Ronald Deibert: > Hi LibTech > > Following up on my earlier post about our Citizen Lab report, and the > reporting of the CBC and the Intercept on the smartphone exploitations, I > wrote a piece for the Globe and Mail summarizing my views.
A fine article. May I offer one quibble? > The case of UC Browser is one illustration of a larger public policy problem > around cybersecurity. We stand at a crossroads. Down one path is a future > where governments secretly stockpile information vulnerabilities as weapons, > weaken encryption to make eavesdropping easier, and engineer secret “back > doors” into our networks to steal info and sabotage systems. Heading down > this path will turn the global information commons into an inter-state > battlefield. In worst case scenarios involving the targeting of critical > infrastructure, it will lead inevitably to large-scale loss of life. Inter-state? Or intra-state? The age of inter-state rivalry seems behind us, replaced by an alliance of the secret police of the world against their peoples. Here in Latin America this happened quite explicitly as part of Operation Condor. The Southern Cone countries partnered to exterminate fleeing dissidents and journalists in each other's territories. I fear we are seeing the same now on a global scale. Emphasizing the deliberate--or at best, passive aggressive--nature of the CSE's support for repressive regimes would be an effective check on the disturbing growth of their power within what is, at least in name, a democracy. Jens -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at compa...@stanford.edu.
