Ivanka is not a woman in tech,” tweeted Brianna Wu, a video game developer who is running for Congress in Massachusetts. “She’s not a CEO. She has no background. It’s a lazy attempt to emulate diversity — but like all emulation it’s not quite the real thing.”Ivanka Trump will appear in a question-and-answer session with CTA President Gary Shapiro. She is expected to discuss company strategies to retrain workers and develop math and science education programs. In the administration, she has worked on skills-training initiatives. Companies including Google have said they will train people for technology jobs as part of a White House initiative.’Focus on jobs’Shapiro told The Associated Press that Ivanka Trump is fighting for workers at a time when robots are filling warehouses and factories and self-driving vehicles are worrying truck drivers.”We’ve had politicians speak before, cabinet secretaries and others who’ve come in,” Shapiro said. “So, I think wait until you hear what she has to say and listen to it because the fact is that there is a focus on jobs.”Ivanka Trump said job training and workforce development are key parts of the administration’s economic agenda. “I’m excited to discuss how the Trump administration is championing these shared goals,” she said in a statement emailed Tuesday.Many people who tweeted the hashtag #BoycottCES on Tuesday in protest of Trump’s appearance also took issue with the administration’s border detention policies and various actions of the president himself.The technology industry has especially important issues pending with the U.S. government, including antitrust investigations into Facebook and Google, the trade war with China, immigration, election security and misinformation on social media.Government officials have long made regular appearances at CES. This year, for instance, the speaker roster includes both Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Secretary of Energy Dan Bouillette. Other female speakers at the conference include Meg Whitman of video streaming startup Quibi and Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal.Vocal criticsIvanka Trump is “taking this slot at this conference where women have been saying for so long, ‘Hey, we are being overlooked,'” said Rachel Sklar, a tech commentator and founder of a professional network for women. “The whole category of women being overlooked are still being overlooked.””Clearly they are not putting much effort into finding women in tech who can speak,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Creative Strategies, who is at CES.Last year, CES caused an uproar when it revoked an innovation award presented to a female-led sex device company. CES reversed its decision, and has allowed sex tech into the show for a one-year trial. Conference organizers also brought in an official “equality partner,” The Female Quotient, to help ensure gender diversity.”Was there nobody else available? Seriously?” asked Ti Chang, co-founder of the wearable vibrator company Crave. Chang said Trump’s experience running a clothing brand is a bad fit for CES and its focus on innovation and technology.”I don’t understand,” she said. “I would love to know what their rationale was.”
 
…

A new cellular network just for kids? The company behind it, Gabb Wireless, promises their phones help protect kids from the dangers of smartphones. Deana Mitchell dials in.
 
…