█▓▒░ Minitel Noir ░▒▓█
type: channel
date: 2014-04-05T16:45:14Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: ⚐ Cyber Dialogue 2014 – Working group on “Cyber war & international diplomacy issues”
items: ⚐ Harvard International Law Journal Symposium: “Sovereignty in Cyberspace” Panel
items: ⚐ RightsCon 2014: Cyberpeace Panel
items: ⚐ Talk at Columbia: “Augmented Humanity, Drones, Self-Driving Cars, Furbys and Robotic Politics: Freedom and Security in the Robotics Age”
items: ◓ Cryptivism: Voluntary Botnet Bitcoin Mining Fundraising?
items: ✏︎ A perspective on cyberwar for the BBC
items: ◓ Google & DeepMind: Society, too, must ask ethical questions
items: ◐ Robots Conference @ Columbia University Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies
items: ◓ [Morning Reads] Questioning the NSA’s bulk collection programs’ efficiency for counter-terrorism
items: ◒ A Reality Check on Cyberspace: Punks, War and Ideologies

⚐ Cyber Dialogue 2014 – Working group on “Cyber war & international diplomacy issues”
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-04-02T15:23:07Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: I am just back from the CyberDialogue conference, an event presented by the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, that convenes actors « from government, civil society, academia and private enterprise to participate in a series of facilitated public plenary conversations and working groups around […]
encoded: I am just back from the CyberDialogue conference, an event presented by the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, that convenes actors « from government, civil society, academia and private enterprise to participate in a series of facilitated public plenary conversations and working groups around cyberspace security and governance ». The conference was frankly awesome – I’ve always been fan of the Citizen Lab, they deserve major applause for putting together a very productive and unique conference. They did a truly impressive job at convening actors with very different backgrounds and points of view – something that is much needed in that space, as conversations unfortunately tend to happen within echo chambers of like-minded experts. <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-92" title="Toronto" src="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/04/IMG_20140402_111545-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" width="368" height="368" srcset="https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/04/IMG_20140402_111545-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/04/IMG_20140402_111545-150x150.jpg 150w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/04/IMG_20140402_111545-300x300.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 368px) 100vw, 368px" /> I was lucky to be among an impressive group of folks for a working group on cyber war and diplomacy. We had a whole day to talk through differences in perspectives, to identify priorities and fault lines and to come up with a short statement of things we could agree on – then point to things we couldn’t reach consensus on. Below are three points we managed to agree on. It reads a bit mild, because it had to be common grounds and consensual, yet it’s interesting because it stresses the necessity address cyber conflict norms in times of peace. “1. There exists a need to establish viable norms for state behavior in peacetime regarding …

⚐ Harvard International Law Journal Symposium: “Sovereignty in Cyberspace” Panel
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-03-18T19:44:39Z
subject: Cyberpeace
subject: Public Speaking
description: March 7th 2014, Cambridge, MA The Harvard International Law Journal Symposium kindly invited me to their symposium to participate in a panel entitled: “Beyond State Boundaries: Challenges of International Law in Cyberspace”. We discussed the blurred lines between cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, cyber-espionnage, cyber-war, and what was at stake in our ability to provide clear answers to […]
encoded: March 7th 2014, Cambridge, MA The Harvard International Law Journal Symposium kindly invited me to their symposium to participate in a panel entitled: “Beyond State Boundaries: Challenges of International Law in Cyberspace”. We discussed the blurred lines between cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, cyber-espionnage, cyber-war, and what was at stake in our ability to provide clear answers to navigate these questions both domestically and internationally (hint: democracy). We also addressed the cyber-security concerns of businesses in this context. I’ve learned a lot from my co-panelists and we have decided to keep this conversation going beyond our panel. Their expertise and remarks are very helpful to shape the cyberpeace framework: more soon on the follow-up. The Symposium website is here, panel description and panelists bios are pasted below, and I am grateful to Michelle Ha & Sarah Lee who invited me to the event and did a rockstar job in putting the symposium together. Panel: Beyond State Boundaries: Challenges of International Law in Cyberspace This panel will address the implications that the evolution of the Internet and technology in general, which are thought to defy states’ ability to control their territorial boundaries and laws or policies within their states, present to the notion of sovereignty. From cyber war to cyber surveillance, the NSA’s practice and policies to ongoing online trade espionage, the panelists will refer to main recent events to explore the existing laws and their potential shortcomings in governing the online sphere.Panel sponsored by Sullivan & Cromwell. Susan Brenner (NCR Distinguished Professor of Law and Technology, University of Dayton School of Law) Jeffrey Carr (Founder and CEO of Taia Global Inc., Author of “Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld) Leo Clarke (Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Washington Federal, Expert on cyber risk management) John Evangelakos (Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell) Camille François…

⚐ RightsCon 2014: Cyberpeace Panel
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-03-18T19:32:02Z
subject: Cyberpeace
subject: Public Speaking
description: I’m back from RightsCon 2014, where I discussed the need for a cyberpeace framework at a panel entitled: “Cyberpeace: Moving Beyond A Narrative of Global Threats”. Panel framing “The Internet security narrative is generally structured around threats and problems, and as a result, often leads to one-sided, top-down, control-oriented priorities. These lead to pervasive […]
encoded: I’m back from RightsCon 2014, where I discussed the need for a cyberpeace framework at a panel entitled: “Cyberpeace: Moving Beyond A Narrative of Global Threats”. Panel framing “The Internet security narrative is generally structured around threats and problems, and as a result, often leads to one-sided, top-down, control-oriented priorities. These lead to pervasive surveillance, siloed technology, balkanized networks, and other impediments to openness and a global, community Internet. We need to start climbing back to the top. In this session, we’ll talk about whether and how that could include a new doctrine of cyberpeace, to foster mutual peace, trust, and transparency online, and to reduce incentives and opportunities to build boxes and closed environments of control and conflict.” Participants: Camille Francois, Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society Megan Garcia, Nuclear Security Initiative Program Officer, Hewlett Foundation Tim Maurer, Research Fellow, Open Technology Institute, New America Foundation Aaron Shull, Counsel & Corporate Secretary, The Centre for International Governance Innovation Alex Fowler, Global Privacy and Public Policy Leader, Mozilla (Moderator) The cyberpeace framework was welcomed with enthusiasm & the audience made great points. More to come soon on the follow-up of that RightsCon panel. Thanks The awesome visualization at the top of this short blog post comes from Willow Brugh‘s magic viz skills: see original posting on her blog here. I am deeply grateful to Mozilla’s support for this panel.

⚐ Talk at Columbia: “Augmented Humanity, Drones, Self-Driving Cars, Furbys and Robotic Politics: Freedom and Security in the Robotics Age”
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-03-05T16:24:52Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: This lunch talk was an intro of robotics policy issues for SIPA: I bundled the different Robotics policy issues in “phases”, that also correspond to the chronological evolution of these concerns. An object that focused policy attention is chosen for each phase: “Furby phase”, the “Self-driving car phase”, the “Drone phase” and the “Transhumanist phase”. Written […]
encoded: This lunch talk was an intro of robotics policy issues for SIPA: I bundled the different Robotics policy issues in “phases”, that also correspond to the chronological evolution of these concerns. An object that focused policy attention is chosen for each phase: “Furby phase”, the “Self-driving car phase”, the “Drone phase” and the “Transhumanist phase”. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-105" title="RoboLaw" src="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/03/RoboLaw-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/03/RoboLaw-300x226.jpg 300w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/03/RoboLaw.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Written notes to be posted soon! Abstract As we surround ourselves with robots, autonomous or not, from the ground to the sky, we are facing policy questions we thought pertained to the realm of science-fiction. We build drones for both war and investigative journalism, plan to put self-driving cars on the road and design social robots to care for elders: what are the implications for our freedom and security? What are the social, ethical and policy questions we must address? For instance, how does the current debate about privacy, data collection and surveillance play out in an age in which we surrender more and more of our autonomy to machines? ︎ http://www.siwps.com/events/augmented-humanity-drones-self-driving-cars-furbys.html ︎ http://www.columbia.edu/event/augmented-humanity-drones-self-driving-cars-furbys-robot-politics-freedom-and-security-robotic.html

◓ Cryptivism: Voluntary Botnet Bitcoin Mining Fundraising?
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-02-07T12:17:28Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: A theoretical question on my mind: has anyone ever tried putting a voluntary botnet at work to mine crypto-currencies for philanthropic fundraising purposes? Botnets mining bitcoins (botcoins!) is no new idea. Though usually there not voluntary botnets, and they mine for profit, which makes it a criminal activity. See ZeroAccess for instance. Or ESEA, the gaming company that […]
encoded: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-59" title="Capture d’écran 2014-02-07 à 07.16.46" src="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/02/Capture-d’écran-2014-02-07-à-07.16.46-300x168.png" alt="" width="300" height="168" srcset="https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/02/Capture-d’écran-2014-02-07-à-07.16.46-300x168.png 300w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/02/Capture-d’écran-2014-02-07-à-07.16.46.png 682w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> A theoretical question on my mind: has anyone ever tried putting a voluntary botnet at work to mine crypto-currencies for philanthropic fundraising purposes? Botnets mining bitcoins (botcoins!) is no new idea. Though usually there not voluntary botnets, and they mine for profit, which makes it a criminal activity. See ZeroAccess for instance. Or ESEA, the gaming company that got caught mining behind its user’s backs (“serious gamers like ESEA’s customers made excellent soldiers for a botnet army: Gaming machines have powerful graphical processing units that are pretty good at bitcoin mining”). They got sued for it in the States, which gives us a nice peak into a legal discussion around non-voluntary botnet bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining by voluntary botnet for for-profit purposes also seems to have been tried but in more or less shady ways, see Security researchers Brian Krebs and Xylitol on FeodalCash, which promised to make your computer work in the botnet and gives you shares of what has been mined: “Dear slave masters, check your wallets you should have received your shares now. We are glad you’re working with us. Regards, FeodalCash” If you trust an organization enough that you would join their voluntary botnet, which would be like saying “Hey, I trust you, here is a little it of my computer power, we can do a lot together”, then theoretically this organization could mine its way through a successful fundraising campaign. I wonder h…

✏︎ A perspective on cyberwar for the BBC
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-01-29T19:47:12Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: January 29th, 2014 Tara McKelvey from the BBC, whom I met as she joined us at the Drone Conference last October to moderate a panel on “Life Under Drones”, called me today with a question about cyber threats. Her great article, “Hackers, spies, threats and the US spies’ budget” is online here. “Are cyber threats […]
encoded: January 29th, 2014 Tara McKelvey from the BBC, whom I met as she joined us at the Drone Conference last October to moderate a panel on “Life Under Drones”, called me today with a question about cyber threats. Her great article, “Hackers, spies, threats and the US spies’ budget” is online here. “Are cyber threats overblown?” is an common question: it is the one we are being forced to debate at each passing of budget or review of threats. The usual narrative goes: the US needs to protect itself against an “cyber Pearl Harbor”, or an “cyber 9/11”. A quick Google search will point you to a myriad of articles debating whether theses threats are a myth (one I really like here, from Henry Farrell), or a dire priority for us to address. I’m grateful to have been consulted on this point. My work on cyberwar also operates in a slightly different dimension. Cyber threats are indeed real. Experts are right therefore to attempt to evaluate these threats with greater precision, and to budget the corresponding security spendings. However, I’m looking at cyberwar from a different angle: not primarily as a threat (may it be overblown or imminent) but as an ideological framework that is shaping both our institutional and legal reality, and our public debate.

◓ Google & DeepMind: Society, too, must ask ethical questions
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-01-28T18:30:21Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: AI
subject: deepmind
subject: google
subject: robots
description: Google just bought a new Artificial Intelligence firm, DeepMind. Not a surprising move, but every step Google takes in the Robots / AI direction makes the need to consider the ethical and legal implication of these activities more urgent. In a nutshell, DeepMind is a Singularity-inspired (see co-founder Shane Legg’s talk at 2010 Singularity Summit) […]
encoded: Google just bought a new Artificial Intelligence firm, DeepMind. Not a surprising move, but every step Google takes in the Robots / AI direction makes the need to consider the ethical and legal implication of these activities more urgent. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-55" title="6178390745_198e8edd32_z" src="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/6178390745_198e8edd32_z-300x168.jpg" alt="" width="389" height="218" srcset="https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/6178390745_198e8edd32_z-300x168.jpg 300w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/6178390745_198e8edd32_z.jpg 640w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px" /> In a nutshell, DeepMind is a Singularity-inspired (see co-founder Shane Legg’s talk at 2010 Singularity Summit) and London-based AI firm. This is reported to be a talent aquisition. Founded by neuroscientists, DeepMind’s goal is to create computers that can function as human brains. Legg sees this happenning by 2013 – of course, in the process of making intelligent machines, they also wonder about what exactly is intelligence, and how to measure it (see Legg’s paper here). In the AI lingo, this is called “strong AI”. The following short description stresses that Strong AI is about replicating Human Intelligence in geenral, not solving specific problems (like: How can Google’s search engine can give you better ads based on what they already know about you from your emails?): Strong AI is a hypothetical artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of artificial intelligence research and an important topic for science fiction writers and futurists. Strong AI is also referred to as “artificial general intelligence” or as the ability to perform “general intelligent action.” Strong AI is associated with traits such as conscio…

◐ Robots Conference @ Columbia University Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-01-16T15:42:07Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: drones
subject: furby
subject: policy
subject: robots
subject: self driving cars
subject: talks
subject: transhumanism
description: On Dec. 9th, I gave at talk at Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA) on Freedom and Security in the Robotics Age. In this intro to Robotics Policy issues, I presented four ‘phases’ of public policy concerns in robotics, each illustrated by a an object that embodied each wave of concerns: first Furbys, […]
encoded: On Dec. 9th, I gave at talk at Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs (SIPA) on Freedom and Security in the Robotics Age. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-36" title="RobotWars" src="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/RobotWars-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/RobotWars-300x226.jpg 300w, https://archive.blogs.harvard.edu/camille/files/2014/01/RobotWars.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> In this intro to Robotics Policy issues, I presented four ‘phases’ of public policy concerns in robotics, each illustrated by a an object that embodied each wave of concerns: first Furbys, then Self-Driving Cars, then Drones and finally… Cyborgs. My talk was moderated by Captain Shawn Lonergan (US Army), below are links to the event and an abstract, but I should be able to publish a write-up of the intervention soon. Abstract – As we surround ourselves with robots, autonomous or not, from the ground to the sky, we are facing policy questions we thought pertained to the realm of science-fiction. We build drones for both war and investigative journalism, plan to put self-driving cars on the road and design social robots to care for elders: what are the implications for our freedom and security? What are the social, ethical and policy questions we must address? For instance, how does the current debate about privacy, data collection and surveillance play out in an age in which we surrender more and more of our autonomy to machines? Links – http://www.siwps.com/events/augmented-humanity-drones-self-driving-cars-furbys.html http://www.columbia.edu/event/augmented-humanity-drones-self-driving-cars-furbys-robot-politics-freedom-and-security-robotic.html

◓ [Morning Reads] Questioning the NSA’s bulk collection programs’ efficiency for counter-terrorism
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2014-01-14T13:25:24Z
subject: Reads
subject: counter-terrorism
subject: NSA
subject: section 215
subject: surveillance
description: My NY-Cambridge commute this morning has me read two reports questioning the NSA’s PRISM and phone-metadata-bulk-collection program’s efficiency for counter-terrorism efforts, thanks to Lorenzo’s great piece in Mashable. (1) A New America Study lead by Peter Bergen (32pages PDF doc here, one page Web overview there), the National Security analyst who produced the first TV interview […]
encoded: My NY-Cambridge commute this morning has me read two reports questioning the NSA’s PRISM and phone-metadata-bulk-collection program’s efficiency for counter-terrorism efforts, thanks to Lorenzo’s great piece in Mashable. (1) A New America Study lead by Peter Bergen (32pages PDF doc here, one page Web overview there), the National Security analyst who produced the first TV interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997 and the director of the National Security program at New America Foundation. It concludes: “Our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA ‘bulk’ surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading,” (…) “Traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal,” (2) A report by Marshall Erwin, a counter-terrorism expert having worked for the Intelligence Community (bio here), based at the Hoover Institution as a Fellow (the Hoover Institution is viewed as a conservative and national-security oriented place and is packed with people who served in Government and Agencies working on these issues – I was looking forward to their take on this question). Erwin focused on section 215 of the Patriot Act and places his study in the context of US Federal Judges disputing the legality of these programs – a question that could ultimately be resolved by the US Supreme Court (or not, we’ll see). He looks deeper into the two examples often cited by the Intelligence Community to demonstrate the efficiency of the collection programs: My conclusion is simple: neither of these cases demonstrates that bulk phone records collection is effective. Those records did not make a significant contribution to success against …

◒ A Reality Check on Cyberspace: Punks, War and Ideologies
type: item
creator: camille
date: 2013-12-03T19:47:47Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American What Is War in the Digital Realm? A Reality Check on the Meaning of “Cyberspace” By Camille François | November 26, 2013 | 2 Share Email Print Credit: Wikimedia Commons/NASA Cyber is everywhere: in political speeches, in newspapers, at dinner conversations. There’s cyberwar and cybersex and cybercafés (they still exist, I promise), and there’s the U.S. […]
encoded: Commentary invited by editors of Scientific American What Is War in the Digital Realm? A Reality Check on the Meaning of “Cyberspace” By Camille François | November 26, 2013 | 2 Share Email Print Credit: Wikimedia Commons/NASA Cyber is everywhere: in political speeches, in newspapers, at dinner conversations. There’s cyberwar and cybersex and cybercafés (they still exist, I promise), and there’s the U.S. Cyber Command. Once in a while, there is a new surge of articles arguing that the word “cyber” is vague, dated and that we just should get rid of it in favor of more precise terminology. That is wishful thinking: we might lack clear definitions of the cyber prefix, but for whatever reason cyber seems here to stay, which is why we should take a moment to explore what meanings and ideologies we have been infusing in this word to better inform our debates about technology. Cyber’s most popular namechild certainly is cyberspace (always cited and never defined), and it has been here with us for more than 30 years. It’s time for a short review of its origins, its many variations and what’s hiding behind the term. Cyberspace was a term brought to us by literature, and its trajectory traveled through poetry, academic analysis, politics and ideologies. It is now pervasively used by anyone who wishes to discuss security and democracy in a networked society. The stakes are crucially important. Using vague, misunderstood and meaningless language tools to articulate these debates hinders our ability to think critically about technology, something we can’t afford when we should be having informed debates about our expectations on surveillance, privacy or freedom of speech. Origins in Cyberpunk Given the lack of clear definition, it’s not surprising that the Wikipedia entry on cyberspace offers a very abstract explanation: that cyberspace is “the idea of interconnectedness of human beings through computers and telecommunications, without regard to physical geography.” “Cyberspace”…