Hughes: InternetNZ could handle CTO role

Green Party technology spokesman Gareth Hughes told New Zealand Herald reporter Chris Keall InternetNZ could handle the national CTO role.

The position is still vacant almost a year after it was first planned. Last month marketing entrepreneur Derek Handley was appointed and then told he no longer had the job. The episode lead to the sacking of former communications and digital services minister Clare Curran.

Now the job is now being revisited by Megan Woods who now holds the digital services portfolio. She says she is on track to report to Cabinet about the position by the end of November. Woods would not comment on Hughes' plan.

It's a big job

Hughes told the Herald that the job is too large for an individual and could be contracted to InternetNZ. He says: "This would be similar to how businesses utilise external advice from the likes of PwC or Deloitte or government departments are monitored by the Office of the Controller and Auditor General."

He says: "...we need someone who can understand the complexity of something like AI, social media or blockchain and clearly communicate the opportunities and implications to the public. It's a big ask of someone to be across to all new technological developments in diverse fields and at the same time be across all of the government's digital work."

Hughes says contracting a third-party like InternetNZ would deliver value for taxpayers.

Bloomberg reports Chinese spy chips found in servers

According to a report by Bloomberg tiny microchips the size of a grain of rice have been found on server motherboards. The chips have been found on server motherboards made by a US company Super Micro Computer. They were added during a manufacturing stage that took place in China.

If proven, the claims have huge implications for Chinese makers of telecommunications network hardware which many governments regard as strategic assets. Australia and the US have already banned Chinese equipment companies from suppling key networks.

Companies using Super Micro Computer motherboards include Apple and Amazon Web Services. Both deny the reports of spy chips. Apple stopped working with Super Micro in 2016 but did not disclose the reason for its decision.

Malicious chips

Apple says: "On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server".

Bloomberg is standing by the story. It says it required more than a year of reporting and more than 100 interviews. They also said 17 individual sources confirmed the manipulated hardware.

According to Bloomberg an unnamed US government official told Bloomberg the chips aim to gain long-term access to government networks and high-value corporate secrets.

Chatham Islands get SigFox IoT network

Wireless Nation has worked with Thinxtra to install a Internet of Things network on the remote Chatham Islands. The company has installed a low-power wide-area network on the main island, using proprietary SigFox technology. Among other applications the network is being used for health and safety purposes to help track lone workers. It can also track there whereabouts of assets such as boats.

Vodafone Dreamlab finished cancer research project

The Vodafone Foundation says its Dreamlab app helped researchers finish a genetic profile project ahead of schedule. The app uses spare processing capacity on thousands of phones to make calculations when the phone is not in use. It is, in effect, a distributed super computer. Project Genetic Profile used this to claculate genetic similarities between brain, lung, melanoma and sarcoma cancers. The researchers say they will now moving on to a new project that aims to connect the dots between physical human traits and their genetic basis.

InternetNZ: Facebook hack a call to action

A major security breach at Facebook saw attackers gain access to as many as 50 million accounts. InternetNZ warns it is likely some New Zealanders will be affected.

The organisation's director of communications Andrew Cushen told Radio New Zealand it is "... a call to action for organisations like Facebook who we trust to look after a huge amount of information about us all and it looks like this hack exploited part of Facebook's security set-up in a way that I hope they learn from quickly, I hope that they close that loop hole quickly".

Facebook says it learned of the breach last Tuesday and fixed the issue by that Thursday.