News you may have missed #902

• Australian spy agency seeks expanded powers. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) says it needs expanded powers to question suspected foreign spies and their helpers, because there are more currently operating in the country than at the height of the Cold War. A bill introduced to parliament this month would expand ASIO’s existing powers to subject people to compulsory questioning, which it has used 16 times since 2003 but only for terrorism-related intelligence gathering. “The threats posed today by espionage and foreign interference operate at a scale, breadth and ambition that has not previously been seen in Australia”, ASIO says in its submission to parliament.
• US Intelligence Community seeks new COIVD-19 tracking tools. In a call issued last week, the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or IARPA, said it is seeking new tools for rapidly diagnosing COVID in people with and without symptoms, via contact-less methods such as breath analysis. IARPA, which operates as the US Intelligence Community’s search lab, says it is also seeking tools for contact tracing among populations without mobile phones, via the Internet-of-things or other means -and do it while preserving privacy.
• Why printers add secret tracking dots. These “microdots” are well known to security researchers and civil liberties campaigners. Many color printers add them to documents without people ever knowing they’re there. There is a long-running debate over whether it is ethical for printers to be attaching this information to documents without users knowing. In fact, there has even been a suggestion that it is a violation of human rights. Still, many believe that the use of covert measures to ensure the secrecy of classified documents remains necessary in some cases.