Tag: Cybersecurity
Peace Picks July 22-26
1. Rouhani: Challenges at Home, Challenges Abroad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Monday, July 22 / 9:00am – 11:30am
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Bijan Khajehpour, Shervin Malekzadeh, Suzanne Maloney, Roberto Toscano, Ali Vaez, Shaul Bakhash
Six Iran experts discuss President-elect Rouhani’s domestic and foreign policy challenges.
Register for the event here:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/rouhani-challenges-home-challenges-abroad
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Peace picks July 15-19
A busy midsummer week:
1. Real Politics of Iran: Views from Within, US Institute of Peace, Monday, July 15 / 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Venue: US Institute of Peace
2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
Speakers: Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, Kevan Harris, Farzan Sabet, Daniel Brumberg
Iran’s June 14, 2013, presidential election produced a result that surprised many Iran watchers: a first round win for Hassan Rouhani. A long-time regime stalwart who favors a political opening at home and abroad, his election may signal the return of a more contentious politics—one that could limit the growing influence of the security apparatus or create space for a more productive Western-Iranian dialogue. To probe the implications of these changes for Iran’s internal politics and its foreign relations, on July 15 the United States Institute of Peace will host three distinguished Iran analysts, one of which has just returned from Iran. Drawn from the United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Internal Iran Study Group, they will highlight a range of dynamics in the universities, opposition, the economy and even the security apparatus that often escape the foreign headlines. Daniel Brumberg, Senior Program Officer on Iran and North Africa at USIP, will chair this timely discussion.
Register for the event here:
http://realpoliticsofiran.eventbrite.com/
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China should concern us
With current events keeping the 24-hour news cycle focused elsewhere, one issue that doesn’t get enough attention these days is growing tension between the US and China. With an ongoing cyber-war , hostile actions in outer space , and increasingly confrontational military buildups and posturing, the military rivalry between the world’s two largest economies is worrisome.
Larry Wortzel, a respected China expert and retired US army colonel, spoke yesterday at the Heritage Foundation about his recently published The Dragon Extends its Reach: Chinese Military Power Goes Global. Describing China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Wortzel is skeptical about the future of US – Chinese relations. He dismisses those who view China’s economic and military growth as benign and believes that both the near and long-term future will be characterized by friction, competition, and potential for conflict. Read more
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Snowden right and wrong
Let me first concede on the main factual point: the National Security Agency (NSA) has been doing what Edward Snowden alleges, and then some. I have long assumed that NSA collects all electronic communications in the US, as well as any they can manage to intercept abroad. I doubt this is limited to “meta” data. We’d all do best to assume that it includes everything you or I transmit by electronic means.
Of course the companies that transmit this data for us–your phone company or Google, for example–already have it all. But there is a big difference between government collection of this data and the companies’ presumably indifferent transmission, even if Google uses it to send me bespoke ads. Neither Google nor Verizon has any real incentive to use the stuff in order to limit my civil liberties, only my advertising. Nor do they have the means. Read more
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Peace picks June 24-28
Summer doldrums have not yet arrived:
1. The Chinese Cyber Challenge: How to Address the Growing Threat, Atlantic Council, Monday, June 24 / 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Venue: Army & Navy Club
901 17th St, NW, Washington, DC 20006
Speakers: Dmitri Alperovitch, James Mulvenon, Gregory J. Rattray, Jason Healey
In recent months, the United States has gone public in a series of speeches by senior officials about Chinese cyber espionage. In an address in March to the Asia Society, outgoing national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon said “sophisticated, targeted” thefts of confidential information and technology were coming from China “on an unprecedented scale.” US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also accused Beijing of involvement in cyber espionage in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, openly blaming the Chinese government and military for “cyber intrusions” into sensitive US information systems. A summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama last week brought cybersecurity to the center of US-China relations, but failed to result in any agreement. Cyber espionage destabilizes every facet of the US-China relationship, and how the United States addresses these problems will be a harbinger of its overall approach to the challenge China poses to the global commons.
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Shocked, shocked
I’m surprised so many are surprised that the National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting data on your use of the phone and the internet. What did you think all those folks out at Fort Meade (and around the country) were doing? Tapping individual phone lines? In fact, my guess–and it is only a guess–is that they are storing not only your phone records but also your phone calls, though they only listen to them when the super-secret (and therefore unaccountable to the public) court, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, gives permission. “Collection” is a tricky word. Is the data collected when it goes into a computer, or only when it is examined?
The notion that they are discriminating in this data storage is not credible. The frequency and volume of material argue for capturing it all so that it can be mined in due course, depending on which bits seem to be most relevant to protecting national security, especially against terrorists. That there are abuses I have no doubt, but that should not blind us to the extraordinary power–I almost said virtue–of a system that can archive and later examine many billions of messages of all types. It would be surprising if a system of this sort had not produced material of value in preventing terrorist acts. Read more
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