Subscribe here to get this in your inbox every week.
Security News
:open_mouth:The governments of the “Five Eyes” (US, Australia, UK, Canada, and New Zealand) have asked the world’s largest tech companies to build encryption backdoors into their systems. But more than just asking, they also said, ”Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions’. Link
A number of people have linked APT10 (Stone Panda) with the Chinese Ministry of State Security {MSS). Link
Wireshark can be crashed with maliciousPCAPs. But we knew that. Parsing = Risking. Link
Experts now suspect the use of advanced microwave-based weapons in the damage to embassy workers in Cuba. Link
China is using LinkedIn to find people at important companies to steal intellectual property from. Link
Japan is looking to invest in AI technologies that can predict crime before it happens. The system can look at traffic patterns, local economics, and many other factors as part of its algorithm. Link
Iran is running a serious information warfare campaign similar to Russia, with one major group’s mission being the confrontation of Western and Zionistic governments with extreme prejudice (my own translation). They evidently pump out tons of content in over 11 languages. Link
Another Chinese American is in trouble for stealing secrets from an American company (GlaxoSmithKline in this case) to bring the intellectual property to China―all with the backing of the Chinese government. American companies are being IP-harvested by foreign governments, and I’m not sure what is being done about it. As someone who served in the Military, and as a security professional, this really annoys me. Link
Very Good Security is an interesting new startup that does on-the-fly swapping of fake (inert) sensitive data (in your databases) with the real data that is stored securely with them. You never have to work with your sensitive data, and they don’t have access to it either. It’s just transparently proxied along whenever someone calls it from your own database. Interesting. Link
The CIA accidentally exposed access to sensitive government networks due to a firewall misconfiguration, and people likely died as a result. Link
China has approximately a million Muslims in internment camps, and according to former inmates they’re being forced to renounce their religion as part of their re-education. Not sure why this isn’t much bigger news. Nevermind, I know why. Link
Half of the Alexa Top 1M now use HTTPS. Link
Advisories: Qualcomm Medical Equipment , Air Canada Mobile App , Schneider Electric
Technology News
Musk continues to work on Neuralink, his SF-based company for augmenting the human brain with a direct digital connection. Link
Alexa is now integrated with over 20,000 devices. Link
Poor leadership the primary cause of burnout at a lot of tech companies. Link
Human News
There are over 5 trillion pieces of plastic garbage in the ocean, and a massive project called The Ocean Cleanup is looking to clean up to 50% of it in 5 years, and hopefully all of it by 2050. Link
Researchers have found that over 9% of adults in Japan, 22% in America, and 23% in Britain feel lonely, lack companionship, or feel isolated. There will be many studies on this, but my guess is that there are many people staying home and using social media or playing video games, combined with larger numbers leaving the workforce where lots of socializing is often done. Link
France has banned students under 15 from using personal technologies such as mobile phones and smartwatcheswhile at school. Link
Commuters in Indonesia can pay for a ride by giving the driver a piece of plastic waste. What a brilliant way to power a cleanup effort. Link
The GDP growth rate has been revised upwards to 4.2%. Impressive. Link
Y-Combinator is about to launch a $60 million dollar basic income experiment in two states. This comes as Canada and Finland prematurely ended two programs because they weren’t working.