Stories from Abroad

The incentives for foreign countries to meddle are much greater than in 2016, and the tactics could look dramatically different.

Starting in early 2020, Google will present a new search provider choice screen to Android users in Europe when first setting up a new phone or tablet. The selection will then be the default search provider that powers the search box on the Android home screen as well as the Chrome browser if installed. Search providers will be required to pay Google each time a user selects them from the choice screen. Inclusion on the choice screen will be determined through a sealed-bid auction, with the top three bidders added alongside Google search.

In the race for tech supremacy, China is betting it can seize the lead by building the world’s biggest 5G wireless networks. To get there, the country is banking on the might of the one-party state, making sure its state-run carriers have access to cheap airwaves and fast, inexpensive approvals for putting up the hundreds of thousands of base stations the fastest wireless technology requires.

For people pondering the potential effects of foreign interference in the 2020 elections here in the United States, it is worth understanding what other democracies are doing to confront the same problem and what lessons can be learned from their experiences. As a 2018 report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put it: "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization

Millions of first-time internet consumers from the Ivory Coast to India and Indonesia are connecting to the web on a new breed of device that only costs about $25. The gadgets look like the inexpensive Nokia phones that were big about two decades ago.

Back in Nov 2018, as the web was turning 30, it's creator, Tim Berners-Lee, announced that he wanted people to help him put together a "contract for the web" that would help strengthen and protect it for generations to come.

I look at the agenda for this conference [Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO) 2019], and there are sessions on promoting 5G, artificial intelligence, and machine learning across the region.  There are discussions on creating safer communities where our citizens are protected from risks ranging from natural disasters to cyberattacks.

For all the promise of digital technologies to promote religious freedom, there are also very real downsides. When it comes to harnessing digital tools to punish religious minorities, the biggest offender is the world’s most populous country: China. China employs significantly more people to violate the rights of their citizens than the United States employs to militarily defend rights like free expression and freedom of assembly. 

President Donald Trump appeared to threaten that his administration would “take a look” at Google, opening an investigation into the search giant out of concern that it has been breached by the Chinese government. “Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel believes Google should be investigated for treason. He accuses Google of working with the Chinese Government.” @foxandfriends  A great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone!

SensTom Cotton (R-AR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), along with Sens Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mitt Romney (R-UT), introduced legislation to reinforce the Trump administration's efforts to prevent the Chinese-owned telecommunication company Huawei from threatening America's national security. The Defending America's 5G Future Act would codify President Donald Trump's recent Executive Order and would prohibit the removal of Huawei from the Commerce Department Entity List without an act of Congress.