Huawei doubles down on its claim that Telstra uses Chinese-made equipment on its 5G network
Huawei has doubled down on its claim that Telstra has installed Chinese-made equipment on its 5G network.
Welcome to The Download, The Australian’s technology blog for the latest breaking tech news.
David Swan 4.45pm: BigCommerce files to go public in the US
Sydney-born e-commerce company BigCommerce has filed IPO paperwork to go public in the US, making it the latest Australian start-up to do so.
The company, which is now headquartered in Austin Texas and retains about 60 Sydney staff, has an estimated $US1bn valuation and has raised $US200 million privately.
Telstra Ventures became an investor in BigCommerce in 2014.
Chris Griffith. 3.30pm: Huawei hits back at Telstra over Chinese-made 5G equipment
Huawei has doubled down on its claim that Telstra has installed Chinese-made equipment on its 5G network.
Huawei is banned from supplying telecommunications equipment for the network, but that hasn’t stopped it claiming it’s been the victim of a double standard.
Huawei’s counsel former South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon first went on the attack on Sky News citing a relationship between Telstra and Panda Electronics Group that US officials say is run by the People’s Liberation Army.
“What is extraordinary is that Telstra is getting its 5G kit as well as 4G and 3G for the last decade before that from a company, a joint-venture arrangement, with Ericsson and Panda Electronics,” he said.
Yesterday Telstra rejected Xenophon’s assertion saying it does not have any equipment from Chinese vendors in its network now, nor has it in the past. In particular, it doesn’t have any equipment made by Panda.
“We work closely with our network partner Ericsson to ensure all components of our network are secure,” a Telstra spokesman told The Australian.
Today Mr Xenophon said Ericsson and Telstra are “now engaging in Olympic class word games to try to escape the inconvenient truth they are facing – their 5G equipment is being manufactured in China with a joint-venture partner, Panda Electronics.”
He says Ericsson confirmed on the record that kit from its joint-venture with Panda Electronics was being supplied to Australian customers - and that includes Telstra”. He says the admission was in reply to a question on notice from Labor MP Ed Husic in February public hearing of the Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts.
“It’s disingenuous for Ericsson to now say that Panda Electronics itself doesn’t supply 5G ‘components’ in its kit,” Mr Xenophon says.
“In fact Panda Electronics is a key player in the joint-venture that manufactures the kit ... how can that possibly pass the ‘pub test’?
“Huawei is an entirely private company that has been slurred in Australia as being a plaything of the Chinese Communist Party, when it is clearly not.
“It is a capitalist success story, not a communist front. Now we have a Scandinavian company given the tick of approval to operate here when it manufactures its gear through a company allegedly controlled by the Peoples Liberation Army. Go figure.
“As for Telstra, it’s claims that it doesn’t use kit from Chinese vendors is simply creating a strawman argument. Their kit is being made in China.
“The reality is that the ban on Huawei gave Telstra an enormous advantage in the 5G marketplace over Optus and Vodafone.
“ These recent developments have again highlighted the total lack of due process and transparency in what Huawei has been subjected to.
“Australia prides itself as being a country where the rule of law applies – rules that appear to have been ignored or broken when it comes to Huawei,” Mr Xenophon says in his letter today.
Chris Griffith 2.30pm: Privacy watchdogs probe Clearview AI
The use of millions of images affecting Australian and UK social media users will be under examination when Australian and UK privacy bodies probe the operation of local start-up Clearview AI. The two organisations have begun an investigation into the Australian company.
The issue involves Clearview AI’s use of more than three billion images it has ‘scraped’ from social media networks, without the explicit permission of those who posted them. Clearview is using them to provide a massive database of searchable images for law enforcement authorities. It argues that the images are in the public domain.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office in a joint statement say they have opened an investigation into the personal information handling practices of Clearview, focusing on the company’s use of this ‘scraped’ data and biometrics of individuals.
“Clearview’s facial recognition app allows users to upload a photo of an individual and match it to photos of that person collected from the internet,” the statement says. “It then links to where the photos appeared. It is reported that the system includes a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have taken or ‘scraped’ from various social media platforms and other websites.”
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube have all demanded that Clearview AI stop collecting images from their platforms, and its operation has been shut down in Canada where there is also a privacy investigation.
Earlier this year the Australian Federal Police admitted that seven of its officers had started trialling the tool without department oversight, says The Australian Computer Society’s Information Age. The report said the admission came from a reply to a question on notice from a parliamentary inquiry.
“Between 2 November 2019 and 22 January 2020, members of the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) registered for a free trial of the Clearview AI facial recognition tool and conducted a limited pilot of the system in order to ascertain its suitability,” the AFP said. “The trial was to assess the capability of the Clearview AI system in the context of countering child exploitation,” Information Age reported.
Melissa Yeo 12.25pm: Slattery backing sends Pointerra soaring
Backing from heavyweight tech investor Bevan Slattery has sparked a 60pc surge in 3D data specialist Pointerra.
The $33m company this morning said Mr Slattery had invested $2.5m in the business, at 5c per share.
The tech entrepreneur, also the founder of Superloop, said the opportunity was large given the “exponential growth in geospatial data”.
“I am excited that Pointerra has the potential to be a world leader in this field and ultimately to help feed the geospatial systems behind industries including telecommunications, renewable energy and autonomous vehicles. I am tremendously excited that an Australian team is building this global capability,” he said.
Trade in the company reached 11c per share this morning, and last traded up 61pc to 8.7c.
Proceeds from the placement are to be used to accelerate the appointment new development and sales resources in Australia and the US.
Chris Griffith 12.15pm: Time for a national online course to fight the pandemic
It’s time for Australia to get its citizens to do a national pandemic online course on dealing with coronavirus. Going online as a nation could help inform and reunify us in the fight against this highly infectious virus.
Despite the messages of caution broadcast every day by the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders, and numerous news reports and ads, the notion that coronavirus remains a deadly enemy and probably will for a couple of years doesn’t resonate with some sections of the public.
The message isn’t getting through. Take the large crowds dancing and drinking in bars around Bondi in Sydney this past weekend, who will likely do the same next weekend.
Part of the problem is the inconsistent rules and mixed messaging about what to do. The public is told to socially distance, wash hands and be cautious, but, with pressure to open the economy, people are also told to get out, patronise restaurants and pubs, use local services and help stimulate employment.
UNSW virologist Professor Peter White also sees a role for a course. “I really like that idea,” he says, adding there needs also to be more government advertising to get the message across.
“I’m pretty sure that the government is probably going to go down this road – more education. Clearly there‘s some weak links around some populations. The message isn’t quite getting through how infectious this virus is.”
David Swan 12.05pm: UiPath now worth more than $10bn
Robotic Process Automation company UiPath has raised a mammoth $225 million Series E funding round, valuing the fast-growing company at $10.2 billion.
The New-York based company, which has a vision to “deliver a robot for every person”, raised the funding from Alkeon Capital Management, Accel, Coatue, Dragoneer, Sequoia Capital, Tencent and others.
It’s betting on the prediction that firms will increasingly look to automation as a way to mitigate the risks that future crises pose to the supply and productivity of human workers.
“This funding allows us to accelerate our platform ambitions to meet mounting customer demands and scale the tremendous opportunity to bring automation to one billion citizen developers – resulting in every business finally becoming a software business,” Daniel Dines, UiPath co-founder and CEO said.
The company last year announced it was taking on the Australian market, opening an Australian office and hiring AWS‘ former Australia and New Zealand boss Andrew Phillips.
“Over the past few years, we’ve seen tremendous growth for RPA across Australia and New Zealand,“ Mr Phillips said.
“This growth has further accelerated over the past few months as organisations have rapidly transformed their workforces and experienced the true advantages of automation.
“We’re focused on helping our customers and partners with our hyperautomation platform, which will allow them to be more productive, strategic and agile.”
David Swan 10.40am: COVIDSafe app ‘an expensive dud’
Labor’s government services spokesman Bill Shorten has slammed the government’s COVIDSafe app, after it was revealed Victoria and New South Wales have had no contacts identified through the app, despite it being branded by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as the nation’s ticket to freedom.
“Labor gave support in principle if the app could help make us safer, but I have to say it looks like an expensive dud, another IT bungle,” Mr Shorten told Sky News last night.
The app has been downloaded more than 6.6 million times.
COVIDSafe, which was made available to Australians in April, was developed to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Once installed, the app uses Bluetooth to check if any other phones with the app installed are within 1.5m of you.
When two phones detect each other they exchange a “digital handshake” meaning each device shares an anonymous ID to log the close contact.
The data is sent to a national store where, if someone reports positive, health officials then phone contacts to tell them they may have been exposed to coronavirus.
Australia built its own COVID-19 contact tracing app, despite other countries opting to use technology built by Apple and Google.
David Swan 9.50am: Altium still growing but misses expectations
Electronic design software maker Altium has posted its unaudited full-year financial results for FY20, with the company falling short of analyst expectations but recording a ninth straight year of double digit revenue growth.
Altium - which is one of the ASX‘s illustrious ’WAAAX’ stocks which also includes Afterpay and Xero - said revenue and sales were each up 10 per cent year on year, to $US189m and $US194m respectively.
It will release its full fiscal results for 2020 in August. Altium had issued four revenue warnings since COVID1-19 hit in February, and said it would miss its aspirational goal of $200m in revenue.
It warned in June that its revenue for the 12 months to June 30 would rise, but fall short of consensus predictions by analysts.
Citi had forecast $US193m ($280m) in revenue, which was in line with market consensus.
“Altium has not been immune to the uncertainty and the evolving impact of COVID-19, however, as a global high-tech company, geared to work remotely and with a robust and highly adaptable business model, we were able to deliver a strong performance through COVID-19 conditions - maintaining our unbeaten record of eight consecutive years of double digit revenue growth, and extending it to nine straight years,” CEO Aram Mirkazemi said in a statement to investors.
“While COVID-19 prevented us from reaching our long standing aspirational goal of $200 million in revenue, conditions surrounding COVID-19 have dramatically accelerated our movement towards market dominance and the implementation of our transformative agenda for the industry.”
According to Mr Mirkazemi, Altium accelerated the roll-out of its cloud platform Altium 365 from May 1, to help engineers work remotely. He said the software now has over 2,500 companies and nearly 5,000 active users, and is targeting 100,000 subscribers by 2025.
9.30am: LinkedIn sued over reading Apple users’ clipboard content
Microsoft’s LinkedIn is being sued by a New York-based iPhone user for allegedly reading and diverting users’ sensitive content from Apple’s universal clipboard application.
According to Apple’s website, Universal Clipboard allows users to copy text, images, photos, and videos on one Apple device and then paste the content onto another Apple device.
According to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court by Adam Bauer, LinkedIn reads the Clipboard information without notifying the user. LinkedIn did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.
According to media reports from last week, 53 apps including TikTok and LinkedIn were reported to be reading users’ Universal Clipboard content, after Apple’s latest privacy feature started alerting users whenever the clipboard was accessed with a banner saying “pasted from Messages.”
“These “reads” are interpreted by Apple’s Universal Clipboard as a “paste” command,” Bauer’s lawsuit alleged.
A LinkedIn executive had said on Twitter last week that the company released a new version of its app to end this practice.
Developers and testers of Apple’s operating system iOS 14 found that LinkedIn’s application on iPhones and iPads “secretly” read users’ clipboard “a lot,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit seeks to certify the complaint as class action based on alleged violation of the law or social norms, under California laws.
According to the complaint, LinkedIn has not only been spying on its users, it has been spying on their nearby computers and other devices, and it has been circumventing Apple’s Universal Clipboard time-out.
Reuters
9.10am: Softbank explores sale of Arm Holdings
SoftBank is exploring alternatives including a full or partial sale or public offering of British chip designer Arm Holdings, which the Japanese conglomerate bought four years ago for $US32 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review, on which Goldman Sachs Group is advising, is at an early stage, the people said. It isn’t known how much interest financial or industry players might have in Arm, and it is possible SoftBank will ultimately choose to do nothing.
SoftBank has previously indicated it could return Arm to public markets at some point. Such a move has gained urgency, however, as SoftBank seeks to raise cash from its varied stable of assets to mollify activist investor Elliott Management, which has been agitating for changes at the company.
SoftBank has said it plans to sell up to $41 billion in assets to prop up its struggling portfolio and buy back its own shares, which trade at a steep discount relative to net asset value. It has a grab bag of assets to choose from; in addition to Arm and roughly $20 billion worth of T-Mobile US shares it recently sold, SoftBank also owns large stakes in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and a leading Japanese cell phone provider.
SoftBank bought Arm, which designs microprocessors that power most of the world’s smartphones, in 2016. At the time it was SoftBank’s largest-ever acquisition.
The Wall Street Journal
Regulators ‘overlap’ in scam prevention draft
The draft Scam Prevention Framework could penalise telcos for abiding by one code while breaking another, the Communications Alliance has warned.
TPG aims rapid fire broadside at NBN
TPG Telecom is targeting apartment owners with its cheap and fast broadband offering – some 10 times faster than the NBN – that is achieved by ‘hot-rodding up’ old copper wire.