TikTok: The Notion of Silicon Valley Software Engineers in the Campaign against Political Illusion on Social Media and the Rise of China

More Less, the online pseudonym of a Silicon Valley-based software engineer from China, says that he likes facts and one is one, zero is zero. “I think it’s my responsibility to rebut this nonsense.”

More Less asked not to be identified by his real name because his posts might attract harassment. His Chinese-language fact-checking blog is part of a grassroots movement fighting political misinformation spread by US users of Chinese-language social media, such as Weibo and WeChat. His recent posts have taken on claims that California Democrats made it legal to shoplift up to $950 in goods or that widespread voter fraud distorted the 2020 presidential election.

Since Russia bombarded the 2016 election with Twitter trolls and astroturfed lies, election watchers have been on guard against social media “influence operations.” Iran tried to influence the 2020 presidential election with more mixed results after four years. Now, the People’s Republic of China—or, at least, a group with a long-running pro-Chinese government agenda—seems to be trying out its own political influence operation just ahead of this year’s US midterm elections. And while that operation seems to have largely failed this time, the campaign represents the growing boldness of a new adversary in the fight against organized disinformation.

The app’s extraordinary success is made even more remarkable by the fact that it is a product of America’s greatest geopolitical rival. Despite decades of trying, no Chinese company has ever conquered American society like TikTok. It is difficult to imagine a Russian or Iranian company doing the same thing. The Chinese government is believed to have exploited the provenance of TikTok. Over the last year in particular, TikTok has faced an unceasing stream of bad press, with each week seeming to bring a fresh revelation about the company’s questionable data practices and spotty internal safeguards. In the last six months, TikTok and Byte Dance have been accused of lying about the access of employees from China to American user data and allowing Chinese state media to run un labeled as they criticized Beijing.

“We only get the garbage. Jin Niu is the Chinese digital engagement program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action. The San Francisco organization launched a Chinese-language fact-checking initiative in June called PiYaoBa, which posts articles on its website and public social media accounts that are written in a similar style to fact-checking organizations.

The CEO of the organization for social media safety told NPR that TikTok can collect huge amounts of data on our citizens. “Because it’s owned by China, there is certainly the potential — and it’s unclear whether this is happening currently — but there’s certainly the ongoing potential that that data is shared by the Chinese government.”

The article, posted earlier on Thursday, said that ByteDance’s Internal Audit team — usually tasked with keeping an eye on those who currently work for the company or who have worked for the company in the past — planned on surveilling at least two Americans who “had never had an employment relationship with the company.” Forbes did not include any details about who was potentially going to be tracked or why byte dance was planning on doing that in its report, saying that doing so could put its sources at risk.

The Vice Society of Cybercriminals: What Are We Asking of the Russian Government about Nuclear Forces and the Ukraine’s Cold War?

As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on, Ukrainian forces have proved resilient and mounted increasingly intense counterattacks on Kremlin forces. As the conflict progresses, it is entering a phase of drone warfare. Russia has begun launching a series of recent attacks using Iranian “suicide drones” to inflict damage that is difficult to defend against. With Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons, and NATO officials watching closely, we examine what indicators are available to the world to assess whether or not Russia is actually preparing to use nuclear weapons.

The researchers are worried that the Exchange Server platform isn’t getting the development resources it needs anymore, and that customers should consider moving to cloud email hosting. Researchers looked at how the encyclopedia’s custodians ferret out state sponsored misinformation in its entries.

If you’re worried about the ongoing threat of ransomware attacks around the world, researchers pointed out this week that middle-of-the-pack groups like the notorious gang Vice Society are maximizing profits and minimizing their exposure by investing very little in technical innovation. They are able to target health care and education because they run the most mundane operations. We have a guide to get rid of passwords and setup “passkey” on your mobile device for personal security.

There is more. We highlight the news that wasn’t covered by us. You can read the full stories by clicking on the headlines. Stay safe.

The Energy Star for Internet of Things Security: An American Plan to Embrace the Digital Security Revolution in the Era of World Warfare

This week, Microsoft said that it had exposed the data of some prospective customers. The disclosure of the leak to Microsoft was quickly closed, thanks to researchers from the threat intelligence firm. SOCRadar said in a report that the exposed information stretched back to as far as 2017 and up to August of this year. The researchers linked the data to more than 60,000 organizations. Microsoft exposed details from potential customers, as well as information sent between potential customers and one of its authorized partners. Cloud misconfigurations are a longstanding security risk that have led to countless exposures and, sometimes, breaches.

There are no easy answers to improve the longstanding security dumpster fire created by cheap, undefended internet of things devices in homes and businesses around the world. After years of problems, Singapore and Germany have found that adding security labels to internet-linked video cameras, printers, and more. The labels give consumers a better understanding of the protections built into different devices—and give manufacturers an incentive to improve their practices and get a gold seal. This week, the United States took a small step in this direction. The White House wants to put a label on things called EnergyStar for Internet of Things digital security. The administration held a summit with industry organizations and companies this week to discuss standards and guidelines for the labels. A labeling program to secure such devices would provide American consumers with the peace of mind that the technology was brought into their homes is safe and will encourage manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards, according to a National Security Council spokesman.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-bytedance-americans-data-security-roundup/

Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence Activists Indicted For Using a Chinese State-Sponsored Hacking Experiment to Influence Taiwan and Hong Kong

The documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago this summer included sensitive information related to the Iranian nuclear program and the United States intelligence operations in China, sources told The Washington Post this week. “Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. People aiding US intelligence efforts could be endangered, and collection methods could be compromised,” the Post wrote. The US could be retaliated against by other countries.

On Wednesday, cybersecurity and threat intelligence firm Mandiant published new findings about a group it calls Dragonbridge, which it’s seen for years promoting pro-Chinese interests in fake grassroots social media campaigns designed to influence politics in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Dragonbridge is being linked to US influence campaigns by Mandiant’s analysts. It was claimed that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking spree was carried out by the US intelligence and that it was used to spread misinformation about the US government.

The actor is growing very fast and aggressive. They went from carrying out limited campaigns focused on Hong Kong to a global operation on dozens of platforms,” says John Hultquist, Mandiant’s VP of intelligence analysis. “Interfering in our elections is just another line that they’re clearly willing to cross.”

In fact, the US Department of Justice indicted seven Chinese men in 2020 as members of APT41, tying them to a contractor working on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security known as Chengdu 404. The indictment accuses the men of hacking hundreds of targets around the world and using the proceeds to carry out espionage and to make money from their own crimes.

Open internet proponents were relieved last month when a candidate from America beat a Russian in an election to run the International Telecommunications Union, an important international standards body. We examined the vulnerability of vital undersea cables and took a closer look at the world’s internet infrastructure.

The tiktok-eu-privacy-policy-security-roundup: How you can protect yourself against cyberattacks in the US

Researchers see evidence that the US’s new legal climate for abortion access is promoting a culture of community surveillance, a hallmark of authoritarian states in which neighbors and friends are encouraged to report possible wrongdoing. And surveillance is on the rise in soccer stadiums around the world as well. The eight stadiums in use during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for example, will be packed with more than 15,000 cameras to monitor spectators and to conduct biometric scanning.

Rust is a memory safe programming language and it has made inroads across the tech industry, offering hope that a massive swath of common vulnerabilities can be eliminated. In the meantime, we’ve got a roundup of the most important vulnerabilities that you can—and should!—patch right now.

Liz is not having an easy time. She was the foreign minister at the time, and the Mail on Sunday reported that agents working for Russia had hacked her cell phone. Russia’s operatives were able to intercept messages between Truss and officials in other countries. The Mail report further claims that former prime minister Boris Johnson and cabinet secretary Simon Case suppressed the breach. The Labor Party has called for an investigation into their Conservative opponents. The Labor Party’s shadow home secretary said last weekend that the national security issues raised by an attack like this would be taken very seriously by intelligence and security agencies. “There are also serious security questions around why and how this information has been leaked or released right now, which must also be urgently investigated.”

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-eu-privacy-policy-security-roundup/

Jack Dorsey, Block Inc., Cash App, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Hunter Biden Laptop

Jack Dorsey has another corporate creation facing new heat this week. Sex traffickers use the Cash App to fuel their activities, according to a Forbes investigation. Police records, court records and claims by former Cash App employees show rampant use of the cash app for sex traffic in other crimes. The company, which is owned by Dorsey-led Block Inc., maintains that it “does not tolerate illegal activity on Cash App” and has staff dedicated to working with law enforcement. Meanwhile, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that although rival payment platforms like PayPal provide the the center with tips about potential child abuse facilitated by their services, Forbes writes, “Block hasn’t provided any tips, ever.”

The US Treasury Department said this week that the amount of money US financial institutions are facilitating has increased by 200 percent in the last two years. The report landed in the midst of an international White House summit intended to combat the rise of Ransomware which allows attackers to lock up a Target’s files and hold them for a fee until the victim pays. The acting director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said in a statement that “ransomware-including attacks perpetrated by Russian-linked actors-remain a serious threat to our national and economic security.” The amount of payments is already painful enough, but the number does not account for the costs and consequences of attacks outside of the payment itself.

In light of the pieces of information Musk has created for public consumption, it is time to release the entire collection of accounts to Congress and the public. Americans need to know the truth about the FBI procedures when it comes to their social media platforms, as well as the truth about the Musk files on social media.

It has become established rhetoric among the political right that suppressing the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing short of a conspiracy between the Biden campaign and Twitter, supposedly proving Trump’s grandiose claims of an orchestrated effort to keep him from the White House.

As the theory grew, it identified an adversary in one of the lawyers. Musk fired him on Tuesday. It shows that play to the crowd is a pattern at the headquarters of the company.

Major news outlets held onto the story because they were unable to verify the contents of the laptop which was identified as possible Russian interference. Even in their social media accounts, users can’t share the Post story with them.

There was more to that that fans suspected. They believed the FBI and the Democratic National Committee, which they believed colluded to rig the 2016 election with allegations of the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, were meddling in the 2020 vote as well: the Deep State in action.

One QAnoninfluencer said that the Twitter files confirm the main narrative of Q. “Balenciaga confirms the rest.” That message, which references the fantastical claims about fashion brand Balenciaga’s role in child trafficking, was seen more than 120,000 times on Telegram. (Despite some optimism that his account would be restored, that particular QAnon influencer remains suspended on Twitter.) The fact that Jack Dorsey used the custom top-level domain.pizza for his personal email was seized on by other QAnon contributors.

“It’s playing to the Fox News crowd,” a person close to TikTok, who requested anonymity because they were not publicly authorized to speak on the matter, said on Tuesday. Many lawmakers are expressing concern about China’s influence by using their Chinese-made cellphones, according to a person.

The proposed legislation would forbid all transactions in the United States by social media companies with a million or more monthly users that are based in countries that are considered foreign adversaries, such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba.

The legislation comes as a wave of states led by Republican governors have introduced state-level restrictions on the use of TikTok on government-owned devices. Maryland, South Dakota and Utah are just three of the states that have introduced these measures in the past two weeks.

The flurry of activity contrasts with the lengthy negotiations TikTok has been having for years with the US government on a potential deal that may allow the company to address the national security concerns and to continue serving US users.

“We will continue to brief members of Congress on the plans that have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies—plans that we are well underway in implementing—to further secure our platform in the United States,” McQuaide added.

The Media Landscape of the Twenty-Year-Old Internet: Recommendations on a Problem for FBI Director Christopher Wray

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

It is a concern to government officials. In November, FBI Director Christopher Wray raised eyebrows after he told lawmakers that the app could be used to control users’ devices.

The Senate-passed bill would provide exceptions for “law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security researchers.”

Berkman knows how hard it would be to get users to stop using the app. The app claimed that a billion users flock to its site each month.

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” You can follow him by posting at@Dean Obeidalla. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has opinions on it.

The FBI isn’t the same as the Twitter Files: Why we shouldn’t open the Twitter feeds of Elon Musk to reporters who don’t share his exact location

The internal Twitter documents that Elon Musk chose to release recently about the FBI’s interactions with the social media platform have stirred a strong reaction from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

Republicans have criticized the FBI, saying it needs to be dismantled, in light of documents called the “Twitter Files”.

The vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus,Ted Lieu of California slammed one of the journalists that Musk picked to share the files, dismissing the allegation that the FBI had stopped investigating child sex predators or terrorists to focus on a “surveillance operation”

First and foremost, Musk has only allowed two journalists he chose to look at the files, conservative columnist Bari Weiss and former Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi. But when other media outlets sought access to the files, no copies of the documents were forthcoming. The documents can’t be guaranteed to be complete or that key information isn’t being held back.

There is no clear understanding of the relationship between these two journalists and Musk. I got a direct message from Taibbi Sunday morning saying that she did not work for Musk.

However, the thin-skinned Musk temporarily banned reporters from Twitter whom he falsely claimed shared his “exact real-time” location — and even those who just asked him for a quote, as The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz found out Saturday night. Musk would do the same thing if the journalists didn’t sell the exact story line he wanted. It’s impossible to know.

As CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy noted last week, “Musk has relied on a set of handpicked gatekeeping writers to cover the story, while keeping the raw materials — and context — locked away from the rest of the news media and broader public.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/18/opinions/twitter-files-elon-musk-fbi-obeidallah/index.html

The FBI had its Own Ministry of Propaganda: Detection and Response to the Report on Hunter-Baiden’s SNL

Beyond that, the FBI’s leadership should testify after this fact-finding has been completed. The bureau should welcome this opportunity, given the smears by certain GOP lawmakers such as Comer that “the FBI had its own ministry of propaganda.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence met with social media giants to discuss election security threats, including those posed by foreign actors.

Why did officials from the Trump administration raise concerns about the possible release of misinformation about Hunter Biden, the son of then-candidate Joe Biden?

For the next year, Taibbi claims the FBI began to flag certain accounts because of their content under the Trump administration.

The requests continued through the last month and included people on both the right and left, including the brother of Alec Baldwin, who had been attacked by Trump over his portrayal of him on SNL.

The President asked if the Justice Department could do the same, after he said that the Federal Communications Commission should investigate SNL.

The Rise and Fall of TikTok: A Ubiquitous Facet of the American Culture and Popular Approximate Reasoning

The administration’s contradictory approach to TikTok — its embrace of the app as a vital conduit to the public, and its fear of the app as a potential tool of foreign influence — is perhaps a fitting response to the utterly unique problem that TikTok poses. It seems like in just a short period of time, TikTok has changed American culture from low and high to its own image. Colleen Hoover’s novel, TikTok, vaulted her to the top of the best-sellers list with more copies sold this year than the Bible. TikTok coined “quiet quitting,” one of the hallmark phrases of 2022, and introduced a whole new dialect of algospeak — “seggs,” “unalive,” “le dollar bean” — that is now spreading across pop culture. Corporations and brands have taken billions of dollars worth of advertising to the platform in order to reach more people, which can be anything from a decades-old product into a must-have item. There were more visits to TikTok’s website than there were to other websites in the United States. TikTok took five years to reach one billion users, while Facebook took nine.