Skating on Stilts

194. Mass Bioterrorism, Runaway AI, and Other Romps with Rob Reid

Our interview this week is with Rob Reid, author of After On and Year Zero, two books that manage to translate serious technology nightmares into science fiction romps. We cover a lot of ground: synbio and giving eighth graders the tools for mass human extinction, the possibility that artificial intelligence will achieve takeoff and begin to act counter to humanity’s interests in a matter of hours. Along the way, we consider the possibility that the first AI will arise from a social media behemoth and will devote its exponential power to maximizing human hookups.

In the news, we explore the massive PR disaster that is the Uber data breach and reach the surprising conclusion that the whole thing may turn out worse in the media than in the courts. Except in the EU, Maury Shenk reminds me. Europe just hates Uber viscerally. So much so that Jim Lewis suggests the company’s EU subsidiary will soon have to be renamed Unter.

Actually, it’s not just Uber the EU hates. It’s all things technological, at least to judge by the European Parliament’s latest plan to use export controls to cripple technology companies whose products can be misused by authoritarian governments.

I note the release of the ODNI’s report on the intelligence community’s "masking" of US identities in intel reports. We talk about the temptation to weaponize unmasking during transitions, and I ask why the “Gates procedures” that provide special protection for unmasking of Congressional identities shouldn’t also be used to protect Presidential transition teams.

Jim and I discuss Russia’s imposition of constraints on Radio Free Europe that match the new restrictions on RT in the US. Jim and I struggle toward a Universal Theory of Putin as Overrated Global Troll. Remember those Chinese "security" cameras deployed by US agencies that we covered in the last episode? Yeah, it's worse than you thought: the Chinese are getting close to identifying everyone caught on camera using gait and facial recognition.

I note that Sen. Wyden (D-OR) has another campaign underway to imply that the Justice Department is imposing decryption assistance requirements under FISA without judicial review. In fact, if there is such an effort, the company on the receiving end already has a judicial remedy.

And Maury explains that the head of Germany's new cybersecurity agency is joining the German government chorus arguing for"hack back" -- but only by the German government.

My candidate for Dumbest Public Policy Battle of the Season: The complaint that someone faked a bunch of meaningless, content-free comments on net neutrality. The problem is really the idea that the policy debate should be influenced by counting votes in the World’s Skeeviest Online Poll, an idea that seems to have sparked a kind of bot arms race between supporters and opponents of the FCC’s policy.

And my candidate for Coolest Technology Story of the Season: Feeding graphene to spiders and discovering that it greatly strengthens their webs. Every fifteen-year- old science fair participant should take heart: It turns out that with great quantities of graphene comes great responsibility.

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Download the 194th Episode (mp3).

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Episode 193: David Ignatius and The Quantum Spy

We celebrate the holiday season by interviewing David Ignatius, Columnist and Associate Editor at The Washington Post and the author of multiple spy thrillers, including his most recent, The Quantum Spy.  David and I discuss themes from the book, from quantum computing to ethnic and gender tensions at the Agency, while managing to avoid spoilers. It’s a fun and insightful work.

In the news, I flag Twitter’s weird journey from the free speech wing of the free speech party to the censorship wing of the Censor’s Party.  Twitter is now revoking the verification checks for people whose speech it disapproves of.  It’s even de-checking people based on its assessment of their off-line conduct.  So maybe that should be the Stasi wing of the Censor’s Party.  And, not surprisingly, given Silicon Valley’s steep leftward tilt, the censorship seems to fall far more harshly on the right than on less PC targets.

Markham Erickson and I treat Twitter’s wobbly stance as a symptom of the breakdown of the Magaziner Consensus, as both left and right for their own reasons come to view Big Tech with suspicion.  Markham has shrewd observations about what it all means for the (questionable) future of social media’s section 230 immunity.

We dive into a surprising new analysis of China’s “50c Army.”  Turns out that the Chinese government strategy for flooding the internet is 180 degrees off from Russia’s.  Instead of a Trollfest, Chinese government-funded social media is saccharine sweet.  Cheerleading and changing the subject are what its army does best.

Markham, Brian Egan, and I give broadly positive reviews to the US government’s recently announced Vulnerability Equities Process.  And, in a correction to those who’ve said that other countries don’t have such a process, I point to evidence that China has one – though one in which all the equities seem to point to exploit, exploit, exploit.

All of which ought to turn the story of US agencies using Chinese “security” cameras from disquieting to positively frightening.  Speaking of which, the Chinese company that made your drone has provided a case study on how not to do a bug bounty program.  Read it and weep.

On a lighter note, we talk backflipping robots and a surprising peril of traveling with your family this holiday season – thumbprint phone security failure followed by titanic spousal air rage.  Really, where is Tim Cook’s privacy schtick when we really need it?

Download the 193rd Episode (mp3).

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

What's wrong with proposals to "reform" section 702 of FISA

I've just published an op-ed with Fox News, opposing the effort to require warrants to search lawfully collected section 702 intercepts.  It begins:

You might be surprised to discover that the average college freshman doesn’t remember 9/11. 

I was even more surprised to find that a lot of Congressmen don’t either.

That’s the only good explanation for their willingness to play chicken with one of our most valuable anti-terrorism programs. 

And it finishes with my experience defending and renouncing the wall that many of the 702 "reform" proposals would at least partially restore:

Inspired by ISIS, more terrorists are internet-radicalized loners, and many are already known in a general way to law enforcement.  They may be “lone wolves” but they’re also “known wolves.”  This is no time to make it harder to do an electronic background check on these known suspects.  If there were a truth in labeling requirement for acts of Congress, the proposed warrant requirement would be called the “Known Lone Wolf Preservation Act.”  

This is all achingly familiar to me. In the 1990s, I was one of those who defended the idea of a wall between intelligence and law enforcement.  Not because there had been actual abuses, but because it was easy to imagine them.  So why not construct a wall and reduce the risk of abuse?

Well, now we know.  In August of 2001, just weeks before the 9/11 attacks, it was the wall that prevented the FBI’s largest and most sophisticated counterterrorism task force from acting when it got word that hardened al Qaeda terror plotters were inside the United States.  The FBI had plenty of time in late August and early September to track the plotters down; if they had been allowed to use the intelligence, I am convinced that they would have caught the terrorists and changed history.  But the FISA court and FBI lawyers were enforcing the wall so harshly that in the end the FBI task force was forced to stand down, and the attacks played out.

When the 9/11 Commission held its hearings, I felt compelled to tell that story – and to recant my support for the wall.  

“I was wrong,” I testified.

I never again want to stand before the children and parents of Americans killed by terrorists and say that my enthusiasm for some unproven theory of civil liberties helped get their loved ones killed. 

And if I can offer one piece of hard-earned advice to members of Congress, it’s this: Neither do you.

 

192. The FBI's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in Silicon Valley

With the Texas church shooting having put encryption back on the front burner, I claim that Apple is becoming the FBI's crazy ex-girlfriend in Silicon Valley --  and offer the tapes to prove it. When Nick Weaver rises to Apple's defense, I point out that Apple responded to a Chinese government man-in-the-middle attack on iCloud users with spineless obfuscation rather than a brave defense of user privacy.  Nick asks for a citation. Here it is: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203126 (Careful:  don't click without a chiropractor standing by.)

Nick provides actual news to supplement the NYT's largely news-free front page story about leak and mole fears at NSA.

I gloat, briefly, over hackback's new respectability, as the ACDC act acquires new cosponsors, including Trey Gowdy, and hacking back acquires new respectability. But not everywhere.

Michael Sulmeyer finally gets a word in edgewise as the conversation shifts to the NDAA .  He discusses the MGT Act, the growing Armed Services Committee oversight of cyberoperations, and the decision to lift -- and perhaps separate -- Cyber Command from NSA.  I take issue with any decision that requires that a three-star NSA director argue intelligence equities with a four-star combatant commander.

We end with Michael Sulmeyer walking me through the challenges for DoD of deterring cyberattacks.  We both end up expressing skepticism about the current path. 

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

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191. How bad is our election cybersecurity -- and what can we do to fix it?

 

Episode 191 is our long-awaited election security podcast before a live, and lively, audience.  I interview Chris Krebs, formerly of Microsoft and now the top cybersecurity official at DHS (with the longest title in the federal government as proof), and Ed Felten, formerly the deputy CTO of the federal government and currently Princeton professor focused on cybersecurity and policy.  We walk through the many stages of election machinery and the many ways that digitizing those stages has introduced new insecurities into our election results.

When all is said and done, however, the panel ends up more or less in one place:  Election security is not to be taken for granted -- it will be hard to achieve, but the task is not impossible, or even unaffordable.  With sufficient will and focus, and perhaps a touch of Ned Ludd, we may be able to overcome the risk of foreign hackers interfering in our elections.  At least outside of New Jersey.

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Download the 191th Episode (mp3).

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190. Interview with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

The 190th episode is an interview with United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has a long history of engagement with technology and security issues.  We cover the cybersecurity waterfront, from the FBI’s problems accessing the Texas church shooter’s phone, and what Silicon Valley should do about that, to Vladimir Putin’s electoral adventurism and how to combat it.  Along the way, we touch (skeptically) on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and (more enthusiastically) on allowing private citizens to leave their networks to track the hackers who’ve attacked them.  Plus:  botnet cures, praise for Microsoft, a cybersecurity inspector general (or, maybe, bug bounties), DHS’s role in civilian cybersecurity, and how much bigger Rhode Island really is at low tide!

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Download the 190^th Episode (mp3).

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189. Hack Back in Black: Interview with Rep. Tom Graves

In this bonus episode, I had a chance to interview United States Representative Tom Graves, co-sponsor of the Active Cyber Defense Certainty (ACDC) Act, which allows victims of persistent network attacks to leave their own network to conduct investigative action.  Representative Graves offers a measured but deeply felt defense of the proposal and is optimistic about its reception.  In the end, in keeping with The Cyberlaw Podcast's reputation for hard-hitting investigative journalism, I ask the tough question:  “Is this bill a tribute to AC/DC – and if so, which song?”  (Hint: the answer may be in the title of this post.)

Mark your calendars for November 7th when we will gather for a live taping of a special episode on Election Cybersecurity at our Dupont Circle offices here in DC. To register please visit the Events page of our website at steptoe.com.

As always The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Send your questions, suggestions for interview candidates or topics to [email protected] or leave a message at +1 202 862 5785.

Download the 189th Episode (mp3).

Subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast here. We are also on iTunes, Pocket Casts, and Google Play (available for Android and Google Chrome)!