cyber – Radio Free

CPJ welcomes defamation decriminalization in Malawi

CPJ Staff — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:03:06 +0000

Lusaka, July 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the Malawi Constitutional Court’s landmark July 16 ruling striking down section 200 of the penal code criminalizing defamation.

“Malawi’s Constitutional Court has taken a monumental step towards protecting press freedom and affirmed that criticism and dissent are essential to democracy by ruling criminal defamation to be unconstitutional,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Nairobi. “Authorities should immediately comply with the judgment, and other laws that may unduly restrict the work of journalists must also be reformed.”

In a unanimous decision, three constitutional court justices ruled that the defamation law was a “disproportionate and unjustifiable limitation on constitutional freedom,” according to a summary of the judgment reviewed by CPJ.

The ruling follows social media influencer and activist Joshua Chisa Mbele’s 2022 legal challenge of criminal defamation charges for his remarks about a military official.

In its decision, the court ordered that no further prosecutions on criminal defamation charges be brought under the law.

The Malawian chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa and other civil society organizations urged the government not to appeal the ruling and to reform other laws that restrict free expression. Section 60 of Malawi’s penal code criminalizes publishing false news, with penalties of fines or up to two years in jail, and the 2016 Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act makes unauthorized transmitting data or information punishable by a fine of 2,000,000 Malawian kwacha (USD $1,153) and a 5-year imprisonment.

In 2022, Malawi amended its Protected Flag, Emblems, and Names Act of 1967, to decriminalize insults against the president but retained prison time for those convicted of insults to flags or protected emblems.

Malawi Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda did not respond to CPJ’s calls or text messages for comment on the court’s decision.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Waterlogged Kolkata street did turn red after Eid qurbani: Alt News ground report rebuts police cyber cell’s denial

Ankita Mahalanobish — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:52:55 +0000

After Bakri Eid was celebrated in India on Saturday, June 7, a video went viral on Facebook claiming to show a blood-filled road in Kolkata following the Qurbani (sacrificial) ritual.

Several users shared visuals of a blood-filled road and remarked sarcastically, “This isn’t Bangladesh or Pakistan…” Some stated that parts of Kolkata resembled “scenes from Bangladesh”. The posts also claimed that the visuals were from Ward 44 in Kolkata. (Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4)

BJP leader Sajal Ghosh who represents Ward No. 50 in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), also shared the video on Facebook and claimed that it was from the Bhawani Dutta Lane and Neel Madhab Sen Lane areas of Bowbazar. In the post, He also urged ‘urban, smart, ultramodern seculars’ to wake up unless they wanted the same picture to emerge from their localities within four-five years.

খুশির ঈদে খুশির বন্যা l

না এটা বাংলাদেশ না পাকিস্তান, এ আমার সাধের মধ্য কলকাতার বউবাজার অঞ্চলের ভবানী দত্ত লেন ও নীল মধব সেন লেন অঞ্চলের ছবি l

ঈদ কুরবানী একটি সম্প্রদায়ের নিজস্ব বিষয়, সে নিয়ে আমি কিছু বলবো না, কিন্তু যে প্রাণীকে আমরা পূজা করি, তার এই পরিণতি আমাদের ভাবাবেগকেও আঘাত দেয় l
অদ্ভুতভাবে প্রশাসন এবং পুরসভা চোখে ঠুলি পড়ে আছেন‌ l
তাই সমস্ত শহুরে স্মার্ট অত্যাধুনিক সেকুলার মানুষজনকে আমার অনুরোধ নিজে জাগুন অন্যকেও জাগান l

নয়তো আর ৪-৫ বছর বাদেই ঈদের দিনের এটাই আপনার পাড়ার ছবি হবে।
Sajal Ghosh BJP West Bengal Kolkata Municipal Corporation

Posted by Sajal Ghosh on Sunday 8 June 2025

On the same day, the X handle of the West Bengal Police Cyber Crime Wing shared a related fact check. It picked up a Facebook post from a user named Nepal Saha, which contained six photos of purported Eid celebrations in Kolkata, and labelled them as fake. One of these photos is a screenshot from the viral video. The fact check claimed that the photos originated in Bangladesh, with a 2016 post from Dhaka cited as the source. However, the viral video screengrab is not part of the 2016 post, and only two of the five others flagged as fake can actually be traced back to it. (Archive)

A disturbing image falsely linked to Kolkata post-Eid is actually from Dhaka, 2016, after Eid-ul-Adha and heavy rain. It has no connection to West Bengal.#factcheckthetruth #factcheck #Bangladesh #WestBengal pic.twitter.com/SVSPwxr748

— Fact Check : The Truth (@t20274) June 8, 2025

We found a website (https://factcheck.wb.gov.in/) bearing the same logo which published the same fact check. The website describes itself as “the Fact Check Portal of the West Bengal Cyber Crime Wing (which) is ready to tackle the menace by presenting verified, accurate, reliable information…”. Note that it uses a gov.in domain.

We tried reaching out to the cyber cell of Bengal Police. When we called on their number, they asked us to speak to the social media cell. The officer who spoke to us from the social media cell confirmed that the fact check had indeed been done by West Bengal Police’s cyber cell. However, he said the concerned person was on leave and only he could enlighten us about it. When we called up again the next day, we were met with the same response — that the person in the know of things was not available.

Alt News Visited the Spot

Taking a cue from Sajal Ghosh’s Facebook post, Alt News was able to precisely identify the spot featured in the viral clip. Bhawani Dutta Lane and Neel Madhab Sen Lane are two narrow streets near the College Street — Mahatma Gandhi Road crossing, stones throw from the Presidency University. We visited the site and shot a video that shows the same area that is seen in the viral clip.

The business establishments visible toward the end of the footage all carry Kolkata addresses. (Outlined in red in the screengrabs below)

Click to view slideshow.

Key landmarks visible in the viral video — including a distinct red-coloured house, a grey coloured building with light blue stripes, and a black car — can be seen in the Alt News video as well. The grey building houses the historical and current sections of the West Bengal state archives and bears the address: 6, Bhawani Dutta Lane.

These elements have also been highlighted below:

Click to view slideshow.

Have Never Seen Streets Turn Red Like this Before: Locals

To understand what transpired, we spoke to several locals. They recounted that on the intervening night of June 6 and June 7, the area experienced heavy rainfall resulting in severe waterlogging. On Saturday, June 7, morning, the ritual of qurbani (animal sacrifice) was carried out in keeping with religious tradition, local residents observed.

With the lanes being already waterlogged from the overnight rain, blood from the animal sacrifices mixed with the stagnant rainwater. Locals themselves came forward to manually clear the drains before the intervention of the civic body.

Alt News spoke to a local shop owner, Rajesh, who said he had lived and worked in the neighbourhood for over four decades. He told us that he had never witnessed anything like this before.

“I’ve been living and working in this neighbourhood for over 40 years, and I’ve never witnessed anything like this. The area indeed gets waterlogged whenever it rains, and the ritual of qurbani is performed here every year. But this is the first time I’ve seen such a scene — it was truly unprecedented.” Rajesh also confirmed that the video shows his locality and is from last Saturday.

The same information was corroborated by another shop owner from the area who told us that he had been in business there for around five to seven years and “had never seen anything like it.” “The water was red and there was a pungent smell”, he told us.

To further corroborate the events, we spoke to another family that had been residing there for over 60 years. They told us that in all their time living there, they had never witnessed such a disturbing sight. According to them, waterlogging is a recurring issue whenever it rains — and Friday was no exception. That evening, the area experienced heavy rainfall, which led to water accumulation due to clogged drains. “I was born and brought up here. In my lifetime, this was the first time I had witnessed something like this. Yes, the streets get waterlogged after a heavy shower. And on Friday, we experienced a heavy rainfall, which led to the accumulation of water.”

“Even at around 7 am, the water was clear, and likely after an hour, it turned red. Yes, it was accompanied by foul odour,” members of the household told Alt News. they did not want to be named. The time of the water turning red was corroborated by two other witnesses.

When asked whether the ritual of qurbani is practised every year on Eid al-adah, the family said, “Yes, but it has never affected the neighbours in any manner.” They also observed that a few local residents took the initiative to clear the clogged drains using sticks in an attempt to improve the situation. Shortly after these efforts, municipal workers arrived, cleaned the affected area, and restored normalcy. “We saw a few locals trying to unclog the drains with sticks. And later the municipality intervened and cleared it up.”

Kamal Pandit, a priest at a nearby temple, repeated the same point — that this was unprecedented. “I have been working here for the past six years. In this span, I have never seen a filthy sight like this. Whenever it rains, the area gets waterlogged, but I have never seen it turn red. It was cleared up in the afternoon.”

To sum up, Alt News’ on-ground investigation confirmed that the viral video was indeed authentic and were filmed in Kolkata. On the night of June 6 (Friday), the city witnessed heavy rain in certain areas, including Bhawani Dutta Lane in central Kolkata. As a result, following the Qurbani (sacrificial) ritual on Bakri Eid the next day, the already waterlogged lanes turned red, possibly due to contamination with animal blood. However, the X handle of Bengal police’s cyber crime wing issued an inaccurate fact-check of a Facebook post carrying a screenshot from the same video, incorrectly claiming that it was from Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2016.

This story will be updated if we receive a response from the cyber cell of police.

The post Waterlogged Kolkata street did turn red after Eid qurbani: Alt News ground report rebuts police cyber cell’s denial appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

How to fight Trump’s cyber dystopia with community, self-determination, care and truth

Pacific Media Watch — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 03:28:55 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Mandy Henk

When the US Embassy knocked on my door in late 2024, I was both pleased and more than a little suspicious.

I’d worked with them before, but the organisation where I did that work, Tohatoha, had closed its doors. My new project, Dark Times Academy, was specifically an attempt to pull myself out of the grant cycle, to explore ways of funding the work of counter-disinformation education without dependence on unreliable governments and philanthropic funders more concerned with their own objectives than the work I believed then — and still believe — is crucial to the future of human freedom.

But despite my efforts to turn them away, they kept knocking, and Dark Times Academy certainly needed the money. I’m warning you all now: There is a sense in which everything I have to say about counter-disinformation comes down to conversations about how to fund the work.

DARK TIMES ACADEMY

There is nothing I would like more than to talk about literally anything other than funding this work. I don’t love money, but I do like eating, having a home, and being able to give my kids cash.

I have also repeatedly found myself in roles where other people look to me for their livelihoods; a responsibility that I carry heavily and with more than a little clumsiness and reluctance.

But if we are to talk about President Donald Trump and disinformation, we have to talk about money. As it is said, the love of money is the root of all evil. And the lack of it is the manifestation of that evil.

Trump and his attack on all of us — on truth, on peace, on human freedom and dignity — is, at its core, an attack that uses money as a weapon. It is an attack rooted in greed and in avarice.

In his world, money is power
But in that greed lies his weakness. In his world, money is power. He and those who serve him and his fascist agenda cannot see beyond the world that money built. Their power comes in the form of control over that world and the people forced to live in it.

Of course, money is just paper. It is digital bits in a database sitting on a server in a data centre relying on electricity and water taken from our earth. The ephemeral nature of their money speaks volumes about their lack of strength and their vulnerability to more powerful forces.

They know this. Trump and all men like him know their weaknesses — and that’s why they use their money to gather power and control. When you have more money than you and your whānau can spend in several generations, you suddenly have a different kind of relationship to money.

It’s one where money itself — and the structures that allow money to be used for control of people and the material world — becomes your biggest vulnerability. If your power and identity are built entirely on the power of money, your commitment to preserving the power of money in the world becomes an all-consuming drive.

Capitalism rests on many “logics” — commodification, individualism, eternal growth, the alienation of labour. Marx and others have tried this ground well already.

In a sense, we are past the time when more analysis is useful to us. Rather, we have reached a point where action is becoming a practical necessity. After all, Trump isn’t going to stop with the media or with counter-disinformation organisations. He is ultimately coming for us all.

What form that action must take is a complicated matter. But, first we must think about money and about how money works, because only through lessening the power of money can we hope to lessen the power of those who wield it as their primary weapon.

Beliefs about poor people
If you have been so unfortunate to be subject to engagement with anti-poverty programmes during the neoliberal era either as a client or a worker, you will know that one of the motivations used for denying direct cash aid to those in need of money is a belief on the part of government and policy experts that poor people will use their money in unwise ways, be it drugs or alcohol, or status purchases like sneakers or manicures.

But over and over again, there’s another concern raised: cash benefits will be spent on others in the community, but outside of those targeted with the cash aid.

You see this less now that ideas like a universal basic income (UBI) and direct cash transfers have taken hold of the policy and donor classes, but it is one of those rightwing concerns that turned out to be empirically accurate.

Poor people are more generous with their money and all of their other resources as well. The stereotype of the stingy Scrooge is one based on a pretty solid mountain of evidence.

The poor turn out to understand far better than the rich how to defeat the power that money gives those who hoard it — and that is community. The logic of money and capital can most effectively be defeated through the creation and strengthening of our community ties.

Donald Trump and those who follow him revel in creating a world of atomised individuals focused on themselves; the kind of world where, rather than relying on each other, people depend on the market and the dollar to meet their material needs — dollars. of course, being the source of control and power for their class.

Our ability to fund our work, feed our families, and keep a roof over our heads has not always been subject to the whims of capitalists and those with money to pay us. Around the world, the grand multicentury project known as colonialism has impoverished us all and created our dependency.

Colonial projects and ‘enclosures’
I cannot speak as a direct victim of the colonial project. Those are not my stories to tell. There are so many of you in this room who can speak to that with far more eloquence and direct experience than I. But the colonial project wasn’t only an overseas project for my ancestors.

In England, the project was called “enclosure”.

Enclosure is one of the core colonial logics. Enclosure takes resources (land in particular) that were held in common and managed collectively using traditional customs and hands them over to private control to be used for private rather than communal benefit. This process, repeated over and over around the globe, created the world we live in today — the world built on money.

As we lose control over our access to what we need to live as the land that holds our communities together, that binds us to one another, is co-opted or stolen from us, we lose our power of self-determination. Self-governance, freedom, liberty — these are what colonisation and enclosure take from us when they steal our livelihoods.

As part of my work, I keep a close eye on the approaches to counter-disinformation that those whose relationship to power is smoother than my own take. Also, in this the year of our Lord 2025, it is mandatory to devote at least some portion of each public talk to AI.

I am also profoundly sorry to have to report that as far as I can tell, the only work on counter-disinformation still getting funding is work that claims to be able to use AI to detect and counter disinformation. It will not surprise you that I am extremely dubious about these claims.

AI has been created through what has been called “data colonialism”, in that it relies on stolen data, just as traditional forms of colonialism rely on stolen land.

Risks and dangers of AI
AI itself — and I am speaking here specifically of generative AI — is being used as a tool of oppression. Other forms of AI have their own risks and dangers, but in this context, generative AI is quite simply a tool of power consolidation, of hollowing out of human skill and care, and of profanity, in the sense of being the opposite of sacred.

Words, art, conversation, companionship — these are fiercely human things. For a machine to mimic these things is to transgress against all of our communities — all the more so when the machine is being wielded by people who speak openly of genocide and white supremacy.

However, just as capitalism can be fought through community, colonialism can and has been fought through our own commitment to living our lives in freedom. It is fought by refusing their demands and denying their power, whether through the traditional tools of street protest and nonviolent resistance, or through simply walking away from the structures of violence and control that they have implemented.

In the current moment, that particularly includes the technological tools that are being used to destroy our communities and create the data being used to enact their oppression. Each of us is free to deny them access to our lives, our hopes, and dreams.

This version of colonisation has a unique weakness, in that the cyber dystopia they have created can be unplugged and turned off. And yet, we can still retain the parts of it that serve us well by building our own technological infrastructure and helping people use that instead of the kind owned and controlled by oligarchs.

By living our lives with the freedom we all possess as human beings, we can deny these systems the symbolic power they rely on to continue.

That said, this has limitations. This process of theft that underlies both traditional colonialism and contemporary data colonialism, rather than that of land or data, destroys our material base of support — ie. places to grow food, the education of our children, control over our intellectual property.

Power consolidated upwards
The outcome is to create ever more dependence on systems outside of our control that serve to consolidate power upwards and create classes of disposable people through the logic of dehumanisation.

Disposable people have been a feature across many human societies. We see it in slaves, in cultures that use banishment and exile, and in places where imprisonment is used to enforce laws.

Right now we see it in the United States being directed at scale towards those from Central and Latin America and around the world. The men being sent to the El Salvadorian gulag, the toddlers sent to immigration court without a lawyer, the federal workers tossed from their jobs — these are disposable people to Trump.

The logic of colonialism relies on the process of dehumanisation; of denying the moral relevance of people’s identity and position within their communities and families. When they take a father from his family, they are dehumanising him and his family. They are denying the moral relevance of his role as a father and of his children and wife.

When they require a child to appear alone before an immigration judge, they are dehumanising her by denying her the right to be recognised as a child with moral claims on the adults around her. When they say they want to transition federal workers from unproductive government jobs to the private sector, they are denying those workers their life’s work and identity as labourers whose work supports the common good.

There was a time when I would point out that we all know where this leads, but we are there now. It has led there, although given the US incarceration rate for Black men, it isn’t unreasonable to argue that in fact for some people, the US has always been there. Fascism is not an aberration, it is a continuation. But the quickening is here. The expansion of dehumanisation and hate have escalated under Trump.

Dehumanisaton always starts with words and language. And Trump is genuinely — and terribly — gifted with language. His speeches are compelling, glittering, and persuasive to his audiences. With his words and gestures, he creates an alternate reality. When Trump says, “They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!”, he is using language to dehumanise Haitian immigrants.

An alternate reality for migrants
When he calls immigrants “aliens” he is creating an alternate reality where migrants are no longer human, no longer part of our communities, but rather outside of them, not fully human.

When he tells lies and spews bullshit into our shared information system, those lies are virtually always aimed at creating a permission structure to deny some group of people their full humanity. Outrageous lie after outrageous lie told over and over again crumbles society in ways that we have seen over and over again throughout history.

In Europe, the claims that women were consorting with the devil led to the witch trials and the burning of thousands of women across central and northern Europe. In Myanmar, claims that Rohinga Muslims were commiting rape, led to mass slaughter.

Just as we fight the logics of capitalism with community and colonialism with a fierce commitment to our freedom, the power to resist dehumanisation is also ours. Through empathy and care — which is simply the material manifestation of empathy — we can defeat attempts to dehumanise.

Empathy and care are inherent to all functioning societies — and they are tools we all have available to us. By refusing to be drawn into their hateful premises, by putting morality and compassion first, we can draw attention to the ridiculousness of their ideas and help support those targeted.

Disinformation is the tool used to dehumanise. It always has been. During the COVID-19 pandemic when disinformation as a concept gained popularity over the rather older concept of propaganda, there was a real moment where there was a drive to focus on misinformation, or people who were genuinely wrong about usually public health facts. This is a way to talk about misinformation that elides the truth about it.

There is an empirical reality underlying the tsunami of COVID disinformation and it is that the information was spread intentionally by bad actors with the goal of destroying the social bonds that hold us all together. State actors, including the United States under the first Trump administration, spread lies about COVID intentionally for their own benefit and at the cost of thousands if not millions of lives.

Lies and disinformation at scale
This tactic was not new then. Those seeking political power or to destroy communities for their own financial gain have always used lies and disinformation. But what is different this time, what has created unique risks, is the scale.

Networked disinformation — the power to spread bullshit and lies across the globe within seconds and within a context where traditional media and sources of both moral and factual authority have been systematically weakened over decades of neoliberal attack — has created a situation where disinformation has more power and those who wield it can do so with precision.

But just as we have the means to fight capitalism, colonialism, and dehumanisation, so too do we — you and I — have the tools to fight disinformation: truth, and accurate and timely reporting from trustworthy sources of information shared with the communities impacted in their own language and from their own people.

If words and images are the chosen tools of dehumanisation and disinformation, then we are lucky because they are fighting with swords that we forged and that we know how to wield. You, the media, are the front lines right now. Trump will take all of our money and all of our resources, but our work must continue.

Times like this call for fearlessness and courage. But more than that, they call on us to use all of the tools in our toolboxes — community, self-determination, care, and truth. Fighting disinformation isn’t something we can do in a vacuum. It isn’t something that we can depersonalise and mechanise. It requires us to work together to build a very human movement.

I can’t deny that Trump’s attacks have exhausted me and left me depressed. I’m a librarian by training. I love sharing stories with people, not telling them myself. I love building communities of learning and of sharing, not taking to the streets in protest.

More than anything else, I just want a nice cup of tea and a novel. But we are here in what I’ve seen others call “a coyote moment”. Like Wile E. Coyote, we are over the cliff with our legs spinning in the air.

We can use this time to focus on what really matters and figure out how we will keep going and keep working. We can look at the blue sky above us and revel in what beauty and joy we can.

Building community, exercising our self-determination, caring for each other, and telling the truth fearlessly and as though our very lives depend on it will leave us all the stronger and ready to fight Trump and his tidal wave of disinformation.

Mandy Henk, co-founder of Dark Times Academy, has been teaching and learning on the margins of the academy for her whole career. As an academic librarian, she has worked closely with academics, students, and university administrations for decades. She taught her own courses, led her own research work, and fought for a vision of the liberal arts that supports learning and teaching as the things that actually matter. This article was originally presented as an invited address at the annual general meeting of the Asia Pacific Media Network on 24 April 2025.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Bangladesh journalists face threats from attacks, investigations, and looming cyber laws

Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 11:56:08 +0000

New York, February 14, 2025— Six months after a mass uprising ousted the increasingly autocratic administration of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladeshi journalists continue to be threatened and attacked for their work, along with facing new fears that planned legislation could undermine press freedom

Bangladesh’s interim government — established amid high hopes of political and economic reform— has drawn criticism from journalists and media advocates for its January introduction of drafts of two cyber ordinances: the Cyber Protection Ordinance 2025 (CPO) and Personal Data Protection Ordinance 2025.

While the government reportedly dropped controversial sections related to defamation and warrantless searches in its update to the CPO, rights groups remain concerned that some of the remaining provisions could be used to target journalists. According to the Global Network Initiative, of which CPJ is a member, the draft gives the government “disproportionate authority” to access user data and impose restrictions on online content. Journalists are also concerned that the proposed data law will give the government “unchecked powers” to access personal data, with minimal opportunity for judicial redress.

“Democracy cannot flourish without robust journalism,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Bangladesh’s interim government must deliver on its promise to protect journalists and their right to report freely. Authorities should amend proposed laws that could undermine press freedom and hold the perpetrators behind the attacks on the press to account.”

CPJ’s calls and text messages to Nahid Islam, the information, communication, and technology adviser to the interim government, requesting comment on the ordinances did not receive a reply.

Meanwhile, CPJ has documented a recent spate of beatings, criminal investigations, and harassment of journalists for their work.

Attacks

A group of 10 to 12 men attacked Shohag Khan Sujon, a correspondent for daily Samakal newspaper, after he and three other journalists investigated allegations of medical negligence at a hospital in central Shariatpur district on February 3.

Sujon told CPJ that a clinic owner held the journalist’s legs as the assailants hit his left ear with a hammer and stabbed his back with a knife. The three other correspondents — Nayon Das of Bangla TV, Bidhan Mojumder Oni of News 24 Television, and Saiful Islam Akash of Desh TV — were attacked with hammers when they tried to intervene; the attack ended locals chased the perpetrators away.

Sujon told CPJ he filed a police complaint for attempted murder. Helal Uddin, officer-in-charge of the Palang Model Police Station, told CPJ by text message that the investigation was ongoing.

In a separate incident on the same day, around 10 masked men used bamboo sticks to beat four newspaper correspondents — Md Rafiqul Islam of Khoborer Kagoj, Abdul Malak Nirob of Amar Barta, Md Alauddin of Daily Amar Somoy, and Md Foysal Mahmud of Daily Alokito Sakal — while they traveled to a village in southern Laximpur district to report on a land dispute, Islam told CPJ.

The attackers stole the journalists’ cameras, mobile phones, and wallets and fired guns towards the group, causing shrapnel injuries to Mahmud’s left ear and leg, Islam said.

Authorities arrested four suspects, two of whom were released on bail on February 10, Islam told CPJ. Laximpur police superintendent Md Akter Hossain told CPJ by phone that authorities were working to apprehend additional suspects.

Threats

Shafiur Rahman, a British freelance documentary filmmaker of Bangladeshi origin, told CPJ he received an influx of threatening emails and social media comments after publishing a January 30 article about a meeting between the leadership of Bangladesh’s National Security Intelligence and the armed group Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.

Multiple emails warned Rahman to “stop or suffer the consequences” and “back off before it’s too late.” Social media posts included a photo of the journalist with a red target across his forehead and warnings that Rahman would face criminal charges across Bangladesh, leaving Rahman concerned for his safety if he returned to report from Bangladesh’s refugee camps for Rohingya forced to flee Myanmar.

“The nature of these threats suggests an orchestrated campaign to silence me, and I fear potential real-world repercussions if I continue my work on the ground,” Rahman said.

CPJ’s text to Shah Jahan, joint director of the National Security Intelligence, requesting comment about the threats did not receive a reply.

Criminal cases

Four journalists who reported or published material on allegedly illicit business practices and labor violations are facing possible criminal defamation charges after Noor Nahar, director of Tafrid Cotton Mills Limited and wife of the managing director of its sister company, Dhaka Cotton Mills Limited, filed a November 13, 2024, complaint in court against them. If tried and convicted, they could face up to two years in prison.

The four are:
* H. M. Mehidi Hasan, editor and publisher of investigative newspaper The Weekly Agrajatra.

* Kamrul Islam, assignment editor for The Weekly Agrajatra.

* Mohammad Shah Alam Khan, editor of online outlet bdnews999.

* Al Ehsan, senior reporter for The Daily Post newspaper.

CPJ’s text to Nahar asking for comment did not receive a reply.

Md Hafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge of the Uttara West Police Station, which was ordered to investigate the complaint, told CPJ by phone that he would send the latest case updates but did not respond to subsequent messages.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

CPJ urges Zambian government to withdraw cyber bills from parliament

CPJ Staff — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 22:47:44 +0000

The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter calling on the Zambian government to withdraw the Cyber Security Bill 2024 and Cyber Crimes Bill 2024 from the country’s National Assembly for a comprehensive review to ensure they align with constitutional protections of freedom of the press as well as regional and international standards on freedom of expression.

CPJ raised concerns that the two bills would pose a significant threat to journalism in Zambia if enacted into law in current form, including numerous provisions that could undermine freedom of expression. In particular, the cybercrimes bill contains provisions that would amount to criminalization of defamation and could potentially undermine investigative journalism by prohibiting “unauthorized disclosure” of “critical information” in broad terms, without public interest safeguards. The bills would also give the state broad digital surveillance, search and seizure powers.

The bills, which would replace the Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act of 2021, were tabled at the National Assembly in November 2024 but decision-making was deferred, following concerns that the draft laws lacked adequate human rights safeguards. In December, Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema, who has previously promised to positively reform Zambia’s existing cyber crime legislation, said he was open to further dialogue with civil society on the two bills.

Read CPJ’s letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Pakistani authorities summon journalist Harmeet Singh over alleged anti-state rhetoric

CPJ Staff — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:53:19 +0000

New York, December 17, 2024—Pakistani authorities must stop harassing broadcast journalist Harmeet Singh, who has been summoned to appear for questioning on December 24 to the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cyber Crime Reporting Center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on allegations he engaged in “negative rhetoric against state institutions,” according to a copy of the summons reviewed by CPJ and Singh, who spoke with CPJ.

The FIA’s Cyber Crime Reporting Center in the capital Islamabad has also registered a first information report, which opens an investigation, against Singh, an anchor for local news outlet Such TV. The report accuses him of using his social media account to “propagate a misleading, concocted, and baseless campaign against state institutions and security agencies of Pakistan.” The allegations relate to Singh’s social media activity during November 2024 protests that he covered in Islamabad by supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, according to a copy of the report reviewed by CPJ.

“Pakistan’s security agencies must immediately stop the harassment of journalist Harmeet Singh and allow him to work without intimidation,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “In 2024, journalists in Pakistan have faced unprecedented violence by both state and non-state actors. It is the government’s responsibility to put an end to this.”

On Saturday, a special court in Islamabad granted Singh pre-arrest bail until December 21, in connection with the FIA complaint.

Singh, one of Pakistan’s few Sikh journalists, has faced threats to his life in the past, especially after his brother was killed in a personal animosity case. He told CPJ that he believes the authorities’ efforts are an attempt to silence him and other journalists from reporting the on-the-ground realities in Pakistan.

The targeting of Singh is part of a broader pattern of intimidation against journalists in Pakistan. On November 27, senior journalist Matiullah Jan was arrested on terrorism charges after reporting on protests by supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan.

CPJ reached out to Pakistan Minister of Information Attaullah Tarar for comment but received no response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

From Cyber Parks to Sadhus, Change and Tradition in Urban India

Colin Todhunter — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 08:02:01 +0000

There exists a significant amount of literature and debate regarding modernity, urbanisation and social change in India. Critical inquiries persist, not least on the impact of change on the daily lives of individuals and the ways in which they navigate their identities amid the tensions between modernity and tradition in an increasingly dynamic urban environment.

At the heart of this urban landscape are the working poor, who play a crucial role in India’s economy. Engaged in diverse occupations, such as construction, goods transport, waste recycling, domestic service and street vending, their contributions are vital for the functioning of the economy.

Informal workers constitute more than 90 per cent of the labour force (80 per cent in urban settings). However, the informal sector is characterised by challenging working conditions that include strenuous manual labour, low remuneration, extended hours and a lack of workplace benefits.

This stark reality of the informal sector stands in direct contrast to the expansive cyber parks and modern shopping malls that epitomise India’s uneven ‘development’ — a concept that suggests modernisation often occurs in isolated sectors, leaving substantial portions of the population relatively untouched. This is particularly evident in the retail landscape, where traditional and modern forms of commerce coexist, often in uneasy tension.

On one hand, there is a concerning proliferation of organised retail and (monopolistic) online commerce platforms, representing one aspect of Indian consumerism. On the other hand, local street markets and vendors — integral components of the informal sector — remain a longstanding and vital feature of Indian urban life.

Despite the encroachment of modern retail, these traditional markets continue to thrive, facilitating a direct connection between rural producers and urban consumers, particularly concerning fresh produce. This farm-to-table model not only sustains millions of livelihoods within the informal sector, but it is also deeply embedded in Indian culinary culture, highlighting the ongoing relevance of these markets within urban neighbourhoods. The persistence of such traditional forms of commerce alongside modern retail outlets highlights the interplay between tradition and modernity in India’s urban economic landscape.

Culturally, India presents a distinctive scenario. Unlike many Western contexts where religion is often compartmentalised, spiritual practices and symbols are intricately interwoven into public life. The integration of sacred and secular elements persists despite the influences of modernity, urbanisation and global consumerism.

While societal structures may evolve externally, fundamental cultural and spiritual values remain deeply entrenched. Indian urbanism allows for the coexistence of age-old practices with contemporary realities; tradition and modernity, spirituality and materialism exist together.

For instance, religious symbols serve as markers of cultural identity. The portrayal of Hindu deities on everyday items reinforces cultural connections even within modern contexts. Such representations often feature vibrant artistic styles that blend functionality with cultural significance.

Moreover, religious paraphernalia — such as leaves, limes or conch shells — are commonly used to adorn small businesses. Each leaf possesses distinct symbolic meanings; conch shells are associated with Vishnu and are frequently displayed outside stores. Limes, often paired with green chilies to ward off negative energies, symbolise prosperity and abundance, making them prevalent, hanging in front of shops. This practice illustrates how spiritual beliefs permeate daily life and underscores the enduring influence of tradition on contemporary commerce in India.

Deeply rooted beliefs associated with concepts like dharma persist despite social transformations. Many dharmic traditions emphasise the significance of seva (selfless service), with charitable giving — known as dana in Sanskrit — considered an essential aspect of one’s dharma or religious duty. This practice is perceived not merely as a moral obligation but as a spiritual endeavour that fosters personal growth and good karma. This may, in part, help us to understand why ‘duty’ or ‘service’ is often invoked when people talk about their jobs.

Historical photographs depicting Britain in the 1950s and 1960s evoke memories of cohesive communities and industrial landscapes that were rapidly swept away under the guise of ‘progress’. These images connect us to a past where individual identities were closely linked to their local and immediate social, economic and cultural environments.

The consequences of this ‘progress’ have been critically examined by writer Paul Kingsnorth in his book Real England: The Battle Against the Bland. He laments the loss of authentic pubs, rural hedgerows, affordable housing, individuality and character in towns due to corporate greed and an insatiable quest for profit — a phenomenon described by one insightful reviewer as a “Starbucked, Wetherspooned avalanche”.

In India, custom, tradition and personal identity are intricately interwoven. The persistence of ancient beliefs amid modern pressures underscores the enduring power of cultural identity. However, even within this context, forces such as modernity or globalisation — more accurately framed as neocolonialism — are gradually reshaping urban landscapes and influencing the lives, fashions and preferences of its inhabitants.

In 2003, British journalist David Charters (1948-2020) remarked:

Sadly, the world is being shrunk to a ‘global village’ by the forces of celebrity, mass media, instant communications, swift travel and the constant desire for standardisation. So, we should record the qualities that made us different while there is still time.

Take a journey through Chennai’s streets to prompt reflection on the issues highlighted above by visiting the author’s open-access, image-based ebook here.

The post From Cyber Parks to Sadhus, Change and Tradition in Urban India first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Colin Todhunter.

The US Attempted Coup in Venezuela uses new Cyber Tools, but cannot Break the Chavista Wall

Stansfield Smith — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:28:49 +0000

The peoples around the world have looked to Venezuela as a vanguard leading Nuestra América in its second independence struggle, against the US. The US rulers operate as the inheritor of the European colonial empires, assuming the right to interfere in other countries’ elections, and dictate who are the winners. No other country – save US underlings in Europe, and Israel – dares to violate international law so brazenly.

The Venezuelan right-wing had no real plan to win a democratic election, but instead prepared for a coup d’etat even before the polls closed. Working with the US government and corporate media, they allege President Maduro stole the July 28 presidential election, then committed human rights abuses to crush protests. This opposition declares it beat President Maduro 70% to 30% but refuses to present their “evidence” to the National Electoral Council (CNE) or Supreme Court. The opposition claimed fraud in every election during the 25-year period of Chavista rule – except twice, when they won.

The attempted coup bears much in common with recent US coup attempts in Nicaragua (2018), Bolivia (2019) and Venezuela (2013, 2014, 2017, 2019). If the US-backed candidates lose, the election is “fraudulent.” This scheme drove Evo Morales from power in Bolivia. The US even appointed its own president for Venezuela after its 2018 presidential election, and then proceeded to steal tens of billions of dollars of Venezuela’s resources held overseas.

US coup attempts use new tools besides the US-trained military as in the past

First, the US crushes a country with sanctions and economic blockades, causing scarcities and shortages, leading to discontent among the people over worsening living conditions. National Security gangster John Bolton said: “Sanctions are a means of repression and coercion between military warfare and diplomacy.” Richard Nephew, Treasury deputy secretary, adds: “Over the past decade, the most important tool for enforcing American power is the sanctions mechanism.” To justify sanctions, the US relies on its media, intellectuals, universities and think tanks, to make them seem humane to the public. In Venezuela, US sanctions caused government revenue to collapse by 99%, requiring dramatic cuts in the many social programs. The sanctions killed over 100,000 civilians, Venezuelans knew that voting for Nicolas Maduro would mean a worsening of the US-EU economic warfare they face.

Second, corporate media and social media now play a coup-making role similar to that of Pentagon-trained generals in the past. Supervised by the CIA, this media blanketed a targeted country and the world with disinformation against its government, seeking to foment a “regime change” mass movement.

Six corporations control over 90% of the US media and so own the news. They dominate the world media just as the US dollar dominates the world financial system. The all-important weapon, social media, which saturates billions of mobile phones, are in the hands of Elon Musk (X, formerly Twitter), and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram). Working with the CIA, they can impose an alternative reality, seen in Nicaragua in 2018, Bolivia during the 2019 coup, and Venezuela today.

Corporate media describe the elected Maduro government – and the elected ones in Nicaragua and Cuba – as dictatorships.

Delegitimizing Venezuelan elections in advance followed a pattern used in Bolivia (2019) and Nicaragua (2021). The US created automated networks of thousands of fake social media accounts to swamp the public with fake news. These accounts generate streams of posts in a coordinated manner, creating the appearance of popular repudiation of Evo Morales, Nicolas Maduro, or Daniel Ortega.

Bots were used in a massive way against Evo’s government. The two main coup leaders created 95,000 twitter accounts before the coup to spread the election fraud story and call for violent protests. Over 68,000 false accounts were set up to legitimize the army’s overthrow of Morales and justify killing those protesting the coup.

US social media control in these countries drowns out pro-government and independent voices not just by saturating the online conversation, but by shutting them down. After the US annointed Juan Guaido the Venezuela president, Twitter closed thousands of Chavista accounts to foster the impression that most Venezuelans supported Guaido.

Governments in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia cannot respond effectively to the US media disinformation warfare against them any more than to the US blockades imposed on them. It takes them years to build up national media networks, and even then, their resources are minor compared to what the US commands.

Third, the US relies on cyberwarfare to incapacitate its opponents. In Bolivia in 2019 a cyberattack of the electoral system’s computers disrupted the vote count, preventing the authentic results being issued. The US-backed opposition then claimed Evo delayed the vote count because he was fixing it.

After the July 28 election, 126 digital platforms of the Venezuelan state suffered cyberattacks, the most significant being the CNE, the constitutional agency recording the vote. Hacked over 100 times that night, it could not operate normally, delaying for days the release of the results. Again, this was used to claim the vote totals were being fixed.

At times 30 million cyber attacks per minute occurred between July 28 and August 9th. Such an attack disables Venezuelan government computer systems and paralyzes operations. These large-scale cyberattacks generated hundreds of gigabytes per second (your laptop system memory may have 16 gb).

These attacks falsified IP links, duplicated links, reconfigured government portals and hijacked information. Names and addresses of government workers were released on social media to “comanditos” (opposition gangs), creating physical threats for those affected.

The US powerful media and cyber weapons, able to swamp a country’s airwaves with CIA concocted “news,” while disrupting the country’s response, open the door to violent protests against the government.

Fourth, having created the conditions for opposition leaders to assert the Maduro government stole the election, they then called people into the streets to protest and create chaos or guarimbas. “Comanditos” (small groups paid to instigate violence), caused destruction and violence, killed 25 and injured 192, burned buildings, sacked several regional CNE headquarters, blocked roads, attacked police and military, beat up people who “looked” Chavista, attacked local community leaders, food distribution centers, public schools, hospitals, offices, ransacked warehouses, the transportation system, the electrical grid, all to paralyze the country. The US media could portray to the world a picture of national chaos, inviting military intervention to restore order, meaning a US neo-colonial regime.

These protests (as in Bolivia in 2019 and Nicaragua in 2018, Cuba in 2021) are portrayed in the corporate media as peaceful democracy rallies. When police forces and mobilized Chavista organizations attempt to stop the violence, the corporate media charges democracy protests are being repressed. This has been a habitual corporate media scam in US regime change operations, yet people still fall for it. In fact, the strategy was first used in the coup against the democratic government of Iran in 1953.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez noted the comanditos were financed entirely by NGOs. “When the actions and financing of these groups were investigated, it was discovered that they were financed by organizations of dubious origin from Europe or by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)”

Eva Golinger wrote years ago, “Wherever a coup d’etat, a colored revolution or a regime change favorable to US interests occurs, USAID and its flow of dollars is there…The same agencies are always present, funding, training and advising: USAID, National Endowment for Democracy [NED], International Republican Institute [IRI], National Democratic Institute [NDI], Freedom House, Albert Einstein Institute [AEI], and International Center for Non-Violent Conflict [ICNC].”

Fifth, US coup attempts count on funding NGOs to carry out “regime change.” Besides the CIA-controlled USAID, NED, NDI, and IRI, NGOs receive millions from Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and others. The US uses them to buy an internal opposition, similar to AIPAC in the US – except here AIPAC works to disenfranchise we the people.

NED funds NGOs worldwide to incite color revolutions against those the US empire finds not properly subservient. Between 2016-2019 1600 NGOs received NED grants, highlighting the value the US places on the NGO coup-making tool. Needless to say, the US does not tolerate foreign countries funding NGOs pressing for political change here.

From 2000-2020, the US spent $250 million funding “regime change” NGOs in Cuba. Tracey Eaton wrote, “An extensive network of groups financed by the US government sends cash to Cuba to thousands of ‘democracy activists,’ journalists and dissidents every year.” Since 1996, the US spent $20-$45 million dollars a year to fund these Cuban groups. These NGOs created the CIA Cuban social media ZunZuneo, and even infiltrated the Cuban hip-hop scene, laying the basis for the 2021 protests.

From 2017 through 2019, USAID admitted giving nearly $467 million to the Venezuelan opposition. USAID committed another $128 million to US appointed president Juan Guaidó. In 2006, Ambassador William Brownfield in 2006 revealed the goals of USAID funding: “1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital U.S. business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.” The NED disclosed in 2010 that agencies funded the opposition $40-50 million annually.

Similar US operations against Nicaragua are revealed in How Billion-Dollar Foundations Fund NGOs to Manipulate U.S. Foreign Policy, In 2018, in the US attempted coup, USAID spent $24.5 million and NED $4.1 million to train and support the opposition movement, while the Soros Foundation gave $6.7 million to propagate fake news.

Venezuela and Nicaragua recently passed laws controlling NGOs – which the US painted as a sign of their dictatorial nature.

How Venezuela Defeated this Five-Pronged Coup Attempt

The Maduro government had campaigned for months educating and warning the people of opposition schemes to disrupt the election, refuse to recognize the results, create new guarimbas, and that united popular action could stop this. They succeeded. The violent coup attempt on July 29-30 failed; on July 31 the terrorists were being rounded up, and calm restored. On August 3, more than half a million Chavistas marched to support President Maduro and peace.

Internationally, the Maduro government benefited from the considerable prestige it had gained standing up to everything the US rulers threw at it. The US has likewise lost much credibility, especially over its full support for the endless massacres in Gaza. It could not even get the subservient OAS to condemn Maduro.

Venezuela, like Cuba, has developed a strong civic-military union supported by thousands of voluntary militias that has been a bastion against the war – economic, military, propaganda, and cyberwar – against the country. Moreover, the Venezuelan military command, like in Cuba and Nicaragua, is dedicated to defending the constitutional order, denying US coup-plotters an opening. A people’s militia in Bolivia, which did not and still does not exist, could have maintained order in October 2019 after the police and military commands declared they would not stop right wing violence.

Besides the mass civic-military union, the Venezuelan government, like Cuba, relies on mobilizing the people. President Maduro’s closing campaign rally culminated in over a million marching on July 25th. Right after the July 28 election, hundreds of thousands of Chavistas took to the streets of Caracas and other cities. This was an antidote to the coup attempt and violence, since these mobilizations vastly outnumbered the capacity of the opposition.

After 25 years of the US forcing the Chavista leadership live under pressure cooker conditions, it has been unable to divide them and overturn the revolution as it has so often elsewhere, such as Grenada, Burkina Faso, Algeria, the Soviet bloc, and now threatens Bolivia.

The Maduro government maintains broad popular support because of its commitment to the people. The oil industry was nationalized and its income, while curtailed due to the US blockade, benefits the people. Mass literacy campaigns ended illiteracy. Over 5.1 million homes have been built for the poor. Venezuela has become almost self-sufficient in food production. The CLAP program distributes discounted or free food to 7.5 million families every month. Free health care and education through university are provided to all. Venezuela is overcoming the US blockade with the economy expected to grow 10% in 2024, and has the lowest inflation rate in 14 years. In recognition, about one million Venezuelans have returned home.

Chavismo defeated this coup because of its organic connection with the people, because of the class consciousness that has matured in its citizens since Hugo Chavez initiated the Bolivarian process, and because of the political clarity and determination of the Chavista leadership. Their victory is one for the peoples of the world.

The post The US Attempted Coup in Venezuela uses new Cyber Tools, but cannot Break the Chavista Wall first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stansfield Smith.

Mike Lynch, Probability and the Cyber Industrial Complex

Binoy Kampmark — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 17:50:27 +0000

It began as a devastating, confined storm off the coast of Sicily, striking the luxury yacht Bayesian in the form of a devastating water column resembling a tornado. Probability was inherent in the name (Thomas Bayes, mathematician and nonconformist theologian of the 18^th century, had been the first to use probability inductively) and improbability the nature of the accident.

It also led to rich speculation about the fate of those on the doomed vessel. While most on the sunk yacht were saved (the eventual number totalled fifteen), a number of prominent figures initially went missing before being found. They included British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, along with Morgan Stanley International Bank chairman, Jonathan Bloomer, and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo.

Lynch, co-founder of the British data analytics firm Autonomy and co-founder and investor in the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, had been recently acquitted by a US federal jury of fifteen counts of fraud and conspiracy, along with his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain, regarding Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition of Autonomy in 2011. While the firm’s acquisition had cost a mighty US$11 billion, HP wrote off a stunning US$8.8 billion within 12 months, demanding an investigation into what it regarded as “serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy.” Clifford Chance was instructed by Lynch to act for him following the write down of Autonomy’s value in November 2012, hence Morvillo’s presence.

Lynch had his fair share of unwanted excitement. The US Department of Justice successfully secured his extradition, though failed to get a conviction. The investor proved less fortunate in a 2022 civil suit in the UK, one he lost.

For all his legal travails, Lynch stayed busy. He founded Invoke Capital, which became the largest investor in the cybersecurity firm Darktrace. Other companies featured in terms of funding targets for the company, among them Sophia Genetics, Featurespace and Luminance.

Darktrace, founded in 2013, has thrived in the thick soup of security establishment interests. British prime ministers have fallen within its orbit of influence, so much so that David Cameron accompanied its CEO Nicole Egan on an official visit to Washington DC in January 2015 ahead of the opening of the company’s US headquarters.

Members of the UK signals intelligence agency GCHQ are said to have approached Lynch, who proceeded to broker a meeting that proved most profitable in packing Darktrace with former members of the UK and, eventually, US intelligence community. The company boasts a veritable closet of former operatives on the books: MI5, MI6, CIA, the NSA, and FBI. Co-founder Stephen Huxter, a notable official in MI5’s cyber defence team, became Darktrace’s managing director.

Other connections are also of interest in sketching the extensive reach of the cyber industrial complex. This need not lend itself to a conspiratorial reading of power so much as the influence companies such as Darktrace wield in the field. Take Alexander Arbuthnot, yet another cut and dried establishment figure whose private equity firm Vitruvian Partners found Darktrace worthy of receiving a multi-million-pound investment as part of a push into cybersecurity.

Fascinating as this is, such matters gather steam and huff on looking at Arbuthnot’s family ties. Take Arbuthnot’s mother and Westminster chief magistrate, one Lady Emma Arbuthnot. The magistrate presided over part of the lengthily cruel and prolonged extradition proceedings of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks and hounded for alleged breaches of the US Espionage Act. (Assange recently pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information under the Espionage Act of 1917.) Any conflict of interest, actual or perceived, including her husband’s own links to the UK military community as former UK defence minister, were not declared during the legal circus. Establishment members tend to regard themselves as above reproach.

With such a tight tangle of links, it took another coincidence to send the amateur sleuths on a feverish digital trawl for sauce and conspiracy. On August 17, a few days prior to Lynch’s drowning, his co-defendant was struck while running in Cambridgeshire. Chamberlain died in hospital from his injuries, with the driver, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, assisting at the scene with inquiries.

Reddit and the platform X duly caught fire with theories on the alleged role of hidden corporate actors, disgruntled US justice officials robbed of their quarry, and links to the intelligence community. Chay Bowes, a blustery Irish businessman with an addiction to internet soapbox pontification, found himself obsessed with probabilities, wondering, “How could two of the statistically most charmed men alive meet tragic ends within two days of each other in the most improbable ways?”

A better line of reflection is considering the influence and power such corporations exercise in the cyber military-industrial complex. In the realm of cyber policy, the line between public sector notions of security and defence, and the entrepreneurial pursuit of profit, have ceased to be meaningful. In a fundamental sense, Lynch was vital to that blurring, the innovator as semi-divine.

Darktrace became an apotheosis of that phenomenon, retaining influence in the market despite a scandal spotted record. It has, for instance, survived claims and investigations of sexual harassment. (One of those accused at the company was the most appropriately named Randy Cheek, a sales chief based in the San Francisco office.)

In 2023, its chief executive Poppy Gustafsson fended off a stinging report by the US-hedge fund Quintessential Capital Management (QCM) alleging questionable sales and accounting practices intended to drive up the value of the company before it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2021. This sounded rather typical and seemed eerily reminiscent of the Autonomy affair. “After a careful analysis,” QCM reported, “we are deeply sceptical about the validity of Darktrace’s financial statements and fear that sales, margins and growth rates may be overstated and close to sharp correction.”

QCM’s efforts did no lasting damage. In April this year, it was revealed that Darktrace would be purchased by US private equity firm Thoma Bravo for the punchy sum of US$5.32 billion. The Darktrace board was bullish about the deal, telling investors that its “operating and financial achievements have not been reflected commensurately in its valuation, with shares trading at a significant discount to its global peer group”. If things sour on this one, Thoma Bravo will only have itself to blame, given the collapse of takeover talks it had with the company in 2022. Irrespective of any anticipated sketchiness, Lynch’s troubled legacy regarding data-driven technology and its relation to the state will remain.

The post Mike Lynch, Probability and the Cyber Industrial Complex first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Online abusers ‘shaming, silencing’ Fiji women journalists, say researchers

Pacific Media Watch — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 23:37:47 +0000

By Brooklyn Self, Queensland University of Technology

Gendered online violence is silencing women journalists in Fiji, says Pacific media scholar Dr Shailendra Singh.

The harmful trend involves unwanted private messages, hateful language and threats to reputation, often from anonymous sources.

The visibility of women journalists has made them frequent targets, while perpetrators can harness popular online platforms to shame or embarrass them in the public eye.

READ MORE: Other QUT Project reports

Dr Singh has dedicated extensive research to this dangerous phenomenon, including a 2022 study with Geraldine Panapasa and other colleagues from The University of South Pacific and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement.

The research found 83 percent of female Fijian journalists who completed their survey had experienced online harassment.

Significantly, the women journalists reported changes to their journalistic practice because of abuse, such as self-censoring their content or avoiding certain sources or stories.

The report on Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists found most of Fiji’s women journalists changed their reporting or social media habits because of online violence. Image: Shailendra Singh and Geraldine Panapasa/USP

“The aim is to embarrass female journalists into silence, or punish them for writing a report that someone did not like,” Dr Singh says.

The researchers said the valuable role of the Fourth Estate in protecting the public interest makes harassment of journalists a critical concern.

Eliminating the problem will need further action, as 40 per cent of the women journalists who responded said their employers had no systems in place for dealing with online violence.

Islands Business magazine manager Samantha Magick says her staff can come to her for support, but even so, harassment adds another barrier to attracting and keeping journalists in the industry.

“We’re competing with marketing, or competing with UN agencies that will snap up a great young communications officer after they’ve done a year in a newsroom, and pay them a lot more,” she says.

“The people who stick with the profession are either super passionate about it and willing to sacrifice certain things or are in a position where it can be viable for them.”

Fiji adopted its Online Safety Act in 2018, which bans harmful online communications and appoints the Online Safety Commission to investigate offences.

Fiji TV news editor Felix Chaudhary says journalists often do not report online abuse because of a lack of faith or awareness around reporting procedures.

“You can have the best laws, but if you aren’t able to enforce the law or have reporting mechanisms in place, then the laws are useless because they’re not going to serve their purpose,” he says.

A Pacific Media Conference 2024 lineup last month when online abuse and harassment was widely discussed by journalists and academics . . . Professor David Robie (clockwise from top left), Nalini Singh, Professor Emily Drew, Professor Cherian George, Irene Liu, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Indira Stewart. Image: USP Wansolwara

Until these mechanisms are developed, media employers should build a zero-tolerance workplace culture and establish their own protocols to deal with online violence, Chaudhary says.

“You get very clear from the beginning that you will not tolerate any form of harassment – abuse, verbal, written online,” he says. “So it’s very clear from the get-go that kind of behaviour is not accepted.”

There is a growing body of data to suggest women’s online safety is a critical concern across Fiji, with research from the Online Safety Commission revealing that 61.44 per cent of women in Fiji experienced cyberbullying in 2023.

Chaudhary says the online harassment of women journalists reflects ongoing issues for women that stem from the explosion of internet use in Fiji.

“Facebook, Twitter and Instagram gave people open territory to abuse anyone and everyone at will, whenever they wanted to.

“I think there should have been a lot of education on social media etiquette, what’s acceptable and what’s not,” he says.

Fijians can directly report online violence on social media platforms or lodge a complaint with the Fiji Online Safety Commission: https://osc.com.fj/

Brooklyn Self is a student journalist from the Queensland University of Technology who travelled to Fiji with the support of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan Mobility Programme. This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), QUT and The University of the South Pacific.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Hacking Russia: The New Frontier of Ukraine’s Cyber Defence

VICE News — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 16:00:03 +0000

This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.

Does the video of men show official Chinese cyber army at work?

By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 03:29:52 +0000

A video of several men sitting in front of a large number of mobile phones has been repeatedly shared in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows the Chinese Communist Party’s cyber army.

But the claim is false. The video shows a Vietnamese marketing company, which was posted on the company’s Facebook page.

The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on June 30, 2024.

“Please take a look at this: How dozens of accounts are controlled by one person of the Chinese Communist Party’s cyber army thugs to attack and abuse, create rumors and intimidate people on the internet,” reads the claim.

It was shared along with a 24-second video that shows several men sitting in front of a large number of mobile phones.

China employs a variety of deceptive and coercive methods as it attempts to influence the international information environment, seeking to maximize the reach of biased or false pro-China content, such as sponsoring online influencers or harassing individual content producers, the U.S. Department of State said in a report in September 2023.

There have also been media reports about China operating a so-called internet water army, a group of users who are paid to post online comments with vested interest on Chinese language websites, or the “50 cent army,” a group of state-backed internet commenters who create and promote positive narratives about China.

The video was also shared on X and YouTube with similar claims such as it is a “leaked footage of a Chinese bot farm”.

Social media influencers posted a video purportedly showing paid pro-Beijing internet commentators at work. (Screenshots/X and YouTube)

But the video in fact shows a Vietnamese marketing company, which was posted on the company’s Facebook page.

Original video

At the video’s 11-second mark, the logo “MINSoftware” can be seen.

Keyword searches found it is the name of a Vietnamese software company that says it provides digital marketing solutions that help manage social media fan pages as a means for companies to save on advertising and personnel expenses.

A man can also be heard in the video speaking Vietnamese, not a Chinese language.

Further searches found the video matches one of three videos the company published on Facebook in June to demonstrate its services.

The purported leaked footage was actually a promotional video for the Vietnamese marketing company MIN Software (Screenshot/Facebook)

The company later issued a statement to note that the video was misused to spread false information about a certain religion, without mentioning China.

MINSoftware did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.

Pacific journalists are world’s ‘eyes and ears’ on climate crisis, says EU envoy

Wansolwara — Fri, 10 May 2024 09:46:54 +0000

By Kaneta Naimatu in Suva

Journalists in the Pacific region play an important role as the “eyes and ears on the ground” when it comes to reporting the climate crisis, says the European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert.

Speaking at The University of the South Pacific (USP) on World Press Freedom Day last Friday, Plinkert said this year’s theme, “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the face of the environmental crisis,” was a call to action.

“So, I understand this year’s World Press Freedom Day as a call to action, and a unique opportunity to highlight the role that Pacific journalists can play leading global conversations on issues that impact us all, like climate and the environment,” she said.

PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024

“Here in the Pacific, you know better than almost anywhere in the world what climate change looks and feels like and what are the risks that lie ahead.”

Plinkert said reporting stories on climate change were Pacific stories, adding that “with journalists like you sharing these stories with the world, the impact will be amplified.”

“Just imagine how much more powerful the messages for global climate action are when they have real faces and real stories attached to them,” she said.

The European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert delivers her opening remarks at the 2024 World Press Freedom Day seminar at USP. Image: Veniana Willy/Wansolwara

Reflecting on the theme, Plinkert recognised that there was an “immense personal risk” for journalists reporting the truth.

99 journalists killed
According to Plinkert, 99 journalists and media workers had been killed last year — the highest death toll since 2015.

Hundreds more were imprisoned worldwide, she said, “just for doing their jobs”.

“Women journalists bear a disproportionate burden,” the ambassador said, with more than 70 percent facing online harassment, threats and gender-based violence.

Plinkert called it “a stain on our collective commitment to human rights and equality”.

“We must vehemently condemn all attacks on those who wield the pen as their only weapon in the battle for truth,” she declared.

The European Union, she said, was strengthening its support for media freedom by adopting the so-called “Anti-SLAPP” directive which stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation”.

Plinkert said the directive would safeguard journalists from such lawsuits designed to censor reporting on issues of public interest.

Law ‘protecting journalists’
Additionally, the European Parliament had adopted the European Media Freedom Act which, according to Plinkert, would “introduce measures aimed at protecting journalists and media providers from political interference”.

In the Pacific, the EU is funding projects in the Solomon Islands such as the “Building Voices for Accountability”, the ambassador said.

She added that it was “one of many EU-funded projects supporting journalists globally”.

The World Press Freedom event held at USP’s Laucala Campus included a panel discussion by editors and CSO representatives on the theme “Fiji and the Pacific situation”.

The EU ambassador was one of the chief guests at the event, which included Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretary-General Henry Puna, and Fiji’s Environment and Climate Change Secretary Dr Sivendra Michael was the keynote speaker.

Plinkert has served as the EU’s Ambassador to Fiji and the Pacific since 2023, replacing Sujiro Seam. Prior to her appointment, Plinkert was the head of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Southeast Asia Division, based in Brussels, Belgium.

Kaneta Naimatau is a third-year student journalist at The University of the South Pacific. Wansolwara News collaborates with Asia Pacific Report.

Fiji’s Environment and Climate Change Secretary Dr Sivendra Michael (from left) and the EU Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert join in the celebrations. Image: Veniana Willy/Wansolwara

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Wansolwara.

Malawian journalist Macmillan Mhone facing false news, extortion charges

Committee to Protect Journalists — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 14:37:06 +0000

Lusaka, April 15, 2024 – Malawian authorities should drop all legal proceedings against Nation Publications Limited journalist Macmillan Mhone, who is accused of cyber spamming, publishing false news, and extortion, and ensure that journalists can work without the fear of arrest, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday.

On April 7, Chester Chikumbutso Doba, a detective in the Malawi Police Service’s Cyber Crime Unit, summoned Mhone to appear for questioning the following day at a police station in the commercial capital of Blantyre, according to a statement by the Malawi chapter of the regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), news reports, the journalist, and his lawyer Joseph Lihoma, who separately spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Mhone was questioned and arrested at the Wenela police station in Blantyre the following day in connection with two articles published August 2023 by the privately owned Malawi24 news site, which alleged police involvement in corruption with a local businessman according to those same sources. Mhone worked with Malawi24 until March 27, 2024. Mhone told CPJ that police transferred him on April 9 to police headquarters in the capital of Lilongwe, about 186 miles from Blantyre.

“I was treated like a criminal when I was being taken to Lilongwe,” the journalist said. “Police handcuffed me as though I was going to run away when I handed myself over to them on Monday [April 8].”

Mhone said Doba questioned him for the first time at police headquarters, also in connection to his August 2023 Malawi24 reporting. The police informed Mhone that he was facing charges of publishing false news, likely to cause fear or public alarm, extorting the businessman, and cyber spamming unspecified persons.Prosecutors are expected to prepare a formal charge sheet to be presented in court, according to Lihoma. Mhone was released later that day.

“Macmillan Mhone’s arrest points to authorities’ intolerance for reporting that sheds light on allegations of corruption involving the security services,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator, Muthoki Mumo, in Nairobi.“Instead of targeting journalists, authorities in Malawi should spend their time investigating those allegations. The cybercrime, extortion, and false news charges leveled against Macmillan Mhone must be dropped without delay.”

If convicted of publishing false news Mhone faces up to two years in prison and/or a fine at the discretion of the court, while an extortion conviction carries up to 14 years in prison, according to Malawi’s penal code. The cyber spamming charge includes a 2,000,000 Malawian kwacha (about US$1,150) fine and imprisonment of five years if found guilty, according to section 91 Malawi’s Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act.

The police seized the Mhone’s mobile phone soon after his arrest and handed it back to him the morning of April 10, the journalist and Lihoma separately told CPJ. It is unclear whether police searched the mobile device.

According to Mhone’s bail document, the journalist is scheduled to appear in court in Lilongwe on April 23, 2024, for the spamming and extortion charges. Lihoma told CPJ that it was unclear why the bail document does not mention the publication of false news charge.

Mhone is the latest Malawian journalist to be targeted by authorities in connection with reporting on alleged corruption. In February, investigative journalist Gregory Gondwe fled Malawi over fears that he would be arrested in connection with his coverage of alleged military dealings with a businessman under investigation for corruption, according to a CPJ statement at the time and news reports. In 2022 Gondwe was arrested for several hours, also in connection with corruption reporting.

Detective Doba refused to comment when reached by CPJ via messaging app, referring all queries to Malawi Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya. Kalaya promised to return CPJ’s calls but did not. Kalaya also did not respond to written requests for comment sent via text message and messaging app.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

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PNG’s Chief Censor warns over ‘fake nudes’ harassment of young girls

APR editor — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 21:47:58 +0000

By Marjorie Finkeo in Port Moresby

The rise in social media platforms uploading naked pictures of women and girls has come to the attention of the Censorship Board in Papua New Guinea with Chief Censor Jim Abani warning about the dangers.

In what many have termed as cyber bullying, a picture of women or girls uploaded on social media is then downloaded by other people who use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in creating new content like images and videos of the women or girls involved in sexual activities, including being naked and also involved in pornography.

Chief Censor Abani said his office had received many complaints regarding GAI in creating new content like images and videos of recent reported cases, including uploading of nude images of females on social media.

He said it was disrespectful and a “disgrace to our mothers and sisters”.

More than 20 girls in Spain reported receiving AI-generated naked images of themselves in a controversy that has been widely reported globally.

When they returned to school after the summer holidays, more than 20 girls from Almendralejo, a town in southern Spain, received naked photos of themselves on their mobile phones.

Chief Censor Abani said the increase of using new and advanced technology features was alarming for a young and developing country such as PNG.

“We are talking about embracing communication and connective and empowering economy but also the high risks and dangers of wellbeing is my concern, Chief Censor Abani said.

“I call on those sick minded or evil minded people to stop and do something useful and contribute meaningful to nation building.

New Facebook trend
“This is a new trend with Facebook users in the country on social media platforms increasing with unimaginable ways of discriminating and harassment using fake names to post images — particularly of young females — that are not suitable for public consumption or viewing,” he said.

He said he was calling on all relevant agencies to come together, including the Censorship Office, to start implementing some policies and regulations to address these
issues.

Chief Censor Abani said people were unaware of dangers — “particularly our female users of social media platforms”.

These acts were without the individuals’ consent and knowledge using Generative AI applications.

“Technology is good but we must use wisely and being responsible in using such information that is provided,” he said.

He said the Censorship Office would work closely with Department ICT, DATACO and NICTA, police cybercrime unit to use the Cybercrime Code Act to punish perpetrators while waiting for the Censorship Act to finalise a review and amendments.

Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Top Biden Cyber Official Accused of Workplace Misconduct at NSA in 2014 — and Again at White House Last Year

Noah Kulwin — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 15:23:43 +0000

Anne Neuberger’s ascent to national security eminence has been a steady, impressive climb. Her eight-year tour through the National Security Agency has culminated in a powerful position in President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, where she helps guide national cybersecurity policy.

Since 2007, Neuberger’s rapid rise through some of the most secretive and consequential components of the U.S. global surveillance machinery earned her a reputation as a hyper-capable operator where the government most needs one. While her work has earned public plaudits, The Intercept learned Neuberger’s tenure at the NSA triggered a 2014 internal investigation by the agency’s inspector general following allegations that she created a hostile workplace by inappropriately berating, undermining, and alienating her colleagues. In 2015, the inspector general’s report found that there was not enough evidence to sustain allegations that Neuberger fostered a hostile work environment, but it did conclude that she violated NSA policy by disrespecting colleagues.

In the first of a series of letters to the inspector general in advance of the 2015 report, Neuberger denied the allegations against her. “I strongly disagree with the tentative conclusions of the OIG inquiry (that I sometimes failed to exercise courtesy and respect in dealing with fellow workers),” she wrote. “I firmly believe that I treated everyone with the respect and courtesy they deserved.” Neuberger argued the complaints and the investigation reflected gender bias in a department with employees resentful of being led by a woman — especially one, agency officials pointed out in the report, tasked with curbing politically risky programs in the wake of scandals sparked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Almost a decade later, a new allegation of misconduct against Neuberger emerged from the White House, The Intercept’s investigation found. The allegation fit a pattern of behavior established in the inspector general’s findings, this time involving an incident that took place in full view of a visiting delegation from a foreign ally.

The 2015 NSA inspector general’s report and details of the recent complaint — neither of which have been previously reported — not only complicate Neuberger’s public national security star persona, but also offer further evidence of serious discord at the top of American cybersecurity policy. Beyond revealing Neuberger’s alleged interpersonal and managerial shortcomings, the inspector general’s report provides a rare, unflattering self-examination of the post-Snowden NSA as an HR nightmare filled with competing egos, long-standing rivalries, mutual distrust, and ample pettiness.

“We need an absolutely efficient, agile, and well integrated leadership team at the White House and in the major federal agencies, and we don’t have that.”

Attempts to form a cohesive cyberdefense policy at a national scale in the U.S. have long been undermined by turf wars, with multiple agencies, offices, and even branches of government laying claim to overlapping responsibilities. With the National Security Council’s privileged proximity to the president himself, discord within the NSC could particularly jeopardize the country’s ability to nimbly recognize and counter emerging and existing digital threats — a concern echoed by multiple sources with whom The Intercept spoke.

“We recognize that we’re extremely vulnerable; our adversaries are increasing their capabilities month over month,” a former senior U.S. cybersecurity official told The Intercept, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The former official cited the intertwined work of offices like the national cyber director and agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “We need an absolutely efficient, agile, and well integrated leadership team at the White House and in the major federal agencies, and we don’t have that. NSC, NCD, NSA, and CISA need to operate in a well-integrated manner, and this kind of friction introduces risk and consequences for national security of our critical infrastructure systems. This matters.”

The allegations uncovered by The Intercept dovetail with a recent Bloomberg article indicating Neuberger’s management style was largely to blame for the February resignation of Chris Inglis, the first U.S. national cyber director and a former NSA deputy director broadly liked by his peers. According to Bloomberg, Inglis said Neuberger withheld information and undermined him as he tried to set the direction of the country’s cybersecurity strategy.

“Chris is deeply thoughtful and smart. He and I disagreed on encryption and surveillance issues, but he always argued with integrity,” Tufts University professor Susan Landau, a scholar of cybersecurity policy, told The Intercept. “I was really sorry to see him leave the national cybersecurity director position.”

Almost eight years after the NSA investigation into Neuberger, in the autumn of 2022, a senior official with CISA filed a complaint about Neuberger, according to three sources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The employee alleged Neuberger, by then on detail to the National Security Council, pointed at the door and ordered her out like a child during a meeting with U.S. cybersecurity colleagues and a delegation of visiting Indian government officials. The sources conveyed dismay about the encounter, particularly because of the strategic partnership between the U.S. and India on cybersecurity issues. (CISA declined to comment on the record for this story. Neuberger and the White House did not respond to inquiries.)

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis is sworn in before testifying at a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on Nov. 16, 2021.

Photo: Bill Clark/AP

The Inspector General Report

Before Neuberger became a Biden-era staple of the think tank and media conference circuit, she was a senior official at the NSA, where she ran an office collaborating with the American private sector. Several years into her career, in 2014, the NSA investigated Neuberger, by then its chief risk officer, to determine whether she had fostered a hostile work environment.

The allegations are detailed in a 54-page report, released internally in June 2015 by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General. The report outlines numerous complaints that Neuberger verbally abused and undermined her colleagues, according to a partially redacted copy provided to The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request. The report had previously been released by the NSA following a FOIA lawsuit by the journalist Jason Leopold. Complainants made repeated allegations ranging from Neuberger berating co-workers to blocking colleagues from accessing important information. Though her name is redacted throughout, a source familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed Neuberger was the subject of the report. (The NSA declined to comment.)

The NSA inspector general’s office did not find a “preponderance of evidence” to support the hostile workplace claims, but the report noted that Neuberger violated NSA policy because she “failed to exercise courtesy and respect in dealings with fellow workers.” The report said her “conduct had a negative impact on the work environment and individuals (e.g. people were sometimes left feeling ‘savaged’ and ‘practically in tears,’ shaking and afraid, skittish and scared).”

Many of the testimonies in the report describe the post-Snowden NSA of 2014 in a state of disarray. In 2013, after Snowden blew the whistle on the reach and power of the NSA’s secret surveillance, the agency was embarrassed by outrage from foreign allies and Americans alike; calls for reforms grew in Washington. In the report the following year, Neuberger is criticized for “risk aversion” — what her superiors told the inspector general were moves to protect the NSA from “political risk.”

Testimony from Richard Ledgett, NSA deputy director at the time, suggests that Neuberger’s caution arose from his and other top officials’ orders. “NSA must ensure that anything that is questioned by the public is able to be fully explained,” the inspector general’s report on Ledgett’s testimony says. There were “cowboys” at the agency, Ledgett said, and the orders would have rankled some NSA veterans. (Ledgett did not respond to a request for comment.)

Whatever Neuberger’s contribution to the dysfunction, the report sheds light on painfully low morale and general aimlessness among agency staff in the wake of Snowden’s disclosures. “I don’t know what our mission is anymore to be honest,” one employee complained in the report. For Neuberger’s defenders cited in the report, this generally dismal post-Snowden mood was exculpatory evidence concerning her conduct. One NSA employee’s sworn testimony described a redacted office within the agency as a “cesspool of misery and losers, a dead weight environment,” and argued those who accused Neuberger of abusive behavior “lack marketable skills and would have a hard time being gainfully employed elsewhere.”

Far from being a managerial menace, Neuberger’s defenders argue, she was the victim of a gendered “mutiny” by a cadre of bitter NSA men who resented her meteoric rise and efforts to balance the agency’s risk. According to one anonymous account reported by the inspector general, Neuberger was told by a co-worker that “there was a ‘cabal,’ a group of white men that were resistant to [Neuberger] and did not like the changes she was making.”

A separate high-ranking official who also used the word “cabal” described it as a “‘secret society’ that went to the [deputy director] to get [Neuberger] fired.” The cabal’s efforts culminated in what would come to be known inside the NSA as the “mutiny letter.” The emailed catalog of grievances against Neuberger was sent to Teresa Shea, who at the time ran the agency’s much-vaunted Signals Intelligence Directorate, the office that oversees the agency’s global spying efforts, and later forwarded to Ledgett, then NSA deputy director.

In her letter responding to the inspector general’s findings, Neuberger defended her conduct by claiming she’d been warned in disparaging terms about her office and told to whip them into shape. “Prior to taking my job as the chief of [redacted],” Neuberger wrote, “I was told by multiple people that [redacted] was a ‘pit of snakes’ where ‘seniors who can’t get along with anyone else go to spend the rest of their careers.’” Shea and her deputy had criticized Neuberger’s new team as being of “little value” and “useless to mission,” Neuberger added: “They told me they wanted to see change and significant change.” (Shea did not respond to a request for comment.)

The National Security Agency building at Fort Meade, Md., on Sept. 19, 2007.

Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP

“Some People Didn’t Like That”

After serving for three years as a special assistant to Gen. Keith Alexander, who ran the NSA from 2005 to 2014, Neuberger worked at the Commercial Solutions Center, a highly sensitive office that overtly works with and covertly sabotages private-sector technology companies. Following that stint, Neuberger was named the NSA’s first chief risk officer: essentially a post-Snowden damage-control position manned by a loyal lieutenant to Alexander. The NSA needed its corporate partners, but those corporations had been embarrassed when their hand-in-hand work with the cyberspooks was made public in Snowden’s disclosures. Neuberger, who had experience both directly in the private sector and dealing with outside companies from inside the NSA’s Commercial Solutions Center, would seem on paper to be a perfect person to repair those relationships.

The relationships that seem to have never been mended were Neuberger’s with her colleagues. Following her flat-out denial of the inspector general’s findings, Neuberger seemed to have moved on — and eventually upward, to the White House. Neuberger had said in her letter to the inspector general that her work ethic had rubbed colleagues the wrong way.

“I worked at all times to be respectful and to listen to folks’ views,” she wrote. “However, I also held folks accountable. Some people didn’t like that.”

“When [Neuberger] was announced as [redacted] Chief there was immediate angst due to her ‘horrible reputation.’”

Neuberger’s formal response to the findings, the letters included in the report itself, argued the allegations about her management were caused by a mix of garden-variety sexism and resistance to her attempts to change workplace culture: “I believe the complaints on style were reflective to a great extent on both that change in approach and, to some extent, perhaps, a gender bias, where a woman (and younger one to boot) who holds people accountable and is direct may be viewed as a challenge.”

Though Neuberger may have butted heads with a contingent of stubborn, ossified men at the agency, women made up some of her fiercest critics in the report.

“She is not surprised by concerns about the work environment and morale in [redacted],” the inspector general reported of an anonymous woman’s testimony. “When [Neuberger] was announced as [redacted] Chief there was immediate angst due to her ‘horrible reputation.’”

This female employee added that Neuberger “alienated people,” “lacks understanding of how government and the Agency work,” and that “her delivery can be off putting, as she tends to say ‘me, me, me’ rather than ‘us.’” The CISA official who leveled the 2022 allegation of misconduct against Neuberger is also a woman.

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, center, speaks with reporters at the White House on Feb. 18, 2022.

Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

“Please God, Just Get Another Leader in Here”

The role of inspectors general is to audit and investigate the federal agencies to ensure their smooth functioning and prevent fraud and abuse. While the findings of inspectors general at other federal agencies are typically freely accessible to the public, the NSA, like the rest of the intelligence community, eschews such routine transparency. Though the Neuberger report was never classified, it was originally marked “For Official Use Only.”

“At NSA, OIG investigations rarely see the light of day because so much of what the agency does is secret,” said James Bamford, a journalist and bestselling author of multiple histories of the agency. “So it’s good that the agency may be opening up a bit to show they are actually taking action against bad senior officials like Neuberger.”

The NSA investigation into Neuberger’s conduct was initiated by an August 5, 2014, complaint filed to the Office of the Inspector General alleging she “created and perpetuated an atmosphere of workplace intimidation within the [redacted],” according to the report. Neuberger at the time led the agency’s Commercial Solutions Center.

“The complainant relayed concerns about allegedly unprofessional behavior, including screaming at work, harassing phone calls to employees at home, and an inability to lead effectively,” according to the report. “The employee further alleged that there was widespread fear of retribution among the [redacted] workforce for speaking out about these concerns.”

“At NSA, OIG investigations rarely see the light of day because so much of what the agency does is secret.”

The ensuing probe produced sworn testimony from 21 NSA employees, some of whom corroborated the allegations, some who defended Neuberger’s conduct, and others who offered mixed appraisals. The Office of the Inspector General was able to confirm one of the more incendiary allegations: yelling at an “extraordinarily high volume” and calling the employee “fucking crazy,” according to witness testimony — a phrase she later told the inspector general she used about a project she considered too risky, not a person. “She admitted to the OIG that, in this instance, she crossed a professional line when she yelled and that she later apologized to the employee,” the report said.

In her first letter to the inspector general in advance of the report, Neuberger admitted she crossed a professional line. In a subsequent letter, she denied ever yelling. “I categorically disagree with the characterization of ‘extraordinarily high volume,’” she wrote. “I did not yell at a high volume. As a rule, I don’t yell. I was raised with parents who yelled and I, as a matter of practice, don’t yell.”

While the allegations generally pertain to her post running the Commercial Solutions Center, some complaints refer back to her time assisting Alexander as a confounding factor.

“At times, her expectations of the workforce were simply too lofty,” one employee testified. “She was used to seeing NSA at its best, sitting on the 8th floor with the DIRNSA” — a reference to the director, Alexander. “We did not accomplish all we could have. … It was a miserable time,” the employee said, noting a “‘well-attended’ happy hour when her departure was announced.”

One senior program manager, who said group meetings with Neuberger were so tense that participants avoided making eye contact with her, told the inspector general: “please God, just get another leader in here. … it’s an uncomfortable place to work.”

Some of the allegations are of mere rudeness: snapping her fingers at underlings, pounding on tables, and the like. (In her letters to the inspector general, Neuberger denied the table-pounding incident: “I didn’t ‘bang the table.’”) Other co-workers, however, alleged Neuberger also deliberately shut them out from important information, thwarted their ability to work, and created a workplace climate of fear and distrust.

Neuberger “told [redacted] she learned not to trust anyone with information, because people would undercut her,” claimed one NSA employee. “At some point, [Neuberger] started compartmenting information excluding certain individuals from leadership team emails.” Neuberger was “very secretive and compartmented,” alleged another. “She would not even let her [redacted] leadership team see the overview of their mission that she sent to the DIRNSA.” Some claimed Neuberger’s distrust of her colleagues was mutual: “People avoid informing her of certain things because they are afraid of what might happen.”

The charges in the inspector general’s report jibe with Bloomberg’s story about Inglis, the former NSA deputy director who recently resigned as the first national cyber director: Inglis, according to Bloomberg, had also alleged that Neuberger withheld important information.

Some at the NSA attributed this behavior and certain incidents to Neuberger’s many years of mentorship under Alexander, the inspector general’s report said. “People are afraid to confront [Neuberger] because she is ‘connected,’” one colleague alleged. “She was tightly tied to former DIRNSA, General Keith Alexander, who hired her. … The perception is she has been moved along too quickly.”

Neuberger leaned on this apparent favoritism, a high-ranking official alleged.

“She is very prone to say, even to this day, that she has the support of some named senior person,” according to a former NSA official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity. “It’s often her excuse for doing something that people find surprising or difficult. … Keith gave her that sponsorship.”

Join The Conversation

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Noah Kulwin.

Cyber scams keep North Korean missiles flying

By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:10:56 +0000

The man speaks English, says he’s Japanese and claims to be a mobile and web developer ready for hire. “I have the experience to start contributing from Day One,” he says, sounding like any eager job candidate would on a job search site.

But potential employers have reason to be wary, an investigation by RFA Korean shows. Other computers and empty chairs can be seen in the room with him, suggesting this freelancer doesn’t work alone. There appears to be a security camera above his right shoulder. Perhaps more suspicious: the IP address from where the video was posted is based in Ukraine, not Japan.

Cyber security experts say these clues indicate the man may be part of a team of North Korean IT specialists enlisted to raise money and gather intelligence for leader Kim Jong Un’s isolated regime.

Even as few of its citizens have access to the internet, North Korea has developed an elite group of hackers and cyber scammers who have allegedly stolen hundreds of millions of dollars through cyber crime.

In a video, this job applicant tells prospective employers he will be ready on “Day One,” but he could be part of a team of North Korean IT specialists enlisted to raise money and gather intelligence for the hermit kingdom. Credit: Vimeo

Some of its personnel, including apparently the man in the video, try to get hired by IT firms that pay cryptocurrency or Chinese renminbi, a significant portion of which they send to their government.

Others have allegedly stolen the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars by hacking cryptocurrency virtual repositories. A U.N. panel of experts estimated the regime took in as much as $1 billion in crypto theft in 2022, double the prior year. One estimate put the total that year even higher, at $1.7 billion.

Besides theft, the same cyber break-in techniques are being used to spy for the regime. This June, the United States and South Korea warned that hackers were posing as journalists or academics to gather intelligence on regime critics or to compromise government databases.

“North Korea is just basically persistent – they have a lot of people working on this and they are going to keep trying,” said Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the nonprofit International Computer Science Institute, of the country’s cyber efforts. “And all it takes is one mistake.”

An ‘elite’ team

The cyber attacks have prompted a series of indictments, sanctions and warnings from the United States, South Korea and other countries. But North Korea’s “increasingly sophisticated capabilities” mean it can adapt to new barriers, says Jung Pak, the U.S. State Department’s deputy special representative for North Korea.

According to the U.S., Kim Jong Un uses the proceeds from his cyber operations to help pay for weapons development in the face of international sanctions designed to impede the activity.

North Korean leader leader Kim Jong Un enjoys a "high-thrust solid-fuel motor" test as part of the development of a new strategic weapon, at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Tongchang-ri, North Korea, Dec. 15, 2022, in this photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Credit: KCNA via Reuters

As much as one-third of the missile program is paid for through cyber theft, the U.S. estimates, even though the sporadic reports from inside the hermit kingdom suggest starvation among its citizens is not uncommon.

The intro video of the man claiming to be Japanese was shared with RFA on the understanding that it would not name the company, which fears retaliation from hackers.

The profile was removed from the job site three years ago, a company official said. But as any job candidate must, the man has shown persistence. His name, image and resume still exist on other sites – just one of several fraudulent accounts RFA found in its investigation.

“The DPRK workers go where they are able, and the United States is not immune from these workers,” Pak said, referring to the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She said there are thousands of “elite” IT professionals working on behalf of the regime.

Red flags

The mission for the man in the video is impossible to say for sure. But presumed North Korean cyber scammers have been active enough online that job recruiters have identified a number of “tells” that raise suspicions.

North Korea's cyber attack capabilities are “increasingly sophisticated,” says Jung Pak, the U.S. State Department’s deputy special representative for North Korea. Credit: U.S. State Dept.

The candidates often pretend to live in small towns in Canada or the United States, so as to avoid any possibility of having to meet in person with prospective employers that more typically are located in California’s Silicon Valley, northern Virginia or another tech hub.

They often claim Chinese or Japanese heritage but have IP addresses in other countries. They also insist on remote work.

Neil Dundon, the chief executive officer of Crypto Recruit, which links IT professionals with cryptocurrency companies, says another red flag is job applicants who insist on working on so-called “smart contracts,” a blockchain application by which funds are transferred.

“This is the kind of big hacks that you read about for 10 million [dollars],” Dundon told RFA. “They can go in and they can put malicious code in there.”

Job applicants who insist on working on so-called “smart contracts,” a blockchain application by which funds are transferred, is a red flag, says Neil Dundon, the chief executive officer of Crypto Recruit.

The big mark

The recent rise of cryptocurrencies in fact has been especially lucrative for North Korea, according to U.S. officials and cyber experts.

“Cryptocurrency heists are a growing, if not their top, method for generating revenue for the regime,” Pak said.

Crypto “wallets” that enable the purchasing and trading of cryptocurrencies have become a popular target for hackers, who take the stolen coin to so-called “mixers” that can obscure their origins – an exercise akin to traditional money-laundering.

Robert Meany, a crypto investor from Connecticut, said he lost about $40,000 in crypto coins he had stored through Atomic Wallet, an Estonia-based crypto company that was reportedly hacked in June.

“I opened it up and it showed all the money in there and then all of a sudden, it just sort of drained to zero,” Meany told RFA.

Meany is part of a lawsuit filed in Colorado against Atomic Wallet for allegedly failing to provide sufficient safeguards to protect the assets in its account, but U.S. officials suspect that North Korea was behind the theft, which is estimated to total $100 million.

“These victims, in many cases, lost everything they’ve saved up,” said Daniel Thornburgh, a lawyer at the Colorado-based firm Aylstock, Within, Kreis & Overholtz that has filed the suit.

Atomic Wallet did not respond to a request for comment other than to say that “the investigation is still ongoing, and nothing is confirmed.”

The Sony hack

Much of the world likely first heard about North Korea’s hacking capabilities in 2014 when its operatives infiltrated Sony Pictures’ computers in an apparent revenge attack for its production of the satirical comedy, The Interview.

The film includes a scene of Kim Jong Un tearfully exclaiming that he doesn’t need his father, who preceded him as leader, and depicts the son’s fictional death.

People walk past a TV screen showing a poster of Sony Pictures’ "The Interview" in a news report in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 22, 2014. Ahn Young-joon/AP

Pak said the episode was the first time a state-sponsored actor targeted a private business in the United States. Confidential corporate data, internal emails and unreleased films were all publicly released, and people associated with the film were threatened.

In 2020, the U.S. brought charges against three operatives of a North Korean-sponsored hacking group known as Lazarus for the Sony hack and for a string of other cyber crimes that followed over a five-year period.

The 33-page indictment describes an operation impressive in scope and sophistication. The three men, who remain at large, allegedly hid malware in word processing software, crypto apps and on websites their targets were known to frequent – a so-called “watering hole” operation.

In total, according to the indictment, the hackers attempted to steal or extort more than $1.3 billion through crypto heists, raids on ATMs and “cyber-enabled extortion schemes” from victims from Bangladesh to Mexico.

“We almost need to stop thinking of North Korea as a regime or a type of government, and more so like a mafia family,” said Michael Barnhart, a principal analyst at Mandiant, a cybersecurity subsidiary of Google. “They are more like a criminal enterprise.”

Still operating

Part of the operations described in the indictment involved the creation of several bogus companies to entice employees at legitimate companies to open fraudulent job offers that hid malicious software, or malware.

RFA’s investigation found that one fictitious company named in the 2020 indictment – iCrytpoFx – is still used online, including on LinkedIn, a networking site which has more than 900 million users worldwide.

A “Yujin Cha,” for example, advertises herself as a marketing manager for the company. RFA discovered through a reverse image search that the accompanying photo was stolen from a South Korean female professor’s university bio.

The professor, who asked not to be named, did not know that her photo had been fraudulently used until she was contacted by RFA.

The U.S. brought charges in 2020 against three operatives of a North Korean-sponsored hacking group known as Lazarus for the Sony hack and other cyber crimes. Credit: U.S. Dept. of Justice

RFA contacted LinkedIn about the fraudulent account but has not received a response as of press time, and the fake profile was still active at the time of publication.

Another person claimed to be the CEO of iCryptoFx. The account was later deleted after RFA messaged for a comment.

This week, The Times of London reported that China, too, has used LinkedIn as a platform for intelligence gathering. A Chinese official using the alias Robin Zhang created fake companies to try to entice government officials, academics and scientists into releasing classified information, according to the report.

“Our Threat Prevention & Defense team actively seeks out signs of state-sponsored activity and removes fake accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources, including government agencies,” an official from LinkedIn told the Times.

Please read this

U.S. officials say North Korea’s cyber teams have only gotten more adept at illegally penetrating computer systems, and it isn’t always money they are after.

Shin Kak-soo, a former South Korean ambassador to Japan, told RFA that in June he received an email from “Natalia Slavni,” a research analyst at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, who edits analysis and commentary about North Korea.

In the email, Slavni asked Shin to review an attached paper on North Korea nuclear weapons. The request wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary – but it wasn’t the actual Slavni making the request. It was someone pretending to be her.

Shin was later told he’d been hacked and had to have his computer wiped to rid it of the malware attached to fraudulent email. The email appears to be part of an operation designed strictly to gather information, rather than to extort money.

Cybersecurity experts say the hackers often start with simple requests that wouldn’t necessarily raise alarms, patiently waiting for an opportunity to strike by implanting malware. Others may simply be intent on gathering intel about an organization’s operations.

“They will send their targets emails. They will create conversations out of them. They will send them questionnaires,” said Asheer Malhota, a researcher at Cisco Talos, a threat intelligence company. “This is all in a bid to establish trust with their targets.”

Recorded Future, a Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm, said in a report in June that more than 70% of the North Korean hacking cases it identified over the last 14 years – more than 180 in total – were related to espionage.

It found about 50 examples of financially motivated attacks and 10 cases of cyberattacks designed to be “disruptive.”

“North Korea is extremely adaptive in its strategy for cyber attacks,” said Rachel Paik, a researcher at CDRF Global, a cybersecurity company. “Once international bodies start to sanction certain authorities, or once their methods are discovered, they are able to change tactics.”

This summer, the United States and South Korea issued a joint cybersecurity advisory, warning that North Koreans were posing as colleagues or journalists to fool their targets, often academics and officials at think tanks. One main point: old standbys to prevent hacking – like looking out for weird URLs and bad grammar – are likely no longer enough.

Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean.

Cyber scams keep North Korean missiles flying

By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:10:56 +0000

An ‘elite’ team

According to the U.S., Kim Jong Un uses the proceeds from his cyber operations to help pay for weapons development in the face of international sanctions designed to impede the activity.

The intro video of the man claiming to be Japanese was shared with RFA on the understanding that it would not name the company, which fears retaliation from hackers.

Red flags

North Korea's cyber attack capabilities are “increasingly sophisticated,” says Jung Pak, the U.S. State Department’s deputy special representative for North Korea. Credit: U.S. State Dept.

They often claim Chinese or Japanese heritage but have IP addresses in other countries. They also insist on remote work.

“This is the kind of big hacks that you read about for 10 million [dollars],” Dundon told RFA. “They can go in and they can put malicious code in there.”

The big mark

The recent rise of cryptocurrencies in fact has been especially lucrative for North Korea, according to U.S. officials and cyber experts.

“Cryptocurrency heists are a growing, if not their top, method for generating revenue for the regime,” Pak said.

Robert Meany, a crypto investor from Connecticut, said he lost about $40,000 in crypto coins he had stored through Atomic Wallet, an Estonia-based crypto company that was reportedly hacked in June.

“I opened it up and it showed all the money in there and then all of a sudden, it just sort of drained to zero,” Meany told RFA.

“These victims, in many cases, lost everything they’ve saved up,” said Daniel Thornburgh, a lawyer at the Colorado-based firm Aylstock, Within, Kreis & Overholtz that has filed the suit.

Atomic Wallet did not respond to a request for comment other than to say that “the investigation is still ongoing, and nothing is confirmed.”

The Sony hack

The film includes a scene of Kim Jong Un tearfully exclaiming that he doesn’t need his father, who preceded him as leader, and depicts the son’s fictional death.

People walk past a TV screen showing a poster of Sony Pictures’ "The Interview" in a news report in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 22, 2014. Ahn Young-joon/AP

Still operating

The professor, who asked not to be named, did not know that her photo had been fraudulently used until she was contacted by RFA.

The U.S. brought charges in 2020 against three operatives of a North Korean-sponsored hacking group known as Lazarus for the Sony hack and other cyber crimes. Credit: U.S. Dept. of Justice

RFA contacted LinkedIn about the fraudulent account but has not received a response as of press time, and the fake profile was still active at the time of publication.

Another person claimed to be the CEO of iCryptoFx. The account was later deleted after RFA messaged for a comment.

Please read this

U.S. officials say North Korea’s cyber teams have only gotten more adept at illegally penetrating computer systems, and it isn’t always money they are after.

It found about 50 examples of financially motivated attacks and 10 cases of cyberattacks designed to be “disruptive.”

Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean.

Cyber scams keep North Korean missiles flying

By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:10:56 +0000

An ‘elite’ team

According to the U.S., Kim Jong Un uses the proceeds from his cyber operations to help pay for weapons development in the face of international sanctions designed to impede the activity.

The intro video of the man claiming to be Japanese was shared with RFA on the understanding that it would not name the company, which fears retaliation from hackers.

Red flags

North Korea's cyber attack capabilities are “increasingly sophisticated,” says Jung Pak, the U.S. State Department’s deputy special representative for North Korea. Credit: U.S. State Dept.

They often claim Chinese or Japanese heritage but have IP addresses in other countries. They also insist on remote work.

“This is the kind of big hacks that you read about for 10 million [dollars],” Dundon told RFA. “They can go in and they can put malicious code in there.”

The big mark

The recent rise of cryptocurrencies in fact has been especially lucrative for North Korea, according to U.S. officials and cyber experts.

“Cryptocurrency heists are a growing, if not their top, method for generating revenue for the regime,” Pak said.

Robert Meany, a crypto investor from Connecticut, said he lost about $40,000 in crypto coins he had stored through Atomic Wallet, an Estonia-based crypto company that was reportedly hacked in June.

“I opened it up and it showed all the money in there and then all of a sudden, it just sort of drained to zero,” Meany told RFA.

“These victims, in many cases, lost everything they’ve saved up,” said Daniel Thornburgh, a lawyer at the Colorado-based firm Aylstock, Within, Kreis & Overholtz that has filed the suit.

Atomic Wallet did not respond to a request for comment other than to say that “the investigation is still ongoing, and nothing is confirmed.”

The Sony hack

The film includes a scene of Kim Jong Un tearfully exclaiming that he doesn’t need his father, who preceded him as leader, and depicts the son’s fictional death.

People walk past a TV screen showing a poster of Sony Pictures’ "The Interview" in a news report in Seoul, South Korea, Dec. 22, 2014. Ahn Young-joon/AP

Still operating

The professor, who asked not to be named, did not know that her photo had been fraudulently used until she was contacted by RFA.

The U.S. brought charges in 2020 against three operatives of a North Korean-sponsored hacking group known as Lazarus for the Sony hack and other cyber crimes. Credit: U.S. Dept. of Justice

RFA contacted LinkedIn about the fraudulent account but has not received a response as of press time, and the fake profile was still active at the time of publication.

Another person claimed to be the CEO of iCryptoFx. The account was later deleted after RFA messaged for a comment.

Please read this

U.S. officials say North Korea’s cyber teams have only gotten more adept at illegally penetrating computer systems, and it isn’t always money they are after.

It found about 50 examples of financially motivated attacks and 10 cases of cyberattacks designed to be “disruptive.”

Edited by Jim Snyder and Boer Deng.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun You for RFA Korean.

Two Bangladeshi journalists investigated under Digital Security Act

Committee to Protect Journalists — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 14:44:43 +0000

On July 29, 2023, the Savar Model Police Station in Bangladesh’s central Dhaka district opened an investigation into Nazmus Sakib, editor of the Dainik Fulki newspaper and president of the Savar Press Club, and Md Emdadul Haque, a reporter for the Amader Notun Somoy newspaper, after registering a July 28 complaint against them under four sections of the Digital Security Act, according to The Daily Star and the two journalists, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

The complaint, which CPJ reviewed, was filed by Md Shahinur Islam, who identified himself to The Daily Star as a reporter for the newspaper Amar Somoy, which supports the ruling Awami League party. It accused the journalists and other unnamed members of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party and Bangladesh Nationalist Party of working together to commit “anti-state crimes” and disseminate “conspiratorial news” in a July 27, 2023, Dainik Fulki article.

That article, titled “Asia’s longest-serving prime minister is finally resigning,” covered the resignation announcement of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen but mistakenly used a photo of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, president of the Awami League. The next day, the newspaper published a correction and apology, which CPJ reviewed.

Haque left Dainik Fulki around 2019 and was not involved in the article, the journalist told CPJ.

Sakib said he believed he was being targeted to undermine his campaign in the election for Savar Press Club president, which is set to be held in the coming months. He is opposed by about five journalists who strongly support the Awami League, he said.

Similarly, Haque said he believed he was being targeted for his campaign to be the press club’s organizing secretary. He is opposed by two journalists who strongly support the ruling party, he told CPJ.

The Savar Press Club is a trade group in the Dhaka district that advocates for issues, including wage distribution, labor rights, and journalist safety.

Sakib and Haque said they do not know Islam. Islam told CPJ via messaging app that his complaint was “accurate” and claimed the two journalists were involved in “information terrorism.” Islam did not respond to CPJ’s follow-up question about his journalistic background. CPJ called, messaged, and emailed the Amar Somoy newspaper for comment, but did not receive any replies.

Separately, on July 30, Sakib received a notice from the Dhaka district deputy commissioner’s office, reviewed by CPJ, ordering the journalist to explain within seven days why Dainik Fulki’s license to operate should not be canceled following an application filed by Manjurul Alam Rajib, chair of a local government unit and an Awami League leader in Savar. The notice alleges that the July 27 article “achieved the task of tarnishing the image of the state.”

Sakib’s response, dated August 6 and reviewed by CPJ, denied that allegation, expressed regret over the “unintentional mistake,” and mentioned the published correction and apology. Haque told CPJ that he did not receive a similar notice at that time.

Bangladesh’s next national election is set for January 2024 and expected to be met with increasing violence. In late July 2023, police fired at opposition party protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and beat them amid mass arrests of Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders and activists.

In response to the government’s announcement on August 7 that the Digital Security Act will be replaced, CPJ called on authorities to ensure the new Cyber Security Act complies with international human rights law.

Hasan Mahmud, Bangladesh’s information minister and Awami League joint secretary, and Dipak Chandra Saha, officer-in-charge of the Savar Model Police Station, did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app. CPJ also contacted Rajib and Anisur Rahman, Dhaka district deputy commissioner, via messaging app for comment, but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“At What Point Does Profit Trump Safety?” Ex-National Cyber Director Presses Software Regulation Amid High-Profile Hacks

by Renee Dudley — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

by Renee Dudley

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In 2019, hackers launched one of the largest cybersecurity attacks in U.S. history, eventually infiltrating various government agencies, as well as scores of private sector companies. The White House later attributed the attack, known as the SolarWinds hack, to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. But as U.S. officials scrambled to respond to this spying, they realized they were missing key information: critical log files, the digital records of activity on users' computers.

The feature, which allows users to detect and investigate suspicious activity in their networks, is included in high-end Microsoft 365 plans but not in the basic version then used by some government agencies. Other agencies didn't retain sufficient log data over a long enough time frame. Had logging been more widely deployed, it might have tipped off officials to the intrusion sooner and enabled them to better investigate after it had been discovered.

Against this backdrop, President Biden nominated Chris Inglis to become the country’s first National Cyber Director. Inglis, a former National Security Agency official who began his career as a computer scientist, would go on to oversee the development of the administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. And as he and his team at the White House drafted that document, he kept returning to the SolarWinds hack. Known as a supply chain attack, this far-reaching breach started with compromised software that was used by many high-profile customers. “Everyone along that supply chain assumed that security was built in at the factory and sustained along the supply chain,” Inglis said of the SolarWinds attack. “We now know that wasn’t the case.”

The issue emerged again this month when some victims of a cyberattack linked to China were unable to detect the intrusion because they held basic Microsoft licenses rather than the premium ones that include logging. Hackers had exploited a flaw in Microsoft’s cloud computing service to break into about two dozen organizations globally, including the U.S. State Department.

These types of incidents reflect a larger trend, Inglis said: Computer users find themselves bearing a disproportionately large share of the burden of defending against cyberattacks. In response, the new strategy proposes shifting more of that burden to software makers themselves. Indeed, following the most recent cyberattack by Chinese hackers, Biden administration officials called on Microsoft last week to make security features like logging standard for all users.

Microsoft said it is engaging with the administration on the issue. “We are evaluating feedback and are open to other models,” a company spokesman said in a statement.

Although the Biden strategy, which was announced in March, is not binding, it represents a significant change in the government’s approach. Among its proposals: advancing legislation that would hold tech firms liable for data losses and harm caused by insecure products. Inglis, who stepped down from his role as director earlier this year, recently spoke with ProPublica about the national strategy document and the administration’s push to make technology providers do more to protect users from cyberattacks. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The Biden administration is talking about regulating cybersecurity. What would that look like in practice?

If you look at regulation of cyberspace at the moment, it’s mostly focused on operators. It’s not focused on those who build the cloud or major pieces of software. Governments need to consult with the private sector to understand what’s critical in those systems. We can use regulatory authorities that exist already, whether it’s the Department of Commerce, the FCC, the Treasury Department. When something is life- or safety-critical, you get to a place where you have to actually specify those things that you say are not discretionary. We did this with drugs and therapeutics. We did this with transportation systems. We need to do the same thing in cyberspace.

I’m reminded of a book I’m sure you’re familiar with, “The Cuckoo’s Egg,” Cliff Stoll’s story about the sprawling intrusion into U.S. government and military computer systems in the 1980s. Eventually, the trail led to West German hackers paid by the Soviet Union’s intelligence service, the KGB. These issues are not exactly new. Why has regulation never come up in this conversation before?

Well, I think it’s been brought up, but two things prevented it. First, we’ve thought about the idea that security is something that the technologists, the innovators, would actually take care of. They’ve always been of the mind that they would take care of it when they get around to it. But they’re always on to the next new innovation. So they never get around to it. We never double back to essentially build something in that wasn’t there at the start.

Two, we worried that too much regulation will actually suppress innovation and deny us the full benefit of technology. We still need to think about that. But it turns out that innovation is not a free lunch. I won’t cite any particular sources, but if you’re a good business person, you want to avoid any unnecessary cost. And so you’re always going to point out the downside of regulation.

You have alluded in this discussion to making products secure by design — the concept, which also is a focus of the national strategy document, that security should be built into digital products. What are some examples of this?

It’s pretty straightforward: Are the software or hardware systems meeting security expectations under reasonably foreseeable conditions? We’ve done that with automobiles. We have airbags, we have seat belts, we have anti-lock brakes. So what are the basic cybersecurity features that should be there at the get-go? Multifactor authentication or some reasonable equivalent to that. Some degree of segmentation so that if something gets into your system, it doesn’t rapidly race across. An easy way to patch vulnerabilities. The magic in the middle of that is that the vendor actually says, ‘I will take that responsibility.’ As opposed to saying, ‘Let the buyer beware. I’ll sell you the basic version. But if you want security features, then I’ll sell you a package on top of that.’ That’s nonsense.

That sounds like the whole Microsoft licensing debate in the wake of the SolarWinds attack, where the government lacked logging, a key security feature.

That’s right. Now, if you have an extraordinary security situation — you’re in the darknet, or you’re doing business in places where there’s very little jurisdictional authority exercised by the local police forces or the diplomatic cadre — then you ought to expect to pay more. But if you’re just an ordinary consumer, security ought to come along, built in.

I’m wondering how things are going to move ahead with this, given what seems to be the historic corporate outlook. When Microsoft President Brad Smith testified before Congress in early 2021, then-Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island questioned him about charging extra for logging. Smith replied, “We are a for-profit company. Everything we do is designed to generate a return.”

So is Ford Motor Co. So is Tesla. It’s a pretty simple formulation, which is: At what point does profit trump safety? And the answer is, there is some reasonable alignment of the two. You can’t have all of one and none of the other. The businesses have to be able to sustain themselves; profit needs to be in the bargain. But they cannot deploy technologies that they know to be injurious to the welfare, health and safety of their customers. That is simply not the way this society works. I just think that companies that deploy products that have a detrimental effect on their customers either will find themselves [improving security] through self-enlightenment or market forces, or they should expect that they will be compelled to do that.

We should be pro-business. But business over the interest of the customers that it serves is essentially a graveyard spiral. It’s a race to the bottom. And so this is yet another moment where you have to align the interest of business with the interest of consumers that they will serve.

Help Our Journalists Report Important Stories About the Technology Industry

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Renee Dudley.

20 MPs walk out as PNG’s Tkatchenko apologises for ‘media trolls’ comment

APR editor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 06:13:29 +0000

By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

The last time Papua New Guinea heard “there is a stranger in the house” was when two men walked into Parliament saying they were members of a district after the 2017 national general election.

After six years the word “stranger” has again been mentioned, this time by a fiery Vanimo-Green MP Belden Namah, who voiced his displeasure when Member for Moresby South Justin Tkatchenko — the stood down Foreign Minister — stood to make his apology in Parliament yesterday.

As Tkatchenko spoke, 20 MPs walked out of the chamber in protest.

Namah, who is known to not mince his words, stood saying, “This House is the House of useless people and primitive animals. Why is this stranger allowed parliamentary privileges to make a statement?”

“He made a statement to international media. He should not be allowed to make a statement today, he should resign in disgrace and get out of this Parliament,” Namah yelled on the floor of Parliament.

As the acting Speaker Koni Iguan called for Namah to allow Tkatchenko to speak, Namah said: “ Mr Acting Speaker, he should not be allowed to speak in this Parliament.”

The public gallery was on the edge as people watched the fiery interaction between Namah, Tkatchenko and Iguan.

Ministers interjected
Several ministers interjected when Namah called Tkatchenko a “stranger”, saying that “he is a member of Parliament, he had been elected by the people of Moresby South”.

Finally Iguan reminded Namah that Tkatchenko was not a “stranger” but the MP of Moresby South.

With that final response and as Tkatchenko stood to apologise, Namah walked out followed by several governors and members of Parliament.

Tkatchenko reiterated that his comments had not been made towards the country and its people, but to individuals who are better known as “social media trolls”.

“The people of our nation want to know the truth of what was said, how this was intended, how this was manipulated and what was actually meant by my words. I made comments in a media interview that were targeted at what are better known as social media trolls,” he said.

These were “faceless people” who spent their days on social media hidden behind false names.

“They say the most disgusting things and make the most vile threats on social media,” he said.

“Regardless of any office that I represent or position that I might hold, above all else in life, first and foremost, I am the father of my children. And when I saw the vile and disgusting things that were being said about my daughter, I did have a burst of blind fury at these horrible individuals,” he added.

These disgusting individuals, some in Papua New Guinea, as well as in Australia, the UK and other places, were making sexual threats against my daughter, threatening her with “all manner of disgusting remarks”, Tkatchenko said.

“I speak with every parent in this House, and every parent in our Nation today – and seek your understanding of how angry and frustrated I was, — and still am — at these trolls.”

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Highly secretive Five Eyes alliance disrupts China-backed hacker group

APR editor — Fri, 26 May 2023 12:33:12 +0000

ANALYSIS: By Dennis B. Desmond, University of the Sunshine Coast

This week the Five Eyes alliance — an intelligence alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States — announced its investigation into a China-backed threat targeting US infrastructure.

Using stealth techniques, the attacker — referred to as “Volt Typhoon” — exploited existing resources in compromised networks in a technique called “living off the land”.

Microsoft made a concurrent announcement, stating the attackers’ targeting of Guam was telling of China’s plans to potentially disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the US and Asia region in the future.

READ MORE: Deterring China isn’t all about submarines. Australia’s ‘cyber offence’ might be its most potent weapon

This comes hot on the heels of news in April of a North Korean supply chain attack on Asia-Pacific telecommunications provider 3CX. In this case, hackers gained access to an employee’s computer using a compromised desktop app for Windows and a compromised signed software installation package.

The Volt Typhoon announcement has led to a rare admission by the US National Security Agency that Australia and other Five Eyes partners are engaged in a targeted search and detection scheme to uncover China’s clandestine cyber operations.

Such public admissions from the Five Eyes alliance are few and far between. Behind the curtain, however, this network is persistently engaged in trying to take down foreign adversaries. And it’s no easy feat.

Let’s take a look at the events leading up to Volt Typhoon — and more broadly at how this secretive transnational alliance operates.

Uncovering Volt Typhoon
Volt Typhoon is an “advanced persistent threat group” that has been active since at least mid-2021. It’s believed to be sponsored by the Chinese government and is targeting critical infrastructure organisations in the US.

The group has focused much of its efforts on Guam. Located in the Western Pacific, this US island territory is home to a significant and growing US military presence, including the air force, a contingent of the marines, and the US navy’s nuclear-capable submarines.

It’s likely the Volt Typhoon attackers intended to gain access to networks connected to US critical infrastructure to disrupt communications, command and control systems, and maintain a persistent presence on the networks.

Volt Typhoon is the name Microsoft and the Five Eyes intelligence agencies have given a Chinese state sponsored hacking group, which they say installed a mysterious code in Guam’s telecommunications systems. https://t.co/xEwith7ZmM

— RN Breakfast (@RNBreakfast) May 25, 2023

The latter tactic would allow China to influence operations during a potential conflict in the South China Sea.

Australia wasn’t directly impacted by Volt Typhoon, according to official statements. Nevertheless, it would be a primary target for similar operations in the event of conflict.

As for how Volt Typhoon was caught, this hasn’t been disclosed. But Microsoft documents highlight previous observations of the threat actor attempting to dump credentials and stolen data from the victim organisation. It’s likely this led to the discovery of compromised networks and devices.

Living-off-the-land
The hackers initially gained access to networks through internet-facing Fortinet FortiGuard devices, such as routers. Once inside, they employed a technique called “living-off-the-land”.

This is when attackers rely on using the resources already contained within the exploited system, rather than bringing in external tools. For example, they will typically use applications such as PowerShell (a Microsoft management programme) and Windows Management Instrumentation to access data and network functions.

By using internal resources, attackers can bypass safeguards that alert organisations to unauthorised access to their networks. Since no malicious software is used, they appear as a legitimate user.

As such, living-off-the-land allows for lateral movement within the network, and provides opportunity for a persistent, long-term attack.

The simultaneous announcements from the Five Eyes partners points to the seriousness of the Volt Typhoon compromise. It will likely serve as a warning to other nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Who are the Five Eyes?
Formed in 1955, the Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing partnership comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.

The alliance was formed after World War II to counter the potential influence of the Soviet Union. It has a specific focus on signals intelligence. This involves intercepting and analysing signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications.

The members share information and access to their respective signals intelligence agencies, and collaborate to collect and analyse vast amounts of global communications data. A Five Eyes operation might also include intelligence provided by non-member nations and the private sector.

Recently, the member countries expressed concern about China’s de facto military control over the South China Sea, its suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and threatening moves towards Taiwan.

The latest public announcement of China’s cyber operations no doubt serves as a warning that Western nations are paying strict attention to their critical infrastructure — and can respond to China’s digital aggression.

In 2019, Australia was targeted by Chinese state-backed threat actors gaining unauthorised access to Parliament House’s computer network. Indeed, there is evidence that China is engaged in a concerted effort to target Australia’s public and private networks.

The Five Eyes alliance may well be one of the only deterrents we have against long-term, persistent attacks against our critical infrastructure.

Dennis B. Desmond is a lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko steps aside over video row

APR editor — Fri, 12 May 2023 21:21:53 +0000

PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko steps aside. Video: ABC News

ABC PACIFIC BEAT: By Marian Faa, Prianka Srinivasan and Belinda Kora

Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister has stepped aside after a widespread backlash to comments he made in defence of a video his daughter posted on TikTok.

Justin Tkatchenko called critics of the video “primitive animals” during an interview with the ABC on Wednesday.

The comments have been labelled racist and insulting, and sparked protests in PNG throughout the day, as well as calls for him to resign.

In a press conference yesterday afternoon, Tkatchenko said the decision to step aside was not easy.

“I’m stepping aside as foreign minister so that our country can move forward and that I can also clear my name and also clear the doubt and the misinformation that is out there, that is causing great grief to everyone concerned,” Tkatchenko said.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape will take over as foreign minister as the nation prepares for a historic visit by US President Joe Biden and other Pacific leaders on May 22.

Tkatchenko has been closely involved in negotiating major defence and security agreements between PNG and the United States.

‘Clear the air’
He said he wanted to “clear the air” ahead of the visits.

Under fire PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko . . . “I’m stepping aside as foreign minister so that our country can move forward and that I can also clear my name.” Image: ABC Pacific Beat

“I do not want to disturb this event. We have done all the hard work already. Now, it’s the finalisation of the leaders arriving in the next coming days,” he said.

“For me to step aside is the right thing to do. So that we can clear the air and make sure that all these issues that arose from misinformation, finally sorted out once and for all.”

Marape thanked Tkatchenko for his decision.

“I want to commend the minister for putting the interest of the country ahead of his own,” he said.

“I will take charge of the foreign affairs ministry and ensure that all the preparations for the upcoming historical visits remain on track in the next few days.”

Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko (rear left) made the comments while defending his daughter, Savannah Tkatchenko (rear right). ABC Pacific Beat/FB

Opposition wants to deport Tkatchenko
Justin Tkatchenko was born in Australia but has lived in Papua New Guinea for 30 years and is a citizen.

“The last thing is that I’m going to destroy my beautiful home and ruin my reputation at the same time,” he said.

“I have six beautiful children, and a wife who are all Papua New Guinean and the last thing that I would call Papua New Guineans is primitive animals.”

He said the comments were directed at “cyber trolls” who attacked his daughter over a TikTok video she posted while accompanying him on a trip to the coronation of King Charles III.

The video, which was tagged #aussiesinlondon, flaunted cocktails and lavish meals at first-class airport lounges on the 4.3 million kina (NZ$2 million) taxpayer-funded trip.

“The people I made the comments to — individually — were those that were attacking my daughter on social media, putting up disgusting posts against her for doing absolutely nothing wrong,” he said.

‘Frustrated and angry’
“As a father, I was so frustrated and angry with the comments, sexual comments, violent comments, all sorts of comments that you would never want your daughter or any other woman or girl to be treated like to go through.

“To the people of Papua New Guinea, I sincerely apologise if you think that I meant bad to you … It was not intentioned at all for Papua New Guineans.”

In a statement last night, Marape said he was offended by Tkatchenko’s comments but called for forgiveness.

Tkatchenko said he was not the subject of any investigations.

PNG opposition leader Jospeh Lelang welcomed Tkatchenko’s decision to step aside.

“However, [he] will still be referred to the Citizenship Board to determine his citizenship status and be deported. We will have nothing less than that,” he told ABC.

While popular in his electorate of Moresby-South, Tkatchenko attracted controversy as the minister in charge of purchasing 40 custom-made Maserati luxury cars when PNG hosted the APEC summit in 2018, costing taxpayers 20 million kina (NZ$9.2 million).

Michael Kabuni, a former politics lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, said online media had played an unprecedented role in placing pressure on him to resign.

“Social media is beginning to shape the politics in ways we’ve never seen in past years,” he said.

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Trafficked teens forced to become cyber scammers in Myanmar

Radio Free Asia — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 19:10:37 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

“Cyber Misogyny” on the Rise During COVID-19 Pandemic

Vins — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 19:41:14 +0000

Gender-based violence escalated during the pandemic, which also forced many people to rely on online communication platforms such as Zoom, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter. Unfortunately, the increased reliance on online platforms “provides abusers with a new avenue” to engage in harassment, stalking, and other forms of abuse, Suzie Dunn reported in a September 2022 article for Canadian feminist magazine Herizons. Technology, Dunn wrote, “can both amplify abuse and make such behavior easier to conduct.”

In a 2015, Nicole Etherington, then an advanced PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, coined the term cyber misogyny to describe “the various forms of gendered hatred, harassment, and abusive behavior targeted at women and girls via the internet.” Etherington’s 2015 brief defining the topic described the internet as a “new frontier for misogynistic hate, harassment, and abuse” and detailed some of its real-world consequences, including psychological distress, public humiliation, identity theft, job loss, and suicide. (Dr. Etherington is now a Senior Research Associate in the Clinical Epidemiology Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.)

As Dunn reported for Herizons, the pandemic significantly increased the amount of time spent online and how individuals communicate. With the implementation of lockdown restrictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19, cyber misogyny flourished because many technology companies were unable to provide content moderation services to meet the increased demand for online communication. For example, as many higher education institutions turned to online platforms to provide remote learning, women reported harassment during lectures and offensive comments in course-focused group chats.

Beyond online classrooms, a cross-national study published in 2018 by Amnesty International, Toxic Twitter, documented how the popular social media service functioned as both a powerful tool for women to express themselves and vehicle for “technology-facilitated gender-based violence” that all too often “silenced” women and girls, Herizons summarized.

Dunn’s article concluded with a call for “more accessible options for content removal and a greater focus on victim-centered and trauma-informed responses.”

As of early March 2023, no major US news outlets appear to have covered the topic of cyber misogyny, as examined by Suzie Dunn’s article for Herizons.

Source: Suzie Dunn, “How to Stop Cyber Misogyny,” Herizons, January 15, 2022.

Student Researcher: Emily Kittell (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

The post “Cyber Misogyny” on the Rise During COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

INTERVIEW: U.S. cyber crime czar discusses readiness to stop North Korean threats

By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun Yoo for RFA Korean — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 21:30:57 +0000

Nathaniel C. Fick is the U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy.

As the first person to ever hold that office, Fick leads the State Department’s newly created Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, which addresses national security challenges, economic opportunities, and implications for U.S. values associated with cyberspace, digital technologies, and digital policy.

Chief among the bureau’s responsibilities is ensuring the digital security of the U.S. and its allies, including against cyberattacks sponsored by foreign governments.

Increasingly frequent cyberattacks from North Korea have targeted the U.S.,South Korea, and other allied countries in recent years. The South Korean National Intelligence Service estimates that Pyongyang has stolen around U.S.$1.72 billion in cryptocurrencies worldwide since 2017.

Fick recently spoke with RFA Korean about the threat that North Korea poses, and strategies that the Bureau has to deal with it. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Fick: The North Korean government uses malicious cyber activity to steal military secrets and intellectual property, which further isolates North Korea and the North Korean people, and the North Korean government uses malicious cyber activity to target human rights activists, dissidents and defectors around the world.

So we are very interested in containing and deterring North Korean malicious cyber activity. The State Department has a Rewards for Justice program that offers up to $10 million in rewards for information that leads to the dismantling of some of these North Korean cyber organizations targeting critical infrastructure and financial services around the world.

The North Korean people have a wealth of IT skills. And the North Korean regime has sent many North Korean IT workers around where they are posing in order to work in Western technology companies [to engage in] malicious cyber activity. We would far prefer for the skilled and talented people of North Korea to use those skills for the benefit of their own society.

RFA: How serious is the North Korean cyber threat to the United States and its allies like South Korea and Japan? Can we say that North Korea's threats have increased more over the past few years?

Fick: So the United States and its allies in Asia including South Korea and Japan, take the North Korean cyber threat very seriously for all of the reasons that I've described. Because of illicit financing, because of the theft of IP, because the North Korean government is developing new malware and is launching new attacks that are inherently global in their ability to threaten stability in cyberspace.

“The United States and its allies in Asia, including South Korea and Japan, take the North Korean cyber threat very seriously,” says Nathaniel C. Fick, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Credit: U.S. Dept. of State

RFA: How active do you expect North Korea to be this year in terms of cyberattacks and other threats?

Fick: Well, Kim Jong Un has been explicit in talking about his desire to see an exponential increase in the size of his nuclear arsenal and that would require an increase in the ballistic missile forces including ICBMs. So I think we can anticipate an increase in malicious cyber activity in order to fund that military buildup. So our working assumption is that North Korea will remain a capable, destabilizing, and dangerously irresponsible cyber actor globally this year.

RFA: What plans does the Bureau have to counteract any potential North Korean moves?

Fick: So, the United States State Department, in concert with our other elements of the U.S. government, have a robust set of policies to maintain strategic stability in cyberspace to deter malicious activity and to respond to it when necessary. So I think it's essential to understand that this isn't only a cyber response to malicious cyber activity, we can use every element of national power to respond to and deter cyber activity. So that's diplomatic tools, economic tools, informational tools, and, if necessary, military.

It's a whole government approach to do things like [identify] individuals who [have] conducted these kinds of activities, usually using sanctions tools, and and financial forensic tools in order to recover stolen funds and return them to the victims.

RFA: Are you aware of any new tactics North Korea is trying to use recently that the public don't know about?

Fick: Something that's interesting about cyber tools. And one of the reasons that regimes like North Korea use them is that they are relatively inexpensive. They are relatively hard in some cases to attribute and so we believe that they're constantly changing, right? They're innovative and dynamic. We're particularly concerned right now about North Korea's focus on decentralized financial exchanges, particularly cryptocurrency exchanges. And these are new financial instruments where regulation is still developing. And so, they're comparatively easy to penetrate and disruptive.

North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in this undated photo released Nov. 19, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Credit: KCNA via Reuters

RFA: There are reports that North Korean cyber hackers are living abroad, even in South Korea. They hide their identity and work with South Korean IT companies. So do you know how many North Korean hackers live abroad? Could they be in the U.S. as well?

Fick: So, before coming to the State Department, I ran a global technology business with smart young people working on our business, all of them. And so I have a real conviction and belief in the power of technology to help transform societies to bring economic opportunity to people. And I think that young people in North Korea are no different. I have no doubt that there are thousands and thousands of talented, capable young IT professionals in North Korea. Many of them have left the country many of them have been sent out of the country to work undercover in western, South Korean and even American technology firms in order to use their skills to advance the agenda of the North Korean regime in order to steal money, in order to steal secrets, and in order to empower the regime. My request to them. My hope for them is that instead, they would use their skills to build things, to build tools, to build applications to build IT capability, to help their society and help their people rather than to undermine strategic stability.

RFA: North Korea fired more than 60 ballistic missiles last year and has carried out many other provocations. People are wondering where all the money to fund the missiles has come from since U.N. and U.S. sanctions still remain in place. North Korea has also been even more isolated after the COVID-19 pandemic. What role do you think illegal cyber activities play in North Korea to evade sanctions?

Fick: So North Korea is one of the most highly isolated countries in the world. And we have a deep and abiding belief that it is worthwhile to connect the North Korean people to the world. The government, if it's going to do things like test missiles and increase the sizes of its offensive forces and its nuclear forces, needs money. And so illicit cyber activity is a key means for the DPRK regime to evade sanctions to steal money in order to fund its military buildup. We would far prefer to see the government spending those same resources on food, education, housing, and development for the benefit of the North Korean people.

RFA: Is the Bureau prepared for the North Korean cyber threat, and prepared to prevent Pyongyang’s illegal cyber activity?

Fick: We're very focused on North Korea's illicit cyber activity and highly motivated to stop their theft of money, their theft of intellectual property in their evasion of sanctions in order to continue the military buildup on the peninsula instead of caring for the well being of their people.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jaewoo Park and Hyung Jun Yoo for RFA Korean.

Rappler contributor Frank Cimatu convicted of cyber libel in the Philippines

Erik Crouch — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 16:40:49 +0000

Bangkok, December 14, 2022 – Philippine authorities should not contest the appeal of journalist Frank Cimatu, and should stop filing spurious cyber libel charges against members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, December 13, a Quezon City court convicted Cimatu, a contributor to the independent news outlet Rappler, of cyber libel over a 2017 Facebook post by the journalist about alleged corruption by then Agriculture Secretary Manny Pinol, news reports said.

The court ordered Cimatu to serve a prison term ranging from six months and one day to a maximum of five years, five months, and 11 days, according to those reports, which said he was also fined 300,000 pesos (US$5,385) in moral damages.

Cimatu is free on bail and will appeal the ruling, according to news reports, which said he could appeal as high as the Supreme Court.

“The spurious charge against Philippine journalist Frank Cimatu should be dropped and authorities should start work immediately on decriminalizing libel and overhauling the overbroad cybercrime provisions that allow for these kinds of outrageous convictions,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The wanton abuse of cyber libel laws is killing press freedom in the Philippines.”

In a 19-page ruling, Judge Evangeline Cabochan-Santos wrote that Cimatu’s Facebook post, which alleged that Pinol had personally profited from state corruption, was defamatory and appeared to impute a crime, reports citing the ruling said. The ruling said Cimatu made the post in malice and “failed to show any proof to establish that his post was done in good faith.”

Cimatu reportedly argued that the post was private and was only seen by his Facebook friends, but the court ruled it was initially made under a public setting, news reports said. CPJ was unable to review Cimatu’s Facebook account, which has been taken down or set to private.

NewsLine Philippines reported that Cimatu’s Facebook post was referencing a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism about Pinol’s personal asset and liability declaration. Cimatu covers a wide range of political and other news topics from the northern region of the main Philippine island of Luzon, his Rappler profile shows.

Pinol, a former news broadcaster, filed the charges against Cimatu, according to those reports. CPJ was unable to find contact information for Pinol.

Cimatu is at least the third Rappler reporter to be convicted of cyber libel, along with Rappler CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa and ex-Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. Their appeal of a 2020 cyber libel conviction was rejected in October and is now pending at the Supreme Court. CPJ has repeatedly and called for the charges to be dropped.

CPJ emailed the Quezon City prosecutor’s office for comment but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On Cyber Monday, Climate Activists Take Aim at Fashion Industry

Jessica Corbett — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 23:31:45 +0000

As Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers have spent the past few days taking advantage of deals for holiday gifts, climate activists and reporters worldwide have highlighted the negative impact that the clothing industry—particularly fast fashion—has on the planet.

"The 'fast fashion' model we're in is an endless cycle of companies forcing people to spend more money and sell more products—all while they make huge profits off their exploitation."

In a series of tweets Monday, the youth-led Sunrise Movement pointed out that in addition to its planet-heating emissions, "as a whole the fashion industry has been criticized for everything from blatant racism and exploitative factories to water pollution."

"Clothing production often happens in countries where brands can underpay people, materials are cheaper, and with less factory regulations," the group said. "That can mean more water pollution, environmental degradation, exploitation, and unsafe conditions for workers."

"Clothing is getting produced faster, fossil fuel-based clothing (like polyester) is growing, and more and more is thrown out. And unfortunately, it's not that easy to recycle our clothing," the movement continued, adding that a sizable amount is burned or sent to landfills.

Sunrise stressed that "we're not blaming consumers for buying what they can afford. But the 'fast fashion' model we're in is an endless cycle of companies forcing people to spend more money and sell more products—all while they make huge profits off their exploitation."

The group concluded by calling out both fast fashion and luxury brands, and advocating for companies "to make this industry better for workers, the planet, and consumers alike."

Other critics shared a Friday New York Times opinion piece by Rachel Greenley, a graduate student working on a memoir about cultural divides. She's also a seasonal warehouse worker paid $18.75 an hour to determine which returned clothing should be resold—a job she took "to study how the company's focus on speed and scale affects the warehouse worker."

"Even when the item passes my evaluation," Greenley wrote early in the piece, "embedded in the fabric is a deeper thread to unravel: Why do we buy disposable clothing that is made by low-wage workers and that tax an overtaxed environment?"

Sharing some details about the industry and her experiences, she argued that "brands point to sustainability efforts, but fast fashion is simply incompatible with sustainability. We operate under an economic belief that growth is unlimited. Our natural resources are not."

"I'm still trying to answer my initial question," she added. "What I've learned in the meantime is that, whether I'm in the office tower or the warehouse, I'm part of a pattern sewn together with overseas garment workers, cargo ship crews, delivery drivers, corporate managers trying to explain data points, and warehouse workers. We support a system of throwaway clothes that didn't deserve their trip around the world or the number of hands that touched them."

The Guardian reported Monday on tips and tricks from four people "who've forsworn fast fashion," featuring suggestions like browsing Pinterest instead of online shopping sites and never buying anything new "without mulling it over for a few weeks or months first."

Meanwhile, Nusa Urbancic of the Changing Markets Foundation wrote for TexFash.com about fashion industry efforts, noting the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt—and how it differed from the 2021 summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Ressa ‘disappointed’ over failed appeal and ongoing harassment in Philippine cyber libel case

Pacific Media Watch — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 02:42:47 +0000

By Jairo Bolledo in Manila

The Philippines Court of Appeals has denied the motion for reconsideration filed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. over their cyber libel case.

In a 16-page decision dated October 10, the court’s fourth division denied the appeal.

Associate Justices Roberto Quiroz, Ramon Bato Jr., and Germano Francisco Legaspi signed the ruling. They were the same justices who signed the court decision, which earlier affirmed the conviction of Ressa and Santos.

According to the court, the arguments raised by Ressa and Santos were already resolved.

“A careful and meticulous review of the motion for reconsideration reveals that the matters raised by the accused-appellants had already been exhaustively resolved and discussed in the assailed Decision,” the court said.

The court also claimed Ressa’s and Santos’ conviction is not meant to curtail freedom of speech.

“In conclusion, it [is] worthy and relevant to point out that the conviction of the accused-appellants for the crime of cyberlibel punishable under the Cybercrime Law is not geared towards the curtailment of the freedom of speech, or to produce an unseemingly chilling effect on the users of cyberspace that would possibly hinder free speech.”

‘Safeguard’ for free speech
On the contrary, the court said, the purpose of the law is to “safeguard the right of free speech, and to curb, if not totally prevent, the reckless and unlawful use of the computer systems as a means of committing the traditional criminal offences…”

In a statement, Nobel Peace laureate Ressa said she was “disappointed” but not surprised by the ruling.

Rappler’s video report on YouTube.

“The ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and Rappler continues, and the Philippines legal system is not doing enough to stop it. I am disappointed by today’s ruling but sadly not surprised,” Ressa said.

“This is a reminder of the importance of independent journalism holding power to account. Despite these sustained attacks from all sides, we continue to focus on what we do best — journalism.”

Santos, in a separate statement, said he still believed that the rule of law would prevail.

“The [Appeal Court’s] decision to deny our motion is not surprising, but it’s disheartening nevertheless. As we elevate our case to the SC, our fight against intimidation and suppression of freedom continues. We still believe that the rule of law will prevail.”

Theodore “Ted” Te, Rappler’s lawyer and former Supreme Court spokesperson, said they would now ask the Supreme Court to review and reverse Ressa’s conviction.

“The CA decision denying the MFR [motion for reconsideration] is disappointing. It ignored basic principles of constitutional and criminal law as well as the evidence presented. Maria and Rey will elevate these issues to the SC and we will ask the SC to review the decision and to reverse the decision,” Te said in a statement.

The decision
The Appeal Court also explained its findings on the arguments based on:

Applications of the provisions of cyber libel under the cybercrime law
Subject article should have been classified as qualifiedly privileged” in relation to Wilfredo Keng as a public figure

On the validity of the cybercrime law, the court cited a ruling which, according to them, decided the constitutionality of the law.

“We find it unnecessary to dwell on the issue raised by accused-appellants since the Supreme Court, in Jose Jesus M. Disini, Jr., et al., v. The Secretary of Justice, et al. (Disini Case), 5 had already ruled on its validity and constitutionality, with finality.”

The court also reiterated that the story in question was republished. The court said the argument that ex-post facto was applied on the theory that the correction of one letter is too unsubstantial and cannot be considered a republication is “unavailing.”

“As settled, the determination of republication is not hinged on whether the corrections made therein were substantial or not, as what matters is that the very exact libelous article was again published on a later date,” the appeals court said.

On the increase of penalty, the CA said the argument that Wilberto Tolentino v. People has no doctrinal value and cannot be used as a binding precedent as it was “an unsigned resolution, is misplaced.”

That case said the “prescriptive period for the crime of cyber libel is 15 years.”

Traditional, online publications
The appeals court also highlighted the difference between traditional and online publications: “As it is, in the instance of libel through traditional publication, the libelous article is only released and circulated once – which is on the day when it was published.”

Such was not the case for an online publication, the court said, where “the commission of such offence is continuous since such article remains therein in perpetuity unless taken down from all online platforms where it was published…”

On the argument about Keng, the CA said it was insufficient to consider him a public figure: “As previously settled, the claim that Wilfredo Keng is a renowned businessman, who was connected to several companies, is insufficient to classify him as a public figure.”

The term “public figure” in relation to libel refers more to a celebrity, it said, citing the Ciriaco “Boy” Guingguing v. Honorable Court of Appeals decision. The decision said a public figure is “anyone who has arrived at a position where public attention is focused upon him as a person.”

It also cited the Supreme Court decision on Alfonso Yuchengco v. The Manila Chronicle Publishing Corporation, et al., which resolved the argument whether a businessman can be considered a public figure. The court said that being a known businessman did not make Keng a public figure who had attained a position that gave the public “legitimate interest in his affairs and character.”

There was no proof, too, that “he voluntarily thrusted himself to the forefront of the particular public controversies that were raised in the defamatory article,” the CA added.

In 2020, Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 46 convicted Ressa and Santos over cyber libel charges filed by Keng. The case tested the 8-year-old Philippine cybercrime law.

The Manila court interpreted the cyber libel law as having a 12-year proscription period, as opposed to only a year. The lower court also decided that republication was a separate offence.

Aside from affirming the Manila court’s ruling, the CA also imposed a longer prison sentence on Ressa and Santos, originally set for six months and one day as minimum to six years as maximum.

The appeals court added eight months and 20 days to the maximum imprisonment penalty.

Jairo Bolledo is a Rappler journalist. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

CPJ renews calls on Philippine’s Marcos to drop cyber libel, other cases against Nobel laureate Maria Ressa

Committee to Protect Journalists — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 14:02:49 +0000

Bangkok, October 11, 2022 – In response to news reports that the Philippine Court of Appeals has denied Rappler CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa’s motion for reconsideration of her cyber libel conviction, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement on Tuesday:

“CPJ laments the Philippine Court of Appeals decision against Rappler’s Maria Ressa and reiterates its call on authorities to drop the cyber libel charge,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should break with the previous government’s chronic harassment and intimidation of the free press. Dropping the cyber libel and all other pending cases against Ressa and Rappler would be a meaningful and crucial step in that direction.”

The 16-page court decision, dated October 10, ruled that the issues raised in the appeal were already resolved in the initial June 15, 2020, decision against Ressa–a Nobel Peace Prize laureate–and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr., which sentenced them each to an indeterminate prison term of between six months and one day to six years. Both are free on bail and have indicated they will appeal the ruling next to the Supreme Court, according to news reports.

“The ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and Rappler continues, and the Philippines legal system is not doing enough to stop it. I am disappointed by today’s ruling but sadly not surprised,” Ressa was quoted saying by Rappler after the Court of Appeals ruling was made public.

Ressa faces a raft of other politicized charges initiated by the outgoing Duterte administration that carry potential prison penalties, CPJ has documented with its Hold the Line Coalition partners. Ressa received CPJ’s Gwen Ifill award in 2018 in recognition of her courage in the face of persistent official intimidation and harassment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Bangladeshi journalist Imran Hossain Titu investigated under Digital Security Act

Jennifer Dunham — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 19:12:05 +0000

On April 5, 2022, the Barisal Cyber Tribunal, which adjudicates alleged cybercrime offenses in Bangladesh’s southern Barisal division, accepted a complaint against Imran Hossain Titu, the Barguna district correspondent for privately owned broadcaster Ekattor TV, for allegedly violating the Digital Security Act, according to a statement by the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, a local trade group, which CPJ reviewed; a copy of the complaint, which CPJ also reviewed; and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ in a phone interview.

The complaint stems from a video investigation by Titu, which was broadcast by Ekattor TV on March 1, 2022, alleging that a local shrine’s management committee, led by Shahidul Islam Mollik, general secretary of the Mirzaganj Union Parishad, an administrative government unit, had engaged in corruption.

Mollik’s nephew, Badal Hossain, filed the complaint, which accused the journalist of violating three sections of the Digital Security Act, pertaining to defamation, unauthorized collection of identity information, and publication of false, threatening, or offensive information, according to those sources. Each of those offenses can carry a prison sentence of between three and five years, and a fine between 300,000 taka (US$3,160) and 1,000,000 taka (US $10,530).

Titu told CPJ that after conducting research for the investigation in Mirzaganj, Hossain had called him on February 19 and urged him not to publish the report.

On February 20, Hossain came to the Ekattor TV office in the town of Patuakhali and offered the journalist a bribe in exchange for agreeing not to publish the report, according to Titu and CCTV footage of the incident, which was shown in Titu’s video investigation.

When reached via messaging app, Hossain denied the allegations that he pressured Titu not to publish the report.

Titu told CPJ that after accepting the complaint, the Barisal Cyber Tribunal subsequently ordered the Mirzaganj police station to investigate the complaint. Anowar Hossain Talukdar, the station’s officer in charge, is the vice president of the shrine’s management, according to Titu and a document issued by the Waqf Administration, a regulatory agency under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which CPJ reviewed.

Mollik and Talukdar did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app.

Titu said that he expects to be summoned for further hearings after the police submits its investigative report to the tribunal. Under Section 40 of the Digital Security Act, investigations are to be completed within 60 days, with the possibility of extension upon court approval. Titu told CPJ that police did not complete the investigation within the 60-day period, adding that he was not informed that they were granted an extension.

Titu said he has repeatedly received direct, in-person threats from politicians and their associates for his extensive reporting on their alleged corruption. He fears these political leaders have banded together in recent months, he told CPJ, and are planning further retaliation against him, including possibly arrest.

CPJ has repeatedly documented the use of the Digital Security Act to harass journalists in retaliation for their work, and has called for the law’s repeal.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.

Philippine police arrest ex-VP social justice candidate Bello for cyber libel

APR editor — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 20:43:10 +0000

By Jairo Bolledo of Rappler in Manila

Former Philippines vice-presidential candidate and Laban ng Masa chairperson Walden Bello has been arrested for two counts of alleged cyber libel by the police.

Bello, 76, is a globally renowned environmental and social justice activist and academic.

Bello’s arrest yesterday was confirmed by his executive secretary and Laban ng Masa spokesperson Leomar Doctolero.

The former VP candidate was brought to the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) Station 8 in Project 4, Quezon City.

“Walden has just been arrested for cyber libel by officers of the QCPD. He is currently being taken to QC Police Station 8, P. Tuazon,” Doctolero said.

It was Davao City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 10 Judge Retrina Espe Fuentes who issued the arrest warrant yesterday. Bello’s counsels said they will move for the suspension of proceedings at RTC 10 after Bello posts bail.

Two counts of cyber libel
Bello faces two counts of cyber libel for which bail has been set at P48,000 (NZ$4000) each.

Police Lieutenant-Colonel Gilmore Wasin confirmed Bello’s arrest to Rappler. He added Bello would be transferred to Camp Karingal in Quezon City, QCPD’s headquarters.

Doctolero said they had been anticipating the arrest because Bello had already been indicted for the cases last month.

“We have been anticipating the arrest warrant because of the indictment of the Davao Prosecutor. It’s a bailable offence and counsel is on the way to assist him.”

Walden Bello in detention displays his handcuffs in a post on his Facebook account. Image: Walden Bello

Bello’s camp filed a motion for reconsideration before the Davao prosecutor’s office but it was denied, Doctolero explained.

“The resolution for his indictment was released last June 9. We filed for a motion for reconsideration with the Prosecutors’ Office which was subsequently denied.”

‘Dangerous precedent’

Under the Philippine laws, cyber libel is a bailable offence. Based on the guidelines for bail for cybercrime offences, the bail for cyber libel is typically set at P10,000 (NZ$790).

In a message to reporters, Leody de Guzman’s team said the ex-presidential candidate and Bello’s running mate was headed to QCPD Station 8 to show support for Bello.

At the height of the campaign period early this year, Jefry Tupas, Vice-President Sara Duterte’s former information officer, filed a cyber libel complaint against Bello.

She is seeking P10 million (NZ$790,000) in damages after Bello allegedly accused her on social media of being a drug addict and dealer.

Bello earlier labeled Tupas’ act as “clearly a politically-motivated move”.

In a petition for review filed on July 29, Bello’s camp argued that the position of Tupas in government “is very relevant” as the Facebook post would not have highlighted the drug raid if it weren’t for her being a public official.

Infringement on free speech
The prosecutor’s dismissal of their argument that the post merely poses a question sets “a dangerous precedent,” the petition also pointed out.

“Just imagine the severe infringement on free speech that would ensue if our jurisdiction would limit what questions people can ask!” the petition said.

Bello’s camp also argued that the post was written by his communications team, not by the former vice-presidential candidate himself, and that there is still no proof that he personally published it on Facebook.

“[Bello] does not even have administrator or moderator status in the said Facebook page,” it said.

Pacific Media Watch reports: Walden Bello posted this on his Facebook page from detention at Camp Karingal:

Seventy seven years ago today, Aug 9, 1945, the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, three days after the first blasted Hiroshima. Up to 80,000 people were killed in an act of genocide that had absolutely no military value and merely served to warn the Soviet Union of the US’ capacity to blast it to bits. The world must never forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially now that the war in the Ukraine drags on, with the constant possibility of uncontrolled escalation, and Washington provokes China on Taiwan.

By Jairo Bolledo is a Rappler journalist. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Bangladesh journalist arrested, 2 charged under Digital Security Act

Erik Crouch — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 13:25:42 +0000

On June 7, 2022, police in the Bangladesh town of Rangamati, in the southeastern Chittagong division, arrested Fazle Elahi, editor of the privately owned newspaper Dainik Parbatto and the privately owned news website Pahar24, under the Digital Security Act, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

A Rangamati magistrate granted Elahi interim bail on June 8, pending an additional hearing at the Chittagong Cyber Tribunal, which adjudicates alleged cybercrime offenses, where he was granted permanent bail on June 14, according to a report in the Dhaka Tribune and the journalist. The next hearing in his case is scheduled for July 31, Elahi said.

Police arrested Elahi in relation to a December 3, 2020, article he published in Pahar24, which detailed alleged irregularities concerning a property rented by Nazneen Anwar, daughter of Furoza Begum Chinu, a former member of parliament with the ruling Awami League and head of the Rangamati District Women’s Awami League, according to those reports and the journalist.

On December 8, 2020, Chinu and Anwar each filed separate complaints, which CPJ reviewed, against Elahi in relation to his article, alleging that the journalist had defamed them, Elahi said.

On March 15, 2021, the Rangamati police submitted a report to a magistrate, which CPJ reviewed, stating that they investigated Elahi under sections of the Digital Security Act related to defamation and publishing offensive, false, or threatening information after receiving those complaints. The police report said it would allow the court to decide a course of action.

On June 7, 2022, the Chittagong Cyber Tribunal issued a warrant for Elahi’s arrest, which CPJ reviewed, under unspecified sections of the Digital Security Act.

Elahi was taken to Rangamati’s Kotwali police station after his June 7 arrest, he said, adding that Anwar was at the scene and demanded the officers put him in a cell when he was placed in a chair in the front office. When reached by phone by CPJ, Anwar said she had asked officers why Elahi was allowed to use his phone in custody.

Anwar told CPJ that she stands by the allegations in the complaint. Chinu did not respond to CPJ’s text message requesting comment. Kabir Hossain, officer-in-charge at the Kotwali police station, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

In a separate case, on June 7, 2022, the Khulna Cyber Tribunal accepted a police chargesheet that had been filed on August 31, 2021, against Abu Tayeb, Khulna bureau chief for the privately owned broadcaster NTV, and Subir Rana, a reporter for the privately owned newspaper Daily Loksamaj and privately owned news website New Age, according to a copy of the chargesheet, which CPJ reviewed, and the two journalists, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

A hearing in their case is scheduled for September 20, according to Tayeb. The chargesheet accuses the journalists of violating sections of the Digital Security Act related to the publication of offensive, false, or threatening information; defamation; and deterioration of law and order. Those offenses can carry a prison sentence between three and seven years, and a fine of between 300,000 taka (US$3,230) and 600,000 taka (US$6,460).

The chargesheet accuses Tayeb and Rana of violating the Digital Security Act with Facebook posts they each published in April 2021 accusing a local company affiliated with Talukder Abdul Khalek, mayor of the Khulna City Corporation, a municipal agency that oversees the development and maintenance of the city, of evading taxes.

Tayeb made those allegations both in a report for NTV and on his Facebook page, and Rana also published the allegations on his page, according to CPJ research, both journalists, and a screenshot of the posts, which CPJ reviewed. Tayeb told CPJ that within 24 hours after the article and Facebook post were published, Khalek called him and ordered him to remove the report and the post, and he had complied.

On April 20, Khalek filed a complaint against Tayeb and Rana and published a rejoinder in The Daily Purbanchal newspaper, which CPJ reviewed, denying the allegations and warning that legal action would be taken against those who spread the information shared in their posts.

Tayeb was detained in relation to the case from April 20 to May 10, 2021, when he was released on bail, according to CPJ documentation and the journalist. Rana was also detained from June 3 to July 7, when he was released on bail, according to the journalist and the Bangladesh High Court bail order, which CPJ reviewed.

The investigating officer in the case did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app. Khalek did not respond to CPJ’s text message requesting comment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Rogues and Spyware: Pegasus Strikes in Spain

Binoy Kampmark — Sat, 14 May 2022 11:54:09 +0000

Weapons, lacking sentience and moral orientation, are there to be used by all. Once out, these creations can never be rebottled. Effective spyware, that most malicious of surveillance tools, is one such creation, available to entities and governments of all stripes. The targets are standard: dissidents, journalists, legislators, activists, even the odd jurist.

Pegasus spyware, the fiendishly effective creation of Israel’s unscrupulous NSO Group, has become something of a regular in the news cycles on cyber security. Created in 2010, it was the brainchild of three engineers who had cut their teeth working for the cyber outfit Unit 8200 of the Israeli Defence Forces: Niv Carmi, Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie.

NSO found itself at the vanguard of an Israeli charm offensive, regularly hosting officials from Mossad at its headquarters in Herzliya in the company of delegations from African and Arab countries. Cyber capabilities would be one way of getting into their good books.

The record of the company was such as to pique the interest of the US Department of Commerce, which announced last November that it would be adding NSO Group and another Israeli cyber company Candiru (now renamed Saito Tech) to its entity list “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.”

In July 2021, the Pegasus Project, an initiative of 17 media organisations and civil society groups, revealed that 50,000 phone numbers of interest to a number of governments had appeared on a list of hackable targets. All had been targets of Pegasus.

The government clients of the NSO Group are extensive, spanning the authoritarian and liberal democratic spectrum. Most notoriously, Pegasus has found its way into the surveillance armoury of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which allegedly monitored calls made by the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a fellow dissident, Omar Abdulaziz. In October 2018, Khashoggi, on orders of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was butchered on the grounds of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a hit squad. NSO subsequently became the subject of a legal suit, with lawyers for Abdulaziz arguing that the hacking of his phone “contributed in a significant manner to the decision to murder Mr Khashoggi.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Defence Minister Margarita Robles, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and 18 Catalan separatists are the latest high-profile targets to feature in the Pegasus canon. Sánchez’s phone was hacked twice in May 2021, with officials claiming that there was at least one data leak. This was the result of, according to the government, an “illicit and external” operation, conducted by bodies with no state authorisation.

Ironically enough, Robles herself had defended the targeting of the 18 Catalan separatists, claiming that the surveillance was conducted with court approval. “In this country,” she insisted at a press conference, “no-one is investigated for their political ideals.”

The backdrop of the entire scandal is even more sinister, with Citizen Lab revealing last month that over 60 Catalan legislators, jurists, Members of the European Parliament, journalists and family members were targeted by the Pegasus spyware between 2015 and 2020. (Citizen Lab found that 63 individuals had been targeted or infected with Pegasus, with four others being the victims of the Candiru spyware.) Confirmed targets include Elisenda Paluzie and Sònia Urpí Garcia, who both work for the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, an organisation that campaigns for the independence of Catalonia.

The phone of Catalan journalist Meritxell Bonet was also hacked in June 2019 during the final days of a Supreme Court case against her husband Jordi Cuixart. Cuixart, former president of the Catalan association Òmnium Cultural, was charged and sentenced on grounds of sedition.

The investigation by Citizen Lab did not conclusively attribute “the operations to a specific entity, but strong circumstantial evidence suggests a nexus with Spanish authorities.” Amnesty International Technology and Human Rights researcher Likhita Banerji put the case simply. “The Spanish government needs to come clean over whether or not it is a customer of NSO Group. It must also conduct a thorough, independent investigation into the use of Pegasus spyware against the Catalans identified in this investigation.”

Heads were bound to roll, and the main casualty in this affair was the first woman to head Spain’s CNI intelligence agency, Paz Esteban. Esteban’s defence of the Catalan hackings proved identical to that of Robles: they had been done with judicial and legal approval. But she needed a scalp for an increasingly embarrassing situation and had no desire to have her reasons parroted back to her. “You speak of dismissal,” she stated tersely, “I speak of substitution.”

While the implications for the Spanish government are distinctly smelly, one should not forget who the Victor Frankenstein here is. NSO has had a few scrapes in Israel itself. It survived a lawsuit by Amnesty International in 2020 to review its security export license. But there is little danger of that company losing the support of Israel’s Ministry of Defence. In Israel, cybersecurity continues to be the poster child of technological prowess, lucrative, opaque and distinctly unaccountable to parliamentarians and the courts.

The post Rogues and Spyware: Pegasus Strikes in Spain first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Cyber attack on NZ sea level website blamed on anti-climate critics or ‘the Russians’

APR editor — Mon, 02 May 2022 04:00:07 +0000

By John Lewis of the Otago Daily Times

Aotearoa New Zealand’s new NZ SeaRise website, designed to show how the country’s coastline will be affected by rising sea levels and land subsidence, has been hit by a cyber attack.

Project co-leader and Victoria University of Wellington earth sciences Professor Tim Naish said the website went live this morning at 5am, and since then it had been getting 10,000 hits per second which had ”just killed” the website.

”We’re trying to get it back up and running,” he said.

”The guess is that these are anti-climate change people or the Russians — who knows.

”We don’t know for sure, but we think they’re using an autobot. They’re coming from an overseas IP address.

”It’s just hitting us with thousands of hits and our website can’t cope.”

It was frustrating because local government mayors were being asked to comment on the website, but were unable to because it was inaccessible at the moment, he said.

Frustrating for residents
It was also frustrating for residents interested in what was going to happen on their own land.

The NZ SeaRise website shows location-specific sea level rise projections to the year 2300, for every 2km of the coast of New Zealand.

Climate change and warming temperatures are causing sea levels to rise by 3.5mm a year on average, but until now, the levels did not take into account local vertical land movements.

Professor Naish said continuous small and large seismic events were adding up to cause subsidence in many parts of New Zealand, and the new projections showed the annual rate of sea level rise could double.

Project co-leader and GNS Science associate professor Richard Levy said the team had connected vertical land movement data with climate-driven sea level rise to provide locally-relevant sea level projections.

“Property owners, councils, infrastructure providers and others need to know how sea level will change in the coming decades so that they can consider how risks associated with flooding, erosion and rising groundwater will shift,” he said.

”We have estimated future sea levels for 7434 sites around our coastline. The largest increases in sea level will occur along the southeast North Island along the Wairarapa coast.

Land subsidence rates are high
”Here, land subsidence rates are high and sea level could rise by well over 1.5m by 2100 if we follow the least optimistic climate change scenario.

”In contrast, land is rising near Pikowai, in the Bay of Plenty, and uplift rates may keep pace with climate change-driven sea level rise, causing a small fall in sea level if we follow the most optimistic climate scenario.”

Dunedin and Invercargill were not likely to be any closer to inundation by the sea than had already been predicted, because ground movement in the South was ”quite stable”, he said.

Based on present international emissions reduction policies, global sea levels were expected to have risen about 0.6m by 2100, but for large parts of New Zealand that would double to about 1.2m because of ongoing land subsidence.

”We know that global sea-level rise of 25cm-30cm by 2060 is baked in and unavoidable regardless of our future emissions pathway, but what may be a real surprise to people is that for many of our most populated regions, such as Auckland and Wellington, this unavoidable rise is happening faster than we thought.”

Vertical land movements mean sea level changes might happen 20-30 years sooner than previously expected.

For many parts of New Zealand’s coast, 30cm of sea-level rise is a threshold for extreme flooding, above which the 100-year coastal storm becomes an annual event.

Climate change adaptation options
Joint Otago Regional and Dunedin City Councils’ South Dunedin Future group programme manager Jonathan Rowe welcomed the new information and said it would feed into many aspects of the councils’ work, particularly that relating to the South Dunedin programme which was considering climate change adaptation options.

ORC operations general manager Gavin Palmer said the information would also feed into flood protection planning to mitigate the impacts of sea level rise in other parts of coastal Otago, such as the Clutha Delta and the Taieri Plain.

Rowe said for South Dunedin, the new data confirmed previous guidance, that further sea level rise of 24cm-35cm was predicted by 2050-60, and up to 112cm by 2100, depending on global emissions.

A climate change adaptation plan would be presented to both councils in June, he said.

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the findings were “sobering” and the government’s first plan to cut emissions in every part of New Zealand, would be published later this month.

The website appeared to be accessed normally later today with an earlier notice saying “The NZ SeaRise maps are down temporarily for maintenance” having been dropped.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. It was first published on the Otago Daily Times website.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury faces Digital Security Act proceedings

Committee to Protect Journalists — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 19:13:41 +0000

On May 6, 2021, Shahana Rashid Sanu, a poet and literary writer, filed a complaint against Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the tabloid Weekly Blitz, at the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal, pointing to eight articles published on its website, which accused Sanu and her sons of engaging in criminal and anti-government activities, according to a copy of the complaint, which CPJ reviewed, and Choudhury, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

On June 10, 2021, the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal referred the case to the cybercrime unit of the Dhaka police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for investigation, Choudhury told CPJ. On August 16, 2021, CID officers interrogated Choudhury for around two hours, during which they repeatedly asked him why he published the articles and demanded he reveal his sources, he said.

Section 40 of the Digital Security Act allows authorities 60 days to complete an investigation, which can be extended with judicial approval. The CID submitted applications to extend the investigation period on June 22, 2021, September 30, 2021, and November 17, 2021, according to Choudhury.

On January 23, 2022, Sub-inspector Mehdi Hassan filed an investigative report at the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal which accused Choudhury of violating three sections of the Digital Security Act pertaining to the publication of offensive, false, or threatening information; defamation; and abetment.

The first two offenses can each carry a prison sentence of up to three years and a fine between 300,000 taka (US$3,500) and 500,000 taka (US$5,815), according to the law, which states that abetment carries the same punishment as committing an offense itself.

On February 17, 2022, the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal issued a summons for Choudhury to appear on April 6, 2022, at which time the journalist’s lawyer will file an application for anticipatory bail, Choudhury said, adding that if anticipatory bail is denied, the tribunal will frame, or determine the nature of, the charges against him.

Sub-inspector Hassan, the investigating officer in the case, did not respond to CPJ’s text message requesting comment. Sanu did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Choudhury was previously arrested in November 2003 when he tried to travel to Israel to participate in a conference with the Hebrew Writers Association, according to CPJ documentation. He was released on bail in May 2005 before he was convicted of sedition and treason in January 2015 and sentenced to seven years in prison, according to CPJ research and Choudhury. Choudhury was also detained from November 2012 to July 2018, when he served concurrent sentences for fraud, sedition, and treason, he said.

In July 2006, two small devices detonated outside the Weekly Blitz office, as CPJ documented.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

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