At a glance.
- China enacts tough cybersecurity vetting rules for imported tech.
- Contact tracing updates.
- Department of Homeland Security designates Federal Quality Service Management Office.
- Kim Jong-un is apparently still at large and in charge.
China enacts tough cybersecurity vetting rules for imported tech.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Cyberspace Administration of China has promulgated a new set of rules that will apply to how operators of “critical information infrastructure” are to purchase goods and services to be used where they might affect national security. Beijing says that the country remains open for business, and that the new rules (which will take effect on June 1st) are intended merely to apply a cybersecurity review process, not to restrict imports. But foreign companies, especially US firms, are uneasy about the restrictive effect they fear the new rules may have.
Contact tracing updates.
Apple and Google are rolling out their decentralized contact-tracing app, and it's found favor in some places, Germany among them. Britain's National Health Service will not, however, be using it. The NHS is pursuing its own system that will also use Bluetooth Low Energy signals as a proxy for close approaches to possible sources of infection, but the BBC says NHS wants the data centralized, the better to adapt them to closer management of the pandemic. According to the New Statesman, the British health agency has brought in US big data company Palantir to help them develop their preferred alternative.
Department of Homeland Security designates its Quality Service Management Office.
A year after the US Office of Management and Budget directed Executive departments and agencies to establish Quality Services Management Offices, the Department of Homeland Security has done so. Nextgov reports that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) will manage shared services across the Federal Government.
Kim Jong-un is apparently still at large and in charge.
It now seems likely that rumors of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's death or incapacitation are false. The Washington Post cites US and South Korean sources that suggest Mr. Kim and his private train are in Wonsan. Premature rumors of death were common during the rule of Mr. Kim's two predecessors in Pyongyang, his father and his grandfather, and it appears that the present stories are equally unfounded.