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China’s double mission to Jupiter an Uranus analyzed

Dimitris Kallimanis
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China’s double mission to Jupiter an Uranus analyzed

China’s Double Mission Defined

Dubbed Tianwen 4, it will include a larger spacecraft destined for Jupiter and a smaller spacecraft sent flying from distant Uranus. The pair will launch from a Long launch vehicle on March 5 and perform one flyby of Venus and two flybys of Earth to launch the spacecraft into orbit toward the outer solar system before separating and heading to their respective destinations.

Relevant information was given by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) at an international astronautical conference in Paris.

The scientific goals of the mission are still under discussion, according to Space.com. The main spacecraft will study the Jupiter system and eventually orbit the satellite Callisto. The smaller craft will attempt a close pass by Uranus.

China launched its first interplanetary mission in 2020, sending the Tianwen 1 spacecraft and the Zhurong rover to Mars. This mission was awarded a few days ago by the International Astronautical Federation during the astronautical conference in Paris. The 240 kg solar-powered Zhurong rover is currently in hibernation until the Martian winter passes in the northern hemisphere. It is expected to resume its activities in December or January, when it will be able to receive more solar radiation.

China is planning the complex Tianwen 3 mission to launch in 2028, intending to bring the rover’s collected samples back to Earth. It will be preceded in 2025 by the Tianwen 2 mission to collect a sample from asteroids and return it to Earth.

China's double mission
Artemis on the moon

The Great Phenomena of Japan’s Discover of a Drop of Water 

In the grains of dust collected by the Japanese craft Hayabusa-2 from the asteroid Ryugu and sent to Earth, a drop of water was found – among other things – as announced by Japanese scientists. This discovery strengthens the theory that life may have developed in space and then transferred to our planet from outside when asteroids or comets with water “bombarded” the Earth.

“This drop of water is of great importance. Many researchers believe that the water was transported (from space). We actually discovered water on Ryugu, a near-Earth asteroid, for the first time,” lead researcher Tohoku University Tohoku Nakamura told AFP. The analyzes so far show the finding of organic materials and some amino acids, which are the building blocks of life.

However, according to many analysts, in addition to scientific curiosity and the irresistible attraction that space exerts on people, the intensifying involvement with space partly hides the acknowledged or unacknowledged military and business goals of an increasing number of states, which feel insecure with similar space activities. Initiatives of their competitors and realize that they risk being left behind.

Features and Characteristics of Competition Programs

China does not hide that it wants to become a competitor to the space dominance of the USA, while Putin’s Russia promotes space programs as in the past of the Soviet Union. Europe, slowly but surely, is increasing its space “footprint”, as is Japan, which has the terrestrial anxiety of neighbouring China and North Korea.

Even though it seems the competition is spreading. The United Arab Emirates wants to establish itself as the first space country in the Arab world, and Israel wants to go to space for prestige reasons. Not only that, South Korea wants the same (because of North Korea), while India is ramping up its space ambitions, mainly due to geostrategic competition with China and Pakistan.

Future Usage

The largest will be NASA’s Artemis 1 unmanned mission, the first stage in the return of American astronauts – including the first woman to walk on the moon. A few years later, the original goal of 2024 is probably no longer achievable.

In the second half of 2022, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will make a second attempt to land on the moon with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft after the failure of the previous one in 2019, which crashed on the moon due to a software error. India’s lunar rover Vikram is this time planned to explore the polar lunar environment.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will send a rover near the moon’s equator. At the same time, the United Arab Emirates plans to send to the moon this fall – it will be the first Arab country – the rover Hakuto-R (made by the Japanese company ispace) and the Rashid rover (built by the UAE in Dubai).

Taiwan electric scooter firm Gogoro delaying China expansion

4i-mag team
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Taiwan electric scooter firm Gogoro delaying China expansion
By Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwanese electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc is delaying its expansion plans in China due to geopolitical and economic uncertainty there and putting more focus on India and Indonesia, its chief financial officer told Reuters on Friday.

As well as making its own vehicles, Gogoro has electric battery and other partnerships with vehicle makers including India’s Hero MotoCorp and China’s Dachangjiang Group and Yadea Group Holdings.

Gogoro, known for its green-hued battery swap distribution network for riders, has ambitious plans, seeing potential to replace vast fleets of heavily-polluting, gasoline-powered scooters with electric two-wheelers as Asia’s metropolises bid to improve air quality.

Electric scooter: The future

Gogoro’s CFO Bruce Aitken said that while almost all their revenue was currently generated in Taiwan, they are looking to diversify internationally, with the biggest market for two-wheelers being China, India and Indonesia.

But with China – whose economy has slowed because of repeated lockdowns to control COVID-19 and where Beijing is locked in trade and political disputes with Washington – “there are all the geopolitical issues, there are all the China macroeconomic issues,” Aitken said.

“There’s so much uncertainly, I think I would say, with regards to the China market in general that we’re delaying our expansion plans until we have a bit more certainty and a bit more viability into what follows,” he said.

“We’re taking an optimistic but cautionary kind of a perspective with regards to a further roll out in China as a result of the current situation there.”

With China being a challenging place, Gogoro is looking at its plans elsewhere, Aitken said.

“India and Indonesia therefore become very appealing marketplaces.”

But the company does not expect more significant international income until 2024 and beyond, he said.

Partnership with Foxconn

In Taiwan, Gogoro has a partnership with Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple Inc iPhones but with its own huge electric vehicle ambitions.

Aitken said there was potential to do a lot more with Foxconn, whose EV plans do not include two-wheelers at present, concentrating instead on sedans, buses and trucks.

“We do not have aspirations right now, specifically, to get into the four-wheeled space ourselves, so there’s no competition there.”

A new European political party is led by an Artificial Intelligence

George Mavridis
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A new European political party is led by an Artificial Intelligence

Synthetic Party is the first Danish political group led by an Artificial Intelligence chatbot responsible for writing the party’s political program.

The party hopes to have a parliament seat in Denmark soon, and so far, it has already managed to arouse everyone’s interest.

The art collective Computer Lars and the non-profit art-technology organization MindFuture Foundation founded the Synthetic Party in May, claiming that this innovative political group embodies the values ​​of 20% of the country’s population.

Asker Staunæs, one of the party’s founders, said the chatbot is programmed based on the policies of Denmark’s fringe parties after 1970.

“We’re representing the data of all fringe parties, so it’s all of the parties who are trying to get elected into parliament but don’t have a seat. So it’s a person who has formed a political vision of their own that they would like to realize, but they usually don’t have the money or resources to do so,” Staunæs underlined. “As people from Denmark, and also, people around the globe are interacting with the AI, they submit new perspectives and new textual information, which we collect in a dataset that will go into the fine-tuning. So that way, you are partly developing the AI every time you interact with it”.

Political party
Synthetic Party – Official Website Print Screen
Poltical Party
ASKER STAUNÆS

Discuss with the leader on… Discord!

This AI chatbot, the leader of the Synthetic Party, is called “Leader Lars”, and citizens can chat with it on Discord. To discuss with “Leader Lars” and ask questions, citizens should start their sentence with the sign “!”, and that is the signal recognized by the AI chatbot to respond.

The chatbot understands English but only responds in Danish. Its name won’t appear on the ballots because the law doesn’t yet allow it, but that doesn’t worry party supporters.

Although Leader Lars is programmed based on Danish fringe party politics of the last 40 years, it also collects data by talking to people on Discord and is constantly evolving.

Among other things, the Synthetic Party wants to establish a universal basic income of 100,000 Danish kroner per month ($13,700) and to create a jointly-owned internet and IT sector in the government that is on par with other public institutions.

A movement toward the future

For the Synthetic Party to participate in the Danish national elections, it needs 20,000 signatures. At the moment, however, the party has only 11 signatures, and, likely, it will only be able to participate if it increases its popularity.

Such a possibility, however, does not seem to discourage the creators of the party. Staunæs stated that they are already in contact with other organizations worldwide, in countries such as Colombia and Moldova, to create corresponding parties with AI chatbot leaders and the ultimate goal of creating an international organization.

The MindFuture Foundation founded the Synthetic Party and is also behind the non-profit tech organization “Life with Artificials“.

According to its official website, “the association Life with Artificials is a non-profit art and tech organization driven by people who are passionate about investigating new possibilities and dilemmas at the cross-section between humans and technologies by deploying a combination of software, coding, and art. We want to provoke awareness about the dilemmas and risks humanized next-generation technology poses and spur debates about the use and potential of AI. We aim to examine how the use of next-generation algorithms existentially and ethically affects our human lives”.

It is clear that the Synthetic Party is just the first step, and the people behind this innovative and very unique political party movement are visioning a world where Artificial Intelligence plays a significant role in both political party and social issues. It remains to be seen whether their vision will find supporters and how quickly a futuristic scenario in which an AI chatbot will speak inside a parliament becomes a reality.

Digital nomads: three non-European countries to try out

Alessio Caprodossi
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Digital nomads: three non-European countries to try out

If there is one positive aspect exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is the conception of office work, which before the global lockdown was considered sacred by almost all companies. Repeated lockdowns have shown that companies can get by without necessarily filling desks in their buildings (with the consequent savings on rent and consumption), leading to a surge of smart workers and freelancers free to work wherever they want. This blossoming opened up a new perspective for the tourism industry, which was forced to reinvent itself after the pandemic. With work becoming a hook to attract travellers, visas for digital nomads were born, a category that is spreading rapidly and steadily.

Documents in order and an immaculate criminal record, as well as a guaranteed minimum income from foreign companies and health coverage at one’s own expense (and for spouses and children, if any) are generally the three elements around which many countries are developing their offers to freelancers and smart workers. Who, for their part, have the possibility of choosing where to go to work, planning trips that at least initially may vary from six to twenty-four months.

On the other hand, there are many economic and other advantages for countries targeting this category of travellers. As long-term tourists, digital nomads do not threaten local workers because they cannot be hired by local companies, while with house rents, utilities, food, and leisure activities they turn the country’s economy around. With their skills, they also tend to raise the level of local communities through their daily exchange with residents.

Looking at the opportunities for Europeans in the rest of the world, we see what they offer and what it takes to move to other continents, reviewing the digital nomad visas offered by Costa Rica, Malaysia and Colombia.

Digital Nomads
Malaysia Kuala Lumpur (credit @visabio)
Digtial Nomads
Costa Rica (credit Visit Costa Rica)
Remote Working
Colombia (credit Saul Mercado from Unsplash)
Remote working
Colombia (credit Flavia Carpio from Unsplash)

COSTA RICA

Sun, beaches and sea, but also biodiversity, political-economic stability (even the army has been abolished) and the purchasing power of a salary paid by a European or multinational company. These are more than good reasons to consider Costa Rica as an ideal destination for smart workers. It is no coincidence that in recent years they have flocked in large numbers to the country of pura vida, listed in the top 10 best countries for digital nomads by InsureMyTrip, the global leader for websites specialising in travel insurance.

With tourists frequently visiting the country, it was decided to introduce the Digital Nomads Visa (DNV), which allows international residents to work remotely for a period ranging from 90 days to 12 months, with the possibility of renewal for the second year (one must stay in the country at least 180 days in the first year). With a high degree of connectivity, a year-round warm climate and a good air network, Costa Rica is a popular and coveted destination.

Digital nomads here can open a bank account at domestic banks and are not required to pay taxes, as they have to prove that they get their income from a foreign company. Benefits include the exemption of customs taxes on electronic devices needed for work, but also the possibility of using the driving power of the country of origin for the entire stay in the Central American country.

To obtain the DNV one must apply immigration sub-category of Stay (Estancia) for Remote Workers and Service Providers and demonstrate a net stable income of at least $3,000 per month (rising to $4,000 in the case of relocation of other family members). In addition there is the deposit of $100 in a government account and the delivery of the required documents accompanied by a Spanish translation made by translators recognised by the country.

Malaysia

Last September, Malaysia also joined the list of countries that provide a face for digital nomads, through the De Rantau programme. Unlike in the past when one could stay in the country for a maximum of 90 days, one can now plan a long-term move by applying for a 12-month visa, renewable for another year. The tropical climate, spectacular beaches and many special places (such as Langkawi, the island in the north of the country that is surrounded by 99 other smaller islands, and Bako National Park, located in Kuching and a gem of Malaysian Borneo, which I visited in 2012 to my surprise and satisfaction) are a strong attraction for smart workers, who benefit from the low cost of living in the Asian country.

From Kuala Lumpur to Penang and Malacca, Malaysia’s cities are a safe haven, where the crime rate is low, while cafés and coworking facilities abound not only in the most tourist destinations of a country where Wi-Fi is widespread almost everywhere, especially in the big centres. Another aspect to evaluate is the large community of smart workers in the country, which is undoubtedly a help for those who decide to head for Asia (considering that Thailand and Indonesia have already been favourite destinations for freelancers for many years).

Smart workers are required to have an employment contract of more than three months with a non-Malaysian company and an annual income of more than USD 24,000 per year. Freelancers working in the IT and digital marketing sector, on the other hand, can also work for local companies, although they have to prove agreements with foreign companies as well. To apply for the Professional Visit Pass, issued by DE Rantau Nomad Pass, the application is made online and you have to pay the 1,000 ringgit (about 250 euro) fee plus an additional 500 ringgit for each of the family members interested in coming to Malaysia.

Digital Nomads
Costa Rica (credit Visit Costa Rica facebook’s page)
Remote Working
Costa Rica – Dominical, Puntarenas Province, Savegre de Aguirre, Costa Rica (credit @feelhealflow)
Digital Nomads
Colombia – Bogotà (credit Michael Baron from Unsplash)
Digital Nomads
Costa Rica (credit Visit Costa Rica)

COLOMBIA

The most recent news comes from Colombia, which after witnessing the arrival of many smart workers over the past five years, on 22 October the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially activated the digital nomad visa. The good news is that unlike in most countries, the road here is very cheap, as the minimum guaranteed monthly income is set at $750. Predictably, then, such a low threshold will trigger a small invasion of digital nomads between Bogotá, Medellin and Cali.

After all, the country has been at the centre of a digital revolution for years, with many startups that are also setting up operations outside its borders and helping to renew the image of a country that in many cases abroad is still only seen as the home of drug traffickers. The affordable cost of living combined with the focus on culture in places like Medellin, also known as the City of Eternal Spring due to its favourable climate, is the best attraction for smart workers.

The ambitions of the Colombian government, moreover, are clear: to make the country the main South American hub for digital nomads, who find here a cutting-edge digital scene thanks also but not only to the incubators that grow young local businesses. That is why even those on the Digital Nomad Visa are allowed to start a business in the digital sector. In addition to a valid passport, in order to apply for the visa, which is valid for two years and allows you to stay in Colombia for a maximum of six months per year, you need health insurance and a letter from your employer proving employment and guaranteed salary.

Crypto needs oversight to avoid harming Americans, White House says

4i-mag team
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Crypto needs oversight to avoid harming Americans, White House says
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cryptocurrencies risk harming everyday Americans without proper oversight and the latest news involving crypto underscores these concerns, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.

She said the White House will continue to monitor developments on cryptocurrencies.

“The administration has consistently maintained that, without proper oversight of cryptocurrencies, they risk harming everyday Americans,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“This is something that clearly we monitor and that we see as an important issue. The most recent news further underscores these concerns and highlights why prudent regulation of cryptocurrencies is indeed needed,” she said.

A possible ransomware threat in Microsoft’s OneDrive and SharePoint. Here is what you need to know.

Kristi Shehu
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A possible ransomware threat in Microsoft’s OneDrive and SharePoint. Here is what you need to know.

A few months ago, it was reported a “potentially dangerous piece of functionality” on Microsoft that allows an attacker to attack cloud infrastructure and ransom files stored in SharePoint and OneDrive.

Researchers warn that attackers can abuse Microsoft Office 365 functionality to target files stored on SharePoint and OneDrive in ransomware attacks.

Files stored in the auto-save mode and backed up in the cloud, specifically on SharePoint and OneDrive, could be vulnerable to ransom attacks, researchers from Proofpoint said in the report released last week.

“Proofpoint has discovered a potentially dangerous piece of functionality in Office 365 or Microsoft 365 that allows ransomware to encrypt files stored on SharePoint and OneDrive in a way that makes them unrecoverable without dedicated backups or a decryption key from the attacker,” according to researchers.

A description of the attack

The attack chain assumes the worst and starts with an initial compromise of an Office 365 user’s account credentials. Then continues to get access to the user’s account, and therefore all the files are autosaved or stored in SharePoint or OneDrive.

The possibility of an attacker encrypting previous versions of a file stored online minimizes the likelihood of a successful ransomware attack since that file is a late version of the updated and latest file on the cloud. This is a big deal, argues Proofpoint, because tools such as cloud backups via Microsoft’s “auto-save” feature have been part of a best-practices for preventing a ransomware attack. Considering how many versions of a file are saved on OneDrive and SharePoint should reduce the possibility of an attack.

But Proofpoint researchers say these precautions can be overcome if an attacker manages to modify the version limits, allowing the attacker to encrypt all known versions of a file.

“Most OneDrive accounts have a default version limit of 500 [version backups]. An attacker could edit files within a document library 501 times. Now, the original (pre-attacker) version of each file is 501 versions old, and therefore no longer restorable,” researchers wrote. “Encrypt the file(s) after each of the 501 edits. Now all 500 restorable versions are encrypted. Organizations cannot independently restore the original (pre-attacker) version of the files even if they attempt to increase version limits beyond the number of versions edited by the attacker. In this case, even if the version limit was increased to 501 or more, the file(s) saved 501 versions or older cannot be restored,” they wrote.

The tricky part is that if an attacker manages to compromise a user’s account, this attacker can abuse the versioning mechanism found under the list settings, affecting all the files in the document library. The versioning setting can be modified without administrator privilege; attackers can leverage this by creating too many file versions or encrypting the file more than the versioning limit. For instance, if the reduced version limit is set to 1, the attacker encrypts the file twice. “In some cases, the attacker may exfiltrate the unencrypted files as part of a double extortion tactic, ” said researchers

Steps to Secure Microsoft Office 365

Proofpoint recommends users enhance the security measures for their Office 365 accounts by enforcing a strong password policy, enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA), and regularly maintaining the external backup of sensitive data. The researcher also suggested the ‘response and investigation strategies that should be implemented if a configuration change happens.

  • Increase the restorable versions for the affected document libraries.
  •  Identify the high-risk configuration that is altered and previously compromised accounts.
  •  OAuth tokens for any suspicious third-party apps should be revoked immediately.
  •  Hunt for policy violation patterns across cloud, email, web, and endpoint by any user.
  •  “Files stored in a hybrid state on both endpoint and cloud such as through cloud sync folders will reduce the impact of this novel risk as the attacker will not have access to the local/endpoint files,” the researchers said in the report. “To perform a full ransom flow, the attacker will have to compromise the endpoint and the cloud account to access the endpoint and cloud-stored files.”

Meta Layoffs Worldwide

Alessio Caprodossi
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Meta Layoffs Worldwide

Meta has announced the layoffs of 11,000 employees. This is the largest internal restructuring in the history of the former Facebook Inc., the Menlo Park-based company founded in 2004 and renamed Meta last year. The name change is one of the symbols of the new direction of the giant led by Mark Zuckerberg, which in addition to social media, also includes Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. After the personal data violation scandals (the Cambridge Analytica case was the most striking, but not the only one) and the accusations by whistleblower Frances Haugen on prioritising profits over mental health, especially of younger users, Zuckerberg chose Meta to break with the past and prioritise the development of the Metaverse. Which right now represents the biggest hole in the corporate accounts. 

The Metaverse

The desire to develop the infrastructure for the virtual reality frontier of the future in which avatars will replicate our activities has created many problems within Meta. The ten-year plan with annual investments of over 10 billion must convince the shareholders or employees. Several US media outlets have seen internal documents in which Meta’s engineers spoke of the Metaverse as a “sad and empty world“. At the same time, investors such as Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital (which holds about 2 million Meta shares), sent a letter to Zuckerberg asking him to right the ship. With some targeted interventions, such as reducing the workforce and a less central role for the Metaverse, since ‘planning $100 billion investments in an unknown future is terrifying even by Silicon Valley standards. 

Layoffs 

With more than 60 per cent of its share value burned during 2022 and Facebook’s first historic drop in users last February, Meta decided to lay off 13 per cent of its workforce. Having grown by leaps and bounds during the pandemic, when the surge in e-commerce prompted Zuckerberg to expand the workforce to 87,000, the slimming down cure is the most obvious response to the economic uncertainty hanging over the entire tech sector. Meta’s cuts make more noise but follow layoffs announced by Twitter, Salesforce, Stripe and Lyft, while Amazon is considering a hiring freeze despite the upcoming Black Friday and holiday season. 

Zuckerberg’s mistakes

“I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that, but we need to become leaner and more efficient,” Zuckerberg wrote in his letter to employees. They will receive 16 weeks’ salary, plus an additional two weeks for each year spent in Meta and health care coverage for the whole family for the next six months. 

Staff cuts in all countries

Although the vast majority of the cuts are in the US offices, Meta is also progressively reducing its work teams in the rest of the world. For example, 22 redundancies have been announced in Italy out of 127 employees. While priority activities such as Reels, advertising for companies and algorithms remain untouchable, those who will leave their jobs are the recruiting, communication and marketing staff. The company plans to reach an agreement with the trade unions to try to find a relocation for those removed from their jobs. 

Indonesia plans to tighten oversight of crypto market

4i-mag team
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Indonesia plans to tighten oversight of crypto market
By Gayatri Suroyo

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia plans to move the regulation, supervision and oversight of cryptocurrency investments to the Financial Service Authority (OJK) to better protect investors, its finance minister said on Thursday.

Currently, the Trade Ministry and the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency jointly oversee cryptocurrency in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, where there has been a boom in such investments.

The new plan, laid out by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, is part of financial sector legislation that is being debated in parliament.

The use of cryptocurrency assets as a means of payment is illegal in Indonesia, but transactions for investment are allowed in the commodities market.

Sri Mulyani said as of June, there were 15.1 million cryptocurrency investors in the country, an exponential rise from just 4 million in 2020. That compared with 9.1 million investors in the stock market as of June.

Mechanism of supervision

“We need to build a mechanism of supervision and investor protection that is quite strong and reliable especially for investment instruments that are high risk,” she told a parliamentary hearing, noting that the cryptocurrency market has faced turbulence recently.

The new bill would empower OJK to regulate and supervise “digital asset activities, including crypto assets and financial sector technology innovation,” Sri Mulyani added.

Parliament officially submitted the bill to the government in September. Thursday’s meeting was to present the government’s first response and any additions to the proposed bill.

The bill will be passed into law after both the legislative and executive branches agreed on all provisions.

Parliament’s proposals also contain provisions to widen the central bank’s mandate to include economic growth in addition to price stability.

Sri Mulyani said she supported the proposal, but also underlined the importance of the independence of financial regulators, especially that of BI.

“It is important for us to continue to provide signals that independence and credibility of institutions … are strengthened and maintained because this is the most important asset to maintain financial system stability,” she said.

Ikea experiments with deliveries between warehouses on autonomous trucks

Antonino Caffo
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Ikea experiments with deliveries between warehouses on autonomous trucks

Ikea experiments with deliveries between warehouses on autonomous trucks

Ikea has partnered with Kodiak Robotics, an autonomous driving company, to test driverless deliveries from its warehouses in the United States. Since August this year, an independent Kodiak heavy-duty truck has been delivering furniture daily from an Ikea distribution centre near Houston to a retail shop in Dallas. Although the truck has a backup driver behind the wheel, responsible for picking up the trailer and supervising the delivery, the truck autonomously travels long stretches of the highway during its 480 km one-way trip. With this partnership, Ikea hopes to understand better how autonomous deliveries can make long-haul journeys safer and lead to better working conditions for truck drivers. 

“We are proud to work with Kodiak to achieve our ambitious goals of being at the forefront of innovation and capacity building for future transport,” said Dariusz Mroczek, Category Area Transport Manager, Ikea Supply Chain Operations. “Kodiak’s technology will contribute to our goal of putting the driver at the centre of the transition to automated transport and our road safety agenda”.

Although Kodiak’s vehicles are not electric, an earlier study by UC San Diego on another company’s vehicles shows that autonomous trucks are about 10 per cent more efficient than their traditional counterparts. According to Forbes, the two companies have agreed on a three-month pilot programme, but if all goes well, they could sign a multi-year deal that will cater to many Ikea shops and warehouses. The Swedish brand has also embraced technological advances in recent months. In June, it launched a new artificial intelligence-based app that can scan rooms using Lidar sensors to create 3D home replicas to integrate and try out Ikea furniture. The company also signed an agreement to install Electrify America’s quick chargers in more than 25 of its shops in the US. 

This is not Kodiak’s first self-driving program. The company has been running freight in Texas with its autonomous test trucks since 2019 and recently opened a new route between Dallas and Oklahoma City. Kodiak has also conducted pilot tests with logistics giants Werner Enterprises US Xpress, which operate self-driving trucks from Dallas to Lake City, Florida and Atlanta, respectively.

Cyber War: China and Taiwan

Sunny Um
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Cyber War: China and Taiwan

The United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan made headlines in the region before and after the landing on 2 August.

A few days before her trip, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned U.S. President Joe Biden over the phone, saying, “Whoever plays with fire will get burnt”. Within an hour of Pelosi’s arrival, China announced to conduct of military drills in the air and the waters around Taiwan. The exercises were supposed to end by 7 August, but China continued them until the day after. 

Beijing sees Taipei as a part of its territory and wants to “peacefully unify” it with its mainland. However, the Taiwanese government favours independence, as it has its constitution and leaders elected through democratic systems. 

To reporters asking about the purpose of the visit, Pelosi responded that her meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was to “preserve democracy”. 

Security Experts

The U.S. has been abiding by the “One China Principle”, which argues there is only one government in China, and that is Beijing. Still, Taiwan has been seen as a part of the “first island chain”, territories that have friendly stances toward the U.S. Also, reports saying that China may be able to assert its power in the Pacific region once it incorporates Taiwan into its mainland, which can threaten American military bases in Guam and Hawaii, may have worried U.S. security experts.

China’s disapproval of Pelosi’s visit was apparent in the physical environment and the cyber world. During Pelosi’s trip, Taiwanese government websites and a popular convenience store brand were under cyber-attacks from China. 

Recent Cyber-Attacks on Taiwan

Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister, said that the number of cyber-attacks on government websites had surpassed 15,000 gigabits before and after Pelosi’s arrival, 23 times bigger than the average volume.

Before the arrival, several government websites in Taiwan were under distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. The websites of the Defence Ministry, Office of the President and more significant government agencies or bodies were temporarily out of service. In September, the Taiwan defence ministry, presidential office, and other government websites again experienced disruptions in their service due to cyber-attacks. 

Cyber war China Taiwan
Joshua Fernandez S unsplash

Although Taiwan authorities could not identify the criminals in detail, they said the attacks originated from overseas — China and Russia. It’s not confirmed if the Chinese government has been directly involved in these attacks. Experts of SANS Technology Institute, a cybersecurity research organisation, said that the attacks are likely to be the work of Chinese hackers based on their “uncoordinated, random, moral-less” behaviours.

On 3 August, a day after Pelosi’s arrival, some branches of 7-11 convenience stores, the biggest convenience store brand in Taiwan, also experienced cyber-attacks. The television screens behind the cashiers at some stores showed the message: “Warmonger Pelosi, get out of Taiwan!” 

The authorities again did not accuse China of the attacks. Still, they said that the attacked stores had used Chinese software that perhaps had security holes or contained critical viruses, such as Trojan malware.

Chinese Influences in Taiwan

Cyber-attack on Taiwan is not news. Every month, Taiwan suffers from 20 to 40 million cyber-attacks, many of which are allegedly launched in China, according to the Cyber Security Department of Taiwan. The department said there were 360 successful attacks on government systems in 2017 alone, and 288 were from China.

Dr Crystal D. Pryor, Vice President of the Pacific Forum, pointed out that Taiwan’s cybersecurity landscape is different from other countries for several reasons in his paper “Taiwan’s Cybersecurity Landscape and Opportunities for Regional Partnership”.

Dr Pryor first mentioned Taiwan and China use the same language: Chinese. Not only that, Taiwan shares many cultural elements and economic aspects with the mainland, which makes it more “susceptible” to Chinese influence. China’s view of Taiwan – a “renegade province” – is another factor that makes Taiwan a more vulnerable target of Chinese cyber-attacks.

Also, as mentioned earlier, China’s cyber-attack on Taiwan has not recently started. The first documented cyber war between the two countries dates to August 1999, dubbed the “Taiwan-China Hacker War”.

It started when Lee Teng-hui, then-President of Taiwan, called the relationship between Taiwan and China “state-to-state relations”, which is against the One China Principle. Chinese hackers then tried to either slow down or shut off the websites of Taiwanese government bodies, universities, companies, and the American Institute in Taiwan. According to a report, Taiwan’s national computer networkers then experienced more than 160 infiltrations.

Although Taiwan has been trying to bolster its cyber defence capabilities against Chinese hackers by asking for outside help, there have been challenges and limitations due to their political status. The global police agency forced Taiwan to leave as China joined as a member in 1984. As of today, only 15 nations acknowledge Taiwan as an independent country. What’s worse, Taiwan is not allowed to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations, “thus limiting the country’s ability to coordinate with cyber investigators in other countries”, Dr Pryor wrote.

Lastly, Dr Pryor added that cyber-attacks had been one of China’s most common alternative operations to deter Taiwan, as China avoids conducting any military actions against it.

Taiwan Plans to Level Up Its Cyber Defence

Dr Pryor said that the previous attacks from China encouraged Taiwan to become more aware of “good cybersecurity practices”, however. Taiwan invests in promoting cybersecurity businesses and training programmes for aspiring cybersecurity specialists.

The cybersecurity market in Taiwan is now growing at an unprecedented rate. A report expected the compound annual growth rate of Taiwan’s cybersecurity market to be 9.1 per cent on average from 2016 to 2022, outperforming the global average of 8.1 per cent. The market volume of Taiwan’s cybersecurity was $1.6 billion in 2020.

There are 350 cybersecurity companies in Taiwan, with over 9,000 employees directly working in the industry. IT Home’s cybersecurity investment survey in 2021 also shows that six out of 10 companies in Taiwan invested in cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity Capabilities

The government is also committed to strengthening Taiwan’s cybersecurity capabilities. 

Shortly after the websites were down before and after Pelosi’s visit, the authorities told the reporters that the government is now working with cybersecurity professionals to enhance their capabilities.

Lo Ping-cheng, Spokesman of the Taiwan Cabinet, said that the government also strengthened the security of key infrastructures, such as power plants and airports. It also increased cybersecurity alertness across government bodies in preparation for foreign attacks.

There has been a change in Taiwan’s budget for next year. Taiwan is raising the defence budget by 15 per cent in 2023. Reports say that Taiwan will focus on deterring China’s cyber operations against Taiwan, including data leakage, misinformation, and espionage. The government is also establishing an agency dedicated to cybersecurity under the Ministry of Digital Affairs.

Taking a step further, Taiwan is looking for satellite internet service solutions to keep the internet up and running in the worst-case scenarios, like China’s invasion of Taiwan, according to the reports. 

Taiwan currently relies on undersea data cables to be connected to international internet traffic; if these cables are cut off, they will be disconnected from the internet. Digital minister Tang said that Taiwan plans to invest almost $25 million in a satellite programme to maintain Taiwan’s networks even if the conventional internet cables get disconnected. 

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