The United States Department of Justice has formed a team of investigators to look into the use of cryptocurrency for criminal purposes. To be specific, the group, called National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), will tackle cases committed by virtual currency exchanges and groups and individuals involved in money laundering. Members will also investigate mixing and tumbling services, which charge customers a fee to send cryptocurrency to an address while also concealing the source of the funds. In addition, they'll work on tracing and recovering assets lost to fraud or ransomware extortion demands. 

According to the DOJ's announcement, the team will combine the expertise of its money laundering and asset recovery section with its computer crime and intellectual property section. It will also include experts from US Attorneys' Offices. The group will be under the supervision of Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr., though the Justice Department is still looking for an individual to lead it. DOJ is looking for someone "with experience with complex criminal investigations and prosecutions, as well as the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies and the blockchain," in particular. 

The hope is that NCET can provide the whole department and other government agencies with the expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain needed to investigate and prosecute the growing number of cases related to the technology today. There's been a rise in cybercrime cases these past years, including ransomware attacks wherein bad actors target companies across industries to hold their networks hostage in exchange for payment via cryptocurrency. 

Some of them have had real-world consequences. The attack on Colonial Pipeline caused fuel shortage in the East Coast, for instance, while the various attacks on hospitals around the world put people's lives in danger. The Biden administration is even hosting a meeting with 30 countries later this month to discuss the threat of ransomware attacks to global economy and national security.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in a statement:

"Today we are launching the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to draw on the Department’s cyber and money laundering expertise to strengthen our capacity to dismantle the financial entities that enable criminal actors to flourish — and quite frankly to profit — from abusing cryptocurrency platforms. As the technology advances, so too must the Department evolve with it so that we’re poised to root out abuse on these platforms and ensure user confidence in these systems."

The European Parliament has called on lawmakers in the European Union to ban automated facial recognition in public spaces and to enforce strict safeguards for police use of artificial intelligence. MEPs voted in favor of the non-binding resolution by 377-248, with 62 abstentions.

The MEPs said citizens should only be monitored when they're suspected of a crime. They cited concerns over algorithmic bias in AI and argued that both human supervision and legal protections are required to avoid discrimination. The politicians noted there's evidence suggesting AI-based identification systems misidentify minority ethnic groups, LGBTI+ people, seniors and women at higher rates. As a result, the MEPs say, "algorithms should be transparent, traceable and sufficiently documented," with open-source options being used wherever possible.

The resolution states that "those subject to AI-powered systems must have recourse to remedy." Under EU law, according to the document, "a person has the right not to be subjected to a decision which produces legal effects concerning them or significantly affects them and is based solely on automated data processing."

In addition, the MEPs called on EU officials to ban private facial recognition databases (some law enforcement agencies in Europe are using Clearview AI's one), as well as "predictive policing based on behavioral data." They also urged the European Commission to prohibit social scoring or social credit systems and said the iBorderCtrl virtual border agent and other border control systems that use automated recognition should be shut down.

The approval of the resolution follows similar calls by EU data protection regulators this summer. The European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection Supervisor said the EC should ban AI systems from using biometrics to categorize people "into clusters based on ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation," or any other classifications that could lead to discrimination.

In April, the EC proposed a bill called the Artificial Intelligence Act, which would introduce a sweeping regulatory framework for AI. Among the measures are a ban on remote biometric identification (such as facial recognition) in public spaces unless it's being used to tackle major crimes, including terrorism and kidnappings.

If you were hoping the long running Donald Trump / Twitter saga was over, I have bad news. The former president has filed suit in Florida seeking a preliminary injunction of the ban, while he works towards having his account permanently reinstated. Trump is arguing, as expected, that the ban violates his First Amendment rights, but also Florida's new social media law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this year — though courts have stopped the law from taking effect on the grounds that it likely violates free speech laws. 

The suit makes many predictable arguments that Twitter is “a major avenue of public discourse" and that it "exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.” 

This story is developing...

The Biden administration plans to bring together 30 countries later this month to discuss the threat ransomware attacks pose to global economic and national security. Per CNN, the virtual meeting is part of what the president says will become an ongoing multilateral initiative to tackle the cybersecurity problem.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the network the goal of the meeting is "to accelerate our cooperation in combatting cybercrime, improving law enforcement collaboration, stemming the illicit use of cryptocurrency, and engaging on these issues diplomatically."

The alliance marks the latest effort by the Biden administration to tackle the issue of ransomware following a year in which one such attack on the Colonial Pipeline led to gas shortages across parts of the US. In the aftermath of the incident, the president signed an executive order that called for greater cooperation and information sharing between disparate federal agencies. More recently, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the SUEX cryptocurrency exchange for allegedly facilitating several attacks.

Nigeria is set to lift a ban on Twitter under the condition that it's used in the country for "business and positive engagements," according to Bloomberg. The social media network was originally banned in June after it removed a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari under a violation of its abuse policy.

The Nigerian government said it was close to an agreement with Twitter on resuming operations. "As a country, we are committed to ensuring that digital companies use their platform to enhance the lives of our citizens, respect Nigeria’s sovereignty, cultural values and promote online safety,” said Buhari in a speech sent to Bloomberg. 

Twitter was banned in the country following a tweet by Buhari that threatened to punish secessionists that allegedly attacked government buildings. At the time, the social media company said in a tweet that it was "deeply concerned" by Nigeria's actions and that it considered the open internet an "essential human right." 

Facebook, Twitter, Apple and other tech giants often walk a fine line between promoting espousing internet freedom and bending to local laws. Apple, for example, was recently accused of giving the Chinese government control over local data, while railing against similar actions in the United States and elsewhere. 

Back in 2012, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create a special do-not-call registry to protect 911 call centers from robocalls. The system was never implemented in part due to security concerns that came up when the FCC and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started looking into the feasibility of the idea. Specifically, there was a worry that a bad actor could use the registry to flood a call center with automated calls and thereby prevent them from helping people in need.

Fast forward to the present and the FCC says it has a better idea on how to accomplish the goal assigned to it by Congress. On Thursday, the agency proposed new rules that would require telephone companies to block robocalls made to those facilities. As Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel points out, the advantage of this approach is that it would limit access to the do-not-call registry to a select group of verified telephone companies and carriers. And by limiting access to that list, the FCC and FTC can put in place better safeguards to protect it. With today’s decision, the FCC isn’t ready yet to implement that system, but what it does plan to do is collect feedback before moving forward. “We believe this is a promising approach, but we want to get this right,” Rosenworcel said. 

This time last year, ByteDance was trying to save its TikTok app in the US and elsewhere after Donald Trump's administration threatened to ban it. One potential savior was Microsoft, which had negotiated to acquire the app in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but lost its bid to Oracle. At the Code conference, CEO Satya Nadella offered new details on the negotiation, telling journalist Kara Swisher it was "the strangest thing I've ever worked on," Geekwire has reported.

It was a chaotic series of events that started when Trump threatened to force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US owner, citing privacy and security concerns. Microsoft stepped in as a potential buyer, though the company in the end struck a deal with Oracle and Walmart that was scrapped by President Joe Biden's administration in February 2021.

TikTok originally came to Microsoft, Nadella emphasized, seeking a cloud and security partner to help it pilot the delicate political landscape between China and the US. "That's kind of how it started," he said. "But I was pretty intrigued. I must say, it's a great property. Obviously, everyone has seen that growth and what have you, and I guess the rest is history."

In fact, just yesterday, TikTok reached a billion users and did so in less than four years. For perspective, it took Instagram almost eight years after its initial release and nearly six years after it was acquired by Facebook in 2012 to pass the 1 billion user threshold.

President Trump, I think had sort of a particular point of view on what he was trying to get done there, and then just dropped off,” he said. “I mean, it was interesting. There was a period of time when I felt that the [administration] had some particular set of requirements, and then they just disappeared.

Swisher persisted with the subject, asking Nadella about Microsoft's negotiations with Trump. “President Trump, I think had sort of a particular point of view on what he was trying to get done there, and then just dropped off,” he said. “I mean, it was interesting. There was a period of time when I felt that the [administration] had some particular set of requirements, and then they just disappeared.”

In fact, Microsoft was in the middle of negotiations with ByteDance when Trump dropped a bomb, telling reporters that he'd rather ban the app than allow it to be sold to a US company, according to a book by Microsoft President Brad Smith. That "threw into disarray the careful negotiations we had pursued with ByteDance” to buy TikTok’s business in the U.S. and the three other countries, he wrote. Trump only relented and allowed a deal to happen after Nadella called him personally.

After Oracle's winning bid, ByteDance said that Trump had "ghosted" the site, effectively going silent after ordering the company to divest its US TikTok assets.

Though it came away empty-handed, Microsoft did learn a few things about complex foreign negotiations around tech. "It’s possible to run a foreign technology service in a domestic data center with strict security, privacy, and digital safety controls in a manner that provides appropriate transparency to local government officials," said Smith.

China is continuing to push forward in its cryptocurrency crackdown. The People’s Bank of China says crypto transactions are illegal and called for a formal ban. It cited concerns about national security and the safety of residents' assets.

The bank claims cryptocurrencies aren’t fiat currency and can’t be circulated, as Bloomberg reports. Any transactions involving crypto are now deemed to be criminal financial activity. The bank told financial and internet companies to stop allowing crypto trades on their platforms. Foreign exchanges are banned from providing services to Chinese residents too. 

The rise of crypto has invoked an increase in “money laundering, illegal fund-raising, fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities,” the bank said. It said those appearing to violate the rules will be “investigated for criminal liability.”

Several agencies in the country are working together to clamp down on crypto use. The National Development and Reform Commission is looking to put a halt to crypto mining, as TechCrunch notes. The Sichuan local government banned crypto mining in June, prompting some miners to leave the country.

The price of Bitcoin dropped from around $45,000 to approximately $41,500 following the central bank's announcement.

Amazon's looser stance on workers' marijuana use now covers people who were previously dismissed. The online retailer said it has restored employment eligibility for workers and applicants who were fired or rejected from unregulated roles (that is, not truck driving or similar jobs) after cannabis screenings. The company didn't promise to rehire recently fired workers or compensate them for lost earnings, but it may be helpful for those still looking for work.

The decision, as before, came down to a combination of equity and practical reality. Candidate marijuana screening "disproportionately" affects people of color, Amazon said. It also noted that varying state levels of legalized cannabis use made it harder to run a consistent and equitable drug testing program across the US. Amazon was also frank about its constant need for more workers — dropping marijuana tests lets it "expand [the] applicant pool."

The move comes on top of recent political efforts, including lobbying for and otherwise supporting bills that reform the federal approach to marijuana. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021 (aka MORE Act), for instance, would purge criminal records.

Those measures aren't guaranteed to become law. However, Amazon's overall strategy is clear — it's determined to boost hiring, and it's betting that its sheer corporate clout can persuade lawmakers to widen the door for more recruits.

Late last year, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei sold its budget mobile brand Honor to “ensure” it would survive the sanctions the US had issued against its own business. The move allowed the brand to work with firms like Qualcomm and Intel to source chips and other critical components for its phones, laptops and wearables. But now Honor could be in trouble as well.

According to The Washington Post, officials at four federal agencies voted last week whether to place the company on the Commerce Department’s entity list. Landing there would prevent Honor from working with US companies. The Post reports the vote went evenly down the middle. Officials from the Pentagon and Energy Department were reportedly in favor of putting the company on the list, while their counterparts at the Commerce Department and State Department were not.

With the deadlock, it’s now up to the political appointees at those agencies to decide what to do. If they can’t make a decision, the issue could eventually make its way to the desk of President Joe Biden.

The Commerce Department declined to comment on the vote when The Post reached out to the agency about it. Instead, it spoke to the subject of the entity list more broadly, noting it continually reviews the risk of a nominated company illegally sharing US technology. “We remain committed to using a full range of tools, including . . . export controls, to deter efforts by the [People’s Republic of China] and other countries … that seek to leverage technology in ways that risk harming US national security and foreign policy interests,” Brittany Caplin, a spokesperson the agency, told the outlet.

Ultimately, those making the case that Honor should land on the entity list may have difficulty convincing their counterparts that the company is a national security threat to the US. Unlike its one-time parent, Honor doesn’t sell telecommunications equipment to carriers. That means it’s not involved in the 5G network buildouts that were ostensibly at the center of the decision to place Huawei there. What’s more, its products aren’t even available in the US.