Building a great firewall around AI.

China is reevaluating its open-source AI strategy, balancing global influence against national security concerns regarding potential cyber threats and censorship evasion. Critical infrastructure remains a primary target, evidenced by coordinated attacks on Minnesota water systems and North Korean-linked supply chain compromises within NPM libraries. Simultaneously, AI-driven tactics are accelerating vulnerabilities, including automated dangling DNS takeovers and self-propagating worms within Microsoft Copilot workflows. Legal tensions surrounding privacy-enhancing technologies have intensified, highlighted by the case of a traveler prosecuted for using GrapheneOS at the border. Ben Yelin, from the University of Maryland Center for Cyber Health and Hazard Strategies, notes that characterizing the use of privacy tools as property destruction sets a dangerous legal precedent, potentially discouraging the adoption of essential security practices by journalists, lawyers, and activists.