Earlier this month, the White House released its National Cybersecurity Strategy, which underscores that “robust collaboration, particularly between the public and private sectors, is essential to securing cyberspace.” The Strategy includes five pillars to strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity focused on defending critical infrastructure, disrupting threat actors, and fostering a collaborative cybersecurity ecosystem.
Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President of Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft, picks up on this theme in his latest blog, “Collaboration is crucial to strengthening cybersecurity.” Burt notes that threat actors are working together in a “dynamic cybercrime economy,” which makes it all the more important for government, industry, and other stakeholders to outmatch them. Voices for Innovation will continue to keep you informed about developments in cybersecurity policy.
You’ll find our roundup of tech policy news and a featured podcast below.
This Week in Washington
- Washington Post and Axios: A whistleblower from TikTok has come forward claiming that their plan to protect user data is flawed and could leave it exposed to the app’s parent company. This comes after FBI director Chris Wray testified that the Chinese government could have the ability to control the software on millions of TikTok users’ devices.
- Washington Post: The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget includes an ask for $26.2 billion in order to improve cybersecurity at federal agencies in order to protect their systems.
- Bleeping Computer: The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced its new Ransomware Vulnerability Warning Pilot (RVWP) program that will assist infrastructure entities in finding vulnerabilities that ransomware attackers may exploit and help fix the flaws to prevent hacks.
- StateScoop: The FCC will provide $66 million to community groups in order to promote the Affordable Connectivity Program and help fund their efforts to inform people about the program and enrollment.
- Reuters: The Biden administration has launched a program to repurpose wireless spectrum for advanced technology needs and new users. The NTIA is developing a national Spectrum Strategy to assist.
Article Summary
- Semafor: Although it won’t drive a vehicle, General Motors, and its manufacturers, are looking to add a personal assistant that incorporates AI like ChatGPT.
- Reuters and OpenAI: OpenAI announced the release of GPT-4 which will be a multimodal model that is able to accept image and text inputs. The new model provides human-level performance and shows more growth for AI.
- Wall Street Journal: In order to help drive up revenue, Buzzfeed has turned to ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, to help with their quizzes and personalize content for audiences.
- The Verge: LinkedIn is one of the latest companies to turn to AI. The platform will be utilizing AI in order to enhance users’ profiles and even create job posts for employers.
- TechCrunch: The U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer’s latest budget included new funding for tech innovation, including investing in research into quantum computing, and an annual £1 million prize for AI research.
- Reuters: One day after reaching a 10-year deal to bring Activision’s Call of Duty franchise to cloud gaming provider Boosteroid, Microsoft announced a similar agreement with Japanese cloud gaming provider Ubitus. These deals are aimed at addressing regulatory concerns about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Featured Podcast
The New York Times
- Hard Fork Podcast
Representative Don Beyer thinks artificial intelligence is “the most amazing technology since fire.” So what does it mean that most of Congress seems not to understand it? Then our colleague David McCabe discusses a bill that could dramatically expand the Biden administration’s power to ban TikTok. Plus: what can the video game character Waluigi tell us about A.I. chatbots gone rogue? (A Representative Goes to A.I. School, and How to Ban TikTok – March 10, 2023)