Cybersecurity

Securing Cyberspace – two videos

There are two video streams that came out on the same day yesterday, both on the topic of “Securing Cyberspace.” The first is a trailer that was put together (thanks to Eric Petecelli and team) on our “Securing the Cyber Commons: A global dialogue” event that took place over two days in March 2011. This video presents highlights of the two day event. A full video of the opening plenary and panel will be made available soon. I recommend it be watched in full screen mode to fully appreciate the high definition.

The second video comes from an episode of TVO’s the Agenda, on the topic of Securing Cyberspace. Apart from myself, panelists include Christopher Soghoian, Allan Paller, and Sukanya Pillay. You can watch the entire very interesting 60 minute discussion here.

Huffington Post: Cyber Security and Canadian Policy

I was asked to contribute a piece to the launch of Huffington Post Canada. My article addresses questions of cyber security that have been raised by President Sarkozy at the e-G8, and in particular what Canada could contribute in this area. The editors placed my article on the home page for a few hours, with the title “CYBER FAIL” in Pearl Harbor style giant font, above a picture of a forlorn looking Prime Minister Harper. Not sure it’s the best way to get my points across to the Canadian government, but it was amusing to see for a while.

Here is a link to the article as it appears in the Huffington Post, and below I paste it in full.

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The New Cyber Military Industrial Complex (Globe and Mail)

“There’s an arms race in cyberspace, and a massively exploding new cyber-industrial complex that serves it. Like all arms races before it, the growing tensions in cyberspace and the proliferation of tools and services that feed it create a climate of fear and insecurity. And as Samuel Coleridge once said, ‘What begins in fear usually ends in folly.’ A dangerous, lawless atmosphere is spreading in cyberspace.”

Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski in the Globe and Mail

From The Globe and Mail

New Cyber Chief Outlines Strategy

Thursday, June 10, 2010
New Cyber Chief Outlines Strategy
Keith Alexander explains how the U.S. will fight espionage and crime.
By David Talbot

Read the full article here.

Deibert says one major question now is how to preserve privacy amid such efforts. “The key questions, as always, will concern the substance of those negotiations: will we see a charter for global cyberspace that protects and preserves this domain as an open, global commons of information? Or will we see the further imposition of digital controls, nationalized communications spaces, and widespread surveillance?”

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Risking Security: Policies and Paradoxes of Cyberspace Security

Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, “Risking Security: Policies and Paradoxes of Cyberspace Security,” in International Political Sociology, Volume 4 Issue 1, Pages 15 – 32.

Conceptualizations of cyberspace security can be divided into two related dimensions, articulated as “risks”: risks to the physical realm of computer and communication technologies (risks to cyberspace); and risks that arise from cyberspace and are facilitated or generated by its technologies, but do not directly target the infrastructures per se (risks through cyberspace). Continue reading