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Navalny vs Assange, or the geopolitics of selective outrage – WSWS

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The hearts of political leaders in the United States and its imperialist allies are bleeding for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Jailed on February 2 this year, after returning from Germany where he received treatment for an alleged poisoning by the Russian state, Navalny has since gone on hunger strike.

The outrage over Navalnys imprisonment and resulting health crisis is an object lesson in imperialist cynicism and intrigue. Those most passionately invoking his democratic rights are the architects of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assanges continuing and vastly more severe persecution.

There is nothing remotely comparable between the two men, and the differences are not in Navalnys favour.

Assange is a heroic journalist who played a leading role in the exposure of some of the worst imperialist crimes of the 21st century, from covered-up details of the brutal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to US torture camps and extraordinary renditions.

Navalny is a right-wing, nationalist politician, who has referred to migrants from the Caucasus as cockroaches that should be killed. He represents a wing of the Russian oligarchy opposed to President Vladimir Putin and in favour of opening Russia up more widely to Western imperialism.

It is this difference which underpins their night and day treatment.

The WikiLeaks founders work was a spur to global antiwar sentiment and contributed to popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. He is being made an example of as retribution for the damage he inflicted to imperialist interests. The same interests mandate support for Navalny, who offers himself up as a tool for realising their designs on Russia.

The contrasting treatment tears apart claims by the likes of US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to be supporting Navalny on human rights grounds while pursuing Assange on supposedly legal ones.

Assanges persecution began more than a decade ago when Sweden launched a politically manufactured sexual assault investigation to secure his extradition. This would have been a staging post to the United States. Assange was forced, in 2012, to claim political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was kept arbitrarily detained by British police for the best part of seven years.

Following his illegal seizure and arrest in April 2019, he has spent the past two years in Belmarsh maximum security prisonon the charge of skipping bail for 25 weekson remand while the US pursued an extradition request for over a year, and since then for close to four months while the US appeals a ruling against extradition on health grounds.

His politically motivated case is a litany of abuses of legal and democratic rights, carried out alongside a slander campaign involving the worlds media and pseudo-left groups, designed to blacken his name and psychologically destroy the WikiLeaks founder.

Were Assange to be sent to the US, he faces a sentence of 175 years on charges under the Espionage Act.

Every government in the world lined up behind this imperialist conspiracy to have Assange, denounced as a high-tech terrorist by Biden, face justice, in the words of Johnson. German Chancellor Angela Merkel summed up the stance of the European powers with the comment in 2019 that Assanges case is a matter which doesnt concern Germany and is in the hands of British justice. Australia, Assanges home country, washed their hands of him.

In contrast, when Navalny was arrested this year, also for violating parole, in connection with a 2014 embezzlement case, and sentenced to two years and eight months imprisonment, this gang of criminals miraculously discovered their democratic sensibilities.

Johnson praised the brave Navalny and said the Russian ruling fails to meet the most basic standards of justice. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan condemned the violation of human rights. Merkel declared the Navalny verdict far from any rule of law standards. French President Emmanuel Macron stated, respect for human rights such as democratic freedom are not negotiable.

Especially severe condemnations were made of the outrageous attack on his [Navalnys] life, referring to his alleged poisoning by the Russian state. Yet nothing was said when an investigation into Spanish security firm UC Global, which provided surveillance for the Ecuadorian embassy, revealed a CIA plot to either kidnap or poison Assange.

As Navalnys health has deteriorated due to his hunger strike, these officials have reiterated calls for his freedom, citing the danger to his life. Biden called Navalnys treatment totally unfair and totally inappropriate, while his administration warned of consequences if he were to die. Josep Borrell, the European Unions High Representative for foreign affairs demanded, Russian authorities must grant him immediate access to medical professionals he trusts. The UKs Foreign Office said the same in its statement: Mr Navalny must be given immediate access to independent medical care.

This is precisely the demand made by campaign group Doctors for Assange and United Nations special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, but which was disparaged by the British government. Assange has been repeatedly denied bail despite the serious risk posed to his life by COVID-19 and by his own mental health.

UK Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against his extradition to the United States solely on the grounds that to do so would endanger his life and might lead to his suicide. The response of the Biden administration was to insist, as Trump had previously, We continue to seek his extradition.

The criminal agenda of the ruling class is echoed by their paid chorus in the media, who have been working overtime to fabricate progressive credentials for Navalny while leaving Assange to rot.

Since January this year, the Guardian, Britains leading nominally liberal paper, has published 78 articles and videos on Navalny. It published 16 on Assange, with just one since February. It only belatedly adopted a for-the-record opposition to Assanges extradition in a November 2019 editorial, after waging a decade-long smear campaign against him. It wrote another in December 2020 and then again in January this year. It has written three on Navalny this year alone.

Amnesty International refused to acknowledge Assange as a prisoner of conscience for years but was so quick to apply the label to Navalny that they were forced into an embarrassing retreat in acknowledgment of his record of hate speech a few months later. US Democratic Party Senator Bernie Sanders has maintained near total silence on Assange, issuing a single tweet opposing his indictment in May 2019 that succeeded in not mentioning the WikiLeaks founder by name. He tweeted this Monday: Make no mistake about what is happening here: activist Aleksei Navalny is being murdered in front of the world by Vladimir Putin for the crime of exposing Putins vast corruption. Navalnys doctors must be allowed to see him immediately.

Phrases like human rights and democratic freedom turn to ash in the mouths of Sanders, Biden, Johnson and their ilk. Their support for the politically filthy Navalny is a calculated provocation against the Russian state. They hope to use his fate as a pretext for a further escalation of military aggression against Moscow. Assange has had his democratic rights eviscerated with the consent of all the major powers to suppress opposition to this imperialist war drive.

The only real constituency for democratic rights in the world today is the international working class, which can only defend those rights through a combined struggle against the imperialist governments, their stooge Navalny and the Russian oligarchy represented by Putin. The demand for the immediate release and unconditional freedom of Julian Assange must be placed at the centre of that struggle.

From global Pandemic to global class struggle

2021 International May Day Online Rally

Saturday, May 1, 11AM US Eastern Time. Streamed at wsws.org/mayday.

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Navalny vs Assange, or the geopolitics of selective outrage - WSWS

Beijing is among targets of Western media’s lies – Chinadaily USA

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A woman dances on a street in the Old Town of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. ZHAO GE/XINHUA

If you have been paying any attention to Western media, including all forms of social media with United States or Western origins, you will have heard allegations about the horrific "genocide "and "ethnic cleansing" in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of China.

Supposedly, "mass rapes" and "mass sterilization programs" are being carried out against Uygurs, who allegedly are being held in "concentration camps".

It has been stated by many that, rather than being factual, all the reporting is actually an attempt by the West to demonize China in order to turn the entire world against it.

Why? As political economist William Briggs wrote recently in the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations, "China's economic star is rising, and America's best days are behind it." And if the past few decades have shown us anything, it is that the US can be a very sore loser.

Just look at what happened to Libya. Many observers of Middle Eastern events believe the US bombing of Libya came about because the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafiwanted to move off the petrodollar and use gold for the oil trade instead.

So what is the truth about Xinjiang?

Many years ago in Xinjiang, I saw no obvious ethnic tensions. But that was a while ago.

Jerry Grey, a retired Australian living in Guangdong province, went on a bike tour through Xinjiang, thousands of kilometers away, in late 2019. He wrote that he had seen nothing of the prison camps or any of the other horrors reported (or magnified) by people who have never set foot in either Xinjiang or other parts of China.

What about the 1 million Uygurs "locked in concentration camps", as reported by the media? It turns out that this number comes from the World Uyghur Congress, which is based in Munich, Germany. Hilariously, in a video interview with a representative from this Congress that I watched, when asked where the figure 1 million came from, the representative answered, "The media". Astounding circularity.

And therein lies the rub. Quite clearly the Western mainstream media are responsible for a process of telling half-truths or outright lies in order to demonize China, with the final intention pointing to war.

As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said, "Every war in the last 50 years has been created by media lies". And that is the reason Assange sits in Belmarsh Prison near London, for creating a system to allow people to see the actual truthraw documentsof what is happening in our world.

How does this process of false narrative building happen? The basic modus operandi is to produce so-called news, often based on "leaks" from unnamed but supposedly reliable sources.

So, for instance, someone from the US intelligence community will tell a US media outlet that there are "mass rapes of Uygurs" in Xinjiang. The media then run with this and sell it as truth. They embellish and dramatize. Horrific details are included, with the goal being to get emotional reactions and raise the levels of fear and disgust.

Then the whole process is put on repeat, day after day with the same messages. In other words, they use the technology of brainwashing that is called "manufacturing consent".

Ultimately, when caught lying outright, the media will do some disingenuous retraction, of just one or two lines on page 10 so the retraction is never seen. By then it doesn't matter, because truth-telling people have been destroyed, and readers hardly make it to page 10 anyway.

It is fair to say that, through these very deliberate processes designed to distort, smear, defame and lie, in the minds of people who are absorbing the "news" uncritically, China increasingly comes to be perceived in a very negative way, and thus consent for war is manufactured.

Sadly, this process of demonization is not simply directed at China. It is being directed at truth itself.

As a case in point, certainly not the only case, the last year-and-a-half of global madness around COVID-19 has been created by the very same process of lies and deception perpetrated by the Western media, supported by mass de-platforming and smearing of knowledgeable people who are trying to communicate true facts about the situation.

In this way, the majority of people only get to hear the official narrative when it's too late.

A war against truth and the people of the world, manufactured by means of media lies, is taking place in front of our eyes. The demonization of China is simply part of that larger war.

The author is a psychologist, linguist, educator, entrepreneur and corporate adviser. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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Beijing is among targets of Western media's lies - Chinadaily USA

George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior – Revd Jonathan Evens – ArtLyst

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Australian artist and documentary filmmaker, George Gittoes is an artist willing to create in the face of chaos and potential destruction. He has been travelling the world for 40 years visiting extreme situations war zones, natural disasters and places where violence and fanaticism feature as part of everyday life. He defies categorisation, as his life defies belief; see his autobiography Blood Mystic for corroboration. He uses painting, prints, visual diaries, field drawings, photography and filmmaking to present his work as an eyewitness account of social injustices and the difficult times in which we live.

He has been recognised for his humanitarian and peace-making efforts, awarded an Order of Australia

Equal parts artist and warrior, Gittoes has been waging war on war with art, circus, photography and film having been, over the course of his life, shot, stabbed, bombed, beaten, tortured, drowned and jailed. He has worked with Andy Warhol, dined with Fidel Castro, plotted with Julian Assange, been feted by Nelson Mandela, blessed by Mother Theresa, sneezed on by the Dalai Lama. I feel privileged to have been able to spend much of my life creating beauty in the face of the destruction of war, he has said. I have been waging a personal war against war with art. Soldiers die for flags. For me it is art.

George Gittoes, The Scream, 2019, oil on canvas, 152.5 x 122.5cm, collection of the artis

He has been recognised for his humanitarian and peace-making efforts, awarded an Order of Australia (AM) and the prestigious 2015 Sydney Peace Prize. He has also won many prizes for his painting including twice being awarded the Blake Prize for Religious Art. His acclaimed documentaries includeBullets of the Poets(1986),Soundtrack to War(2004),Rampage(2006),Miscreants of Taliwood(2007),Love City Jalalabad(2013) andWhite Light(2019).

Gittoes was born in Rockdale, NSW in 1949. After working with Andy Warhol and the Black Panthers in New York, he founded the Yellow House in Sydney with Martin Sharp. Rev Rod Pattenden, curator ofGeorge Gittoes: on being there, has written that the inspiration for the Yellow House lay with the example of Vincent van Gogh and his hopes for a community of artists. Gittoes contribution to the Yellow House was an elaborately painted puppet theatre where he told stories using hand crafted puppets made from liquid polystyrene, fabric, metal and paint. For this, he drew on such material as Christian religious theatre, Sufi wisdom plays and contemporary theatre. The space was titled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and its design reflected his early interest in Islamic art and, more importantly, a search for a way of working that formulated an overall approach to vision and interpretation.[i]

From there his work took on a more international scope as he travelled to places like Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Middle East as an unofficial war artist. His journeys in the 1990s took him to Iraq and Pakistan, and then to the founding of a second Yellow House in the city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan working with local artists and actors. These journeys found their most recent expression through his sojourn in 2018 in the suburbs of South Chicago, one of the worst centres for gun violence in the USA, where he made the documentary White Light.

Pattenden notes that, in many ways, the shape of the work Gittoes has completed in recent years has been a continuation of influences that came together in 1986 when filmingThe Bullets of the Poetson location in Nicaragua. The experience of being present in a situation of revolution and social conflict inspired a new return to drawing and painting with Gittoes being greatly affected by the Externalism strategies of a group of Sandinista women poets. The externalist poets believed in using real life events and physical experiences in their poetry, instead of the imagery of the Imagination as, for them, reality was more incredible than fantasy. lnspired by this poetry of reality, Gittoes began his first externalist drawings with charcoal, of soldiers at the frontline of the contra war.[ii]

In 1995 he won The Blake Prize for Religious Art with his work entitled The Preacher Kibeho Massacre Series, Rwanda which graphically portrays a Christian preacher, Bible in hand, giving words of comfort to those caught up in the fighting in East Africa in April 1995. Gittoes had been on hand as part of his role as war artist with the Australian Military in mostly peace keeping roles. On returning from Rwanda, Gittoes completed the work over one night as a summation of all the visual horror he had experienced in the midst of war commenting that, With The Preacher, he represents what I think religion should do, raise people up, make people feel human and spiritually alive and give them courage and faith. He has also said, this is what religion means to me, it is being aware of modem problems, and applying Christianity to the situation; it is the Bible being re-enacted in the present day.[iii]

Lil Mac, 2019 by George Gittoes

White Light takes us into a similar place as, with the support of Rev Jesse Jackson, the Roman Catholic priest Fr Michael Pfleger leads a demonstration that shuts down a stretch of the Dan Ryan Express Highway in Chicago to make the point that enough is enough when it comes to gun violence. In Englewood, statistics on gun violence are higher than any active armed conflict, leading locals to dub the area Chi-Raq. In this urban war zone, young people are the frequent targets, decimating families and fracturing the community. Installing himself within a local gang, Gittoes traces how racial segregation, high unemployment and ready access to firearms combine to contribute to a cycle of gun crime. Rather than surrender to violence, however, shooting survivors and community leaders, like Pfleger, aim to turn the tide through music and local collective action.

Through his work, Gittoes invites us to understand what it is like to be there, even daring to create, in some of the most dangerous places in the world. He wants the viewer to experience the conditions, situations and ethical dilemmas that he himself encounters in being there and invites us to examine our own cultural fears of what it is like to be over there, in places that only appear in our evening news in the context of global terrorism or violence.George Gittoes: on being theregives privileged access to his process through his personal visual diaries, field drawings, photography and film. Through these forms, we experience an amazing human journey that holds out the hopeful power of creativity in the face of prejudice and fear. This is a magnificent visual record of how Gittoes not only survives but creates in the face of forces that would seek to repress the human imagination.

Gittoes has learned that documenting frontline action is not enough; he wants to use art to bring about change. He wants, as Pattenden writes, to pull us into these narratives and for us to consider what matters most when we talk about what life means and the nature of survival and human thriving. As such, this exhibition is a magnificent visual record of an imagination that provides a hopeful resource for the difficult times in which we live.[iv]

George Gitteoes: On Being There | 24 April 27 June, Casula Powerhouse

[i] Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 180.

[ii]Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 181.

[iii]Rod Pattenden, Visceral Compassion: Images of War Artist George Gittoes in Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, 1998, p. 182-183.

[iv]Rod Pattenden, CatalogueGeorge Gittoes: on being there, Wollongong Art Gallery, 13 February 18 April 2021, p. 5.

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George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior - Revd Jonathan Evens - ArtLyst

CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Five-year-old wins stare down with backyard bobcat in Castle Rock – WWLP.com

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CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Five-year-old wins stare down with backyard bobcat in Castle Rock - WWLP.com

7-year-old girl killed, father shot while sitting at McDonald’s drive-thru on West Side – WWLP.com

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Police investigating after teen motorcyclist dies in Pittsfield crashVideo / 6 hours ago

Massachusetts resumes use of J&J COVID-19 vaccine after CDC, FDA lift pauseVideo / 2 days ago

Massachusetts COVID-19 Dashboard: 13 new deaths, 1,452 new casesVideo / 2 days ago

Senate boosts Holyoke bond bill to $600M, removes labor agreementVideo / 2 days ago

Massachusetts COVID-19 Dashboard: 17 new deaths, 1,431 new casesVideo / 3 days ago

UMass Amherst requires students to be fully vaccinated for fall semesterVideo / 3 days ago

Massachusetts COVID-19 Dashboard: 13 new deaths, 1,370 new casesVideo / 4 days ago

Smith College requires students to receive COVID-19 vaccinationVideo / 4 days ago

Worcester Police shot, killed armed man they say made bomb threatsVideo / 5 days ago

Suspect arrested in deadly shooting on North Street in PittsfieldVideo / 5 days ago

Protests in Ohio over death of black teen shot and killed by policeNews / 4 days ago

Columbus Police body camera footage from Off. Nicholas ReardonLocal News / 4 days ago

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7-year-old girl killed, father shot while sitting at McDonald's drive-thru on West Side - WWLP.com

Atos strengthens its cybersecurity offering thanks to the acquisition of German cryptography specialist cryptovision – GlobeNewswire

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Paris, France and Munich, Germany April 20, 2021 Atos today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire cv cryptovision GmbH, a leader in state-of-the-art cryptographic products and solutions for securing digital identities. This acquisition will strengthen Atos cybersecurity product lines and boost the companys business in the public sector and defense market in Europe.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, cryptovision designs, develops and implements cryptography software, security solutions and hardware products. Its unique solutions are made in Germany, certified by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and accredited by the NATO. The company has a proven track-record of successfully addressing organizations digital security challenges, in particular those in the public and defense sectors, as well as other sectors with highly demanding regulations and security standards.

The combination of the two companies will enable numerous synergies in their go-to-market approach. Atos will benefit from cryptovisions strong network of resellers and global technology partnerships in the e-ID markets. cryptovision will benefit from Atos trusted relationship with European government customers and the Groups ability to deliver end-to-end integrated solutions on national and international scale.

We are delighted to welcome cryptovision to the Atos family and to work together to develop even more effective security solutions that meet growing cybersecurity and privacy needs. cryptovision products complete the existing Atos cybersecurity products portfolio so we will be able to address new projects and customers, both in the German market and internationally. This strategic move further expands Atos' strategy to strengthen its cybersecurity presence, capabilities and portfolio worldwide. says Pierre Barnab, Senior Executive Vice President, Global Head of Big Data & Security at Atos.

With the now agreed affiliation with Atos, cryptovision benefits in many ways in particular through the global presence and comprehensive cyber security expertise of an international group. At the same time, cryptovision will be able to expand its technological depth of value creation for its customers, says Markus Hoffmeister, Founder and CEO of cryptovision.

The transaction is expected to close by end of Q3 2021 and is subject to the approval of the local governance and regulatory bodies of both parties.

***

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 105,000 employees and annual revenue of over 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos operates under the brands Atos and Atos|Syntel. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.Thepurpose of Atosis to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.www.atos.net

Atos contacts

Investor Relations: Gilles Arditti +33 (0)1 73 26 00 66 gilles.arditti@atos.net Global Press Relations: Lucie Duchateau - +33 (0)7 62 85 35 10 lucie.duchateau@atos.netGermany Press Relations: Stefan Pieper - +49 178 4686875 - stefan.pieper@atos.net

About cryptovision

cv cryptovision GmbH is one of the leading specialists for modern, user-friendly cryptography and secure electronic identities. With its solutions, over 250 million people world-wide and a multitude of institutions in the digital world protect themselves against hacker attacks, manipulation, misuse of identities and espionage. cryptovision addresses various industries such as public administration, health, auto-motive, finance & insurance, energy or IT. Its customers include countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Ecuador, institutions such as the German Armed Forces, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the city of New York and companies such as E.ON, VW and Allianz.

cryptovision contact

Veronica von Preysing, SVP Marketing - +49 173 308 2298 - veronica.preysing@cryptovision.com

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Atos strengthens its cybersecurity offering thanks to the acquisition of German cryptography specialist cryptovision - GlobeNewswire

NTT Research Names Matthew Ireland Chief Information Security Officer – Business Wire

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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NTT Research, Inc., a division of NTT (TYO:9432), today announced that it has named Matthew Ireland Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Most recently a consulting Practice Manager and Executive Security Strategist at NTT Ltd., Ireland is a technology leader with management experience in security services, consulting, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, law enforcement and emergency services and three decades of technical experience in information security, IT systems, networks and enterprise operations. He joined NTT in 2016 and served as a virtual (v)CISO for NTT Research beginning in September 2019. Ireland joined NTT Research full-time in March 2021. In this role, he will be responsible for information security, privacy, risk, compliance, physical security, incident response and some aspects of workplace safety.

We are so pleased to have Matt Ireland on board, said NTT Research President and CEO, Kazuhiro Gomi. His experience is deep and broad, and he is already very familiar with NTT Research and understands our security requirements, especially how they play out across our research labs.

Prior to his most recent roles in strategy and management at NTT Ltd., Ireland served as VP Global Cyber Security Operations, Regional CISO and Director of Information Security Operations at NTT Security. In these roles, Ireland managed a consulting team, provided strategic advisory services and directed various areas of information security architecture, strategy, technology operations and risk. He has had a leadership role in three complex enterprise data center moves and supported numerous client compliance audits. At NTT Research, Ireland will be engaged in both the cybersecurity of the companys three labs and the physical security of its Sunnyvale office. NTT Researchs Physics & Informatics (PHI) Lab, Cryptography & Information Security (CIS) Lab, and Medical & Health Informatics (MEI) Lab have distinctive security profiles and high expectations for privacy and secure IT operations.

It has been exciting to have NTT Research as an important part of my work over the past year and a half, and I am thrilled to now transition into the company full time, Ireland said. Like all organizations today, we face ever-changing technology challenges and threats, but I am committed to keeping NTT Research aligned with global security expectations as it fulfills its agenda at Sunnyvale, across remote workplaces and with key collaborators around the world.

Prior to joining NTT in 2016, Ireland served as an Enterprise Availability Engineer at Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield and as a Director, Manager and Specialist at Harland Clarke Holdings, a financial services corporation. Ireland holds a BS in Information Assurance & Security, an MS in IS/IT Management and nine additional certifications. He is a member of five professional organizations and served as vice president of a local chapter of InfraGard, a public-private partnership between U.S. businesses and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Ireland is also a trained emergency medical technician (EMT), a reserve county deputy sheriff and former fire chief of the local volunteer fire and rescue department (where he now continues to serve as a captain).

About NTT Research

NTT Research opened its offices in July 2019 as a new Silicon Valley startup to conduct basic research and advance technologies that promote positive change for humankind. Currently, three labs are housed at NTT Research facilities in Sunnyvale: The Physics and Informatics (PHI) Lab, the Cryptography and Information Security (CIS) Lab, and the Medical and Health Informatics (MEI) Lab. The organization aims to upgrade reality in three areas: 1) quantum information, neuroscience and photonics; 2) cryptographic and information security; and 3) medical and health informatics. NTT Research is part of NTT, a global technology and business solutions provider with an annual R&D budget of $3.6 billion.

NTT and the NTT logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION and/or its affiliates. All other referenced product names are trademarks of their respective owners. 2021 NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION

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NTT Research Names Matthew Ireland Chief Information Security Officer - Business Wire

TransUnion and Spring Labs Partner to Transform the Exchange of Sensitive Data – GlobeNewswire

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CHICAGO, April 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With an unrelenting focus on information security and consumer privacy, TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) continues to build and invest in technology to help businesses and consumers transact in an increasingly digital marketplace. The company is advancing this goal with a preferred equity investment and strategic cooperation agreement with Spring Labs, an advanced cryptography and blockchain based financial technology firm transforming the exchange of sensitive data. Together, Spring Labs and TransUnion aim to increase access to Spring Labs data exchange network and products, while enabling TransUnion to expand protection of sensitive consumer data and promote transformative technology in its business.

Spring Labs built a state-of-the-art technology protocol that cryptographically transforms and anonymizes data to unlock new data and products, said Steve Chaouki, President of U.S. Markets at TransUnion, who is joining the Spring Labs Board of Directors. The ability to securely exchange information without revealing the underlying data and identity of network participants creates opportunities for our customers and the consumers they serve through sharing of historically siloed data.

Spring Labs is revolutionizing the way consumer financial data is stored and shared among financial services institutions with a network foundation known as the Spring Protocol. This privacy-preserving information exchange returns control and value to data owners, unlocking new data sources and enabling competitively sensitive parties to collaborate for the common good.

Spring Labs advanced cryptography allows strict control of information visibility, and its permissioned blockchain provides a time-stamped, immutable record and audit trail. This approach offers a rare combination of transparency and privacy, uniquely suited to data exchanges in instances where participants may be concerned about sharing with competitors. For example, lenders can exchange information to identify fraud or verify identities without disclosing underlying data.

We are thrilled to announce TransUnions investment and related cooperation agreement. With tens of thousands of customers, TransUnion is the ideal partner for Spring Labs as a respected global information and insights company that shares our commitment to stewarding sensitive data. We see multiple avenues for collaboration, including the extension of our products, services and network to TransUnions customers, said Adam Jiwan, co-founder of Spring Labs. Additionally, by joining our Board, Steve will help drive continued growth for Spring Labs through his deep understanding of the business, data and analytics needs of Financial Services and other industries.

At the core of this relationship, TransUnion will help expand existing Spring Labs networks to new organizations, as well as develop new networks based on customer needs and interests.

Our core promise is to make trust possible between businesses and consumers, said Marko Ivanov, Senior Vice President at TransUnion and Spring Labs partnership lead. Spring Labs resolves the challenge of information sharing among competitors without inhibiting competition, while providing regulatory transparency and protecting consumer privacy. In addition, the flexibility and ease of integration of the Spring Protocol will enable rapid design and deployment of new networks in numerous industries across multiple use cases including credit risk, fraud and marketing. We are excited about the possibilities.

Spring Labs recently demonstrated the potential of its technology by deploying a network for data sharing among Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing providers, launched in Q4 2020. Network participants estimate it could save up to $10 million in fraud or 1% of total industry loan transactions.

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing a comprehensive picture of each person so they can be reliably and safely represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good.

A leading presence in more than 30 countries across five continents, TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences, and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people.

http://www.transunion.com/business

About Spring LabsSpring Labs creates and oversees anonymous, decentralized data networks that vastly increase the amount, quality, and security of information available to market participants. Spring Labs leverages sophisticated cryptographic tools and blockchain technology to provide data and metadata integrity guarantees, tamper-evident workflows, and privacy-preserving tokenization that allow for the corroboration of information without the exchange of underlying data. These interlocking technologies help mitigate fraud, improve verification capabilities, and securely provide access to previously unavailable data in the financial services industry. Based in Marina Del Rey, California, Spring Labs was founded in 2017 by Adam Jiwan, John Sun, and Anna Fridman. Spring Labs has approximately 50 employees and prior to the current funding round has raised over $38m from investors including GreatPoint Ventures, August Capital, GM Ventures, and others. Learn more at http://www.springlabs.com.

Press ContactsSpring Labs:

- Otto Pohl, otto@corecommunicationsconsulting.com - Daniel Mason, daniel@springlabs.com

TransUnion:

- Dave Blumberg, david.blumberg@transunion.com, 312-972-6646

Continued here:
TransUnion and Spring Labs Partner to Transform the Exchange of Sensitive Data - GlobeNewswire

Increasing Risk of Privacy Leakage in the Post-Pandemic Era, PlatON: Privacy Computing is the Solution – StreetInsider.com

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Singapore, Singapore--(Newsfile Corp. - April 21, 2021) - After the outbreak of COVID-19, the risk of privacy leakage is increasing. At the beginning of 2020, the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a huge impact on everyone's work and life. On the one hand, the working-from-home scenario has pushed the development of digital office. Many companies have had to transfer the materials and assets from offline to online within a short time. On the other hand, to meet the demands of the public health and pandemic control, personal health data is collected and processed digitally to be used in areas like pandemic prevention and control, health services, and tracing inquiries. For instance, travel health codes have been used in countries like China and Spain for COVID-tracing, and many countries around the world have provided the online services of test appointment and test results inquiries. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has inspired people to rethink the construction and development of infrastructures. The large scale of data transmission and exchange during the pandemic period requires the support from new technologies. In the global context, in order to adapt to the ever-increasing demand for data exchange and promote the digitalization process, many countries have prioritized and invested on cutting-edge technologies like 5G, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, etc.

Considering the abnormal conditions of the pandemic, it can be understood and accepted to a certain extent if the data is used by relevant agencies and organizations. In spite of this, after the pandemic, when the life is back to normal, can the data privacy be properly protected in the daily data collection, storage and computing? Can the basic rights of users be properly protected? With the development of the new technologies, when a large amount of data is collected, transmitted, analyzed and processed from the end devices through Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G technologies, the risk of data breaching will increase accordingly. In this case, how can effective protection of data privacy be attained?

- Privacy computing paves the road

Fingerprint recognition, face recognition, voice recognition and other technologies collect user information to provide users with convenient and efficient services, while also putting these basic personal data information at risk of being leaked and abused. With the successive promulgation and implementation of the European Union's GDPR and California's CCPA Act, it is necessary for relevant parties to reflect their attitudes and operations towards data resources. In this context, Privacy Computing technology has gradually caught researchers' attention.

Privacy Computing refers to a type of information security technology based on modern cryptography, which is represented by technologies like Secure Multi-Party Computing (MPC), Homomorphic Encryption, Zero-Knowledge Proof, Differential Privacy, and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), etc. Privacy Computing can realize the data computing and analysis while ensuring the security and privacy of the source data.

So far, three major technologies are available to achieve Privacy Computing: Cryptography, Trusted Execution Environment, and Federated Learning. Among them, the privacy protection scheme based on cryptography is a type of computing method that protects private information throughout the entire life cycle, and supports operations such as analysis and computing without the data itself leaking to a third party. Its core concept is to form a set of symbolic, formulaic and quantitative evaluation criteria for Privacy Computing theory when processing information flow.1 Compared with the problems brought by the traditional end-to-end encryption methods on the key management and performance impact, Privacy Computing can fundamentally protect data from the entire life cycle. In large-scale public infrastructure, the introduction and deployment of Privacy Computing support systematic data privacy protection.

At present, in addition to the in-depth research on Privacy Computing in the academia, the realistic application scenarios and large-scale commercial solutions of Privacy Computing are also being actively explored by the industry. Take PlatON Network as an example. PlatON has been developing and researching the field of Privacy Computing since 2016. The AI network of Privacy Computing provided by PlatON is a solution for privacy contract implementation based on cryptographic algorithms such as Secure Multi-Party Computing (MPC). In general, the Privacy Computing algorithm is released through the contract. The data provider and the computing nodes that require privacy protection need to cooperate to execute the MPC protocol, in order to realize the collaborative data computing. In this case, data privacy is protected at the same time when data is shared, allowing users to obtain the economic benefits of data reuse while maintaining data ownership.

After the era of the pandemic, Artificial Intelligence (AI) also has caught privacy issues during the process of data reuse. The development of AI technology turns data into a special asset, and its scale can affect both the model accuracy and the reliability of the services, which in turn affects business costs and risks. From the perspective of improving the accuracy of the AI model, the more data collected, the better the model performs, but the collection of large amounts of data also brings higher risks of privacy exposure. If AI is planned be applied in large-scale commercial scenarios, privacy is a crucial issue that cannot be bypassed.

Privacy Computing technology is born to be suitable for solving the privacy flaws of AI technology. A large amount of data is computed in an encrypted way, which not only solves the privacy problem in the traditional AI model, but also ensures the efficient data management and utilization. Considering the user's personal health IoT data involved in this pandemic as an example, PlatON's "DataBank" product can effectively protect the core data and provide lifecycle data-management services. Working as a data asset value-trading platform, PlatON's "DataBank" product can guarantee the privacy and security of personal health data during the verification and transmission process based on Privacy Computing technology. With the AI technology introduced in PlatON's "DataBank" product, multi-source and multi-mode local joint verification can be efficiently achieved. The results from Privacy Computing can provide accurate delivery services among organizations and agencies, which not only addresses the issue of mutual recognition between different regions, but also supports the sharing of data marketing channels among various agents. In this case, it can jointly improve the accuracy of health data verification, and help industries realize and establish public health economic data services under the rapid development of 5G, Cloud Computing and other technologies for digitization. As the pioneer in privacy protection area, PlatON has researched Privacy Computing technologies for many years. The Privacy Computing network infrastructure developed by PlatON can guarantee the secure and free data flow across every corner of the world. All types of Applications, relying on the data exchange and data computing as the core capability, can enjoy the convenience brought by global data collaboration and computing power sharing on PlatON.

References

[1] Li, F., H. Li, Ben Niu and J. Chen. "Privacy Computing: Concept, Computing Framework and Future Development Trends." IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch. 2018 (2018): 1145.

[2] Sun Lilin: How to protect personal privacy to the utmost extent in pandemic prevention and tracing control (in Chinese), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gwiZyfdTC6tEk83VfpnBtQ

[3] Scientists have something to say series: From 5G rich news and health code, talk about whether new infrastructure and data privacy may not be available at the same time (in Chinese),https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0UVaXxOCTwVbQ8dyDxpbAQ

Contact:PlatON NetworkKiki.Chen+85 15366051075kiki.chen@latticex.foundationhttps://platon.network/en

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/81152

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Increasing Risk of Privacy Leakage in the Post-Pandemic Era, PlatON: Privacy Computing is the Solution - StreetInsider.com

Over $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market in a day as bitcoin plunges below $50,000 – CNBC

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LONDON/GUANGZHOU, China Bitcoin and other digital currencies plunged on Friday as a proposed capital gains tax hike from U.S. President Joe Biden led to a wave of selling.

Bitcoin was down 7.3% at $49,730, according to Coin Metrics data. It's the first time bitcoin has traded below $50,000 since early March. Ether fell to $2,320, down 8%. XRP, the fifth-biggest cryptocurrency, plunged 16%.

Bitcoin rebounded late Friday to above $51,000.

This wiped out more than $200 billion of value from the entire cryptocurrency market, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

"The market has run up quite a bit overall, and it'sprobably cooling off before the next leg up," Vijay Ayyar, head of business development at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, told CNBC by email.

President Biden is expected to raise long-term capital gains tax for the wealthiest Americans to 43.4%, including a surtax. That would be higher than the top federal tax rate on wage income. The new tax rate would apply to returns on assets held in taxable accounts and sold after more than a year.

This triggered a sell-off in stock markets overnight, with all three major U.S. indexes ending Thursday's session in the red. Analysts said fears over Biden's capital gains tax proposal may be extending to crypto investors, who have had a great year with the price of bitcoin having climbed more than sixfold in the last 12 months.

Still, one crypto entrepreneur said Biden could be doing his industry a favor.

"It would make even greater sense to play that oldest trick in the manage-your-finances-smart book: borrow against your assets to avoid capital gains taxes," said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of crypto lender Nexo.

"And what better collateral than one that despite today's price dip, likely caused by the said proposal appreciates in value like Bitcoin?"

"Things are getting more established," Eric Demuth, CEO and co-founder of digital asset broker Bitpanda, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" Friday. "The more money that gets into the market, the less volatility there will be."

"And for the retail investors who are going in there, the strategy is always never to put everything in one basket and just put a very small fraction of your portfolio into cryptocurrency, into bitcoin. It doesn't matter if you are a strong believer or not, the diversification of your assets is key."

However, concerns over a regulatory crackdown on bitcoin continue to cloud the market. Jesse Powell, CEO of a major cryptocurrency exchange called Kraken, warned governments could clamp down on the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

India is planning to introduce a law to ban the trading or even ownership of cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported last month. In February, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called bitcoin a "highly speculative asset" and said she was worried about potential losses for investors.

Authorities around the world are looking into how to regulate bitcoin. The Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China, called bitcoin an "investment alternative" last week, which marked a more progressive tone on cryptocurrencies after a fierce crackdown by the country's regulators on the industry in 2017 and 2018.

Link:
Over $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market in a day as bitcoin plunges below $50,000 - CNBC


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