Experts forecast ‘cool but creepy’ future of digital age

Nicolas Christin said the Turkish government’s attempt last week to block Twitter inside its borders is having an unexpected consequence.

Though Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan intended for the the move to silence allegations of state corruption, Christin said more than 10,000 Turks have started using a program that hides their physical locations, making the ban effectively useless.

“Prime Minister Erdogan has done more education for information security than all of us combined,” Christin joked.

Christin, a Carnegie Mellon University researcher who studies computer security, spoke Tuesday evening on CMU’s campus. Keith Mularski, an FBI agent who leads a unit based in Pittsburgh that handles cyber investigations, and Andrew Conte, an investigative reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who has covered cybersecurity, joined Christin in the discussion, which Jim Cuddy, the Tribune-Review’s managing editor, moderated.

For panelists, the backfiring of the Turkish government’s attempts to block citizens’ access to Twitter was just one aspect of what Conte called “our cool but creepy future,” in which private companies, governments and criminals can access Internet users’ private information for legal and illegal purposes.

Though popular television shows portray espionage as a cloak-and-dagger affair of intrigue, Mularski said it is becoming easier for states to steal information from rival governments through malware, or malicious software, which refers to all harmful or intrusive sofware. Borders and other physical barriers don’t deter hackers in different locations from coordinating their efforts. 

The groups that commit crimes and espionage online are thus becoming harder to catch, with members working from separate locations.

“This isn’t just a pimply kid in the basement trying to hack into the Pentagon,” Mularski said.

Businesses, private individuals and law-enforcement agents all have reason to eye hackers with suspicion. Despite expensive computer-security measures, still-unidentified thieves were able to steal more than 40 million credit card numbers stored in retail giant Target’s network during last year’s holiday shopping season.

Many criminals also see the Internet as a way to avoid physical violence that typically goes along with crime. Christin compared the burgeoning opportunities for criminals to move online to the way Amazon and other online distributors were able to redefine book selling.

“If you worked at Borders, you know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, referring to the bookseller that has since gone bankrupt because of increased competition from online outlets.

The growing use of digital communication has highlighted other concerns about privacy. 

Last year, National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked top-secret documents to journalists about the extent of the agency’s surveillance programs, which involved the collection of private citizens’ phone records without probable cause.

Snowden’s attorney, Ben Wizner, spoke via teleconference in a subsequent panel that included Director of the CMU CyLab Virgil Gligor, Pitt Law Professor David Harris and Deputy Managing Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Mark Rochester. The panelists discussed the aftermath of Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s programs. David Shribman, executive editor of the Post-Gazette, moderated the discussion.

Though panelists disagreed about the legality of the programs Snowden revealed, they agreed his actions raised awareness about cybersecurity. 

Wizner pointed out that prior to Snowden’s leak, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper publicly claimed the NSA did not conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens.

“The intelligence community has a lot to answer for,” Wizner said. “He lied to me. He lied to you.”

Harris said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the federal court that oversees NSA spy programs, has good reason in keeping its decisions secret. Intelligence officials have to conceal operations from potential enemies.

“These things are secret because if they weren’t secret, why do them? That would defeat the purpose,” Harris said.

Harris said one of the major revelations from the documents Snowden leaked — that phone companies were sharing subscribers’ records with the NSA — did not show the agency acted illegally.

The Supreme Court has ruled that once an individual gives up information to a third party, that information is no longer protected under the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right to privacy. Harris hastened to add that he disagreed with this interpretation of the Constitution.

But although panelists expressed different views on Snowden’s actions, they agreed that he had raised public interest in issues of digital privacy and security.

Gligor contrasted Snowden’s actions with those of another famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, whose 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealed large-scale bombing campaigns in Cambodia and other questionable U.S. military practices that took place during the Vietnam War. 

“Ellsberg faced the music like a man,” Gligor said.

Unlike Snowden, who is currently seeking asylum in Russia, Ellsberg remained in the United States to face criminal charges and was later acquitted.

Wizner pointed out that many journalists, and even some American politicians, have praised Snowden’s actions.

Snowden appeared remotely at a conference hosted by TED — a nonprofit group with a focus on spreading knowledge to the public — in Vancouver, Canada, last Wednesday via a screen mounted on a robot. 

“Virtually all the leaders in the tech community were tripping over themselves to be photographed with this robot,” Wizner said.