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Our guests this week are Paul Scharre from the Center for a New American Security and Greg Allen from the Defense Department’s newly formed Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Paul and Greg have a lot to say about AI policy, especially with an eye toward national security and strategic competition. Greg sheds some light on DOD’s activity, and Paul helps us understand how the military and policymakers are grappling with this emerging technology. But at the end of the day, I want to know: Are we at risk of losing the AI race with China? Paul and Greg tell me not all hope’s lost – and how we can retain technological leadership.…

Continue Reading Episode 274: Will Silicon Valley have to choose between end-to-end crypto and shutting down speech it hates?

Today’s interview is a deep (and long – over an hour) dive into new investment review regulations for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). It’s excerpted from an ABA panel discussion on the topic, featuring: Tom Feddo, who currently oversees CFIUS; Aimen Mir, who used to oversee CFIUS; Sanchi Jayaram, who is in charge of the Justice Department’s CFIUS and Team Telecom work; David Fagan, a noted CFIUS practitioner; and me as moderator. It turns out the new CFIUS law may be the most innovative – and sweeping – piece of legislation on national security in years.…

Continue Reading Episode 239: The Ministry of Silly Talk

This episode puts our experts on the spot with an election-eve question: Will foreign governments attack US electoral rolls or vote-counting machinery in 2018? Remarkably, no one on our panel (Matthew Heiman, Nick Weaver, David Kris, and I) thinks they will. So if you want cybersecurity news, you can stop listening to election coverage and tune in to Episode 238 of The Cyberlaw Podcast.

Our interview features Steve Rice (Deputy CIO for DHS) and Max Everett (CIO for the Department of Energy) and was originally taped at a session of the Homeland Security Week conference.…

Continue Reading Episode 238: Bold Prediction Episode: Foreign governments will not hack this election

In this episode’s interview we ask whether the midterm elections are likely to suffer as much foreign hacking and interference as we saw in 2016. The answer, from Christopher Krebs, Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate (soon to be the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), is surprisingly comforting, though hardly guaranteed. Briefly, it’s beginning to look as though the Russians (and maybe the Iranians) are holding their fire for the main event in 2020.…

Continue Reading Episode 236: Twitterlaw and the Khashoggi killing

Our interview this week is with Hon. Michael Chertoff, my former boss at Homeland Security and newly minted author of Exploding Data: Reclaiming Our Cyber Security in the Digital Age. The conversation – and the book – is wide ranging and shows how much his views on privacy, data, and government have evolved in the decade since he left government. He’s a little friendlier to European notions of data protection, a little more cautious about government authority to access data, and even a bit more open to the idea of letting the victims of cyberattacks leave their networks to find their attackers (under government supervision, that is). It’s a thoughtful, practical meditation on where the digital revolution is taking us and how we should try to steer it.

Michael Chertoff and Stewart Baker
Michael Chertoff and Stewart Baker

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Continue Reading Episode 231: Ah, September, when Europe unleashes a summer’s worth of crazy

Patt Cannaday and Stewart Baker
Patt Cannaday and Stewart Baker

In this episode, Bobby Chesney explains the rapid emergence of undetectably forged videos. They’re not here yet, but before we’re ready the Internet will be awash with fake revenge porn, fake human rights atrocities, and fake political scandals. Our talk revolves around a recent paper by Bobby and Danielle Citron. I confess to having seriously considered federal support for a fake video involving Osama bin Laden and kumquats (not what you’re thinking, though that would have been good, too). Bobby and I discuss the ways in which the body politic – and particular political bodies – might protect themselves. This leads Bobby to propose a special Cyberlaw Podcast mug for best listener suggestions for what tattoo – and where – I should get as my last line of defense. He’s on. Send them to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com.

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Continue Reading Episode 227: Defending against deep fakes with lifelogs, watermarks … and tatts?

191: Election security may be better than you think.  Unless you live in New Jersey.

Episode 191 is our long-awaited election security podcast before a live, and lively, audience.  Our panel consists of Chris Krebs, formerly of Microsoft and now the top cybersecurity official at DHS (with the longest title in the federal government…