The White House is relying on more than an executive order to bolster online security. The Biden administration has issued a National Cybersecurity Strategy meant to "rebalance" responsibilities toward the larger companies and organizations best-equipped to handle threats. The initiative will most notably expand the use of minimum security standards for critical infrastructure, and establish a common set of regulations to make it easier to comply with that baseline. 

Accordingly, the administration also wants improved public-private alliances that can more effectively defend infrastructure. The federal government would also modernize its networks and response policies to safeguard against threats.

Companies may also be on the hook for sloppy behavior. The strategy would shift some liability for software and services to developers that ignore recommended cybersecurity practices or ship products with known vulnerabilities. The White House hopes to work with Congress and companies on legislation that bars total liability and sets tougher standards for "specific high-risk scenarios." A safe harbor provision would protect companies that make a sincere effort to develop secure products.

The plan would also invest more in cybersecurity research and workforces. The administration hopes to cut back on "systemic" vulnerabilities at the internet's core, and to adapt to emerging technologies such as postquantum encryption (that is, protection against quantum-based hacks) and digital IDs. Some policies will be largely unchanged. The government will proactively "disrupt and dismantle" threats, including international cooperation on fighting ransomware.

The implementation has already begun, the administration says. As Cyberscooppoints out, though, there's no certainty the strategy will work as promised. The outline largely delegates responsibilities to individual agencies, Congress and in some cases state regulators. The result may not be as harmonious as hoped. It's also unclear if developers will welcome laws that make them liable for security holes. Still, the approach sets expectations for how federal officials will tackle digital threats going forward.

The United States Postal Service isn't pinning all its electrification hopes on next-gen mail delivery vehicles. The service has signed a contract to buy 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vans, with the first units arriving in December. The handover should be complete by the end of 2024, Ford adds. The USPS is also placing its early orders for over 14,000 charging stations for its facilities across the country.

The USPS already plans to buy at least 60,000 of its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) by 2028, with 75 percent of them being electric. The Ford vans are part of an additional plan to buy 21,000 "off-the-shelf" EVs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says this helps the USPS quickly act on a strategy that improves mail service and working conditions while keeping costs down for the self-sufficient agency. The total vehicle investment is expected to cost $9.6 billion, including $3 billion in funding thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

The charging network may not grow as quickly. The USPS expects to provide chargers to at least 75 locations within the next year, but doesn't estimate how it will expand in following years.

The overall EV push represents a sharp break from the initial plans. The USPS originally expected that most of its NGDV orders would be for gas-based trucks. The Biden administration fought that approach, claiming that the USPS under DeJoy ignored Environmental Protection Agency advice, rejected public hearings and relied on "biased" estimates. The service challenged the administration before relenting and shifting most of its purchases to electric models.

The transition will play an important part in the government's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions for itself and the country at large. The USPS represents the largest federal vehicle fleet — its EV purchases will have a significant impact relative to other agencies.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has voted to advance legislation that would give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok in the US along with other apps owned by Chinese companies. The panel approved the the Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries (DATA) Act in a 24-16 vote. All Republicans on the panel were in favor while every Democrat voted against the bill.

There are several more steps that the bill needs to go through before it becomes law. The full House and the Senate would have to pass it, and Biden would have to sign the bill. Still, it's a notable step forward for the latest attempt to ban TikTok in the US entirely.

Republican committee chair Michael McCaul introduced the DATA Act (PDF) only last week. McCaul expects the bill to go to a full house vote later this month, according to Reuters.

The legislation would grant the president the power to enact sanctions, including bans, on any company that the Treasury Secretary deems "knowingly provides or may transfer sensitive personal data of persons subject to United States jurisdiction to any foreign person that is subject to the jurisdiction or direction" of China. The same applies to a foreign person or company that "is owned by, directly or indirectly controlled by, or is otherwise subject to the influence of China."

Democratic members of the Foreign Affairs Committee claimed that the legislation was too broad. It would "damage our allegiances across the globe, bring more companies into China's sphere, destroy jobs here in the United States and undercut core American values of free speech and free enterprise," Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat member, said. He suggested that the legislation as is could lead to sanctions against businesses in Korea and Taiwan that supply semiconductors and other parts to Chinese companies.

"A US ban on TikTok is a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide," TikTok wrote on Twitter. "We're disappointed to see this rushed piece of legislation move forward, despite its considerable negative impact on the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use and love TikTok."

"Congress must not censor entire platforms and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression," American Civil Liberties Union senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a statement. "Whether we’re discussing the news of the day, live streaming protests, or ​​even watching cat videos, we have a right to use TikTok and other platforms to exchange our thoughts, ideas, and opinions with people around the country and around the world." Leventoff called the bill "vague, overbroad and unconstitutional."

TikTok has faced a growing backlash in recent months over concerns that the Chinese government may obtain user data from the app. Owner ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing, but TikTok claims it doesn't share data with the Chinese government. By last summer, TikTok was routing all US data to Oracle servers based in the country. It pledged to delete US users' private data from its own servers.

Nevertheless, the US government has banned the app from federally owned devices, this week giving agencies 30 days to make sure it's gone from phones and tablets they operate. Most US states, the European Union, Canada and Quebec are also preventing their employees from using TikTok on state-owned devices.

TikTok has been trying for years to convince US officials that it's not a threat to national security in an attempt to avert a complete ban. The company's CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23rd to discuss privacy, as well as TikTok's influence on kids and its links to China.

The chair of the Federal Trade Commission has proposed new rules to tackle the scourge of text message scams. If the agency's commissioners approve the rules at a meeting in March, providers would have to block robotexts that are "highly likely to be illegal," chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

The FCC has yet to publish the full text of Rosenworcel's proposal. If adopted, it will force providers to block text messages that appear to be from numbers on a do-not-originate list. They include unused, invalid and unallocated numbers, as well as those that government agencies and "other well-known entities" say they don't send texts from. Messages from these numbers "are highly likely to be illegal and no consumer would want to receive them," an FCC statement reads.

Moreover, providers would have to block texts from entities that the FCC flags for sending illegal robotexts. The proposed rules state that providers would additionally need to expand National Do Not Call Registry protections to include texts to prevent consumers from receiving unwanted marketing messages.

“Missing packages that don’t exist; confirmation of payments that didn’t happen; links to shady websites; and truncated ‘wrong number’ messages from strangers. These scam robotexts are a part of everyday life for too many of us,” Rosenworcel said. “I’m asking my colleagues to join me in adopting the first FCC rules to focus on shutting down scam texts. But we’re not stopping here. Because we are going to keep at it and develop more ways to take on this growing consumer threat.”

The robotext proposal follows measures the FCC has taken to stamp out robocalls. Both issues are on the agenda for the FCC's open meeting next month, along with other items like a proposed framework "for increased collaboration between terrestrial mobile network operators and satellite service providers" to bolster phone service in areas where it is lacking. That could could come in useful for life-or-death situations in remote areas. Certain devices, such as the iPhone 14, now offer satellite connectivity for emergency use.

The Federal Trade Commission is opening a dedicated technology office that will place Silicon Valley under more scrutiny and help it stay on top of emerging tech and trends in a fast-moving market. Commissioners voted 4-0 on Thursday to create the office.

Under the direction of chair Lina Khan, the FTC has trained its focus on tech companies. Last year, Epic Games agreed to a record $520 million settlement following FTC allegations that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The agency has also attempted to block Microsoft's proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard and sued to stop NVIDIA from buying ARM (NVIDIA backed out of the deal).

Moreover, the FTC has looked into Amazon's purchases of One Medical and MGM, according to reports. However, the agency failed in an attempt to block Meta's takeover of Within.

“For more than a century, the FTC has worked to keep pace with new markets and ever-changing technologies by building internal expertise," Khan said in a statement. "Our office of technology is a natural next step in ensuring we have the in-house skills needed to fully grasp evolving technologies and market trends as we continue to tackle unlawful business practices and protect Americans.”

The Office of Technology will support FTC’s investigations by the antitrust and consumer protection divisions into business practices and the tech behind them. It will advise FTC staff and commissioners on policy and research. Additionally, it will shine a spotlight on emerging tech and market trends that affect the FTC's work.

“Actually being able to have staff internally to approach these matters and help with subject matter expertise is critical," FTC chief technology officer Stephanie Nguyen, who will lead the department, told The Washington Post. The agency aims to more than double its number of technology-focused staff from 10 to around 22.

“The areas ... we will focus on is to work on cases,” Ngyuen said. “This means understanding the specific market and business models. This means articulating the platform’s technologies and services. And this means analyzing the competition and key market players.”

With more expertise and a deeper understanding of how tech companies operate, the office could help the agency fine-tune subpoenas and the details of settlements to make them more impactful. The team will help fellow FTC bureaus with other cases (most companies use tech, after all), but its core mandate is to keep a close eye on the tech sector.

The move to create the office and expand the agency's roster of tech experts comes at a time of great upheaval in the industry. Microsoft and Google recently detailed plans to embed AI chatbots into their search engines and other services.

Ford is reportedly days away from sharing a plan to increase its supply of US-made electric vehicle batteries. According to Reuters, the automaker could announce as early as Monday that it’s partnering with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) to build a $3.5 billion iron phosphate battery plant outside of Marshall, Michigan, a small town about 100 miles west of Detroit. Once completed, the facility is expected to employ at least 2,500 workers.

As Bloomberg points out, Ford is moving forward with the project despite uncertainty around how the Treasury Department will interpret President Biden’s landmark climate change bill. Specifically, the Inflation Reduction Act includes language that seeks to prevent automakers from taking advantage of consumer EV tax credits if they make vehicles with batteries made by a “foreign entity of concern.” Congress designed the rules to incentivize automakers to build a domestic supply chain for EV parts instead of relying on China for critical components.

According to Bloomberg, Ford has considered an ownership structure that would see it own the entire plant and nearby infrastructure. Ford employees would also work at the facility. CATL would only own the technology used to create the batteries. It’s an arrangement that could allow batteries made at the facility to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act-related tax credits. “We’ve said that we’re exploring batteries based on CATL’s technology for Ford vehicles and that we plan to localize,” a Ford spokesperson told Bloomberg.

In July, Ford said it would begin sourcing batteries for US-bound 2023 Mustang Mach-E models from CATL. That same month, the company announced it had plans to produce 40 gigawatt hours of battery capacity in North America starting in 2026.

People in Pakistan can once again use Wikipedia, three days after the country blocked the website over content that regulators deemed "sacrilegious." As TechCrunch notes, prime minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered officials to unblock Wikipedia after determining that the ban was “not a suitable measure to restrict access to some objectionable contents/sacrilegious matter on it.” Sharif's office said in a statement that the "unintended consequences of this blanket ban" outweighed the "benefits."

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) "degraded" access to Wikipedia last Wednesday, warning the site's operators that they had 48 hours to remove certain content or face repercussions. Wikipedia apparently demurred and the PTA blocked the site in Pakistan on Friday.

Meanwhile, Sharif is establishing a cabinet committee to "explore and recommend alternative technical measures for removal or blocking access to objectionable content posted on Wikipedia and other online information sites, in view of our social, cultural and religious sensitivities, on the touchstone of proportionality." The committee is also being tasked with offering other suggestions aimed at "controlling unlawful content in a balanced manner." 

Sharif asked the committee to provide the cabinet with recommendations within one week. That doesn't give the committee members much time to fully assess and analyze the many, many considerations that go into content moderation.

Don't worry if the lack of a federal tax credit put you off from buying certain Tesla Model Y variants or other EVs — they might now qualify. The Treasury Department has revised its classification standard to treat more vehicles as SUVs rather than sedans, raising the price threshold from $55,000 to $80,000 and making more EVs eligible for the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) full $7,500 credit under the Inflation Reduction Act. As Autoblogexplains, that should cover five-seat versions of the Model Y (only seven-seaters qualified before) as well as the Cadillac Lyriq, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid and VW ID.4.

The Treasury expanded the classification by using the Environmental Protection Agency's public-oriented Fuel Economy Labeling standard rather than the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). This will help treat crossovers "consistently," the department says. This also helps the credit classifications line up with what you see both on the car label and the US government's FuelEconomy.gov website.

You can claim the full amount for any qualifying EV bought and put into service in 2023, including those that weren't eligible under the CAFE standard. Any vehicle that could receive the credit before will still pass muster, the Treasury says.

The change of heart comes after the IRS invited public comments on a proposed change. Tesla chief Elon Musk encouraged input from his Twitter followers soon afterward. It's unclear how much of a role Tesla's fanbase played, but the decision isn't surprising. Under the old criteria, some of the best-known EVs didn't qualify. The credits were meant to spur EV adoption and further the Biden administration's climate goals — that was going to be harder if customers couldn't get deals on the most popular models.

The Federal Trade Commission has suffered a setback in its attempt to prevent Meta from buying Supernatural developer Within Unlimited. According to Bloomberg, a federal court this week denied the agency’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the purchase. The deal reportedly won’t close for at least another week yet, as the court also issued a temporary restraining order to give the FTC time to decide whether to appeal the ruling.

Engadget could not confirm Bloomberg’s reporting because the court documents announcing the decision are sealed. Meta did not immediately respond to a comment request. The FTC sued the company last July, arguing Meta’s acquisition of Within would reduce competition in the emerging virtual reality market. Within is the creator of Supernatural, one of the most popular VR exercise apps on the Oculus Quest Store. An eight-day trial in December saw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Technology Officer Andrew “Boz” Bosworth testify. During the hearing, Bosworth said Meta could abandon the acquisition if it did not “close in a timely manner.”

With Wednesday’s decision, the FTC must decide whether to move forward with its antitrust case against Meta. The agency has a hearing scheduled for February 13th with its administrative judge. If the FTC chooses to let the order stand, it will mark an early defeat for agency head Lina Khan. President Biden appointed Khan to the FTC for her expertise in antitrust law. The Meta decision could impact the FTC’s effort to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a case where the agency already faces an uphill battle due to the vertical nature of the proposed merger.

The United States government has reportedly stopped issuing licenses that allow companies in the country to export to Huawei, according to The Financial Times. If you'll recall, the Trump administration added the company to the "entity list," making it ineligible from receiving exports from the US without a license. The US commerce department issued some companies like Qualcomm licenses to provide Huawei with American tech unrelated to 5G networks since then — Qualcomm, for instance, supplies Huawei with 4G chips for smartphones. But the government is reportedly looking to impose a total ban on the sale of American tech to the Chinese firm, and this expanded restriction is a step towards making that happen. 

The US government adds companies to the entity list if it believes they are involved in or "pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in, activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States." It has previously accused Huawei of having deep ties with the Chinese government and warned allies that the 5G equipment it makes could be used to spy on other countries and companies. Huawei has repeatedly denied the accusation. 

It's not entirely clear why the US government is moving towards a total ban, if this report is indeed true, but the Biden administration seems to be taking a tougher stance on China compared to its predecessor. Last year, it introduced new rules that prohibit the export of powerful semiconductors that could be repurposed for military use, as well as chipmaking equipment, to China and Russia. One possible reason is that Huawei, The Times says, is backing projects that aim to build a semiconductor supply chain in its country that doesn't rely on imports. A former CIA official also told the publication that the government is probably looking to expand the existing export ban, because Huawei is a totally different company from when it was added to the entity list.

Huawei's focus back then was on 5G technology, but it has since changed gears to prioritize its enterprise and government businesses, including a cloud service, to survive the trade ban. Being added to the blacklist had a huge impact on Huawei's revenues in 2021, but company executive Eric Xu said the manufacturer was able to pull itself "out of crisis mode" in 2022 and expects to go back to "business as usual" this year. A total ban could very well put Huawei back into crisis mode, and it would likely affect the revenues of its US suppliers, as well. That said, the Chinese company might have some time to prepare, depending on when the export licenses that had already been issued will expire.

A commerce department spokesperson didn't confirm whether it has truly stopped issuing licenses to American firms, telling The Times that it "continually assess[es] its policies and regulations." A source told Reuters, however, that US officials are in the midst of crafting new policies that would prohibit shipments to Huawei below the 5G level. The new restrictions would reportedly cover products and components related to 4G, WiFi 6 and 7, AI, as well as cloud and high-performance computing.