News Story: Senior official stresses technology in fighting terrorism in Xinjiang

URUMQI, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- A Communist Party of China (CPC) senior official has called for the use of new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to fight terrorism in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during a five-day inspection in Xinjiang, which concluded Sunday.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Senior official stresses use of big data, AI in policing

GUIYANG, July 13 (Xinhua) -- A senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official has called on the country's police force to make full use of big data technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during a two-day inspection in southwest China's Guizhou Province, which concluded Wednesday.

Guizhou has been a pioneer of the application of big data technology in various sectors including police work.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: Australia Launches New Cyber Warfare Unit

Phil Mercer

SYDNEY — Australia has a new Information Warfare Unit that will start operations within days. It will defend Australian military targets from cyber attacks and will be able to launch its own assaults on foreign defense forces.

Australia’s newest frontline forces are ‘keyboard warriors’ - analysts, technicians and computer experts who will lead the fight against cyber attacks.

The unit will run both defensive and offensive operations. It will allow Australia to respond to modern digital forms of conflict, as the United States, China and Russia increase their investment in electronic warfare.

The Information Warfare Unit will have 100 staff members, but that figure is expected to grow to about 900 in a decade’s time.

AUS: Prime Minister, Minister for Defence and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security - Capability to fight cyber criminals

The Turnbull Government is committed to protecting Australians online and stopping cyber criminals.

Cybercrime is conservatively estimated to cost the Australian economy $1 billion a year.

Since its inception at the end of 2014, there have been over 114,000 reports of cybercrime registered with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN).

Notably 23,700 of these have been reported over the last 6 months, highlighting a growing occurrence of cyber criminal activity.

Given the growing cost of cybercrime to the Australian economy, the Government has directed the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to use its offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt, degrade, deny and deter organised offshore cyber criminals. This follows the Government’s public acknowledgement of ASD’s offensive cyber capability when we launched Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy in April 2016.

The use of this capability, which is currently used to help target, disrupt and defeat terrorist organisations such as Daesh, is subject to stringent legal oversight and consistent with our obligations under international law.

News Report: Australia to Set Up Cyber Warfare Unit to Protect Country From Hacking Attacks

The Australian Defense Forces will create a cyber warfare unit, which will improve the country's defense against cyberattacks and enable it to launch own attacks, local media reported Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – One hundred personnel and public service employees will work for the unit, with this number expected to grow to 900 in ten years, the ABC broadcaster reported.

The unit will be tasked with defending Australian military targets from cyberattacks, identifying foreign targets and launching own attacks. The targets could reportedly include China's South Sea Fleet.

The news come against the background of recent worldwide cyberattacks, with such malicious software as WannaCry and ExPetr affecting work of computers in companies and state agencies in many countries.

Australian authorities reportedly also fear alleged cyberthreat coming from Russia, as Washington repeatedly accused Moscow of meddling with US presidential election with the help of hackers, which Kremlin refuted as groundless.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Story: Australian gov't announces new offensive cyber warfare division

CANBERRA, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has announced that a new cyber warfare division with offensive capabilities will go online from July 1 to ensure the country remains at the "cutting edge" of the cyber security landscape.

Making the announcement in Canberra on Friday, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security Dan Tehan said the new Information Warfare Division would conduct both offensive and defensive cyber attacks, in a move he said was necessary due to the changing nature of modern warfare.

"From tomorrow, Australia will have an Information Warfare Division within the Defence Department," Tehan told the press.

"This is a result of the changing character of contemporary conflict. The division will have the responsibility for military cyber operations, military intelligence, joint electronic warfare, information operations and our military's space operations.

"It will integrate existing operations across our forces to protect and support our Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel and systems, and the division is authorized to conduct self-defence, passive defence, active defence and offensive operations."

The minister said Australia's defence personnel were among the best in the world, and that under the new cyber warfare division, they would be able to stay "ahead of the curve" to keep Australians, businesses and governments safe from cyber attacks.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: US Intelligence Chiefs Push for Permanent OK to Eavesdrop on Foreign Communications

Jeff Seldin

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence chiefs are making a strong push, backed by the White House, to reauthorize a controversial law that allows U.S. spy agencies to eavesdrop on foreign electronic communications.

During a Senate hearing that was largely concerned with the government’s ongoing investigations into Russia and possible collusion with members of President Donald Trump’s campaign, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats called permanent reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) his top legislative priority.

The law, set to expire at the end of the year, has been criticized repeatedly by privacy advocates who say it allows for the data of millions of U.S. citizens to be swept up in government surveillance.

News Report: Chinese Firms Help Government Monitor Citizens with Big Data

Saibal Dasgupta

BEIJING — A Chinese city is using big data provided by a phone company to track the movement of its migrant worker population, expanding the many ways China is using big data to not just enhance performance but also track the daily lives of its citizens.

"When you buy a mobile phone SIM card, you need to register your identity information," said an officer of China Mobile designated at the company's booth during the recent Big Data Expo in southwest China's Guiyang city. He was explaining how the mobile phone company is assisting Guiyang police about the movement of migrants in the city on a real-time basis.

"So, we can obtain information about the people in a given area and details like whether they are men or women, their age, and where they come from," he said.

Very suddenly, big data is set to take up many of the responsibilities of the Communist Party's feedback mechanism. It is also expected to act as feedstock for the anti-corruption campaign, which has been using information about spending on wines and luxury buying for the purpose of investigations.