Daily Archives: November 13, 2021

The cybersecurity industry continues to have issues finding talent to fill all of the available roles. To address the problem, the Utah legislature is giving Utah Valley University (UVU) and Utah State University (USU) a $5 million grant. The goal is to build an academic pipeline that will prepare students to work in fields like cybersecurity, security analytics, and artificial intelligence.

Utah has more than 4,000 unfilled tech jobs, and the grant is part of the state's Deep Technology Talent Initiative (DTTI), which aims to expand academic tech programs and collaborate with local tech giants like Adobe, Northrup Grumman, and FireEye. Alongside the new programs at both schools, the companies will provide work experience for students through internships, capstones, and laboratory work.

Both UVU's Center for National Security Studies and USU's Center for Anticipatory Intelligence are part of the Intermountain Intelligence, Industry and Security Consortium (I3SC), which hopes to equip students to fill roles in Utah's "Silicon Slopes."

"The next advancement in higher education requires us to play as a team. USU is excited to lead out alongside UVU in creating a leading-edge learning team -- the I3SC consortium -- that includes industry, state, and federal partners working together in unprecedented ways to prepare our graduates to be leaders in innovation, security, and resilience," Jeannie Johnson, director of the Center for Anticipatory Intelligence at USU, told ZDNet.

Through the DTTI, I3SC was awarded $5,013,900 to create a "multifaceted academic pipeline program" available to students at both institutions. The courses will cover a variety of topics including secure computing, artificial intelligence, security analytics, cybersecurity, anticipatory intelligence, and security studies.

Thousands of students are already enrolled in tech programs at both schools, and the I3SC consortium's goal is to build out a tech workforce that can handle the emerging threats from foreign governments, hackers, and other cybersecurity issues.

"We're at a critical point where the threat landscape presents challenges for companies at all levels. The need has never been greater for smart, experienced, and skilled professionals, and that is what we are building with our consortium," said Ryan Vogel, director of the Center for National Security Studies at UVU.

Vogel added that they have already received a lot of interest from students across the STEM and policy disciplinary spectrum.

"We need graduates ready to take jobs, professionals that are skilled and experienced. That's our focus with this project: to meet this demand and exceed it, in cybersecurity and other technological areas," Vogel said.

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Utah legislature awards two universities with $5 million for cybersecurity and tech programs - ZDNet

House passes infrastructure bill; over $1 billion for local cybersecurity infrastructure included

The House of Representativespassedanearly $1 trillion infrastructurebillearlier this week. The bill now goes to President Biden, who will almostcertainlysign the bill into law. Included in the bills provisions is the largest investmentin local and state-level cybersecurity infrastructure ever. The bill provides over $1 billion forstate, tribal, territorial, and local governmentsandencourages states to invest more incybersecurity. The bill willreleasethe funding yearly, with over $200 million available forstates and countiesin 2022.The billgivesfederal agencies morepowerto respond to cyberattacks,and will increase cooperation between the federal government and state and local agencies affected by cyberattacks.

Chinese state media accuses Indian hackers Evil Flower of shutting down airline records

On November 5, theGlobal Timesreported that Indian hacking outfitEvil Flowerlaunched cyberattacks against Chinese aerospace industries. According to the report, Evil Flowerwhichis also knownasrattlesnakeandis suspected ofoperations againstPakistan, Nepal, and Saudi Arabiaas wellpreviously targeted a traditional Chinese medicine research institute in 2019 and Chinese import and export enterprises in 2020.TheGlobal Timesarticle includes atimelinedisplayinga two-year trend of China-targeted cyberattacks originating from South Asia. Although Chinese cybersecurity firms allege regularly [detected] attacks from foreign state actors, including the U.S.,Chinese state media publicly revealingthe identity of foreign hackers is ararity.After theNew York Timesand othersallegedthatBeijingwas responsible foranattack ontheIndianpower gridduring a border dispute, China is lookingto recast itself as thevictimin cyberspace.

United States arrestsREvilassociates, seizes millions of dollarsin ransomware payments

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The U.S. Justice Departmentannouncedearlier this weekmajor indictments and seizures related to the ransomwareattackon the IT firm Kaseya.UkraniannationalYaroslavVasinskyi, whois accusedof being behind the attack on Kaseya,wasarrestedin Poland last monthand is being held in the country pending extradition hearings.The U.S. also announced the seizure of almost $6.1 million in ransomware paymentsto theREvilgroup.Romania, South Korea, and Kuwait have alsoarrestedsuspects believed to be tied to theREvilgroup, anditslikely that Mr.Vasinskyiis not the last of the group to be arrested.In comments to the press,Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging TechnologyAnneNeuberger,notedthat the arrests were part ofthepublicly visibledisruption activities,butothers[disruptive activities]are less so.We are committed, Neuberger continued,to using every tool we can within theU.S. Governments capabilities . . .to ensure that we address the ransomware activity which is impacting U.S. individuals, businesses, and allies and partners all around the world.

Facebook/Meta announces changes to ad-targeting choices for advertisers

Net Politics

CFR experts investigate the impact of information and communication technologies on security, privacy, and international affairs.2-4 times weekly.

Meta, previously known as Facebook, announced significant changes to itsad-targetingfor advertisers which will take effect on January 19, 2022.The goal of the changes is to preventad-targetingfrom being abused by advertisers and comes after Metas advertising business has increasingly comeunder fire.Advertisers will no longer be able to target consumers based oncategorieslike sexual orientation, race, gender, and political beliefs.The decision is likely to upset advertisers at a time when the companys revenue has alreadyfallensignificantly due to privacy changes made by Apple.Both RepublicanandDemocraticstrategists and campaignershave alreadycriticizedthechange,calling it harmful to nonprofit and public affairs advertisers. Metas changes to advertising are among some of the changes it has made to its business model recently, and it remains tobe seenhow advertisers will react.

TSMC and Sony greenlight $7 billion USD chip factory tobe builtin Japan

On November 9, Taiwanese chipmaker TaiwanSemiconductorManufacturingCompany (TSMC)announced it wouldpartnerwithJapanese electronics giantSony to build a chip factory in Japan. The initial investment of the project will be $7 billion USD, of which Sony will contribute $500 million. Mass production from the completed plantis expectedto start at theend of 2024. The joint venture addresses aglobal semiconductor shortagethat hasimpactedproducers across sectors in major economies. This cooperation between Taiwanese and Japanese tech giantshas already garnered strong support from the Japanese government,which wants toincreaseresiliencein its supply chain. TSMC, which is building a $12 billionfabinArizona,is facing increased pressure from some of its largest customers to build new factories intheir home markets.

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Cyber Week in Review: November 12, 2021 - Council on Foreign Relations

YouTube today announced its decision to make the dislike count on videos private across its platform. The decision is likely to be controversial given the extent that it impacts the publics visibility into a videos reception. But YouTube believes the change will better protect its creators from harassment and reduce the threat of what it calls dislike attacks essentially, when a group teams up to drive up the number of dislikes a video receives.

The company says that while dislike counts wont be visible to the public, its not removing the dislike button itself. Users can still click the thumbs down button on videos to signal their dislike to creators privately. Meanwhile, creators will be able to track their dislikes in YouTube Studio alongside other analytics about their videos performance, if they choose.

The change follows an experiment YouTube ran earlier this year whose goal was to determine if these sorts of changes would reduce dislike attacks and creator harassment.

At the time, YouTube explained that public dislike counts can affect creators well-being and may motivate targeted campaigns to add dislikes to videos. While thats true, dislikes can also serve as a signal to others when videos are clickbait, spam or misleading, which can be useful.

YouTube said it had also heard from smaller creators and others who were just getting started on the platform that they felt they were being unfairly targeted by dislike attacks. The experiment confirmed this was true creators with smaller channels were targeted with dislike attacks more than larger creators were.

YouTube declined to share the specific details or the data collected through those experiments when TechCrunch asked, however. But it said it ran its tests for multiple months and conducted in-depth analysis of the impact as to how the changes affected both users and creators alike.

The company had experimented with different designs for removing the dislike counts, including one where the word Dislike appeared underneath the thumbs down button instead of the number of dislikes. This is the design the company has now settled on, which is less of a disruptive change to the row of engagement buttons beneath a video.

Image Credits: YouTube

The company would not be the first major platform to experiment with the idea of reducing the public visibility of signals that convey user sentiment. For similar mental health-related reasons, Instagram a couple of years ago began tests to hide its Like counts globally. It believed the focus on achieving Likes could be detrimental to its community and may make creators less comfortable expressing themselves on the platform. Ultimately, though, neither Facebook nor Instagram could fully commit to a decision and instead put the power to hide Likes back under users control a move that effectively kept the status quo intact.

YouTubes changes to the dislike count are being introduced at a time when theres been a public reckoning over big tech and its impact on mental health, particularly when it comes to minors. Companies have been rethinking how their systems are designed to target and influence their user base, as well as what sort of changes they can make ahead of coming regulations. In a number of markets, lawmakers have been dragging in tech execs to hearings YouTube included and are crafting legislation aimed at reigning in some of techs more problematic elements. Mental health is only one area of regulatory interest, though, along with ad targeting, privacy,algorithmic boosting of misinformation and more.

In YouTubes case, the company has attempted to get ahead of some of the required changes by implementing increased protections and privacy features for users ages 13 to 17 while also decreasing the monetization potential for unhealthy kids content. But the larger shift in the market is also pushing companies to consider the other areas of their platforms that are potentially toxic to broad groups of people.

That said, YouTube told TechCrunch todays removal of the dislike count is not being guided by any regulatory changes, but rather its support for creators.

We are proactively making this change because YouTube has a responsibility to protect creators, especially smaller creators, from harassment and dislike attacks, a spokesperson said.

The company, of course, is also rolling this out when the battle for creator talent is becoming hugely competitive among tech giants. Todays social platforms are establishing funds to retain their top creators amid increased competition, particularly from the growing threat of TikTok. YouTube this year announced a $100 million creator fund to jumpstart its short-form video platform, for example. And, over the past year or so, its introduced several new features and policies aimed at improving the creator experience.

The changes to the dislike count will roll out globally across YouTubes platform starting today, including all devices and the web.

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YouTube is removing the dislike count on all videos across its platform - TechCrunch

As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, surveillance capitalism is the dominant economic institution of our time. In the absence of countervailing law, this system successfully mediates nearly every aspect of human engagement with digital information. The promise of the surveillance dividend now draws surveillance economics into the normal economy, from insurance, retail, banking and finance to agriculture, automobiles, education, health care and more. Today all apps and software, no matter how benign they appear, are designed to maximize data collection.

Historically, great concentrations of corporate power were associated with economic harms. But when human data are the raw material and predictions of human behavior are the product, then the harms are social rather than economic. The difficulty is that these novel harms are typically understood as separate, even unrelated, problems, which makes them impossible to solve. Instead, each new stage of harm creates the conditions for the next stage.

All of it begins with extraction. An economic order founded on the secret massive-scale extraction of human data assumes the destruction of privacy as a nonnegotiable condition of its business operations. With privacy out of the way, ill-gotten human data are concentrated within private corporations, where they are claimed as corporate assets to be deployed at will.

The social effect is a new form of inequality, reflected in the colossal asymmetry between what these companies know about us and what we know about them. The sheer size of this knowledge gap is conveyed in a leaked 2018 Facebook document, which described its artificial intelligence hub, ingesting trillions of behavioral data points every day and producing six million behavioral predictions each second.

Next, these human data are weaponized as targeting algorithms, engineered to maximize extraction and aimed back at their unsuspecting human sources to increase engagement. Targeting mechanisms change real life, sometimes with grave consequences. For example, the Facebook Files depict Mr. Zuckerberg using his algorithms to reinforce or disrupt the behavior of billions of people. Anger is rewarded or ignored. News stories become more trustworthy or unhinged. Publishers prosper or wither. Political discourse turns uglier or more moderate. People live or die.

Occasionally the fog clears to reveal the ultimate harm: the growing power of tech giants willing to use their control over critical information infrastructure to compete with democratically elected lawmakers for societal dominance. Early in the pandemic, for example, Apple and Google refused to adapt their operating systems to host contact-tracing apps developed by public health authorities and supported by elected officials. In February, Facebook shut down many of its pages in Australia as a signal of refusal to negotiate with the Australian Parliament over fees for news content.

Thats why, when it comes to the triumph of surveillance capitalisms revolution, it is the lawmakers of every liberal democracy, especially in the United States, who bear the greatest burden of responsibility. They allowed private capital to rule our information spaces during two decades of spectacular growth, with no laws to stop it.

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Opinion | You Are the Object of Facebooks Secret Extraction Operation - The New York Times

OLYMPIA, Greece What would it be like to walk around the ancient religious sanctuary of Olympia when the Olympic Games were held?

An unusual partnership between Microsoft and Greeces Ministry of Culture and Sport is offering visitors the answer, launching an immersive tour Wednesday at one of the worlds major archaeological sites.

The program at ancient Olympia harnesses augmented reality technology that designers say has the potential to transform education, business and entertainment. Critics warn it will extend theinvasive power of U.S. tech giants.

The culture ministry helped Microsoft map and build virtual representations at Olympia, a site used for nearly a thousand years to host the games in ancient Greece that served as the inspiration for the modern Olympics.

Its a milestone that helped us bring technology and culture and history together so we can preserve it, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a video message at the launch event.

Users can tour the site remotely or in person with an online presentation and an augmented-like mobile app at Olympia, seeing a virtual re-creation of temples and competition areas as they walk through the ruins. At the Olympic Museum in Athens, they can use Microsofts mixed-reality HoloLens headsets that overlay visual information on top of what the viewer sees.

Tilt up and a towering statue of Zeus plated in ivory and gold comes into view; turn left and peer into the workshop used by the famed sculptor Phidias at the ancient sanctuary more than 2,400 years ago.

Im absolutely thrilled that were able to present to the world a completely new cultural experience using technology to re-create the ancient world of Olympia, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told The Associated Press after joining a group of schoolchildren using the app for the first time.

Seventh and eighth-graders from a local school pinched, zoomed and rotated the monuments that had been brought to life on their smartphones, flipping between inside and outside views as they toured the site where athletes in antiquity competed in running, javelin throwing, wrestling, boxing, horse racing and other events.

The app is really impressive. I think it can help with teaching in schools, one of the children, Panagiotis Christopoulos, said.

Microsoft started the project 18 months ago, scouring Olympia with drones and sensors, after reaching an agreement with the Greek government to build three data centers in greater Athens in an investment to reach up to $1 billion.

Tech companies are racing to deliver mixed reality platforms and gear that would blend the internet with everyday experience, with glasses doubling as personal projectors to provide extra information like route options for bicyclists, player stats for fans at sports venues, or virtual fitting rooms at home for shoppers.

Its part of whats being called themetaverse,a futuristic online world aimed at merging real and virtual life.

Microsofts HoloLens headset costs around $3,500 and is typically used by people like doctors or those maintaining jetliners but a convergence of cheaper eyewear, ever-shrinking processing power and faster internet connections is starting to put it within mainstream reach, experts say.

I think were very close to a tipping point where we will see the kind of glasses that feel ordinary and that arent abhorrent in terms of their physical size, said David Rose, author of the new book SuperSight: What Augmented Reality Means for Our Lives, Our Work, and the Way We Imagine the Future.

Theyll have a decent battery life, most of the computing will be in the phone. And I think those will jump to tourism and education and other mainstream things like that, certainly within a couple of years, said Rose, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher and tech product designer.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday,Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugenwarned that themetaversewas likely to become addictive and rob people of yet more personal information.

Rose said augmented reality could add cognitive crutches that would erode personal calculation skills and further segment societies, with each user immersed in their own realities. But despite the dangers, he remains optimistic.

They can be empathy machines and the most powerful educational tool ever invented, he said. They can help with training and helping people develop new skills so that theyre not out of the job. There are so many forces of potential here that I think its mostly exciting.

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Augmented reality project brings Olympics birthplace to life - New York Post

Editors note: This sponsored post was paid for by the USA-India Business Summit.

Atlanta is developing so many areas of technology industry specialization that it can be hard to pinpoint one or two that define the city. This so-called Atlanta problem, however, is an advantage for the 1st Global USA Business Forum, which will address multiple innovation clusters in one event, according to organizers.

Subtitled Leveraging Opportunities in a Globally Digitalized Economy, the Nov. 17-18 virtual forum will spotlight several of Atlantas technology clusters, including manufacturing, innovation, cybersecurity and supply chain. It will present opportunities for companies, universities and organizations to work together to promote innovation and further global business, said co-organizer John McIntyre, executive director of the Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education & Research, or GT-CIBER

The inaugural forum combines the 27th Georgia Tech Global Business Forum and the 12th USA India Business Summit (UIBS) to reach a wider international audience and speaker base, explained co-organizer Ani Agnihotri, program chairman of the UIBS. He added that the forum will present a diversity of speakers in terms of countries, content and subjects, not siloed into one topic, he said.

We have grown up in terms of content and programming; why not play at the global level? Mr. Agnihotri said of the Global USA Business Forum, which he expects to become an annual event. A private, not-for-profit organization by the same name plans to host other symposia throughout the year.

By bringing together people who may not normally talk to each other academics, professionals and business executives the forum will help to aggregate Atlantas strengths and simultaneously develop its multiple innovation clusters, Dr. McIntyre said.

A conference session on The Future of Technologies will address data centers, fintech, healthcare technologies and IT from regional, national and international perspectives and explore opportunities for collaboration among research and business.

Recent announcements in Atlanta by tech giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others setting up offices here contribute to the citys burgeoning technology clusters, said Mr. Agnihotri.

These things are game-changing, he said.

He added that manufacturing technology has also accelerated exponentially, a trend to be explored in a session focused on artificial intelligence and automation as factors in manufacturing competitiveness.

Dev Ahuja, executive vice president and CFO of Atlanta-based aluminum manufacturer Novelis Inc., is the first keynote speaker at the forum who will discuss innovation in manufacturing, followed by a fireside chat on the same topic. CB Velayuthan, global managing director, strategic alliances at EQUINIX, will lead a panel session on Global Trends in Digital Infrastructure & Cyber Security.

Like other cities around the world, Atlanta has been developing its various innovation clusters for some time and is home to a growing number of corporate innovation centers, Dr. McIntyre noted.

Its a process of gestation; you have to have all the pieces, he said, noting that a consultant previously assessed Atlanta as having all the elements for becoming a technology powerhouse except for a strong bohemian index. Regardless, Atlanta has already developed many globally significant innovation districts, Dr. McIntryre said.

Tech Square in Midtown powered by proximity to Georgia Tech, a healthcare corridor around Emory University, and Georgia State Universitys central city where new areas of technology and research are developing, together comprise an innovation district that could rival others like the Oxford Road Corridor in Manchester, United Kingdom; Cambridge innovation centers in the UK and the U.S.; Harvard University innovation centers in Boston; St. Louiss Cortex Innovation Community, and Raleigh-Durhams Research Triangle, he asserted.

The University of Georgias forestry, medicine, pharmaceutical and agricultural research concentrations could also form an innovation district, despite the 90-minute commute from Atlanta to Athens, Dr. McIntyre added.

Is Atlantas model the future of innovation districts? There are plenty of such districts the world over, but the Atlanta way is a different way; its a style of new localism, said Dr. McIntyre, referring to Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowaks book that highlights the power of cities to invest in innovation and development.

The future of innovation districts will be addressed at the 1st Global USA Business Forum by keynote speaker Philip Shapira, professor at Georgia Techs School of Public Policy and professor of management, innovation and policy with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the University of Manchesters Alliance Manchester Business School.

The future of the workforce is also a major theme of the forum, especially as supply chains grapple with post-COVID employment challenges, Dr. McIntyre noted. The issue will be addressed by keynote speaker Victor McCrary, vice chair of the National Science Board and vice president of research and graduate programs at the University of the District of Columbia, who has written about how the U.S. should upscale and rescale talent at the factory level and in service jobs.

The future of the workforce is particularly important, as industries have had to rethink their employment strategies to rescale and upscale since COVID. Up to 30 percent of companies in certain sectors shut down during the pandemic, and survivors are still not out of the woods, Mr. Agnihotri noted.

Cybersecurity factors heavily into the conference, as the topic is a concern across all technology disciplines, plus it is the foundation of Georgia Techs newest academic division, the School of Cyber Security and Privacy, chaired by former College of Computing head Richard DeMillo. Theres every reason in the world for us to focus on this theme, Dr. McIntyre said.

The 1st Global USA Business Forum will be organized into a single track of sessions that all participants may attend, rather than two simultaneous tracks like last years virtual event, which drew some 200 attendees.

Featuring some 38 speakers, this years forum sessions are to include:

These seven topics reflect areas of interest to the advancement of U.S. global business and competitiveness, areas of interest to Georgia and the Southern region, Georgias new technology clusters and Georgia Techs areas of expertise concentrated at Tech Square, Dr. McIntyre pointed out.

The 1st Global USA Business Forum will draw a mixed audience of executives, professionals, consultants, media, lawyers, students and academics, noted Mr. Agnihotri.

While this forum will be presented virtually, future conferences, including possible quarterly symposia, are planned as in-person events, he added.

This timely forum is about creating partnerships and capitalizing on the mutuality of objectives to foster innovation and increase competitiveness and success, Dr. McIntyre said.

Register for the Nov. 17-18 virtual forum here. Contact Mr. Agnihotri at ani@usaindiabusinesssummit.com for more information.

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First Global Business Forum to Spotlight Atlanta's Tech Clusters, Innovation Districts - GlobalAtlanta