An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: China's Electronics Video Industry Association last week signed off on a standard for a universal remote control -- a gadget Beijing thinks locals need because they're struggling with multiple remotes, but which is also a little more significant in other ways. The standard requires remote controls to allow voice control, and to use one of three means of wireless comms: Bluetooth, infrared, and Star Flash -- more on that later. It has been hailed as a boon for consumers who apparently struggle to find the right remote control to use as they navigate between televisions and set-top boxes.

This standard reportedly detects which device a user wants to control, makes the connection, and eases the chore of directing a stream from a set-top box to a display. Device-makers have been told that televisions and set-top boxes must support the standard, and they've quickly complied: local media report that Chinese consumer electronics outfit Konka has already delivered the first Smart TV capable of handling the universal remote. Building a standard ecosystem for universal remotes has obvious benefits for consumers, who should be able to use one unit across multiple devices and won't be tied to proprietary tech. But this move has other benefits for Beijing, thanks to its requirement to use China's home-grown Bluetooth alternative, Star Flash.

Star Flash is one of the projects run by the SparkLink Alliance -- a group that lists hundreds of Chinese developers and manufacturers as members. Huawei contributes tech to the group. Chinese IoT hardware vendor Qogrisys has described it as an upgrade to both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi that incorporates ideas used in 5G networks, is capable of handling multiple simultaneous device connections, sips power sparingly so battery-powered devices go longer between recharges, and can stream lossless stereo audio. Chinese consumer electronic and automotive brands are already keen to use Star Flash, and the Alliance is promoting its use in industrial settings too. China will promote use of universal remotes in 2025 -- meaning the protocol may soon appear in millions of domestic devices, giving manufacturers scale to justify further investment.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) believes that China, Russia, Iran, and Israel are the "primary" countries exploiting security holes in telecommunications networks to spy on people inside the United States, which can include tracking their physical movements and intercepting calls and texts, according to information released by Senator Ron Wyden. 404 Media: The news provides more context around use of SS7, the exploited network and protocol, against phones in the country. In May, 404 Media reported that an official inside DHS's Cybersecurity Insurance and Security Agency (CISA) broke with his department's official narrative and publicly warned about multiple SS7 attacks on U.S. persons in recent years. Now, the newly disclosed information provides more specifics on where at least some SS7 attacks are originating from.

The information is included in a letter the Department of Defense (DoD) wrote in response to queries from the office of Senator Wyden. The letter says that in September 2017 DHS personnel gave a presentation on SS7 security threats at an event open to U.S. government officials. The letter says that Wyden staff attended the event and saw the presentation. One slide identified the "primary countries reportedly using telecom assets of other nations to exploit U.S. subscribers," it continues.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: TikTokasked the Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block a law that would effectively ban it in the United States in a matter of weeks. Saying that the law violates both its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users, TikTok, which is controlled by a Chinese parent company, urged the justices to maintain the status quo while they decide whether to hear an appeal. "Congress's unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and bar them from operating one of the most significant speech platforms in this nation presents grave constitutional problems that this court likely will not allow to stand," lawyers for TikTok wrote in their emergency application.

President Biden signed the law this spring after it was enacted with wide bipartisan support. Lawmakers said the app's ownership represented a risk because the Chinese government's oversight of private companies would allow it to retrieve sensitive information about Americans or to spread propaganda, though they have not publicly shared evidence that this has occurred. They have also noted that American platforms like Facebook and YouTube are banned in China, and that TikTok itself is not allowed in the country.

Does space need environmentalists, asks the headline from a new article in Noema magazine. "As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson notes, the first trillionaire will be made in space.

"But amid such promising developments are worries among some scientists and environmentalists who fear humans will repeat the errors that resource extraction has wrought on Earth..." If we have mining in space, do we need a preemptive anti-mining campaign to protect our solar system from rampant exploitation before it is too late? Earth-bound environmental advocates and astrobiologists alike have concluded that, indeed, we need an environmental movement in space... [Daniel Capper, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the Metropolitan State University of Denver] is part of a small but growing chorus of intellectuals who argue that we must carve out protections sooner rather than later — backed by a concrete theoretical and legal framework — for certain areas of the solar system. The United Nations has convened a working group on the use of space resources, and the International Astronomical Union has set up a different working group to delineate places of special scientific value on the moon.

Some researchers have proposed creating a planetary park system in space, while others advocate for a circular space economy that minimizes the need for additional resources. The nonprofit For All Moonkind is advocating for the protection of space sites of cultural importance, like the Apollo 11 landing site. And the Astra Carta, backed by Britain's King Charles, advocates for making sustainability a key component of space activities... [Martin Elvis, an astronomer with the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution] proposed setting aside 7/8ths of the solar system as wilderness, in a paper published in 2019 in Acta Astronautica that he coauthored with King's College London philosopher Tony Milligan...

[T]he lack of norms — clear rules and regulations around space — is one of the most pressing threats to the space environment, advocates say. What might happen, for example, if the United States simply began scooping up asteroids for platinum, or if Blue Origin established a mine at the lunar South Pole without securing consensus from others? "We do not have good answers to those questions right now," Hanlon said. "This is something that I'm really concerned about." Much of the legal basis for the space environmentalism movement is currently contained in just one article of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), said Christopher Johnson, the director of legal affairs and space law at the Secure World Foundation. Article 9 of the OST contains the harmful contamination language and says actors must pay "due regard" to the interests of others. It also stipulates that "harmful interference" with the activities of others must be avoided. Those phrases could be interpreted in multiple ways and have yet to be meaningfully tested.
The article cites two concrete proposals moving forward:

• "The Artemis Accords, a set of principles for exploring and using resources in outer space established by the U.S. in 2020, argues that resource extraction does not constitute national appropriation, and is therefore allowed by the OST. It's an initial step toward securing a consensus on space regulations, and one that's to date received the signatures of 47 nations including Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany (though China and Russia are notably absent). Signing the Artemis Accords allows nations to participate in the Artemis program, and also play a role in shaping future norms in space, Johnson said, a potentially lucrative incentive... "

• "The UN's COPUOS, the same one responsible for the OST and the Moon Agreement, published a working paper in 2019 that laid out voluntary guidelines for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities. Recommendations from the committee's working group on principles for the use of space resources are due in 2027, and Johnson said draft guidelines are likely to emerge in early 2025."

"One day, our descendants might live among the stars," the article concludes. "But we must ask ourselves, what kind of place will they inherit?"

America's 1994 "Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act" (or CALEA) created the security hole that helped enable a massive telecomm breach. But now America's FBI "is falling back on the same warmed-over, bad advice about encryption that it has trotted out for years," argues the Intercept: In response to the Salt Typhoon hack, attributed to state-backed hackers from China, the bureau is touting the long-debunked idea that federal agents could access U.S. communications without opening the door to foreign hackers. Critics say the FBI's idea, which it calls "responsibly managed encryption," is nothing more than a rebranding of a government backdoor. "It's not this huge about-face by law enforcement," said Andrew Crocker, the surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's just the same, illogical talking points they have had for 30+ years, where they say, 'Encryption is OK, but we need to be able to access communications.' That is a circle that cannot be squared...."

In a blog post last month, encryption expert Susan Landau said CALEA had long been a "national security disaster waiting to happen... If you build a system so that it is easy to break into, people will do so — both the good guys and the bad. That's the inevitable consequence of CALEA, one we warned would come to pass — and it did," she said...

Sean Vitka, the policy director at the progressive group Demand Progress, said the hack has once again provided damning evidence that government backdoors cannot be secured. "If the FBI cannot keep their wiretap system safe, they absolutely cannot keep the skeleton key to all Apple phones safe," Vitka said.
Thanks to Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

The U.S. wants to limit China's access to advanced AI chips, reports the Wall Street Journal, with new rules to restrict sales in parts of the world.

"The rules are aimed at China, but they threaten to create conflict between the U.S. and nations that may not want their purchases of chips micromanaged from Washington. The latest round of curbs could come this month... Among the restrictions, the administration aims to introduce caps on shipments of AI chips to certain countries for use in large computing facilities, people familiar with the plans said. One grouping of countries — close U.S. allies — would be unrestricted, the people said, while another tier of countries would face limits on the number of chips that can go into data centers used for AI... The purchasing caps primarily apply to regions such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the people said...

The administration recently sent letters to major chip-makers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics informing them about some of the restrictions, these people said. The letters said the companies needed to apply for a license to transfer chips to China that are manufactured using advanced chip-making technology or meet other criteria. These criteria include a size and transistor-number limit as well as any indication that the chips are for use in training AI models, the people said. Previous regulations already limit the shipment of advanced GPUs and memory chips to China, but the new rules spell out more clearly to manufacturers what is banned.
U.S. officials "are also considering other options," the article points out. "The administration is considering placing controls on exports of the so-called weights that underlie advanced AI models, according to people familiar with the matter, and weighing further China-specific restrictions on chip manufacturing."

"The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter," notes the New York Times. But this week they reported on dozens of dealerships around Mexico that are now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be "a potentially grave threat to the North American auto industry."

One employee said their dealership "was selling cars as fast as they arrived from China," including "a small but capable four-door electric compact that costs about $18,000." Chinese carmakers are effectively barred from the United States by tariffs that double the sticker price of vehicles imported from China, and they are not yet manufacturing significant numbers of vehicles in Mexico that could be exported across the border. But their ambition to expand overseas is on vivid display in Mexico and across Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Ads for Chinese brands are in airports and soccer stadiums and loom above Mexico City streets on large billboards. Chinese cars, both gasoline and electric models, are an increasingly common sight. BYD and others are also looking for places to build factories in Mexico, although none have announced firm plans. Initially, the plants would serve Latin America, part of a campaign by Chinese automakers to erode the dominance of Japanese, American and European carmakers in places like Brazil and Thailand.

But there is little doubt that, eventually, Chinese carmakers hope to use Mexico as an on-ramp to the United States.
One of Mexico's EV dealers suggested to the Times that "maybe next year BYD can enter the United States." And he added with a smile, "If not, I can deliver." It is very unlikely that the Dolphin or any other Chinese car brand will be available in the United States soon. Because of the high tariffs, Chinese carmakers have not tried to establish dealerships or get approval from federal regulators to sell in the United States. (BYD does make electric buses in California.) And someone buying a BYD from a Mexican dealer like Mr. Alegría would have a hard time registering and insuring it in the United States because the cars have not demonstrated that they meet safety standards... But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.

Less than 20 years ago, Chinese cars were widely seen as inferior, even by many Chinese drivers. But in recent years, the country's manufacturers have pulled even with foreign rivals in mechanical quality, analysts say, and often surpass U.S., Japanese and European carmakers in battery technology, autonomous driving and entertainment software. (Think in-car karaoke and rotating touch screens)... [T]he auto industry does not appear to have seen anything like the current wave of Chinese brands, which have quickly overtaken Japanese companies as the world's largest auto exporters. Chinese carmakers have made deep inroads in countries where they have local production or face few significant trade barriers. In Brazil, Chinese brands have a 9 percent share of car sales, up from 1 percent in 2019. In Thailand, they have 18 percent of the market, up from 5 percent in 2019, according to JATO.
The article notes that for the world's largest car market — China itself — General Motors just announced "a more than $5 billion hit to its profit" to restructure China operations that have been losing money in recent years. And the article includes this quote from Felipe Munoz, global analyst at the research firm JATO Dynamics.

"Before the pandemic, the rules were set down by the Western carmakers. Now it's the opposite."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple will begin making AirPods in India for the first time early next year, reports Bloomberg. Foxconn will make the wireless earphones at a factory near Hyderabad in Telangana state, beginning around Q1 2025. The factory has reportedly been making AirPods on a trial basis, with manufacturing set to ramp up quickly after production begins. It will make AirPods only the second major Apple product to be assembled in India after the iPhone.

The decision to set up production in India was requested by Apple back in 2023, according to a previous report. Foxconn officials apparently debated internally for months about whether to assemble AirPods due to the relatively low profit margins, but ultimately decided to go ahead with it to "reinforce engagement" with Apple. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government offers financial incentives to companies that produce wireless earphones and smartwatches locally, which influenced Apple's decision to move manufacturing there. The move is also part of Apple's plan to reduce its production reliance on China amid rising geopolitical tensions between the country and the United States.

The U.S. military has begun openly discussing offensive capabilities in space, reports ArsTechnica, a significant shift from previous policies that avoided mentioning space-based weapons to prevent an arms race. U.S. Space Command recently listed "integrated space fires" -- military terminology for offensive or defensive actions against adversaries -- among its priorities.

The move follows increasing concerns about China and Russia's space warfare capabilities, including satellite-disabling weapons and potential nuclear anti-satellite systems. "Space is a war-fighting domain," Space Force Chief Gen. Chance Saltzman said at a conference in Orlando. "Ten years ago, I couldn't say that." Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, identified "integrated space fires" as his organization's most urgent requirement. The capabilities under consideration range from cyberattacks and directed energy weapons to satellite-capture systems, though specific details remain classified.

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on China told Apple and Google's parent Alphabet to prepare to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores on January 19, following a federal appeals court decision upholding legislation requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest the platform or face a ban.

The U.S. and China signed a modified science and technology agreement on Friday, narrowing its scope and adding security safeguards to address growing technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies.

The updated pact, which extends cooperation for five years, focuses solely on basic research and excludes critical technologies like AI and quantum computing. The State Department said the agreement strengthens intellectual property protections and introduces new provisions for transparency and data sharing. The revision comes amid escalating tech tensions, with Washington restricting advanced chip exports to China and limiting U.S. investments in sensitive technologies that could enhance Chinese military capabilities.

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju made history by defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world chess champion at 18, sealing a dramatic 7.5-6.5 victory in the 14-game match. The Guardian reports: The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh's 7.5-6.5 win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect of tiebreaker matches on Friday afternoon.

In doing so, Gukesh shattered the age record held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he toppled Anatoly Karpov in 1985. Gukesh admitted he didn't initially recognize Ding's rook move (55 Rf2??) as a blunder, saying it took a few seconds to spot that his opponent's bishop was trapped. He could barely conceal his excitement upon the discovery, while a devastated Ding could only bury his head in his hands. "When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life," said Gukesh, who brings home the $1.35 million winner's share of the $2.5 million prize fund along with the sport's most prestigious title.

Security researchers have uncovered a new surveillance tool that they say has been used by Chinese law enforcement to collect sensitive information from Android devices in China. From a report: The tool, named "EagleMsgSpy," was discovered by researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm Lookout. The company said at the Black Hat Europe conference on Wednesday that it had acquired several variants of the spyware, which it says has been operational since "at least 2017."

Kristina Balaam, a senior intelligence researcher at Lookout, told TechCrunch the spyware has been used by "many" public security bureaus in mainland China to collect "extensive" information from mobile devices. This includes call logs, contacts, GPS coordinates, bookmarks, and messages from third-party apps including Telegram and WhatsApp. EagleMsgSpy is also capable of initiating screen recordings on smartphones, and can capture audio recordings of the device while in use, according to research Lookout shared with TechCrunch.

A manual obtained by Lookout describes the app as a "comprehensive mobile phone judicial monitoring product" that can obtain "real-time mobile phone information of suspects through network control without the suspect's knowledge, monitor all mobile phone activities of criminals and summarize them."

China should focus on developing original technologies and scientific knowledge and leverage the expertise of scientists returning from the United States, according to a top Chinese-American mathematician. From a report: Yau Shing-Tung retired from Harvard University in 2022 to teach at Tsinghua University and help China become a maths powerhouse. He said many ethnic Chinese students had been driven away from the US by discrimination from the government, including accusations of misusing American research funds for China's benefit.

"Chinese scientists have no choice but to leave the US because they work best under a supportive research environment," he said. "This exodus is unfortunate for the US as it could diminish its research capabilities. For China, the return of these scientists means it is gaining top talent, but it also results in weakened ties with the US and a loss of first-hand knowledge of advanced technologies."

An increasing number of leading scientists are leaving the West for Chinese institutions. Yau's maths centre at Tsinghua in Beijing is one example where top foreign mathematicians have been recruited. In a survey of 1,300 US-based scientists of Chinese descent conducted between late 2021 and early 2022, 72 per cent of respondents said they did not feel safe as academic researchers. And 61 per cent said they had thought about leaving the United States for either Asian or non-Asian countries.

China's high-speed rail network, which has tripled to nearly 30,000 miles under President Xi Jinping's leadership, faces mounting financial challenges amid aggressive expansion plans. China State Railway Group, the national operator, has accumulated nearly $1 trillion in debt and liabilities, requiring $25 billion annually for debt service.

Despite this, plans call for adding 15,000 more miles by 2035. While flagship routes between major cities like Beijing and Shanghai remain profitable, newer lines into rural regions are struggling with low ridership. In Sichuan province's Fushun County, which received high-speed rail service in 2021, stations built for thousands sit largely empty despite having 12 high-speed rail stops within a 40-mile radius.

The expansion has become a symbol of China's technological advancement but raises concerns about economic viability. Ticket prices are maintained at about one-quarter of global averages to ensure public access, limiting profit potential. The railway operator turned a modest $460 million profit in 2023, aided by government subsidies, after three years of losses during the pandemic.

The head of America's FCC "has drafted plans to regulate the cybersecurity of telecommunications companies," reports the Washington Post, and the plans could include financial penalties phone network operators with insufficient security — "the first time the agency has asserted such powers under federal wiretapping law." Rosenworcel said the FCC's authority in this matter comes from Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [passed in 1994] — a single sentence that stipulates, without elaboration, that telecommunications carriers should ensure systems security "in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Commission." As one of the measures, she is seeking to require network providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC that they are implementing a cybersecurity risk management plan. In addition to imposing fines, the FCC could coordinate with other agencies to pursue criminal penalties against carriers deemed too careless on cybersecurity...

Biden administration officials said voluntary efforts to protect against aggressive Chinese hacking activity have fallen short. "We've had for the last decade voluntary public-private partnership efforts," Neuberger told The Post in a recent interview. "But we continue to see successful breaches, and in many cases, as with ransomware attacks, we continue to see pretty basic cybersecurity practices not being followed." With China's hackers becoming more brazen, pre-positioning themselves in U.S. critical networks, "we need to lock our digital doors," Neuberger said...

Cyber requirements can make a difference, she said. After the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 shut down one of the nation's largest energy pipelines for several days, creating a national security scare, the Transportation Security Administration issued several security directives, and today, all of the country's several dozen critical pipeline companies are in compliance, she said. Similar directives were subsequently issued for rail and aviation sectors, and the compliance rates in those industries are now at 68 and 57 percent respectively, she said.

China-linked spies may still be lurking in U.S. telecommunications networks — but the breach could be much, much wider. In fact, a "couple dozen" countries were hit by the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing a top U.S. national security adviser. "Chinese government hackers have compromised telecommunications infrastructure across the globe as part of a massive espionage campaign..." Speaking during a press briefing Wednesday, Anne Neuberger, President Biden's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said the so-called Salt Typhoon campaign is ongoing and that at least eight telecommunications firms in the U.S. had been breached... The Journal previously identified Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Lumen Technologies among the victims... [M]etadata grabs appeared to be "regional" in focus, and were likely a means to identify phone lines of valuable senior government officials, which the hackers then targeted to steal encrypted text messages and listen in on some phone calls, the official said... President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, senior congressional staffers and an array of U.S. security officials were among scores of individuals to have their calls and texts directly targeted, an intelligence-collection coup that likely ensnared their private communications with thousands of Americans, the Journal has reported.

The senior administration official said the global tally of countries victimized was currently believed to be in the "low, couple dozen" but didn't give a precise figure. The global campaign of hacking activity dates back at least a year or two, the official said.
"Neuberger, on the press briefing, said that it wasn't believed that classified communications were accessed in the breaches."

60-year-old Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli led the Wuhan Institute of Virology's group studying bat coronaviruses (prompting Science magazine to call her "Bat Woman"). In June of 2020 Scientific American described Zhengli as "distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab — despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied."

More than four years later, Nature writes Friday that Zhengli "reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2," presenting data at a conference in Japan "on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China." Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.

"We didn't find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2," said Shi, in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference... The results support her assertion that the WIV lab did not have any bat-derived sequences from viruses that were more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than were any already described in scientific papers, says Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "This just validates what she was saying: that she did not have anything extremely closely related, as we've seen in the years since," he says.
"Earlier this year, Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory, a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases."

"TikTok has lost its bid to strike down a law that could result in the platform being banned in the United States," reports CNN.

A U.S. federal appeals court just unanimously ruled in favor of the new U.S. law requiring TikTok's China-based owners to either sell the app next month or face an effective ban in the United States. Denying TikTok's argument that the law was unconstitutional, the judges found that the law does not "contravene the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," nor does it "violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws"... After the [January 25] deadline, U.S. app stores and internet services could face hefty fines for hosting TikTok if it is not sold. (Under the legislation, President Biden may issue a one-time extension of the deadline.)

In a statement, TikTok indicated it would appeal the decision. "The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," said company spokesperson Michael Hughes. "Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025"....

"People in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing," the judges said. "What the Act targets is the PRC's ability to manipulate the content covertly. Understood in that way, the Government's justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment."
The judges also wrote that "in part precisely because of the platform's expansive reach, Congress and multiple Presidents determined that divesting it from the PRC's control is essential to protect our national security... Congress judged it necessary to assume that risk given the grave national-security threats it perceived."

CNN notes that ByteDance "has previously indicated it will not sell TikTok."

The Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a nonpartisan international affairs think tank, points out that when subsea internet cables were cut in November, Europe was more prepared: Where in the past there were no contingency plans for sabotage, there are now more maritime patrols, an attempt to forge deeper intelligence connections, and the beginnings of a new relationship with the private sector...

Even before the October 2023 incident, NATO, the EU, and certain European governments began to increase their efforts to boost subsea cable resilience and security. In February 2023, NATO stood up a new Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell in Brussels to convene stakeholders and enhance coordination between the public and private sectors. In July 2023, NATO allies at the Vilnius Summit established a Maritime Center for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure as part of the alliance's Maritime Command in Northwood, UK. In October 2023, after the first incident, NATO defense ministers endorsed a new Digital Ocean Vision, an initiative aimed at improving undersea surveillance. And in February 2024, the European Commission released its first "Recommendation on Secure and Resilient Submarine Cable Infrastructures," encouraging member states to conduct regular stress tests, improve information sharing amongst themselves, and improve cable maintenance and repair capabilities.
The article points out that the Chinese ship suspected in the 2023 cable cutting "ignored requests from Finnish and Estonian authorities to halt" and returned to China. But the Chinese ship suspected in November's cable-cutting "remains in international waters in the Kattegat, with naval and coast guard vessels from Denmark, Germany, and Sweden circling close by." Yet "Under international maritime law, these countries' authorities are not allowed to board..." Current provisions of international law are neither formulated to adequately protect subsea data cables from sabotage nor hold perpetrators accountable. This reality should lead the EU, as a body inherently focused on the resilience of international legal regimes, to push for updates that are better suited for the current geopolitical reality... Lawmakers should also explore ways to increase penalties for subsea cable damage, in part to deter acts of sabotage in the first place....

A forthcoming Carnegie Endowment report will detail more in-depth recommendations on how Europe can both protect itself against future subsea cable damage and help expand trusted networks around the world.
The article also notes that "Of the hundreds of disruptions to cables that occur each year, the vast majority are caused by accidental human activity, like fishing, or natural events, like earthquakes."