The Information Warfare Monitor (Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and The SecDev Group, Ottawa) announce the release of Koobface: Inside a Crimeware Network by Nart Villeneuve, with a foreword by Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski. There is a Globe and Mail story about the report here including a web commentary by Rafal Rohozinski and me here
Masala Canada Radio Interview re: Rimcheck Project
I spoke to Masala Canada about the Information Warfare Monitor’s newly launched RIM Check project. (http://www.rimcheck.org/)
Interview available here from Masala Canada
CBC The Current
I participated in an interview today on CBC’s The Current regarding Canada’s recently released Cyber Security Strategy. [i come in at the 14:40 mark]
Science Magazine review of Access Controlled
Caught in the Net
By Damian Tambini
From Science
Almost 600 years on, it seems clear that Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press was a crucial factor in the rise of democracy in Europe and the decline of the old order of church and monarchy. Movable type and mechanized printing led to an explosion of free expression that was key to the emergence of modern pluralist democracy. Many claim that the historical impact of the Internet will be of a similar magnitude, that it will lead to an inevitable undermining of authoritarian regimes and the spread of democracy around the globe. In the words of early enthusiast John Gilmore, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it” (1).
But judging by the research and contributions gathered in Access Controlled, we will have to wait many more years before the nature of the impact of the Internet on dictatorship and democracy becomes clear. The authors provide an alarming range of evidence to support the view that authoritarian regimes are becoming ever more adept at controlling and censoring Internet communication. The volume raises a chilling possibility: that the early commentators were correct about the magnitude of the impact of the Internet on democracy—they just got the direction wrong. Could authoritarian regimes, and also democratic governments working with private companies, be perfecting a new form of authoritarianism, working with the grain of Internet communication and exploiting the intimate entwining of online communication with the everyday lives of citizens?
Continue reading
NY Times essay (Worse Than You Think)
In this New York Times Room for Debate discussion, I discuss the broader context around the recent Twitter hack, here The New York Times
CBC Current Panel on Nokia-Siemens Lawsuit
I was interviewed by CBC’s The Current on September 17 regarding Isa Saharkhiz’s lawsuit against Nokia Siemens Networks and the broader implications of cyber espionage.
The radio clip also features a panel discussion with the son of the jailed journalist, Mehdi Saharkhiz, and Tony Rutkowski, Cybersecurity Rapporteur for the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union.
Listen to the interview and panel discussion here from CBC Radio.
Cyberspace Confidential (Globe and Mail essay)
“We have immersed ourselves in a technological environment of our own making, called cyberspace, which we take for granted as our communications and media ecosystem. We leave electronic traces of ourselves scattered across the servers of this vast geographically extended domain like granules of sand on an endlessly mutating, ever-expanding beach.
But who controls this domain and what are they doing with our data? What happens to our e-mail once we hear that familiar “woosh” sound as it leaves our screen? Is it shared with anyone without our consent? Under what circumstances?”
ONI Global Summit 2010
Online registration is required and can be done online here
Technology Review “Militarizing Cyberspace”
NetChange: Canada, check your privacy settings
Net Change Week 2010 – Canada, check your privacy settings from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.
I participated in the MaRs NetChange panel on the topic of “Canada, check your privacy settings,” with Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian and moderated by Jesse Hirsh.