China has depicted Washington as the “biggest threat to global cybersecurity”, saying that Washington “knowingly abuses technology” for spying and a range of other purposes.
The United States is seeking to preserve “hegemony in cyberspace” under the false pretext of “national security”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters on Friday, urging the US to “stop its global hacking operations.”
The development came after US President Joe Biden issued a new executive order, purportedly limiting the use of spyware by the American government. Signing the order late last month, Biden banned the use of commercial spyware like Pegasus and Predator, but left ample room for the US to keep using hacking technologies of all sorts.
Hitting back at the US move, Ning said that the recent White House order to crack down on certain surveillance tech would not change the fact that Washington is the “biggest threat” to global cyber-security.
Chinese President Xi Jinping accused Western countries led by America of implementing an all inclusive "containment, encirclement and suppression" of China.
US agencies have targeted foreign states and companies “under the pretexts of national security and human rights without any evidence,” she said, adding that “the US government, in an attempt to maintain its hegemony in cyberspace, knowingly abuses technology for cyber surveillance and theft of secrets.”
Earlier this week, a report in the New York Times revealed that the White House signed a “secret contract” with the Israeli cyber surveillance firm NSO Group through a front company in 2021.
The contract allowed officials to use NSO Group’s ‘Landmark’ geolocation tool to covertly track “thousands” of phone users in Mexico.
The deal also “allows for Landmark to be used against mobile numbers in the United States.”
Despite language in the executive order urging federal agencies to stop employing tools that have been “misused” by governments abroad, the deal with NSO Group “still appears to be active,” the Times reported.
The Israeli firm has come under fire for collaborating with over a dozen foreign governments to target human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers using its powerful ‘Pegasus’ spyware program, including in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The New York Times said in a report last year that the FBI purchased access in 2019 to Pegasus, which invades mobile phones and mines their contents.
Nvidia would be barred from shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China under bipartisan legislation unveiled Thursday, Bloomberg reported. A Chinese expert said the move is shortsighted, noting that tightening restrictions despite domestic industry opposition will only accelerate China’s tech innovation and further diminish Nvidia’s chances of reentering the Chinese market.
Known as the Secure and Feasible Exports Act, the bill would order the US Commerce Department to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries, including China and Russia for at least 30 months. Any processors more powerful than those already approved for export to those nations would be subject to the measure, the Bloomberg report said.
The legislation comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the....more below
A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent's analysis of public court records.
The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence ...
Hundreds of retired Israeli police officers have urged the regime’s president, Isaac Herzog, to reject Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a pardon in corruption cases.
On November 30, Netanyahu, who faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of public trust in three separate cases, submitted a formal pardon request to the office of Herzog, claiming the long-running corruption cases were tearing the regime apart.
In a letter to Herzog, about 400 former officers, including ex-commissioners and deputy commissioners, said Netanyahu’s request contains “not even a hint of admission of guilt,” making it unacceptable.
They warned that “such a step without [Netanyahu’s] confession and remorse is liable to ignite severe violence in Israeli society.”.....more below
