Cybersecurity
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Melissa De Witte
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Despite a proliferation of spy-themed entertainment, many Americans, including some of the country’s top policymakers, know little about the U.S intelligence community and often get much of it wrong, says Stanford scholar Amy Zegart.

In a new book, Zegart examines what is at risk when intelligence is grossly misunderstood. “Spy-themed entertainment has become adult education and appears to be influencing how Americans think about hot-button intelligence issues,” said Zegart, a senior scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Read the rest at Stanford News

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In her new book, Stanford scholar Amy Zegart examines the evolution of the U.S. intelligence community and how technology is changing how it operates.

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Amy Zegart
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In 2011, a former Pentagon strategist named Phillip Karber who was teaching at Georgetown University asked his students to study the Chinese tunnel system known as the “underground great wall.” The tunnel’s existence was well-known, but its purpose was not. Karber’s students turned to commercial imagery, blogs, military journals, even a fictional Chinese television drama to get answers. They concluded the tunnels were probably being used to hide 3,000 nuclear weapons. This was an astronomical number, about 10 times higher than declassified intelligence estimates and other forecasts of China’s nuclear arsenal.

The shocking findings were featured in the Washington Post, circulated among top officials in the Pentagon, and led to a congressional hearing. They were also incorrect.

Read the rest at Politico

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Armed with Internet connections rather than security clearances, scholars, hobbyists and conspiracy peddlers are forcing intelligence agencies to rethink how they do business.

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This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

Common sense states that foreign policy rarely becomes an issue in South Korea’s elections. However, given the unusually high anti-China sentiment among the South Korean public today, some view that it may become an “unspoken agenda” that every South Korean voter is cognizant about. As Seoul and Beijing mark their 30th diplomatic anniversary this year, their mutual attraction appears visibly moderated. Is it a temporary setback in the neighboring countries’ relationship? What choices will Kim Jong-un make under strategic competition between the U.S. and China? The panel will examine the factors that will shape and influence the future prospect of the Seoul-Beijing ties and the relationship between North Korea and China.   

Speakers:

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portrait of Seong Hyon Lee

Seong-hyon Lee is a Senior Fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. His research focuses on contemporary relations between China and South Korea. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and a PhD from Tsinghua University.

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portrait of Sheen Woo

Sheen Woo, Special Policy Advisor to the South Korean Ambassador in China, joined the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC as a 2021-22 visiting scholar. He is a specialist in China-North Korea relations with expertise in Chinese aid and sanctions against North Korea. He has worked at and with a variety of organizations including NGOs, start-ups, art centers, and state-run think tanks in Korea and China. While at APARC, his research focus is on the development and changes of China's aid to North Korea. He holds a PhD in Management Science from Tsinghua University.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC and the Korea Program, will moderate the discussion.

Via Zoom. Register at https://bit.ly/3tMDyjo

Panel Discussions
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Research Scholar, Global Digital Policy Incubator
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Charles is a Research Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, and a board member of the International Centre for Trade Transparency and Monitoring. Charles served as an elected member of the Legislative Council in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, representing the Information Technology functional constituency, for two terms from 2012 to 2020. In 2021, he founded Tech for Good Asia, an initiative to advocate positive use of technology for businesses and civil communities. As an entrepreneur, Charles co-founded HKNet in 1994, one of the earliest Internet service providers in Hong Kong, which was acquired by NTT Communications in 2000. He was the founding chair of the Internet Society Hong Kong, honorary president and former president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, former chair of the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association, and former chair of the Asian, Australiasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO) of ICANN. Charles holds a BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

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Algorithms, Privacy & the Future of Tech Regulation in California

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California-grown technology has led the nation and world in multiple ways—from democratizing the ways we live, work and play, to posing enormous ethical and social challenges that have fueled demands for government regulation.

When, and how, should state governments regulate the harms caused by new technologies? And what are the conditions under which industry self-regulation more appropriate? How do we balance the need to encourage innovation while also protecting communities from harm?

Join experts in academia, industry, and government in a deeper conversation about algorithms, privacy, and the future of tech regulation in California.

Featuring Jeremy Weinstein (Stanford professor and co-author of the recent book System Error), Jennifer Urban (Board Chair of the California Privacy Protection Agency), Ernestine Fu (California 100 Commissioner and Venture Partner, Alsop Louie), and Karthick Ramakrishnan (Executive Director, California 100) as the moderator, this discussion will cover present-day challenges and remedies on data privacy and lack of consumer power, as well as larger questions about when and how to step into future regulation conversations involving new technologies.

Authors
Jonathan Movroydis
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Herbert Lin is the Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution.

In this Q&A, Lin discusses his recently released book Cyber Threats and Nuclear WeaponsHe explains that until this publication, the literature about cyber technology’s impact on the nuclear enterprise has been relatively sparse.

Lin asserts that although policy makers have made incredible achievements in the reduction of nuclear weapons around the world, these inventions nevertheless still represent an existential threat to humanity today. This threat is further compounded by the reality that computers are intimately involved in every step of the operation of weapons systems. As computing technology has advanced, nuclear weapons systems have become more complex and thus more vulnerable to cyberattacks from America’s adversaries, who can disrupt the decision-making process on the use of nuclear weapons. Ultimately, Lin ponders how to best manage the trade-off between technologically advanced systems with numerous capabilities and simplified systems that can provide a higher level of security in the nuclear enterprise.

Read the rest at The Hoover Institution 

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In this Q&A, Lin discusses his recently released book Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons. He explains that until this publication, the literature about cyber technology’s impact on the nuclear enterprise has been relatively sparse.

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This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's winter 2022 webinar series, New Frontiers: Technology, Politics, and Society in the Asia-Pacific.

While North Korea’s nuclear capabilities often make headlines, the DPRK increasingly poses a risk that is more difficult to see, in the form of sophisticated cyber attacks. Neighboring South Korea, one of the most digitized nations in the world, must closely monitor and defend against North Korea’s cyber threat, as attacks can disrupt economic, social, and defense infrastructures. This panel will discuss what kind of cyber threat North Korea poses to South Korea and beyond, how South Korea addresses the North Korean cyber attacks, and what other countries can learn from their response.

Speakers:

portrait of Jenny JunJenny Jun is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Her current research explores the dynamics of coercion in cyberspace. Her broader interests include cyber conflict, North Korea, and security issues in East Asia. Jenny is a co-author of the 2015 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report North Korea’s Cyber Operations: Strategy and Responses, published by Rowman & Littlefield. She has presented her work on North Korea’s cyber operations at various panels and has provided multiple government briefings and media interviews on the topic. She received her MA and BS each from the Security Studies Program (SSP) and the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University.

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portrait of So Jeong Kim

So Jeong Kim is a principal researcher at the National Security Research Institute where she joined in 2004. She currently leads the cybersecurity policy team and provides recommendations on cybersecurity policy and regulatory issues. She was involved in drafting South Korea’s National Cyber Security Strategy published in April 2019, in the 4thand 5th UN Group of Governmental Experts as an adviser, and in the MERIDIAN process as an advisor and organizer. Her main research area is in national cybersecurity policy, international norm-setting processes, confidence building measures, critical information infrastructure protection, law and regulations, and cybersecurity evaluation development. She received her PhD in Engineering from the Graduate School of Information Security at Korea University in 2005.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC and the Korea Program at Stanford University, will moderate the discussion.

Via Zoom. Register at https://bit.ly/3mXJSQW

Panel Discussions
Authors
Josh A. Goldstein
Renée DiResta
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On Dec. 2, Twitter announced the removal of two Chinese state-linked influence operations: 2,048 accounts that boosted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) narratives about the Xinjiang region and Uyghur population there, and 112 accounts attributed to Changyu Culture, a private company acting on behalf of the Xinjiang regional government.

Our team at the Stanford Internet Observatory analyzed these two networks. We found that both networks amplified pro-CCP narratives about the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, often posting content from Chinese state media or sharing first-person Uyghur testimonial videos about how great their life is in the province.

Read the rest at Foreign Policy

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China’s state-linked influence operations get very little engagement on Twitter.

Authors
John Mecklin
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As the United States modernizes its nuclear forces in coming decades, it will upgrade the computer and communications technology associated with them. Much of such technology now controlling US nuclear weapons was produced before the rise of the Internet. Newer technology will improve aspects of command, control, and communications related to the US nuclear arsenal. But if not carefully planned, the updating of nuclear technology could also increase risk in distinct ways that cyber policy expert and Bulletin Science and Security board member Herbert Lin explains in the following interview.

Read the rest at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Much of the technology now controlling US nuclear weapons was produced before the rise of the Internet. Newer technology will improve aspects of command, control, and communications related to the US nuclear arsenal. But if not carefully planned, the updating of nuclear technology could also increase risk in distinct ways that Herbert Lin explains in the following interview.

Authors
Herbert Lin
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I have struggled to find something with which I disagree in Michael Fischerkeller’s response to my thought experiment adopting the 2018 U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) Command Vision. A couple of such points are addressed below, but for the most part I agree with him. He does make one claim that I find surprising. He writes: 

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

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I have struggled to find something with which I disagree in Michael Fischerkeller’s response to my thought experiment adopting the 2018 U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) Command Vision. A couple of such points are addressed below, but for the most part I agree with him. He does make one claim that I find surprising.

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