Britain to spend £22m influencing Indo-Pacific nations' cybersecurity policies against 'authoritarian regimes'
- Reference: 1620821711
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/12/cyberuk_dominic_raab_22m_indopacific/
- Source link:
"I'm very pleased to announce that the UK government will invest £22m in new funding to support cyber capacity building in those vulnerable countries," said Raab at the CyberUK conference this morning, making his single policy pledge in the speech.
The Foreign Secretary said the money will go towards "national cyber response teams" mostly in Africa, with the stated intent being "to improve cooperation on cyber investigations" into potentially nation state-backed attacks on companies and digital-dependent infrastructure.
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"From my perspective, at least from a diplomatic point of view… we've got to be agile, we've got to work with traditional partners, but also with new partners. Just take ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which I mentioned earlier, that's a good example," continued Raab, highlighting [4]Singapore's Cyber Security Centre of Excellence .
The move builds on the Integrated Defence Review [5]published earlier this year , which promised an expansion of UK cyber-policy amid heavy overuse of the word "cyber".
"Britain has a real comparative advantage in this space," boasted Raab, namechecking potential allies as India*, Australia (a member of the Five Eyes espionage alliance), South Korea, South Africa, and Brunei.
We've got the world-beating coders, the world-beating scientists, the ground-breaking innovators. And at the same time, we've also got GCHQ, the NCSC, the National Cyber force, the capacity to defend our liberties at home, and to protect the world's online freedoms from those who would poison the well. And that's our mission as global Britain to flourish as a tech superpower and to serve as an even stronger force for good in the world.
Why would countries go for this?
It looks good on the page but the wider world may not be interested in accepting the UK as a moral or intellectual leader on internet matters when China and the US can firehose money and people at diplomatic, policy, and (dare we say it) cyber problems.
Raab was alive to this, saying: "We've been at this a while. Ten years ago, the UK government brought together in London more than 60 countries to try and establish the principles for governing behaviour in cyberspace, talking about basic principles, things like universal access to the internet, protecting individual human rights online," later conceding this was a "good point of departure, but only a point of departure."
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In terms of cyber enemies, the foreign sec named "authoritarian regimes like North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, who use digital tech to sabotage and to steal, or to control and censor," neatly skirting around the censorship-lite shambles that is Britain's [7]Online Harms Bill , published today in Parliament for the first time.
Overall the speech didn't make any big promises, the non-timescale-bound £22m pledge aside. Given the government's claimed focus on cybersecurity as a major policy, this was unusual.
CyberUK continues for the rest of today. A US government cybersecurity official is due to speak later this afternoon. ®
Bootnote
*India has long been adept at playing Western and Eastern powers off against each other. During the latter part of the Cold War, the Indian Navy was flying British Harrier jump jets and Soviet-made Tupolev long-range bombers at the same time, while its air force was operating MiG-29 fighters (a frontline Soviet type) alongside French-built Mirage 2000s in the late 1980s.
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[4] https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/new-asean-cyber-security-centre-launched-to-train-response-teams-to-combat-online-threats
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/18/ukgov_integrated_review_cyber/
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[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-laws-to-keep-children-safe-stop-racial-hate-and-protect-democracy-online-published
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Gov Overseas Work
This has been going on for some years now, with Civil Servants from the UK getting a couple of weeks in the sun looking at African countries set ups, writing a report while sat round the pool and topping up the tan. Nice jolly that may attract a promotion or sometimes a gong.
Most advice goes along the lines of lock doors and windows when office is closed, put decent locks on doors and bars on windows, don't write down passwords, carry bags away from the roadside and so on.
We've got the world-beating coders, the world-beating scientists, the ground-breaking innovators. And at the same time, we've also got GCHQ, the NCSC, the National Cyber force, the capacity to defend our liberties at home, and to protect the world's online freedoms from those who would poison the well. And that's our mission as global Britain to flourish as a tech superpower and to serve as an even stronger force for good in the world.
And don't forget world-beating modesty!
alongside French-built Mirage 2000s in the late 1980s.
India also bought 36 Rafales in 2019. Its Air Force has an impressive [1]mix of aircrafts in term of origins . There's clearly a political choice to have an equilibrium and not choosing a side against the other.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Air_Force#Current_Inventory
>There's clearly a political choice
After independence the USA turned up and said, "hello little brown people, would you like to swap your tea drinking colonial masters for some new coffee drinking colonial masters?"
Then uncle Joe turned up and said "Want to annoy the colonial oppressors, while learning how to control millions of peasants? Join our club!"
It's why the USA is such a staunch ally of Pakistan.
France as always, will sell weapons to both sides - it's why they have all those philosophers.
World beating coders ?
Really ? Where ?
In all those companies you've sold off to foreign interests ?
Tip : Bletchley Park has been closed for some time now.
Re: World beating coders ?
World-beating Cod. Not coders. Cod.
Re: World beating coders ?
Cod?
No, Spanish and French fishermen have most of the cod.
Maybe he meant we have a lot of old cod's?
He was certainly spouting a lot.
Doesn't the UK hoover data?
The UK doesn't have a good record. They have been implicated in looking into people's lives a bit too closely online and also with wire-taps and such. They also share the data with other countries without due process and also spy for other countries in order to get around due process requirements in those countries.
Finally, the UK has been trying to legislate backdoors into encryption.
Given those data points, I would like to ask the UK if they are the right advisors in this area. We could rely on the US instead; obviously the NSA and the CIA will give us better advice (sarcasm)
Advice such as ban end-to-end encryption for the plebs.
About the comment about fighter aircraft from Russia and the West
India, I believe, flies Russian Sukhois and MiGs along side French, British fighter/fighter bombers, US helicopters, surveillance & drones aircraft, and Israeli drones. Throw in some Italian choppers and Brazilian aircraft. All they now need to do is to buy a few Swedish Gripens to complete the logistics nightmare.
USA too?
After a recent, and possibly ongoing, US cyberattack which has caused fuel shortages, maybe the US should attend too?
Oh really?
""We've been at this a while. Ten years ago, the UK government brought together in London more than 60 countries to try and establish the principles for governing behaviour in cyberspace, talking about basic principles, things like universal access to the internet, protecting individual human rights online,""
Is that the right to be spied on, and the right to have all your data hoovered up by the lowest bidder, and then held "securely" in a public facing, open access, S3 bucket?