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Israeli decision-makers are considering a plan to lay siege to northern Gaza in an effort to ramp up pressure on Hamas.

The “Generals’ Plan,” a three-page document published last week by high-ranking Israel Defense Forces reserve officers, calls to evacuate up to 300,000 civilians from the northern 1/3 of Gaza and then block all supplies to the estimated 5,000 Hamas terrorists in the area. The goal is to bring Hamas to the brink of defeat and force the Palestinian terror group to return the remaining hostages in Gaza on terms favorable to Israel.

The authors of the plan are now engaged in a public advocacy campaign aimed at shoring up public support for it.

“Officials of Hamas will have only two choices: Starve or surrender,” Giora Eiland, the face of the plan and a former IDF planning and operations chief who headed Israel’s National Security Council under prime minister Ariel Sharon, told the Washington Free Beacon. “This is something that might create some, let’s say, real pressure, and if we do it in this area, we can later do it in other areas.”

Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported on Thursday that top IDF brass are “considering accepting the plan.” The authors told the Free Beacon they have presented the plan to a number of senior government officials, including members of the security cabinet, and will address the Knesset Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.

“It seems that my plan is being seriously considered by the IDF,” Eiland said. “I have gotten indications that my plan is being discussed and revised by, let’s say, official people, and hopefully it will become something real.”

A spokesman for the IDF declined to comment.

Eiland, a frequent presence in Israeli television studios, was among those who called for a complete siege of Gaza in the days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. He said the Generals’ Plan—which he developed along with an organization of hawkish Gaza war veterans known as the Forum of Reservist Commanders and Fighters—is a “relatively modest” version of his original idea.

The initial impact of the plan reflects a growing consensus in Israel that there is little choice but to take control of Gaza, at least temporarily, if the Jewish state hopes to achieve its war aims of toppling Hamas, returning the remaining hostages, and ensuring the territory does not pose a national security threat in the future.

The authors warn in the plan that nearly a year into the Gaza war, Israel is not winning. They say the IDF must bring economic and political pressure to bear on the group as well as military force.

“As long as there is an unlimited supply of food, water, and fuel in Gaza, and as long as Hamas is the one who controls this supply to residents, and as long as we do not make an effort to physically separate Hamas from the civilians, it is impossible to create effective pressure for the release of the hostages and the hoped-for victory will not be achieved,” they write.

“It is not enough to call for the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to move south. We must make it clear to them that starting from a certain date, aid supplies will be prohibited from entering Gaza City and its neighborhoods. If such pressure is created, what it means for [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is complete loss of the control and the presence [of Hamas] in the north of the Gaza Strip. It will then be possible to make progress in achieving the goals of the war.”

Hezi Nehama, a member of the Forum of Reservist Commanders and Fighters and former brigade commander in Gaza, told the Free Beacon that it was frustratingly difficult to fight terrorists who could disappear among civilians, move in and out of combat zones, and constantly replenish their ranks with new recruits. He said a key to Hamas’s survival has been the roughly 200 truckloads of humanitarian aid that Israel allows into Gaza each day on average.

“I can’t explain how strange it is, on one hand, to fight against Hamas, and on the other hand, to supply them with food, water, fuel, etc.,” Nehama said. “They get the aid for free and sell it for a lot of money. They use it to pay salaries for terrorists. They use it to recruit new terrorists.”

Almog Boker of Israel’s Channel 12 news station reported on air Tuesday that Hamas has reaped a windfall of at least half a billion dollars by stealing and selling humanitarian aid in Gaza during the war—and has added 3,000 terrorists to its payroll in northern Gaza, according to “assessments” by Israel’s “security establishment.”

“It’s actually become the main oxygen pipeline for the terrorist organization,” Boker said of the aid, which has doubled in quantity compared to before the war.

According to Eiland, a core problem with the IDF’s strategy in Gaza is that it relies on a wrongheaded understanding of the enemy.

“Unfortunately, we were persuaded by the American administration that Hamas is like [the Islamic State terrorist group] in Baghdad or in Iraq. They are terrible people, but the rest of the people of Gaza are innocent. So let’s try to fight against the bad people, and at the same time please make sure to take care of all the poor people of Gaza,” Eiland said.

In reality, according to Eiland, Hamas is more like the Nazi Party that came to power in Germany. Over the 17 years since Hamas won election and then violently eliminated political opposition in Gaza, the genocidal anti-Semitic group has turned the territory into a de facto state.

“They melded all the civilian agencies and organizations—including the health ministry, the schools, the religious institutions, and even the international groups that are there—into one strong, robust, and cohesive entity,” Eiland said. “So, what really happened on Oct. 7 was the State of Gaza launched a vicious attack against the State of Israel. Now, when your state is attacked by another state, the very first question that you have to ask yourself is, ‘What is our relative advantage over the enemy?’”

Beyond starving Hamas’s leaders, Eiland said, the Generals’ Plan would demonstrate to the Palestinian people that the group cannot provide for them or even secure their land.

“There is nothing Arab leaders are more sensitive about than land,” Eiland said. “They are ready to sacrifice many lives, but they are never ready to lose land. This is an almost holy matter for them.”

Talk in Israel of taking direct control of humanitarian aid distribution has grown as the Gaza war has dragged on, a second round of hostage-ceasefire negotiations has stalled, and the extent of Hamas’s corruption of UNRWA, the U.N. agency primarily responsible for the task, has become clear. But Israel’s security establishment, reluctant to get bogged down in Gaza amid an escalating multifront war with Iran, has pushed back

Tzav 9, a grassroots movement that sprang up during the war to block humanitarian aid to Gaza, has since March championed an IDF takeover of distribution instead.

“We thought the war would be over in a couple weeks,” Reut Ben Chaim, a leader of Tzav 9, told the Free Beacon. “But month after month went by, so we evolved and said, ‘OK, We need to control this aid and make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.'”

In an interview with Kan on Monday, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich accused the IDF of having “insisted for months on not taking responsibility for humanitarian aid” in Gaza and thereby enabling Hamas to hold onto power. Netanyahu told the security cabinet in June that he was considering transferring responsibility for humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza to the IDF, “contrary to the position of the security establishment,” Kan reported at the time.

In July, leaders of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, another reservist organization, presented Netanyahu, defense minister Yoav Gallant, and other lawmakers with a plan for Gaza that recommends “distribution of humanitarian aid directly by the IDF” and “taking over the territory for a while.”

“Whoever controls the aid controls the society,” Amir Avivi, a reserve brigadier general and the head of IDSF, told the Free Beacon. “If we get Gazans to understand that Hamas cannot exercise power over them anymore, then the chances increase dramatically of the people working with us—handing over our hostages or Sinwar and the other Hamas leaders.”

Avivi said his impression from meeting with Netanyahu and Gallant was that the prime minister is “very aligned” with those who want Israel to see the IDF take over civilian administration in Gaza, and the defense minister, who has publicly ruled out military rule of Gaza, is reluctantly realizing that “there is no other choice.”

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Gallant told the Free Beacon in a statement: “The minister does not support maintaining a long term presence in Gaza.” She did not respond to a follow-up question about his views on the shorter term.

Eiland, for his part, said that after Israel lays siege to the north, it should agree to “officially end the war and withdraw all our forces from Gaza” in exchange for the return of all the hostages.

“Hamas will probably say yes,” he predicted.

“We face much greater concerns than Gaza on all our other borders, including of course the direct threat from Iran,” Eiland said. “We are in such a real, almost existential crisis today that if we need to give up in Gaza and agree to end the war in order to be able to solve some of our more urgent problems, then we have to do it.”

The post Israeli Leaders Consider Total Siege of Northern Gaza, With Implications for ‘Day After’ appeared first on .

On Monday, three federal judges will consider the constitutionality of the so-called TikTok ban, which will shut off TikTok in the United States beginning in January unless TikTok’s China-based owner sells the platform before then. TikTok is a relatively new technology, but the ban is a reprise of past reactionary efforts to limit Americans from accessing media from abroad. The court should see the ban in that light and strike it down.

Americans tend to associate restrictions on access to foreign media with other governments, not their own. There’s some justification for this. The Soviet Union and China both jammed shortwave transmissions after the Second World War to prevent their citizens from accessing ideas they viewed as subversive. Many rights-abusing regimes engage in similar practices today. After it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia blocked access to Facebook, Twitter, and many foreign news outlets. Iran blocks its citizens from accessing a broad array of foreign websites and media sources. So does Saudi Arabia. Autocratic regimes often try to consolidate their own power by restricting their citizens’ access to information and ideas from abroad.

But, as the Knight Institute (which I direct) explained in a brief filed earlier this year, the U.S. government has sometimes imposed these kinds of restrictions, too. When Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1917, it gave the president the power to prohibit Americans from purchasing books, films, and periodicals from enemy nations. Over time, the law and its successors were used to bar Americans from receiving books and other expressive materials from, among other places, Vietnam, North Korea, and China. The Treasury Department once ordered postal authorities to seize hundreds of Cuban publications destined for American readers—an order it rescinded only after The Nation and others filed a First Amendment challenge.

A parallel set of restrictions that barred Communists and anarchists from entering the United States similarly became a tool for the broad suppression of disfavored ideas and viewpoints. When Congress enacted these provisions in 1952, President Harry Truman opposed them, describing them as “thought control” and “inconsistent with our democratic ideals.” Congress overrode his veto, but history proved him right. The restrictions were used to exclude a vast array of respected political and cultural figures, including writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Czesław Miłosz, and Doris Lessing, as well as Nino Pasti, a former NATO commander who was banned after he criticized the Reagan administration’s effort to locate nuclear missiles in Europe.

The fundamentally illiberal character of all of these restrictions eventually became impossible for Congress to ignore. The restrictions impoverished public discourse in the United States, undermined the government’s ability to champion free speech abroad, and made the United States seem petty, fearful, and hypocritical at a moment when it was trying to make a case for the superiority of open societies. Congress eventually repealed the immigration provisions that had been used as tools of censorship during the Cold War. In 1988, it passed a law, known as the Berman Amendment, to make clear that the president’s authority to restrict trade with the enemy did not extend to restricting the import or export of expressive materials. It expanded that law in 1994 to protect Americans’ right “to educate themselves about the world by communicating with peoples of other countries.”

The TikTok ban is an unwelcome throwback to an era in which the government exercised far-reaching control over Americans’ access to information and ideas from abroad. Many of the legislators who voted for the ban acknowledged forthrightly that the law was intended to limit Americans from accessing viewpoints with which they, the legislators, disagreed. (Some of these statements are collected at pp. 19-23 of the Knight Institute’s brief.) And while the Justice Department now says the ban is necessary because China might access TikTok’s databases of information about American users, it’s difficult to take the argument seriously when even the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has observed that China can readily access the same kinds of information in other ways, and when Congress could address data-collection concerns more effectively with a privacy law that limited what TikTok and other platforms can collect.

New technology presents new challenges, and perhaps in some contexts these challenges will require Americans to reconsider hard-won freedoms that are, for all of the United States’ profound problems, still the envy of much of the world. But before we permit the government to reinstate long-discredited forms of censorship, we should at least require it to demonstrate that its professed interests—protecting privacy, most significantly—couldn’t be achieved in some other way. The Biden administration hasn’t established that the TikTok ban is actually necessary to achieving any legitimate government interest. Under settled First Amendment standards, that should be the end of the matter.

IMAGE: Participants hold up signs in support of TikTok at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol Building on March 12, 2024 in Washington, (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The post History Has Already Discredited the TikTok Ban appeared first on Just Security.

(LONDON) — Prince Harry was always something different.

From the moment he first appeared in public, snuggled in Princess Diana’s arms outside the London hospital where he was born in 1984, Harry was the ginger-haired scamp who stuck his tongue out at photographers. He grew to be a boisterous adolescent who was roundly criticized for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party, and then a young man who gave up the trappings of royal life and moved to Southern California with his American wife.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Through it all, there was a sense that Harry was rebelling against an accident of birth that made him, in the harsh calculus of the House of Windsor, just “the spare.” As the second son of the man who is now King Charles III, he was raised as a prince but wouldn’t inherit the throne unless brother William came to harm.

Now the angry young man is turning 40, the halfway point in many lives, providing a chance to either dwell on the past or look forward to what might still be achieved.

For the past four years, Harry has focused mainly on the past, making millions of dollars by airing his grievances in a wildly successful memoir and a Netflix docu-series. But he faces the likelihood that the royal aura so critical to his image may be fading, said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.”

“He is at a sort of crossroads,’’ Smith told The Associated Press. “And he appears to be struggling with how he wants to proceed.’’

How did we get here?

It wasn’t always this way.

Six years ago, Harry and his wife were among the most popular royals, a glamorous young couple who reflected the multicultural face of modern Britain and were expected to help revitalize the monarchy.

Their wedding on May 19, 2018, united a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II with the former Meghan Markle, a biracial American actress who had starred for seven years in the U.S. television drama “Suits.” George Clooney, Serena Williams and Elton John attended their wedding at Windsor Castle, after which the couple were formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

But the optimism quickly faded amid allegations that Britain’s tabloid media and even members of the royal household treated Meghan unfairly because of racism.

By January of 2020, the pressures of life in the gilded cage had become too much, and the couple announced they were giving up royal duties and moving to America, where they hoped to become “financially independent.” They signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify as they settled into the wealthy enclave of Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California.

Since then, Harry has missed few opportunities to bare his soul, most famously in his memoir, aptly titled “Spare.”

Read More: These Are the Most Shocking Revelations in Prince Harry’s Memoir ‘Spare’

In the ghostwritten book, Harry recounted his grief at the death of Princess Diana, a fight with Prince William and his unease with life in the royal shadow of his elder brother. From accounts of cocaine use and losing his virginity to raw family rifts, the book was rife with damning allegations about the royal family.

Among the most toxic was Harry’s description of how some family members leaked unflattering information about other royals in exchange for positive coverage of themselves. The prince singled out his father’s second wife, Queen Camilla, accusing her of feeding private conversations to the media as she sought to rehabilitate an image tarnished by her role in the breakup of Charles’ marriage to Diana.

The allegations were so venomous that there is little chance of a return to public duty, Smith said.

“He criticized the royal family in such a powerful and damaging way. You can’t un-say those things,’’ she said. “And you can’t unsee things like Meghan in that Netflix series doing a mock curtsey. It’s such a demeaning gesture to the queen.’’

Harry, who agreed not to use the honorific HRH, or “his royal highness,” after he stepped away from front-line royal duties, is now fifth in line to the British throne, behind his brother and William’s three children.

While he grew up in a palace and is said to be in line to inherit millions of pounds (dollars) on his 40th birthday from a trust set up by his great-grandmother, applied developmental psychologist Deborah Heiser thinks that, in many ways, Harry is just like the rest of us.

Like anyone turning 40, he is likely to have learned a few lessons and has a good idea of who his real friends are, and that will help him chart the next phase of his life, said Heiser, who writes a blog called “The Right Side of 40” for Psychology Today.

“He has had a very public display of what a lot of people have gone through,’’ Heiser said. “I mean, most people are not princes, but … they have all kinds of issues within their families. He’s not alone. That’s why he’s so relatable.’’

Harry’s next chapter

Of course, Harry’s story isn’t just about the drama within the House of Windsor.

If he wants to write a new chapter, Harry can build on his 10 years of service in the British Army. Before retiring as a captain in 2015, the prince earned his wings as a helicopter pilot, served two tours in Afghanistan and shed the hard-partying reputation of his youth.

Harry also won accolades for establishing the Invictus Games in 2014, a Paralympic-style competition to inspire and aid in the rehabilitation of sick and wounded servicemembers and veterans.

Harry and Meghan made headlines this year with their two international trips to promote mental health and internet safety. While some in British media criticized them for accepting royal treatment in Nigeria and Colombia, the couple said they visited at the invitation of local officials.

Will Charles see the grandkids?

Prospects of reconciliation are unclear, though Harry did race home to see his father after Charles’ cancer diagnosis. And in what may be seen as a tentative olive branch, the paperback edition of “Spare” slated for October has no additions — so nothing new to stir the pot.

But plainly at this point, Harry is thinking about his family in California. He told the BBC about the importance of his two young children, Archie and Lilibet.

“Being a dad is one of life’s greatest joys and has only made me more driven and more committed to making this world a better place,” the prince said in a statement released by his spokesperson.

The Iraq war — sold on lies and bungled in its prosecution — has become the embodiment of American hubris in the 21st century. Hundreds of thousands died, allies were alienated, and the U.S. became mired in a decadeslong boondoggle that is still unfolding. By 2007, a few years after the war was launched, all but its most diehard proponents had come to see it as the mistake it was.

Today, those same diehard war hawks — the very people who planned and carried out the Iraq invasion — are proudly throwing their full support behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the November presidential election.

Chief among them is former Vice President Dick Cheney. Not far behind are a clutch of other Bush-era figures aligned with the neoconservative movement, like Bill Kristol; former officials like former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and staffers for the late former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Harris is, in turn, embracing her new right-wing fan club, touting endorsements from more than 200 Republican staffers who worked for George W. Bush, McCain, and another former Republican presidential nominee, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.

Harris is embracing her new right-wing fan club.

“Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris,” the GOP staffers wrote in a letter. “That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”

These hawks say they’re endorsing Harris largely to stop Donald Trump — citing his conduct and “chaotic leadership” — but these prominent conservatives are backing the Democratic nominee because their visions for U.S. foreign policy increasingly appear to be aligned. The Democratic and Republican parties are more unified than ever in their commitment to preserving American hegemony and preventing the multipolar world from emerging.

As vice president, Cheney was one of the principal architects not only of the Iraq War, which left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, but also the U.S.’s worldwide torture regime. The aftershocks of America’s eight-year occupation are still being felt in the region and in our domestic politics to this day. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., who inherited her father’s hawkish views, has also pledged to do whatever she can to elect Harris, including launching a PAC that has raised millions of dollars to boost the Democrat’s campaign.

This marks a departure from the past 20 years of Democratic presidential campaigns, which were built on a repudiation of the Bush administration and its disastrous war in Iraq.

Just 18 months after American troops went into Baghdad, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, said that the invasion created “a crisis of historic proportions.” He charged Bush with “stubborn incompetence” over his handling of the war. In 2008, Barack Obama’s opposition to the unpopular war was a major source of his success at the ballot box.

Even in 2016, the repercussions of the Iraq War were a major issue in the Democratic primary. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made his opposition to the war a cornerstone of his platform and repeatedly referenced Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of it. “I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq,” Sanders said of Clinton.

Now, however, an endorsement from one of the biggest war criminals in recent history is seen as an asset, not a liability.

Harris for Hawks

The Harris campaign isn’t just courting moderates and conservatives as part of a short-term strategy to win the election. Rather, Democrats are actively supporting and spouting neoconservative ideas.

During her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Harris vowed: “As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world” — as her party blocked any Palestinian Americans from appearing on the convention stage to speak about Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The party’s 2024 platform also reflects this rightward shift. A section from the 2020 platform on ending forever wars and opposing regime change was completely removed in 2024. The Democratic Party went from calling for an end to U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen to championing the Biden administration’s plan for a normalization deal between Israel and the Persian Gulf monarchy — a plan that could also put American lives on the line to protect the Saudi dictatorship for decades to come.

Some of the most glaring neocon-coded changes in the platform have to do with Iran policy. This year’s platform attempted to portray Trump as being too soft on Iran, while including no mention of the Trump administration’s assassination of a top Iranian military commander. Though Harris’s national security adviser, Phil Gordon, helped negotiate the 2015 Iran deal, others in her circle have predicted that a Harris administration would not seek to return to the Iran nuclear deal.

It’s not like Trump offers a viable alternative. As recently as the debate this week, Harris and Trump tried to outflank each other on issues like China, immigration, and crime. Trump called Biden a “very bad Palestinian” who doesn’t want to help Israel “finish the job” in Gaza. Both parties are guilty of China-bashing and casting China as an existential threat to the U.S. As president, Trump declared economic war on China, which was then escalated by Biden.

The American people don’t support any of these bloodthirsty policies, but it appears that circles of power in the U.S. are increasingly disconnected from the will of the people. The vast majority of Americans who want the U.S. to pull back and focus on domestic issues are going to be left without any serious option in November. The country, and the world, will pay the price.

The post Do Kamala Harris’s Neocon Supporters Just Hate Trump, or Is There Something More to Her Appeal? appeared first on The Intercept.

A digest of recent analysis of national security and rights-related news and developments at Just Security.

Israel-Hamas War

• “With Utmost Urgency”: Arrest Warrants and Amicus Observations at the International Criminal Court
  by Adil Ahmad Haque (@AdHaque110)

Telegram / Data Privacy

• Telegram’s Security Sham
  by Michael Van Landingham and Gavin Wilde

Cambodia Trials / Social Media

• Vlogging International Criminal Justice? Digital Optics at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
  by Andre Kwok

Africa / Democracy

• To Challenge State Capture, the US Needs a Strategy of State Retrieval
  by John Prendergast and Damon Wilson (@DamonMacWilson)

2024 Presidential Election Interference

• Election Certification Refusers Are a Movement: Georgia Lawsuit Highlights Alarming Trend
  by Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports)

Executive Power / US Foreign Policy

• America’s Overlooked National Security Threat
  by Harold Hongju Koh (@haroldhongjukoh)

International Space Law

• In the Woomera Manual, International Law Meets Military Space Activities
  by David A. Koplow

Podcast: REAIM Summit

• The Just Security Podcast: Strategic Risks of AI and Recapping the 2024 REAIM Summit
  Paras Shah (@pshah518) interview with Brianna Rosen (@rosen_br)

The post Digest of Recent Articles on Just Security (Sept. 9-13) appeared first on Just Security.

Artificial intelligence is poised to deliver tremendous benefits to society. But, as many have pointed out, it could also bring unprecedented new horrors. As a general-purpose technology, the same tools that will advance scientific discovery could also be used to develop cyber, chemical, or biological weapons. Governing AI will require widely sharing its benefits while keeping the most powerful AI out of the hands of bad actors. The good news is that there is already a template on how to do just that.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In the 20th century, nations built international institutions to allow the spread of peaceful nuclear energy but slow nuclear weapons proliferation by controlling access to the raw materials—namely weapons-grade uranium and plutonium—that underpins them. The risk has been managed through international institutions, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency. Today, 32 nations operate nuclear power plants, which collectively provide 10% of the world’s electricity, and only nine countries possess nuclear weapons.

Countries can do something similar for AI today. They can regulate AI from the ground up by controlling access to the highly specialized chips that are needed to train the world’s most advanced AI models. Business leaders and even the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres have called for an international governance framework for AI similar to that for nuclear technology.

The most advanced AI systems are trained on tens of thousands of highly specialized computer chips. These chips are housed in massive data centers where they churn on data for months to train the most capable AI models. These advanced chips are difficult to produce, the supply chain is tightly controlled, and large numbers of them are needed to train AI models. 

Governments can establish a regulatory regime where only authorized computing providers are able to acquire large numbers of advanced chips in their data centers, and only licensed, trusted AI companies are able to access the computing power needed to train the most capable—and most dangerous—AI models. 

This may seem like a tall order. But only a handful of nations are needed to put this governance regime in place. The specialized computer chips used to train the most advanced AI models are only made in Taiwan. They depend on critical technology from three countries—Japan, the Netherlands, and the U.S. In some cases, a single company holds a monopoly on key elements of the chip production supply chain. The Dutch company ASML is the world’s only producer of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that are used to make the most cutting-edge chips.

Read More: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2024

Governments are already taking steps to govern these high-tech chips. The U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands have placed export controls on their chip-making equipment, restricting their sale to China. And the U.S. government has prohibited the sale of the most advanced chips—which are made using U.S. technology—to China. The U.S. government has also proposed requirements for cloud computing providers to know who their foreign customers are and report when a foreign customer is training a large AI model that could be used for cyberattacks. And the U.S. government has begun debating—but not yet put in place—restrictions on the most powerful trained AI models and how widely they can be shared. While some of these restrictions are about geopolitical competition with China, the same tools can be used to govern chips to prevent adversary nations, terrorists, or criminals from using the most powerful AI systems.

The U.S. can work with other nations to build on this foundation to put in place a structure to govern computing hardware across the entire lifecycle of an AI model: chip-making equipment, chips, data centers, training AI models, and the trained models that are the result of this production cycle. 

Japan, the Netherlands, and the U.S. can help lead the creation of a global governance framework that permits these highly specialized chips to only be sold to countries that have established regulatory regimes for governing computing hardware. This would include tracking chips and keeping account of them, knowing who is using them, and ensuring that AI training and deployment is safe and secure.

But global governance of computing hardware can do more than simply keep AI out of the hands of bad actors—it can empower innovators around the world by bridging the divide between computing haves and have nots. Because the computing requirements to train the most advanced AI models are so intense, the industry is moving toward an oligopoly. That kind of concentration of power is not good for society or for business.

Some AI companies have in turn begun publicly releasing their models. This is great for scientific innovation, and it helps level the playing field with Big Tech. But once the AI model is open source, it can be modified by anyone. Guardrails can be quickly stripped away.

The U.S. government has fortunately begun piloting national cloud computing resources as a public good for academics, small businesses, and startups. Powerful AI models could be made accessible through the national cloud, allowing trusted researchers and companies to use them without releasing the models on the internet to everyone, where they could be abused.  

Countries could even come together to build an international resource for global scientific cooperation on AI. Today, 23 nations participate in CERN, the international physics laboratory that operates the world’s most advanced particle accelerator. Nations should do the same for AI, creating a global computing resource for scientists to collaborate on AI safety, empowering scientists around the world.

AI’s potential is enormous. But to unlock AI’s benefits, society will also have to manage its risks. By controlling the physical inputs to AI, nations can securely govern AI and build a foundation for a safe and prosperous future. It’s easier than many think.

Ivanti warned that recently patched flaw CVE-2024-8190 in Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) is being actively exploited in the wild.

Ivanti warned that a newly patched vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-8190 (CVSS score of 7.2), in its Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) is being actively exploited.

“Following public disclosure, Ivanti has confirmed exploitation of this vulnerability in the wild. At the time of this update, we are aware of a limited number of customers who have been exploited.” reads the update provided by the company on September 13, 2024.

An attacker can trigger this high-severity vulnerability to achieve remote code execution under specific conditions.

“An OS command injection vulnerability in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance versions 4.6 Patch 518 and before allows a remote authenticated attacker to obtain remote code execution. The attacker must have admin level privileges to exploit this vulnerability.” reads the advisory. 

“Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized access to the device running the CSA. Dual-homed CSA configurations with ETH-0 as an internal network, as recommended by Ivanti, are at a significantly reduced risk of exploitation.”

Ivanti released a security update for Ivanti CSA 4.6 to address the vulnerability.

The company note that CSA 4.6 is End-of-Life, and no longer receives updates for OS or third-party libraries. Customers must upgrade to Ivanti CSA 5.0 for continued support, this version is not impacted by this vulnerability.  

The company did not reveal details about the attacks exploiting the CVE-2024-8190 vulnerability.

Recently cybersecurity firm Horizon3.ai published a technical analysis of an Ivanti Endpoint Manager AgentPortal Deserialization of Untrusted Data issue, tracked as CVE-2024-29847, that could allow remote code execution.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Cloud Service Appliance) 

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Pennsylvania on Friday, and was forced to go off script when a reporter asked how she was feeling about her prospects in the pivotal swing state. As is often the case, her answer sounded like it was written by ChatGPT:

I am feeling very good about Pennsylvania because there are a lot of people in Pennsylvania who deserve to be seen and heard. That’s why I’m here in Johnstown, and I will be continuing to travel around the state to make sure that I’m listening as much as we are talking, and ultimately I feel very strongly that [you] gotta earn every vote, and that means spending time with folks in the communities where they live, and so that’s why I’m here. We’re going to be spending a lot more time in Pennsylvania.

We were curious, so we asked ChatGPT to answer a similar question from the perspective of a politician campaigning in Pennsylvania. As predicted, the computer’s answer was significantly more substantive and articulate:

In Pennsylvania, my campaign aims to connect deeply with the diverse communities across the state. I hope to address key local issues, such as economic development, infrastructure improvements, and healthcare access, while also emphasizing our shared values of fairness and opportunity. By engaging directly with voters, listening to their concerns, and presenting practical solutions, I want to build a broad coalition of support that reflects Pennsylvania’s rich cultural and economic landscape. Ultimately, my goal is to ensure that every Pennsylvanian feels heard and represented in our vision for the country’s future.

That was probably the last time Harris will talk to reporters before Election Day.

Have a great weekend!

VEEP THOUGHTS ARCHIVE:

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 21)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 20)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 19)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 18)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 17)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 16)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 15)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Greatest Hits)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 14)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 13)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 12)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 11)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 10)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 9)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Africa Edition)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 8)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 7)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 6)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 5)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 4)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 3

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 2)

WATCH: Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (Vol. 1)

The post WATCH: Veep Thoughts With Kamala Harris (Vol. 22) appeared first on .

GitLab addressed multiple vulnerabilities impacting GitLab CE/EE, including a critical pipeline execution issue.

GitLab released security patches for 17 vulnerabilities in GitLab CE (Community Edition) and EE (Enterprise Edition).

One of these vulnerabilities is a critical pipeline execution flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-6678 (CVSS score of 9.9), that could allow an attacker to trigger a pipeline as an arbitrary user under certain circumstances.

“An issue was discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 8.14 prior to 17.1.7, starting from 17.2 prior to 17.2.5, and starting from 17.3 prior to 17.3.2, which allows an attacker to trigger a pipeline as an arbitrary user under certain circumstances.” reads the company’s advisory. “It is now mitigated in the latest release and is assigned CVE-2024-6678.

yvvdwf reported the issue to the company through the company bug bounty program operated by HackerOne.

GitLab also fixed a high severity issue, tracked as CVE-2024-8640 (CVSS score of 8.5), in GitLab EE. An attacker can exploit the flaw to inject commands into a connected Cube server.

“An issue has been discovered in GitLab EE affecting all versions starting from 16.11 prior to 17.1.7, from 17.2 prior to 17.2.5, and from 17.3 prior to 17.3.2. Due to incomplete input filtering, it was possible to inject commands into a connected Cube server.” reads the advisory.

joaxcar reported this vulnerability through our HackerOne bug bounty program.

The company also fixed several medium and low-severity vulnerabilities that could lead to protection bypasses, privilege escalation, unauthorized read access to private project source code, GitLab token retrieval, account takeover, and information leaks.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, GitLab CE) 

Chaos unfolded on a Brooklyn street Friday after police fatally shot a man who allegedly charged at them with a knife.

Members of the NYPD Warrant Squad entered a home at 478 East 21st St. in Flatbush at around 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 13 where, according to Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, the knife-wielding man confronted them.

Maddrey reported that police had been looking for the man after he was identified as a person of interest in several unsolved homicides during the summer. Thirty-eight-year-old Vilmond Jean Baptiste allegedly did not want to comply with police and instead hunkered down in the bathroom’s tub.

Moments later, authorities said, the man emerged while still carrying a knife and allegedly charged at officers — who then shot him multiple times.

“The sergeant then tried to take out another cartridge to insert into the taser when the suspect came out of the bathroom with a knife and almost attempted to stab our sergeant. The officers were forced to use deadly physical force to take the suspect down,” Daughtry said.

Unsure of what had taken place, law enforcement sources said, locals began throwing objects at officers on street level from surrounding apartments, hitting one cop in the head and causing minor injuries. At least one arrest was made.

Baptiste had one prior arrest in 2015 for reckless endangerment but also had an active bench warrant. He was a “strong” person of interest in three deadly stabbings dating back to July in Brooklyn that left left a 54-year-old woman, a 66-year-old woman, and a 24-year-old man dead.

“His MO seems to be he begins to date older women, and then they allow him to reside in his house to use narcotics,” Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

Police asked the public to avoid the area as the investigation continues. 

The police-involved shooting happened in the wake of an NYPD shakeup Thursday, after Edward Caban resigned the post amid an ongoing federal investigation. Mayor Eric Adams moved quickly to name Tom Donlin the interim commissioner.