Hillicon Valley — Ukraine war spotlights cyber operations
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Cyber strategies in Russia’s war against Ukraine show how increasingly complex cyber warfare may be used in future conflicts.
And in tech news, Facebook has removed a video from a Missouri Republican senatorial candidate, saying it violates its policy against inciting violence.
This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Ines Kagubare. Subscribe here.
A look at the future of cyber warfare
Russia’s war on Ukraine has been largely defined by indiscriminate shelling and grinding exchange of artillery, but it has also shown how cyberspace will be a central battleground in the future of global conflicts.
Early Russian cyberattacks were a harbinger of a ground war to come, and the battle for hearts and minds is now largely playing out online. And Russia has strategically timed cyberattacks for advantage in its on-the-ground assaults.
Experts said all of these components will likely be present in future global conflicts, with the Russia-Ukraine war cementing cyberspace as an intrinsic component of modern warfare.
“I believe the future of cyberwarfare is going to be more complex, more sophisticated and a lot more destructive,” said Paul Capasso, vice president of strategic programs at Telos, a cybersecurity firm based in Virginia.
Facebook takes down Greitens’ video
Facebook on Monday removed a video from Missouri Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens in which he holds a shotgun and urges supporters to “get a RINO hunting permit.”
A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said the video showing Greitens breaking into a house with a gun in hand was removed “for violating our policies prohibiting violence and incitement.”
Greitens hit back with a Facebook post accusing the tech giant of censoring him, similar to accusations a number of Republicans have made against social media platforms.
“Facebook CENSORED our new ad calling out the weak RINOs. When I get to the US Senate, we are taking on Big Tech,” he wrote.
Twitter did not remove the video, but added a label and limited engagement with the post.
BIDEN PRAISES APPLE STORE’S UNION
President Biden on Monday praised workers at an Apple store near Baltimore that voted to form the first American union at the Silicon Valley giant.
“I’m proud of them,” Biden told reporters.
“You know, workers have a right to determine under what conditions they’re gonna work or not,” he continued. “And I think the thing that everybody kind of misunderstands about unions, they tend to be, especially in the trades, the best workers in the world.”
A majority of the 100 workers at Apple’s Towson, Md., location voted to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, according to a National Labor Relations Board count conducted Saturday.
BITS & PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: China’s space-based solar power project could be a clean energy game-changer
Notable links from around the web:
Military-Grade Surveillance in Schools Won’t Stop the Next Mass Shooting, but It Will Increase the Policing of Black Students The New Republic / Sidney Fussell)
Google Says It’s Time for Longtime Small-Business Users to Pay Up (The New York Times / Nico Grant)
Amazon drones are coming to town. Some locals want to shoot them. (The Washington Post / Caroline O’Donovan)
A Rookie Mistake Shows Hackers Aren’t All Geniuses (The Washington Post / Tim Culpan)
One more thing: Democrats press Google
A group of Democratic senators and representatives called on Google to look into search results and ads tied to “anti-abortion ‘fake clinics’.”
The request comes amid a recent report that showed the prevalence of these clinics in 13 states with so-called “trigger laws,” which would almost immediately ban or severely restrict abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned by the Supreme Court.
Thirteen senators and eight representatives signed a letter to Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., dated Friday in which they highlighted a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) that showed that in 13 states with trigger laws, searches for “abortion pill” or “abortion clinic near me” showed clinics that did not provide those services 11 percent of the time.
Those clinics, which CCDH noted are referred to as “pregnancy resource centers” or “crisis pregnancy centers,” generally seek to dissuade people from having abortions and instead urge them to choose adoption or motherhood.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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