Bruce Schneier joins us to talk about AI hacking in all its forms. He’s particularly interested in ways AI will hack humans, essentially preying on the rough rules of thumb programmed into our wetware – that big-eyed, big-headed little beings are cute and need to have their demands met or that intimate confidences
Episode 356: Who Minds the Gap
Our interview is with Kim Zetter, author of the best analysis to date of the weird messaging from NSA and Cyber Command about the domestic “blind spot” or “gap” in their cybersecurity surveillance. I ask Kim whether this is a prelude to new NSA domestic surveillance authorities (definitely not, at least under this…
Episode 348: Well, Have You Ever Seen Dr. Octopus and Sen. Klobuchar Together?
This episode features a deep dive into the National Security Agency’s self-regulatory approach to overseas signals intelligence, or SIGINT. Frequent contributor David Kris takes us into the details of the SIGINT Annex that governs NSA’s collections outside the US. It turns out to be a surprising amount of fun as we stop to examine…
Episode 341: It’s Time to Pay Attention When Attention Stops Paying
Did you ever wonder where all that tech money came from all of a sudden? Turns out, a lot of it comes from online programmatic ads, an industry that gets little attention even from the companies, such as Google, that it made wealthy. That lack of attention is pretty ironic, because lack of attention…
Episode 340: Henry Kissinger and Michael Daniel on How to be a Cyber Czar
Our interview in this episode is with Michael Daniel, formerly the top cybersecurity adviser in the Obama NSC and currently the CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance. Michael lays out CTA’s mission. Along the way he also offers advice to the Biden cyber team – drawing in part on the wisdom of Henry…
Episode 339: The Privacy and Europocrisy Oversight Board
This is my favorite story of the episode. David Kris covers a report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on the enormous value that European governments get in fighting terrorism from the same American surveillance programs that European institutions have been fighting for twenty years to shut down. It’s a delightful takedown…
Episode 337: Could Kim Jong Un Kill 90% of All Americans Today?
This episode’s interview with Dr. Peter Pry of the EMP Commission raises an awkward question: Is it possible that North Korea has already developed nuclear weapons that could cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of Americans by permanently frying the entire electrical infrastructure with a single high-altitude blast? And if he doesn’t, could…
Episode 335: Digital Dunkirk
In this episode, I interview Rob Knake, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, about his recent report, “Weaponizing Digital Trade — Creating a Digital Trade Zone to Promote Online Freedom and Cybersecurity.” The theme of the report is what the US can salvage from the wreckage of the 1990s…
Episode 334: Fight Like a Canadian
This episode features an interview with Ronald Deibert, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. We talk about his new book, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. We also talk about the unique Canadian talent…
Episode 329: Dumpster Fire in Cyberspace
John Yoo, Mark MacCarthy, and I kick off episode 329 of the Cyberlaw Podcast diving deep into what I call the cyberspace equivalent of a dumpster fire. There is probably a pretty good national security case for banning TikTok. In fact, China did a lot better than the Trump administration when it …