Section 230

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Back at last from hiatus, the podcast finds a host of hot issues to cover. Matthew Heiman walks us through all the ways that China and the US found to get in each other’s way on technology. China’s new data security and privacy laws take effect this fall, and in keeping with a longstanding…

We begin the episode with the Biden administration’s options for responding to continued Russian ransomware outrages. Dmitri Alperovitch reprises his advice in the Washington Post that Putin will only respond to strength and U.S. pressure. I agree but raise the question whether the U.S. has the tools to enforce another set of alleged red…

This episode offers an economical overview of the six antitrust reform bills reported out of the House Judiciary Committee last week. Michael Weiner and Mark MacCarthy give us the top line for all six (though only four would make substantial new policy). We then turn quickly to the odd-couple alliances supporting and opposing the…

We don’t get far into my interview with the authors of a widely publicized Ransomware Task Force report, before I object that most of its recommendations are “boring” procedural steps that don’t directly address the ransomware scourge. That prompts a vigorous dialogue with Philip Reiner, the Executive Director of the Institute for Security and…

Our interview is with Kevin Roose, author of Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation debunks most of the comforting stories we use to anaesthetize ourselves to the danger that artificial intelligence and digitization poses to our jobs. Luckily, he also offers some practical and very personal ideas for how to…

They used to say that a conservative was a liberal who’d been mugged. Today’s version is that a conservative who’s comfortable with business regulation is a conservative who’s been muzzled by Silicon Valley. David Kris kicks off this topic by introducing Justice Thomas’s opinion in a case over Trump’s authority to block users he…

This week we interview Eliot Higgins, founder and executive director of the online investigative collective Bellingcat and author of We Are Bellingcat.

Bellingcat has produced remarkable investigative scoops on everything from Saddam’s use of chemical weapons to exposing the Russian FSB operatives who killed Sergei Skripal with Novichok, and, most impressive, calling a…

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…

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…

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…