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How to Protect Critical Infrastructure Fom Ransomware Attacks

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Whether the targets are local governments, hospital systems, or gas pipelines, ransomware attacks in which hackers lock down a computer network and demand money are a growing threat to critical infrastructure. The attack on Colonial Pipeline, a major supplier of fuel on the East Coast of the United States, is just one of the latest examples—there will likely be many more. Yet the federal government has so far failed to protect these organizations from the cyberattacks, and even its actions since May, when Colonial Pipeline was attacked, fall short of what’s necessary.

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Op-ed in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, by Gregory Falco and Sejal Jhawer
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Strengthening Democracies In The Digital Age

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Technological cooperation is one of the key topics of the transatlantic agenda. The capacity of nations to innovate and to regulate will define impact their future relevancy. Beyond setting incentives to enhance innovation, Regulation and setting standards is at the forefront of the geopolitical dimension of tech policy.
 
On June 24 from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Pacific Time, Germany’s Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Emily Haber, International Policy Director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, Marietje Schaake, and Chris Riley, Senior Fellow for Internet Governance at the R Street Institute, will discuss the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation for the US and the EU with respect to strategies to strengthen democratic public spheres, restore digital trust and promote liberal liberal-democratic values through a global digital order. Nathanial Persily, co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, will introduce and moderate the event.
 
This event is part of the series “Meeting America,” virtual talks with the German Ambassador and American stakeholders across the United States.
 
This event is co-sponsored by the German Consulate General San Francisco and the American Council on Germany.

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About the Speakers

 

Dr. Emily Margarethe Haber has been German Ambassador to the United States since June 2018.   Prior to her transfer to Washington, DC, she served in various leadership functions at the Foreign Office in Berlin. In 2009, she was appointed Political Director and, in 2011, State Secretary, the first woman to hold either post. Thereafter, she was deployed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, serving as State Secretary in charge of homeland security and migration policy from 2014 until 2018.   Emily Haber has many years of experience with Russia and the former Soviet Union. She held various posts at the German Embassy in Moscow, including Head of the Political Department. At the Foreign Office in Berlin, she served as Head of the OSCE Division and as Deputy Director-General for the Western Balkans, among other positions.   Emily Haber holds a PhD in history and is married to former diplomat Hansjörg Haber. The couple has two sons.

Chris Riley is R Street’s senior fellow of Internet Governance. He will be leading the Knight Foundation-funded project on content moderation, running convenings of a broad range of stakeholders to develop a framework for platforms managing user-generated content. Chris will also be doing policy analysis around content regulatory issues related to that project, including work on Section 230 in the United States and the Digital Services Act in the European Union.

Prior to joining R Street, Chris led global public policy work for the Mozilla Corporation, managing their work on the ground in Washington, D.C., Brussels, Delhi and Nairobi from Mozilla’s San Francisco office, and worked with government policymakers, stakeholders in industry and civil society, and internal teams at Mozilla to advance their mission. Prior to that, he worked in the U.S. Department of State to help manage the Internet Freedom grants portfolio designated by Congress to support technology development, digital safety training, research and related work as a part of advancing the expression of human rights online in internet-repressive countries.

Chris received his bachelor’s in computer science from Wheeling Jesuit University, his PhD in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and his JD from Yale Law School.

Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.

Marietje Schaake is the International Policy Director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. 

 

Nathaniel Persily

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James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
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Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
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Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

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Marietje Schaake

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Marietje Schaake is a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards as well as the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI. Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade-, foreign- and tech policy. She is the author of The Tech Coup.


 

Non-Resident Fellow, Cyber Policy Center
Fellow, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
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Assessing National Digital Identity Systems: The Risks And Rewards

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With the rise of national digital identity systems (Digital ID) across the world, there is a growing need to examine their impact on human rights. While these systems offer accountability and efficiency gains, they also pose risks for surveillance, exclusion, and discrimination. In several instances, national Digital ID programmes started with a specific scope of use, but have since been deployed for different applications, and in different sectors. This raises the question of how to determine appropriate and inappropriate uses of Digital ID programs, which create an inherent power imbalance between the State and its residents given the personal data they collect.

On Wednesday, June 23rd @ 10:00 am Pacific Time, join Amber Sinha of India’s Center for Internet and Society (CIS), Anri van der Spuy of Research ICT Africa (RIA) and Dr. Tom Fischer of Privacy International in conversation with Kelly Born, Director of the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative and fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, to discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by digital identity systems, a proposed framework for assessing trade-offs and ensuring that human rights are adequately protected, and a discussion of experiences in translating and adapting new digital ID assessment framework by CIS and RIA to different contexts and geographies.

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Amber Sinha 
Anri van der Spuy
Dr. Tom Fischer 
Kelly Born

The Autocratic Middle Class

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About the Event:

The Autocratic Middle Class studies the post-communist middle classes – not as a force for democracy, but as a source of support for autocracy and authoritarian resilience. It helps to explain why authoritarianism deepened across the ex-Soviet region over a period when the middle class was rapidly expanding; why anti-Putin protests in Russia have thus far failed to achieve a critical mass; and why it has been so difficult to consolidate democracy in Ukraine. Drawing on attitudinal surveys, unique data on protest participation, and extensive fieldwork in the former Soviet Union, this book shows that state dependence weakens the middle classes’ incentives to prefer and pursue democracy and sheds light on why development doesn’t necessarily lead to democratization.

 

About the Speaker:

Bryn Rosenfeld
Bryn Rosenfeld is Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. Her research interests include political behavior, development and democratization, protest, post-communist politics, and survey methodology. Her new book, The Autocratic Middle Class examines how middle-class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilience. She is the recipient of a Juan Linz Best Dissertation Prize and a Best Article Award honorable mention, both by the American Political Science Association’s Democracy & Autocracy Section. Her work appears in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Sociological Methods & Research. She holds a PhD from Princeton.

Online, via Zoom:  REGISTER

Bryn Rosenfeld Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University
Seminars

French Culture Workshop with Minayo Nasiali

Please join us for a workshop discussion of Dr. Minayo Nasiali's draft book chapter, "A Working Alias: African Sailors and Fungible Identities across France and Great Britain’s Maritime Empires (1920-1939).

 

The French Culture Workshop is co-sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center, the DLCL Research Unit, the France-Stanford Center, and the Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute.

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Lectures

Eurovision and Intervision: The Politics of Europe's Song Contests

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The annual Eurovision Song Contest is one of the world’s longest-running and most popular television shows, having been first staged in 1956. The European Broadcasting Union, the Eurovision Song Contest’s organiser, has always maintained that the contest is a non-political event that promotes cooperation among the European Broadcasting Union’s members, national public service broadcasting organisations from Europe and the Mediterranean rim. Yet, as entries in it represent states, the Eurovision Song Contest has always reflected political relations in Europe and has been appropriated by governments in their cultural diplomacy. For example, as a Western European event during the Cold War, the Eurovision Song Contest inspired the formation of and was challenged by an Eastern European equivalent, the Intervision Song Contest. In his talk, Dr. Dean Vuletic, the world’s leading academic expert on the history of the Eurovision and Intervision song contests, will address why these two song contests have been so politically significant for Europe. He will also discuss how this year’s Eurovision Song Contest reflects contemporary politics in Europe, especially with regards to East Europe.

Dean Vuletic is a historian of contemporary Europe based in the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna. After receiving his doctoral degree in history from Columbia University, he designed the world’s first-ever university course on the Eurovision Song Contest, which he began teaching at New York University. He is the author of Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), the only scholarly monograph on the history of the contest, which he produced under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intra-European Fellowship. As a Lise Meitner Fellow, he has also led a research project on the history of the Intervision Song Contest. Dean is a leading media commentator and public speaker on the Eurovision Song Contest, and more information about his work can be found on his website www.deanvuletic.com.

 

David D. Laitin awarded 2021 Johan Skytte Prize

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Laitin has made “culture,” often the junk drawer of political science studies, studiable and concrete by identifying various cultural components of a nation’s inner life; language is one aspect of culture, religion another, art and literature a third, how private family life is organized a fourth. Central to his thinking is that these cultural components do not have to easily reinforce each other or pull in the same direction. These “spheres” can co-exist without coinciding.

Read the full press release, translated into English: Culture is the product of…
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The Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, known by many as the “Nobel Prize in Political Science,” is being awarded for the 27th consecutive year. This year’s recipient is David D. Laitin, for his “original and objective explanation of how politics shapes cultural strategies in heterogeneous societies.”

Steven Pifer: An important trip to Paris

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President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly will soon travel to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron. That is a trip very much worth making. After German Chancellor Angela Merkel steps down this fall, Zelensky may find himself more dependent on Macron, both in the Normandy format and for leadership in the European Union regarding the conflict that Russia has inflicted on his country.

The sooner Zelensky gets to Paris, the better.

First, he could ask Macron to call explicitly on Vladimir Putin to deescalate the tensions Russia has caused by its large and continuing build-up of military forces near Ukraine.

On April 3, the German and French foreign ministries issued a statement calling for restraint on “all sides”—a wrongly balanced appeal given that Russian actions provoked the crisis.  Merkel corrected this on April 8, when she spoke with Putin and “demanded that this [Russian] build-up be unwound in order to de-escalate the situation.” Macron has yet to speak in such clear terms.

Second, Zelensky should strengthen Macron’s understanding of the conflict and Ukraine’s position.  The Germans and French have for six years sought to broker a settlement between the Ukrainians and Russians in the Normandy format, with Merkel playing the lead role.  Later this year, when she steps down, the leadership of that process may well pass from Berlin to Paris.

Ukrainians often express frustration with the Normandy format and the Minsk II agreement that it produced in February 2015.  The terms of the agreement were never fully implemented, and thousands of Ukrainians have since died.  Berlin and Paris have not found the key to getting Russian and Russian proxy forces to leave Donbas, to say nothing of occupied Crimea.  (In fairness, it is not clear that anyone could have.)

However, the Normandy process has kept the two large continental European powers engaged in trying to resolve the conflict. That is to Kyiv’s advantage. The Minsk II agreement has provided the basis for sustaining European Union sanctions on Russia, sanctions that have proven far more resilient than many would have predicted when EU member states first approved them in 2014.

Merkel and German diplomats deserve credit for maintaining EU unity on sanctions, despite calls from some member states to move back toward business as usual with Moscow.  She has taken a greater interest in the Russia-Ukraine conflict than Macron or his predecessor.  That reflects in part her background, having been raised in the German Democratic Republic, her understanding of Russia, and her command of Russian.

But Merkel steps down this fall after 16 years as chancellor. While the German election is still more than five months off, most predictions suggest one of two coalitions will result: a combination of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union and Greens Party, or a grouping of the Greens, the Social Democratic Party, and Free Democratic Party.

In the first combination, the likely candidates for chancellor are Armin Laschet and Markus Soeder.  Both come from what was West Germany.  Neither has real experience with or appears to have shown particular interest in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.  Either might question the investment that Merkel put into the Normandy discussions, given that they have not succeeded and offer little pay-off in terms of German domestic politics.

In the second combination, the chancellor likely would come from the Greens.  That could bode well for Kyiv, as the Greens are skeptical about Russia, criticize Moscow’s human rights record, and oppose the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.  However, the Greens have been out of government since 2005, and they might need time to get up to speed.

If the new German chancellor is uninterested in or needs time to engage in a meaningful manner, leadership within the Normandy format will move to Paris, something the Kremlin likely would welcome.  Macron has taken a less harsh tone on Russian misbehavior.  He has sought to regenerate links with Moscow.  For example, before the 2019 G7 summit in France, he hosted Putin for a bilateral meeting, seemingly seeking to make Paris a bridge between Moscow and the rest of the G7.

A pro-Russian tilt, even a small one, in the duo heading up the Normandy format process is hardly in Kyiv’s interest.  Zelensky needs to make his strongest possible case to Macron as regards the realities of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, for continuing to steward the Normandy format with Merkel’s steadiness, and for not succumbing to Putin’s blandishments, which would come at Ukraine’s expense.

 

Originally for Kyiv Post

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (L) and French President Emmanuel Macron
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (L) and French President Emmanuel Macron
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President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly will soon travel to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron. That is a trip very much worth making.

Nord Stream 2: Background, objections, and possible outcomes

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Nord Stream 2 is an almost-finished natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The Biden administration opposes it and has come under congressional pressure to invoke sanctions to prevent its completion, in large part because the pipeline seems a geopolitical project targeted at Ukraine. The German government, however, regards the pipeline as a “commercial project” and appears committed to its completion, perhaps in the next few months. U.S. sanctions applied on Russian entities to date have failed to stop Nord Stream 2, raising the question of whether the U.S. government would sanction German and other European companies for servicing or certifying the pipeline. Such sanctions would provoke controversy with Germany at a time when both Berlin and the Biden administration seek to rebuild good relations. The two sides have work to do if they wish to avoid Nord Stream 2 becoming a major point of U.S.-German contention.

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Nord Stream 2 is an almost-finished natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The Biden administration opposes it and has come under congressional pressure to invoke sanctions to prevent its completion, in large part because the pipeline seems a geopolitical project targeted at Ukraine.

Jonathan Rodden awarded a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship

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The Europe Center faculty affiliate Jonathan Rodden has been awarded a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship

Jonathan A. Rodden is a professor of political science and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Rodden’s work focuses on the comparative political economy of institutions. His recent publications have examined the geographic distribution of political preferences within countries, legislative bargaining, the distribution of budgetary transfers across regions and the historical origins of political institutions.
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