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doChinese hackers have breached dozens of telecommunications companies around the world. The breach, dubbed Salt Typhoon by Microsoft cybersecurity researchers, has given cybercriminals unprecedented access not only to information about who has been texting or calling whom and when, but also to the content of some messages. , a much higher technical bar to overcome in the future. cyber attack.
The cyberattack affected three of the largest telecommunications networks in the United States. Communications from government officials in Washington DC have been intercepted, as have Internet browsing logs maintained by the telecommunications companies themselves. Hackers attempted, and may have succeeded, in cracking the phones of Donald Trump and JD Vance, as well as Kamala Harris’ campaign staff. Even the US wiretapping program was breached; Call logs stored there were stolen. One U.S. senator called it “the worst telecommunications hack in our nation’s history.” The same week, British telecommunications giant BT announced had endured “an attempt to compromise” its conference service and evaded it.
The hacking group, sometimes known as FamousSparrow, has been active since 2020 and has in the past attacked government organizations in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala and Burkina Faso, according to cybersecurity firm Eset. He has another favorite target, one he has targeted even more aggressively than governments in the past: hotels. In all of those countries, as well as the United Kingdom, France, Lithuania and Taiwan, the group has harassed hotels’ digital systems and stolen their data.
According to US intelligence, the salt typhoon has been underway for one or two years and continues. American analysts have attributed the cyberattack to Beijing, as have independent cybersecurity researchers. China denies its involvement.
US national security advisers have urged their employees not to use regular texting apps but to keep all their communications on encrypted messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp and FaceTime. It’s good advice. Security agencies in Australia, New Zealand and Canada have issued similar warnings.
Is this hack part of an elaborate and coordinated response to the escalating chip trade war between the United States and China? On Monday, Beijing opened an antitrust investigation into Nvidia. Last week, Chinese regulators banned the export to the United States of minerals critical to semiconductor manufacturing such as gallium and germanium. Earlier this year, the United States banned the sale of the most advanced semiconductor chips to China. Washington, with regulatory power over Nvidia, TSMC and others, is seeking geopolitical advantage through AI, and useful AI models cannot be created without powerful chips. China, largely unable to copy or dethrone Nvidia, is at a disadvantage. So, did China fight back in response? It’s possible, but hacking telecom networks isn’t related enough to the semiconductor industry to say, “Give us your chips or else.” If Beijing had hacked Jensen Huang’s phone… that would be just a hop, skip, and a jump toward trade war retaliation.
I’d call Salt Typhoon old-fashioned espionage.
Judges acknowledge that a TikTok ban would disenfranchise Americans, but uphold it anyway
An appeals court on Friday upheld the US bill that would ban TikTok or force its sale. The company has promised to appeal to the supreme court. My colleague Dara Kerr, who started at The Guardian this week, reports here:
A federal appeals court ruled Friday to uphold a law forcing the hugely popular social media company to sell its assets to a non-Chinese company or be banned from the country entirely. The decision is the latest twist in a years-long battle between the US government and TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance.
ByteDance has until January 19 to sell the app or face a ban.
“TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative means of communication,” Justice Douglas Ginsburg said. “That burden is attributable to (China’s) hybrid trade threat to US national security, not the US government, which engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution.” “.
TikTok on Monday filed an emergency injunction against the ban and responded with a statement that it had faith the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of “protecting free speech.” He also said the law was based on “hypothetical information,” which is true. The United States has not proven that China manipulated TikTok content. The Salt Typhoon attacks demonstrate that China is capable of going beyond the hypothetical and venturing into drastic global interference.
The lack of evidence supporting the ban/forced sale is no secret. The court took this into account: “The Government recognizes that it lacks specific intelligence demonstrating that the People’s Republic of China has in the past or now forced TikTok to manipulate content in the United States… The Government’s justification, in fact, refers to the risk of the People’s Republic of China by covertly manipulating the content of the platform,” the ruling says. It is not the fact of manipulation that forms the basis of the law, but its threat, its idea. On the other hand, TikTok “never outright denies having manipulated content on the TikTok platform under the direction of the People’s Republic of China,” according to the ruling.
Judge Sri Srinivasan, a member of the three-judge panel that handed down the decision, acknowledged the threat to the speech of American TikTok users if the company does not break up. “Many Americans may lose access to an outlet for expression, a source of community, and even a means of income,” he wrote.
TikTok is used by some 170 million Americans, all of whom will be deprived of both a means of expression and access to information. Ultimately, however, the justices said the bill, specifically its clause allowing divestment, “survives a First Amendment challenge,” according to Srinivasan.
“Preventing covert manipulation of content by an adversary nation also serves a compelling government interest. The petitioners (TikTok) object for two reasons, neither of which are convincing.”
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How much money did the tech industry spend on the US presidential election?
Put another way: how much influence did the tech industry try to buy? My colleagues Lauren Aratani and Raphael Hernandes report:
Silicon Valley poured more than $230 million into the US presidential election this year, according to a Guardian analysis, most of which came from a massive $118 million donation Elon Musk made to the campaign. Donald Trump.
Cryptocurrency advocates were particularly active in this election as they fought to avoid regulation, pumping money into presidential campaigns as well as major Congressional races.
In total, Trump received $133 million in donations from some of the biggest names in technology, including:
118 million dollars Elon Muskowner of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) who has an estimated net worth of 350 billion dollars.
5 million dollars Marc Andreessen, the billionaire founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z. Andreessen co-founder Ben Horowitz initially supported Trump, but flipped to harris.
5 million dollars Jan Koumthe WhatsApp founder who made most of his fortune when Facebook acquired the messaging app in 2014 for $19 billion.
Harris received a total of $71 million, including:
$39 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitzwho left the social media company in 2008 to start workflow software company Asana.
17 million dollars Reid Hoffmanthe co-founder of LinkedIn.
11 million dollars Chris Larsenthe billionaire chair from Ripple, a cryptocurrency company.
Read the full story on Tech’s campaign contributions.
Trump is already a boon for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has reached $100,000. He has named David Sacks, a former PayPal executive, Musk confidant and Trump’s biggest booster in Silicon Valley, to a new role as White House cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence czar. He has nominated Paul Atkins, a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and an avid cryptocurrency advocate, to chair the SEC. It’s not a stretch to imagine that Atkins will receive less government scrutiny over the industry than his predecessor, crypto critic Gary Gensler. It appears that cryptocurrency campaign donations have already generated significant profits for the industry, regardless of whether or not the contributions went to the president-elect.
Listen to our full podcast about Trump’s burgeoning relationship with the crypto industry.