The Pentagon has established a new group to investigate UFO sightings. The Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) will succeed the US Navy’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. According to the Defense Department, “AOIMSG will synchronize efforts across the Department and the broader US government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in Special Use Airspace (SUA), and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security.”

The formation of the task force follows the release of a report in June in which the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) examined 144 sightings of “unidentified aerial phenomenon.” Only in one instance were officials able to determine what caused a sighting. For every other incident detailed in that report, ODNI said there was too little data for it to conclude what happened. If the US government were to have any chance at better understanding UFOs, ODNI said it would need to deploy more resources and a standardized approach across various agencies. It would appear the Defense Department has taken that recommendation to heart.

Russia is getting serious with demands that foreign tech companies set up shop within its borders. Reuterssays the country's telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has called on 13 foreign and mostly American companies to launch official Russian presences by 2022 so they can comply with a law that took effect July 1st. The list includes familiar tech names like Apple, Google, Meta (Facebook), Telegram, TikTok and Twitter.

The law demands local offices for "internet companies" with over 500,000 daily users. Some of the companies already have offices, though, and it's unclear just what constitutes an official presence. Those deemed violating the law could be subject to either complete bans or limits on their ads, data gathering and money transfers.

As you might have guessed, the concern is that Russia might use the law to wield more control over those companies and their content. Russia has clashed with Apple multiple times, for instance, including a fine for allegedly abusing App Store dominance — this law might give officials more leverage. The move might also help Russia pressure companies into censoring content the government deems objectionable, such as social media posts backing the political opposition to Putin's regime.

The announcement makes a tricky situation that much more difficult. Russia is a significant market some companies can't always afford to lose but honoring the request could also mean enabling censorship and other rights abuses. Companies may soon have to make decisions that are painful regardless of the outcome.

Electric vehicle (EV) charging stations will be required for all new homes and businesses in the UK starting in 2022, the government announced today. The new measure aims to boost EV adoption in the nation by adding up to 145,000 extra charging points each year. 

 "This will mean people can buy new properties already ready for an electric vehicle future, while ensuring charge points are readily available at new shops and workplaces across the UK — making it as easy as refueling a petrol or diesel car today," the press release states.

The UK government has already backed the installation of over 250,000 charging points, so the new rules would increase that by over 50 percent in the first year alone. Buildings like supermarkets and workplaces are included in the law, along with large scale renovations that will have over 10 parking spaces. However, details of the rules, like specifications and power outputs of the installations, have yet to be released. 

Britain's opposition Labour party noted that London and the southeast part of the country have more charging points "than the rest of England and Wales combined," and the new law doesn't help in that regard. It also said that it doesn't include any provisions that would make EVs more affordable for lower- and middle-income families, the BBC reported.

The UK government aims to completely ban the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2030 — 10 years earlier than planned. The government previously said that it's prepared to spend £500 million (about $660 million) on building EV charging infrastructure in the country.

New York City could soon reduce the chances of AI bias in the job market. The Associated Pressnotes the city's council has passed a bill barring AI hiring systems that don't pass yearly audits checking for race- or gender-based discrimination. Developers would also need greater transparency (including disclosures of automated systems), and provide alternatives like human reviews. Fines would reach up to $1,500 per incident.

The bill was passed November 10th. Departing Mayor Bill de Blasio has a month to sign it into law, but hasn't said whether or not he will. If the measure goes forward, it would take effect in 2023.

A signed law could reduce the chances that AI hiring technology skews candidate pools and the demographics of the resulting employees. Pro-business organizations like the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce are already in favor, suggesting the disclosures are vital for both employers and their talent.

However, there are already concerns an enacted law wouldn't help as much as promised. The Center for Democracy & Technology's Alexandra Givens told the AP the bill doesn't account for other biases, such as ableism or ageism. This also assumes the audits are effective — New York University's Julia Stoyanovich argued the requirements were "very easy to meet." There's a concern the legislation might inadvertently shield employers whose AI platforms have different or harder-to-detect biases.

The US Department of Justice has charged two Iranian hackers for their involvement in a disinformation campaign that targeted American voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election. In October of last year, Seyyed Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian allegedly sent threatening emails to Democratic voters in Florida in which they threatened to physically hurt them if they did not vote for former President Donald Trump. When the incident first happened, the US Director of National Intelligence held a press conference to warn voters of the emails.

Additionally, Kazemi and Kashian allegedly attempted to break into 11 state voter registration and information websites. In one instance, the DOJ alleges they successfully downloaded the information of more than 100,000 state voters. They may have also carried out a disinformation campaign on Facebook that saw them contact, among other individuals, Republican senators and members of Congress. They claimed they were volunteers with Proud Boys and said they had evidence the Democratic Party planned to exploit security vulnerabilities in election systems to edit mail-in ballots.

Kazemi and Kashian’s efforts to sway the election culminated on November 4th when they allegedly attempted to hack the network of a US media company. They were unsuccessful because the FBI had warned the firm in time.

“This indictment details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the DOJ’s National Security Division in a statement. “The allegations illustrate how foreign disinformation campaigns operate and seek to influence the American public.”

US officials told The Washington Post they believe the two hackers are currently in Iran, suggesting they may not face authorities anytime soon. The DOJ also didn’t directly link their actions to the Iranian government.

On Monday, astronauts on the International Space Station had to seek safety aboard their transport craft when the station passed uncomfortably close to a field of orbital debris. According to the Associated Press, US Space Command started tracking the space junk in the early hours of the morning. The situation saw the station pass the debris field every 90 minutes, forcing those on board to close and reopen several compartments multiple times throughout the day. The four American, one German and two Russian astronauts aboard the ISS will need to stay on alert for the next several days.

"Thanks for a crazy but well-coordinated day, we really appreciated all the situational awareness you gave us," US astronaut Mark Vande Hei told NASA mission control before he and the other crew members aboard went to bed at 12PM EST. "It was certainly a great way to bond as a crew, starting off our very first workday in space." Four of the astronauts arrived at the station late last week. 

Neither NASA nor the US government has said what created the debris field that put the ISS in danger. However, later in the day, the US State Department condemned a Russian missile test that destroyed one of the country’s own satellites and created more than 1,500 trackable pieces of orbital debris. “The test will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. “Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s claims of opposing the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical.”

The State Department said the US would work with its allies to respond to Russia’s act. Per Reuters, the country has yet to comment on the incident.   

Along with their partners, NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency frequently move the International Space Station to avoid incoming space junk. They did that last week when the station was threatened by fragments of a Chinese satellite that was destroyed in a 2007 missile test.

US President Joe Biden has signed into law the Secure Equipment Act that blocks companies like Huawei and ZTE from receiving network licenses. The new rules mean the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) can no longer consider any applications for network equipment that may pose a national security threat, Reuters has reported. 

With the measure, the FCC can no longer issue or review licenses to companies on the FCC's "Covered Equipment or Services List." It was passed by a 420-4 House vote and approved unanimously by the US Senate last month. "We have already determined that this gear poses an unacceptable risk to our national security, so closing what I have called the ‘Huawei loophole’ is an appropriate action for us to take," said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. 

We have already determined that this gear poses an unacceptable risk to our national security, so closing what I have called the ‘Huawei loophole’ is an appropriate action for us to take.

The FCC formally designated ZTE and Huawei as national security threats last year, finding that the companies had close ties to Chinese Communist Party. However, they were still able to apply for licenses as long as no federal funds were involved. To that end, Carr has been pushing legislators to pass the Secure Equipment Act. 

"Once we have determined that Huawei or other gear poses an unacceptable national security risk, it makes no sense to allow that exact same equipment to be purchased and inserted into our communications networks as long as federal dollars are not involved. The presence of these insecure devices in our networks is the threat, not the source of funding used to purchase them," Carr said back in March. 

Earlier this year, the FCC launched a $1.9 billion "rip and replace" program to help US telecoms replace Huawei and ZTE equipment they may be using. House member Steve Scalise last last week that "Huawei and ZTE "are probably the two most prominent companies that still have a lot of equipment out there where Americans’ data runs across those networks."

Huawei has yet to comment on the legislation, but last summer called the FCC's proposed revision "misguided and unnecessarily punitive." Joe Biden is expected to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in in a "virtual summit" tentatively set for next Monday. 

The Biden administration wants to bolster the United States' collaboration on cybersecurity, and that includes forming key partnerships. As Axiosreports, Vice President Kamala Harris has revealed the White House will back the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. The voluntary agreement will see the US work with other countries and hundreds of companies (including Google and Microsoft) to both foster an open internet and strive for better internet security through common goals and laws.

This came on top of existing cooperation, including joint efforts to hold countries accountable for harboring online criminals, a long-awaited revamp of NATO cybersecurity policy and an anti-ransomware alliance formed in October. The State Department is also establishing a Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy that will tackle cybersecurity and other technology issues.

The move contrasts sharply with the Trump administration's stance. The US refused to sign the Paris Call in 2018, joining countries like China, Iran and Russia. While the previous White House did boost some cybersecurity efforts, critics accused it of a soft approach in other areas. Trump at one point incorrectly claimed Russia had stopped cyberattacks against the US.

The decision won't necessarily transform security. Wirednoted the Paris Call didn't legally bind anyone to honor the agreement's values. This does, however, signal intent — the US wants to show that it will help international cybersecurity initiatives, however well they work in practice.

The US and China are at odds on many fronts, but climate change might not be one of them. The Washington Postreports the two countries have issued a joint pledge at COP26 to limit global warming during the 2020s. Both nations said they recognized a gap between current actions and the Paris agreement target of keeping that warming below 2C, and ideally no higher than 1.5C.

The exact terms weren't available as of this writing, but US climate envoy John Kerry said China committed to reducing methane emissions and coal use "as fast as is achievable." China wouldn't, however, join a US-Europe initiative to cut methane emissions by a third no later than 2030.

Whether or not this translates to meaningful action is far from clear. China has made some efforts to promote electric vehicles and reduce coal dependence, but it's still the largest contributor to emissions and hasn't radically reduced its harmful output. It also hasn't had much of a presence at COP26, with President Xi Jinping declining to show up where US President Joe Biden was happy to attend.

The US isn't immune to problems, either. While the Biden administration has promised to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and spur EV adoption, there's no guarantee it can pass legislation needed to honor its side of the pledge. That's also assuming the next White House doesn't undo previous environmental efforts.

It's still rare to see the US and China agree on climate change issues, though, and the very existence of the pledge represents progress for China. The country hadn't previously acknowledged the impact of methane on global warming, for instance. That suggests China is at least aware of the scope of the problem, even if there's a long way to go before it addresses that problem.

Hacking groups aren't always divided between state sponsorship and strictly personal gain. Sometimes, they'll work for any customer with a large-enough bank account. The Recordreports that Trend Micro has identified Void Balaur, a "cybermercenary" group that has struck both political and commercial targets since 2015. It primarily steals data to sell to whoever's willing to pay, whether that's a government or a fraudster.

Void Balaur was initially linked to attacks against human rights activists and journalists in Uzbekistan. More recently, it attacked Belarusian presidential candidates in 2020 and several political leaders in an unnamed Eastern European country. However, the hacking outfit also targeted executives and directors at a very large Russian company between 2020 and 2021, and has been attacking and selling data from telecoms, banks and cryptocurrency users. The group has been linked to the on-demand hacking site RocketHack.me.

It's not clear just where Void Balaur operates from, or whether it has official government support. There's some overlap between Void's targets and those of the Russia-backed APT28 (aka Fancy Bear or Pawn Storm), but not enough to establish a clear link. And while the group has only ever advertised its services on Russian-language sites, it's not necessarily operating from Russia. We'd add that Russia usually turns a blind eye to cybercriminals only so long as they don't attack Russian interests — Void doesn't have problems attacking Russian businesses.

The study illustrates the difficulty in pinpointing the nature of some hackers, let alone catching them. Cybermercenaries also pose a particularly severe threat as they're often happy to attack any target without reservations. It won't be surprising if there are more groups like Void Balaur that have simply gone undetected.