Cyber and national security

• The Democratic National Committee will recommend state election officials in Iowa and Nevada scrap their plans for phone-based virtual caucuses in the 2020 primary elections due to cybersecurity concerns, sources said. Both states had planned to allow voters to cast caucus votes in the February 2020 elections using their phones, rather than showing up at the meetings, and the final determination on whether to allow the virtual caucuses will be decided by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

• The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency plans to launch a program in about the next month to protect voter registration databases and systems amid fears that they are vulnerable to data manipulation or destruction by foreign hackers ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to current and former U.S. officials. CISA Director Christopher Krebs said his agency, in particular, is concerned that the databases will be the target of ransomware efforts, which have infected city computer networks in Texas, Maryland and Georgia recently, and plans to provide state election officials with educational material, remote computer penetration testing and vulnerability scans to prep for such attacks.

• Intelligence officials in the United States, Britain, Germany and France warn that foreign agents are using LinkedIn to recruit assets, with Chinese spies being the most active users. In many instances, Chinese agents offer to bring people to China under the guise of corporate recruiting, then develop a relationship with the asset.

Trump administration

• Federal prosecutors have opened more inquiries into alleged instances of intellectual property theft by Huawei Technologies Co. from multiple sources over several years, and are also examining the Chinese company’s process for recruiting employees from competitors, according to people familiar with the matter. It is unclear if the additional inquiries, including a subpoena filed by the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn for documents from Huawei, will result in new charges against the company.

• The Department of Commerce hasn’t approved any of the more than 130 license applications from American companies to sell goods to China’s Huawei, according to three sources familiar with the process, after President Donald Trump said almost two months ago that some sales to the telecommunications company would be allowed. A Commerce Department spokesperson said the process is “currently ongoing.”

• Oracle Corp. said it filed an appeal of July’s ruling by a federal judge against the company in a case weighing whether the parameters of the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract favored specific companies. Oracle’s appeal comes as the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General takes on a review of the project following allegations of conflicts of interest that could favor Amazon.com Inc., one of the contract’s finalists.

• The Justice Department has been pushing to block a telecommunications project to build an undersea cable between China and Los Angeles that’s backed by Google, Facebook Inc. and Beijing-based Dr. Peng Telecom & Media Group Co., according to people familiar with the discussions, due to concerns with the Chinese investor’s involvement and the cable’s direct link to Hong Kong. Most of the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network has already been laid down; however, the work is being conducted through a temporary permit that expires in September, and the Justice Department could keep the project from receiving the permit to continue.

Social media and mobile technology

• Facebook announced a new political advertising policy that will require those purchasing political or issue-oriented ads on the main platform or Instagram to provide more information to confirm their identities, with those who are verified receiving a “confirmed organization” badge. Sarah Schiff, a Facebook product manager working on the project, said the company had seen “misuse and abuse in these disclaimers,” with the move coming ahead of the 2020 elections and amid concerns about possible Russian misinformation efforts.

• A day after YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki published her quarterly letter to creators pushing for an “open system,” Infowars’ the War Room relaunched its YouTube channel — despite being removed from the platform last year for violating the site’s community guidelines. YouTube has since deleted the relaunched channel, but in the first video, which was live for at least 17 hours, War Room host Owen Shroyer framed Wojcicki’s letter to creators as an invitation to Infowars to return to the platform.

Uber Technologies Inc. 

• Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. said they are pledging $60 million to fund a new California 2020 ballot initiative to create an alternate employee classification for their drivers as the state legislature gears up to vote on Assembly Bill 5, which would make it difficult for sharing economy companies to classify workers as independent contractors. Following the ride-hailing companies’ announcement, delivery service DoorDash also pledged $30 million to fund the ballot initiative.

• Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said “it sure looked like” Anthony Levandowski, the former head of the company’s self-driving unit, stole information from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo — adding that although he was not CEO at the time of the incident, Uber has gone “to incredible depths” to ensure the allegedly stolen information didn’t make it to the company. Federal prosecutors charged Levandowski with 33 counts of trade secret theft earlier this week.

Privacy

• Apple Inc. said it will no longer keep the audio recordings it collects from user interactions with voice assistant Siri and apologized for not “fully living up to our high ideals” following consumer criticism over the company’s employment of hundreds of contractors to review the recordings. Apple halted the grading program a few weeks ago, but said it plans to relaunch it after making a few software updates in the fall to give users more privacy controls.

• Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell-camera company, said it has established partnerships with more than 400 U.S. police forces since it launched its law enforcement program in spring 2018, enabling police to directly request videos recorded by homeowners’ cameras at a specific time or location. This is the first time Ring has confirmed the total number of police deals it has secured, and legal experts and privacy advocates worry the expanding public-private partnership would subject innocent people to surveillance and potential risk.

• Kevin Martin, Facebook’s vice president of U.S. public policy, said in a response letter to Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) that the company has been “in regular contact” with the Federal Trade Commission about issues including its Messenger Kids app. Martin did not say when the conversations occurred; Facebook discovered in June that the app was allowing some children to chat with users that parents had not pre-approved.

• YouTube said it plans to roll out a new website for its Kids service, which previously only existed as a mobile app, as the video streaming platform prepares for an upcoming settlement with the FTC over alleged children’s privacy violations. YouTube will also add a new content filter for preschoolers.

• TechCrunch will host its “TC Sessions: Enterprise” all-day event on Thursday in San Francisco including a mix of interviews, demos and workshops to discuss enterprise software. 

• The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will hold a multistakeholder meeting on Thursday to discuss promoting software component transparency.

• The House and Senate return from recess on Sept. 9

• The Federal Communications Commission’s next open commission meeting is Sept. 26. Agenda items have not been announced. 

1) Amazon’s Cloud-Computing Empire Faces Threat From Edge of the Network
Olga Kharif, Bloomberg

2) How China Uses LinkedIn to Recruit Spies Abroad
Edward Wong, The New York Times

3) U.S. officials fear ransomware attack against 2020 election
Christopher Bing, Reuters

4) Former Google employee details affair with company’s top lawyer, alleging he neglected their child
Lauren Feiner, CNBC

5) Former Google Employee Plans to Sue for Pregnancy Discrimination
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Motherboard

6) Doorbell-camera firm Ring has partnered with 400 police forces, extending surveillance concerns
Drew Harwell, The Washington Post

7) After blacklisting, U.S. receives 130-plus license requests to sell to Huawei: sources
Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld, Reuters

8) The Missing Piece of Amazon’s New York Debacle: It Kept a Burn Book
Jimmy Vielkind and Katie Honan, The Wall Street Journal

9) U.S. Prosecutors Probe Huawei on New Allegations of Technology Theft
Dan Strumpf and Patricia Kowsmann, The Wall Street Journal

10) Area residents, not Amazon newcomers, are fueling Northern Virginia real estate frenzy, agents say
Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post