Information/Technology - 27. page

Microsoft issued a release on Tuesday March 2 stating that a China-linked cyber threat actor has been exploiting loopholes in its email server to steal data from emails remotely.

Microsoft said that the targets of hacking include “infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks and NGOs.”

Microsoft has detected four exploits being used to attack on-premises versions of the Microsoft Exchange Server. The hacker organization is called Hafnium, a state-sponsored actor based in China. It conducts its operations primarily from leased virtual private servers (VPS) in the United States. Microsoft only recently discovered Hafnium’s activities. It has briefed the U.S. government agencies on this activity.

This is the eighth time in the past 12 months that Microsoft has publicly disclosed nation-state groups targeting institutions critical to civil society. Other activities have targeted healthcare organizations fighting Covid-19, political campaigns and others involved in the 2020 elections, and high-profile attendees of major policymaking conferences.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 3, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/us-hack-03032021042929.html
Microsoft, March 2, 2021
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2021/03/02/new-nation-state-cyberattacks/

Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping met with the crew of the Chinese moon explorer Chang’e 5, which had just completed a mission to the moon and brought back surface samples. Xi acknowledged the major achievements of the mission and the crew and praised the developments under the Chinese space exploration program. Xi also credited the centralized planning and government sponsorship model for the accomplishments made in the space program. However, right after Xi’s speech, two major Chinese space companies, AECC Aviation Power Co. (Shanghai Stock Exchange 600893) and AVIC Shenyang Aircraft Company Limited (Shanghai Stock Exchange 600760), saw their stock prices fall significantly by 8.39 percent and 7.93 percent, respectively. Both companies have market values above RMB 100 billion (around US$15.4 billion).

Source: RFI Chinese, February 22, 2021
https://bit.ly/3dPiGjH

Although China blocks Clubhouse, a social network based on voice, many Chinese netizens still break through the firewall to join the audio chat platform. However, cyber security experts in the U.S. warned that, since Clubhouse uses a server in China, the contents of the transmission may be intercepted. Therefore, it is not recommended to express sensitive views when using this software.

Alex Stamos, Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer at Facebook, posted on his Twitter account that his team “found that Chinese servers are being used for conversations, but he cannot recommend that individuals who might find themselves adverse to the security services of the PRC should use Clubhouse for sensitive conversations.”

According to the analysis that Stanford Internet Observatory published, Shanghai-based Agora is a key technology supplier to Clubhouse. A user’s unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plain text and Agora would likely have access to users’ raw audio, potentially providing access to the Chinese government. Stamos also mentioned that other than Agora, Clubhouse uses servers run by Guangzhou Enjoy VC Communication Technology.

Source: Central News Agency, October 22, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202102210114.aspx

Nominating a chief engineer of a liquor company for academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the highest honor in the field, has caused controversy in China. People think it is an insult to the honor because they wonder how an engineer in the wine and liquor industry can represent China’s strategy to be “invigorating through science and technology” and whether the liquor technology can have a significant impact on the progress of mankind. People also feel that the academician election process lacks transparency and could be compromised.

On February 17, Guizhou Maotai, a well-known Chinese liquor brand, announced on its official public account that Wang Li, Chief Engineer and Chief Quality Officer of the Maotai Group, was nominated to qualify for 2021 academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

This is not the first time that the Chinese Academy of Engineering had a controversial academician nominated in an election. In 2011, a deputy dean and researcher at the Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of the China National Tobacco Corporation was elected as an academician of the Academy of Engineering. Over 100 academicians co-signed a letter to the presidium of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, questioning the qualification of the candidate and requesting that the presidium withdraw the decision, but their objection failed.

In 2015, People’s Daily published an article exposing the inside story during the academician election process claiming it involved personal connections and bribery with money. The article said that it was disappointing and sad to see that the really talented who are not well connected weren’t even given a chance to be nominated, whereas people who were less academic but had good connections would win.

There have been many disappointments in academician elections in the past and China ended up losing those talents to the U.S. One example is Yan Nieng, a structural biologist at Tsinghua University. She didn’t win the academician title in 2017. Yan left Tsinghua University and joined Princeton University. Yan has received many awards while working at Princeton and, in April 2019, was elected as a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Xu Chenyang, a math genius, is another example. In 2012, after receiving a doctoral degree and a number of academic awards, Xu went back to China. Xu failed to win the academician title. He left China and went to work for MIT. In 2021, Xu received the 2021 Col Algebra Prize award.

The academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering is the highest academic title in engineering science and technology in China. The academician election is conducted using a committee voting on a list of nominated candidates once every two years. It is a lifetime honor and is supposed to be awarded to scientists who have made a significant contribution in the scientific field. Earlier this year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering announced that they have started the 2021 academician election and they will elect no more than 88 academicians this year.

Source:
1. 163.com, February 18, 2021
https://money.163.com/21/0218/16/G34N835300259DLP.html
2. Sina, February 20, 2021
https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2021-02-20/doc-ikftpnny8526177.shtml

On February 4, 2021, Graphika, an independent U.S. market research firm issued a report called “Spamouflage Breakout,” detailing the activities of a sprawling pro-Chinese propaganda network that Graphika has dubbed “Spamouflage.” The network uses “fake accounts and reaches real social media users, including some recipients with heavyweight influence. It sends hundreds of videos that praise China, criticize the United States, and attack the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement and exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui.”

Graphika took note that elements of the network were already active in the second half of 2018, when it primarily attacked Chinese émigré billionaire Guo Wengui (郭文贵, also known as Miles Kwok). In 2019, the main target became the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. After the global outbreak of the corona virus pandemic in 2020, the activities changed focus to praise China. The report alleged that as early as February last year, social media accounts acclaimed China’s rapid response to the fight against the epidemic. Starting in June, the cyber army began to criticize the United States for failing to control the virus.

The network used videos mostly pieced together from news clips, which were full of prejudice and contained false information. The report cited an example of a fake information video titled “Vaccines will not get America out of this mess.” Without providing any evidence, it argued that “the safety of the [U.S. developed Pfizer-BioNTech] vaccine was in doubt, but it was quickly approved.” On January 21, it followed up with another video that claimed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been approved in haste despite serious risks.

It has been found that the network has successfully engaged real users. “Nevertheless, in the past three months Spamouflage has been amplified by, among others, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, a Pakistani politician, a senior figure at Huawei Europe, a UK commentator and former member of parliament, George Galloway, and four YouTube channels for Chinese viewers with tens of thousands of followers. This is the first time that we have observed Spamouflage content reaching external audiences in this way.”

The report highlighted a few fake social media accounts that Spamouflage has used. One of them called @jingrunhe, screen name “贺景润 He Jingrun,” uses a young woman as its profile picture. This account was created on July 7, 2009, but its first recorded tweet was only posted on January 7, 2020, soon after the United States killed Iranian General Qasem. Then the account repeatedly spread videos and posts that showed a strong alignment with the Chinese government messaging on issues including Hong Kong, Taiwan, relations with the United States, U.S. sanctions, and China’s increasingly troubled relationship with Australia – including an accusation of war crimes against Australian troops. Many Chinese diplomatic accounts interacted with this account. As early as February 2020, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Spokesman Lijian Zhao, one of the best known of China’s “wolf warriors,” retweeted her; he was to do so five times in the next three months. “According to a scan with Meltwater, China’s ambassador to Iran retweeted her 25 times and tweeted her a quote eight times; China’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic retweeted her 15 times and quoted her nine times; the Chinese Embassy in France retweeted her 18 times and quoted her tweet nine times; and the ambassador to Panama retweeted her nine times and quote-tweeted her 15 times.” In addition, He Jingrun was also retweeted by the Twitter account of Huawei Europe, with over five million followers and shared by Huawei Europe senior executive Mike Bai, with over 800,000 followers. Amplified by real people, this account was also retweeted by Chilean politician Hugo Gutierrez (126,000 followers, four retweets), Panamanian TV personality Annette Quinn (109,000 followers, two retweets) and philosopher Fernando Buen Abad (108,000 followers, 13 retweets). It was also retweeted 37 times by Pakistani politician Khurram Nawaz Gandapur (91,000 followers).”

Source: Graphika, “Spamouflage Breakout,” February 4, 2021
https://graphika.com/reports/spamouflage-breakout/
Radio Free Asia, February 5, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/us-fake-02052021025056.html

On January 25, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington DC based think tank on technological innovation and public policy, issued a report titled, “Who Is Winning the AI Race: China, the EU, or the United States? — 2021 Update”

“This report examines the progress that China, the European Union, and the United States have made in AI relative to each other in recent years and provides an update on a report released on their comparative rankings from 2019. It found that the United States still holds a substantial overall lead, but that China has continued to reduce the gap in some important areas. In addition, the EU continues to fall behind.”

“This report measures the progress each region has since made in AI by using new data to update 15 of the metrics and it adds 1 new metric. It finds that the United States still leads, with 44.6 points, followed by China with 32.0 and the European Union with 23.3.”

The U.S. “has an unmatched number of AI start-ups, which received $8 billion more in venture capital and private equity funding than did China in 2019.” “In 2019, U.S. software and computer services firms still spent three times more on R&D than did China and the European Union combined. Furthermore, average U.S. research quality is still higher than that of China and the European Union. Lastly, despite China’s growing attempts to reduce its reliance on U.S. semiconductors, the United States is still the world leader in designing chips for AI systems.”

“China’s AI capabilities relative to the European Union and the United States have improved in several ways. First, China has surpassed the EU as the world leader in AI publication. Second, the quality of its AI research has generally trended upward year to year. Third, its software and computer services firms have increased their R&D spending. Fourth, China now has nearly twice as many supercomputers ranked in the top 500 for performance as the United States. The United States led in this indicator as recently as 2017. Finally, China likely continues to lead in the amount of data generated. Overall, however, China has not significantly reduced the gap in AI between itself and the United States, but its trend of consistent progress could eventually evaporate the U.S. lead.”

“The European Union has fallen further behind the United States in terms of the number of funding deals, the acquisition of AI firms, and AI firms that have raised at least $1 million in funding since our last report. In addition, EU software and computer services firms have failed to close the gap between themselves and U.S. firms in R&D spending. The United Kingdom’s departure from the bloc will also diminish EU AI capabilities, both in absolute terms and on a per-capita basis.”

Source: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
https://itif.org/publications/2021/01/25/who-winning-ai-race-china-eu-or-united-states-2021-update