Cybersecurity and International Relations

Topics of Current Interest

Prof. John E. Savage Brown University Updated

This curated website provides links to cybersecurity sources, broadly defined. It was created to support two Brown University courses, CSCI 1800, Cybersecurity and International Relations, that I taught for eleven years and EMC 2600, The Future of Cybersecurity: Technology and Policy, that I taught for two years. I have continued to expand it as new sources have been published or discovered. Items highlighted in red are particularly important or interesting.

Some of these references are used in the book Security in the Cyber Age: An Introduction to Policy and Technology by Derek S. Reveron and John E. Savage published by Cambridge University Press in November, 2023.

Go here to replace the following Table of Contents with one without links to subsections. The last section is evolving and currently contains information on emergency preparedness.

Table of Contents

• Historical Context
• Internet Technology
• The Human Dimension
  Doomsday Planning    Human Interest    The Human Factor    Cognitive Issues    Management Issues    What is Privacy?    Protecting Data and Privacy    Human Rights    Freedom on the Net    Workforce Issues    Environmental Impact    Making Predictions
• The Cybersecurity Threat
  How Cyber Attacks Work    Hardware Vulnerabilities    Firmware Vulnerabilities    Side Channel Attacks    Network Vulnerabilities    Cyber Deterrence    Defensive Measures    Cyber-Nuclear Threats    The EMP Threat    Assessment of the Huawei Threat    Breaches    Ransomware Threats    Security Incidents    State-Sponsored and Other Significant Attacks    Supply Chain    Critical Infrastructure    Hacking Into Internet Devices    Security of Aircraft, Missiles, Satellites, Ships, and Vehicles    Information Warfare    Cyber Conflict    Espionage    Hacker Capabilities    US Government Shutdown
• Responding to the Cybersecurity Threat
  Cyber Resources    Cybersecurity Best Practices    Open Source Software    Bug Bounty Programs    General Defensive Measures    Active Defense    Hacking Back    Intelligence Agencies and Committees    Open Source Intelligence    Command Vision for US Cyber Command    Information Sharing Organizations    Cyber Insurance    Making Security Sustainable    Botnets    Cloud-Based Security    Internet of Things    Credential Spills    Coronavirus Pandemic Response
• Policy Issues
  Charter of the United Nations    Political Science Analysis    US Cyberspace Solarium Commission    Emerging Military Technologies    Cybersecurity Policy    Techno-Nationalism    Policy Recommendations    Reflections on Norms    UN GGE & Cyber Norms Discussions    Cyber Norms in General    Internet Governance    Digital Cooperation     Multistakeholder Governance    US & UK Government Policy Reports    Commentary on Cybersecurity Moonshot    Encryption Policy    Net Neutrality    Cyber Regulation    Ethics in CS, Engineering and Law    Software Vulnerability Disclosure    Surveillance and Accountability    Grand Strategy    US Pol-Military Policy
• Artificial Intelligence
  Applications of AI    Assessments of AI Technology    AI and National Security    Machine Learning    AI Training Issues Deep Fakes    Coping with Deep Fakes    AI Regulation and Safety    Ethical and Social Implications of AI    AI and Human Dimension    AI Professional Associations
• New Technologies
  Security Tools and Techniques    Quantum Computing    Unconventional Weapons    5G Wireless Communications    Cryptocurrencies    Blockchains
• Social Dimensions
  Social Impacts of Technology    Political Issues    Big Data    Social Media Issues    Information Warfare    Manipulating Social Media Companies    Russian Election Interference    Chinese Disinformation Campaigns    Responding to Disinformation Campaigns    Smart Cities
• International Issues
  International Law    Standards Bodies    Sovereignty and Transborder Issues    Globalization    The New Cold War    Geopolitics    IR Education
• China Related Issues
  China's Ambitions    Understanding China    Chinese Leadership    China's Social Control System    China's Economy    China's Technology Policy    Huawei Software Security    Chinese Cyber Law    Chinese Theft of Intellectual Property    Chinese Cyber Espionage    China's Foreign Policy    China's Preparation for Conflict    Chinese Disinformation Campaigns
• Russian Federation Related Issues
  Russian Leadership    Russian Influence Campaigns    Russians in US Critical Infrastructure    Russian Preparation for Conflict    Russian Aggression    Russian Domestic Internet    Russian International Relations   
• Iran Related Issues
  The Iranian Threat     Responding  the Iranian Threat   
• Emergency Preparedness
  • XXX

Historical Context

1. Motto of the Internet Engineering Community: We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.
   This statement appears in "A Cloudy Crystal Ball — Visions of the Future," by David Clark, 24th Internet Engineering Task Force, 1992
2. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow, February 8, 1996
3. 40 maps that explain the internet by Timothy B. Lee, Vox, June 2, 2014
4. A Declaration of the Dependence of Cyberspace by Moshe Y. Vardi, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 61 No. 3, Page 9, 2018
5. NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement, April 23, 24, 2014
6. Web of War: How the hair-trigger nuclear age and fears of Armageddon inspired visionary cold warriors to invent the internet by Sharon Weinberger, Aeon, March 9, 2017
7. Stuxnet: the father of cyber-kinetic weapons: While Stuxnet is gone, the world now knows what can be accomplished through cyber-kinetic attacks. by Marin Ivezic, CSO, January 22, 2018
8. Stopping the Next Cyber Conflict by Dmitri Alperovitch, The Cipher Brief, January 28, 2018
   The author briefly describes three generations of cyber conflict.
9. The New Cyber Normal by Scott Malcomson, The Carnegie Reporter, June 7, 2018
   "In three new books, the next generation of security scholars try to parse cyber and war."
10. (Opinion) To Understand China, Look to America's history: In Challenging Britain's hegemony a century ago, U.S. tactics look similar to Beijing's today by Katherine C. Epstein, The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2019
    The author suggests that China may be seeking to emulate the US vis-a-vis Britain in World War I and use Huawei's strategic advantage in 5G to challenge US hegemony.
11. (Opinion) Has Internet governance become irrelevant? by Geoff Huston, APNIC Blog, October 29, 2018
12. In trade wars of 200 years ago, the pirates were Americans by Paul Wiseman, The Washington Post, March 28, 2019
13. The Arpanet: Celebrating 50 years since 'LO', AAAS Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, February 17, 2019. (Video, 90 minutes)
    Speakers: Steve Crocker, Vint Cerf, Len Kleinrock, and Dave Walden.
14. Founders to Futurists: 50th Anniversary of the Internet
    October 29 2019 marks 50 years to the day since Leonard Kleinrock's team sent the first message over the Arpanet, transforming his mathematical theory of packet switching into what would become the modern Internet. To celebrate the anniversary, the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering hosted a one-day conference. The program for the conference can be found here.
15. The Internet is Rotting by Jonathan Zittrain, The Atlantic, June 30, 2021
    The author observes that the Internet has spawned the creation of important documents published on the web that contain embeded links whose URLs often disappear or are altered without making corrections to the documents citing them. As a consequence, documents meant to be publicly available are rendered incomplete or disappear altogether.
16. Geopolitics and the Internet by Roger J. Cochetti, The Hill, March 19, 2022
    While these internet geopolitical struggles rarely get the media attention that political/military or even economic/financial struggles do, they are no less important and can have a great impact on the daily lives of people everywhere.
17. Securing Cyberspace, Washington Post Live, October 13, 2022.
    A videotaped assessment of the current global cybersecurity landscape. A transcript of the video is available here.

    Back to Historical Context
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Internet Technology

1. The Compositional Architecture of the Internet by Pamela Zave, Jennifer Rexford Communications of the ACM, March 2019, Vol. 62 No. 3, Pages 78-87
2. The New IP Proposal
   1. Discussion Paper: An analysis of the 'New IP' proposal to the ITU-T by Hascall Sharp (author) and Olaf Kolkman (Internet Society Editor), Internet Society, April 24, 2020.
      [It] is concerning that a proposal has been made to ITU_T ... to start a further long-term research now and in the next study period to develop a 'top-down design for the future network.'"
   2. Some Notes on An Analysis of the 'New IP' proposal to the ITU-T by Dr. Richard Li, Futurewei Technologies and Chairman of ITU Focus Group NET2020, June 2, 2020
      Dr. Li also describes the New IP proposal in a 4min ITU Interview appearing on YouTube posted on September 4, 2019.
   3. The Emergence of Cyber Diplomacy in an Increasingly Post-Liberal Cyberspace by Andre Barrinha and Thomas Renard, Blogpost, The Council on Foreign Relations, June 10, 2020
      The power relations, values, and institutions that governed cyberspace since its initial development in the 1960s are being challenged by those that did not have a say in how it was structured. As conflicting visions for the future of the global internet inevitably collide, cyber diplomats will have to negotiate these difficult choices.
      This article describes several important Chinese initiatives designed to a) replace existing Internet protocols, dubbed New IP, b) rewrite the Cybercrime Convention, and c) engage in serious cyber diplomacy.

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The Human Dimension

• Doomsday Planning
• Human Interest
• The Human Factor
• Cognitive Issues
• Management Issues
• What is Privacy?
• Protecting Data and Privacy
• Human Rights
• Freedom on the Net
• Workforce Issues
• Environmental Impact
• Making Predictions
  Back to Top

• Doomsday Planning
  

  1. A time of unprecedented danger: It is 90 seconds to midnight.
     Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society's ability to respond.
     The international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.
  2. It's Time to Listen to the Doomsday Planners by Marc Ambinder, Defense One, May 31, 2020
  3. Putin's Doomsday Threat by Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, April 5, 2022.
  4. The US is electing a wartime president by Frederick Kempe, Atlantic Council, October 19, 2024
     Americans on November 5 will be electing a wartime president. This isn't a prediction. It's reality.

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• Human Interest
  

  1. How a 22-Year-Old Discovered the Worst Chip Flaws in History by Jeremy Kahn, Alex Webb, and Mara Bernath, Bloomberg Technology, January 17, 2018
  2. What He Did on His Summer Break: Exposed a Global Security Flaw by Isabella Kwai, The New York Times, January 30, 2018
  3. This Former British Spy Exposed the Russian Hackers by Haley Byrd, The Weekly Standard, July 25, 2018
  4. The Secret History of Women in Coding by Clive Thompson, The New York Times, February 13, 2019

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• The Human Factor
  

  1. Psychology and Security Resource Page, useful references collected by Prof. Ross Anderson of the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
  2. Cybersecurity's Human Factor: Lessons from the Pentagon by James A. Winnefeld Jr., Christopher Kirchhoff, and David M. Upton, Harvard Business Review, September 2015
     The military "is becoming an adroit operator of well-defended networks. Today [it] can detect and remedy intrusions within hours, if not minutes. ... One key lesson of the military's experience is that while technical upgrades are important, minimizing human error is even more crucial." This is a very good article.
  3. The Human Brain is a Time Traveler: Looking to the Future Has Always Defined Humanity. Will A.I. Become the Best Crystal Ball of All? by Steve Johnson, The New York Times Magazine, November 15, 2018
     Positron emission tomography (PET) scans are used to identify active regions of the brain.

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• Cognitive Issues
  

  1. When Humans Became Human by John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, February 26, 2002
  2. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2016, summarized on wikiwand.
  3. Notes from Thinking Fast and Slow by Kirtika's Blog, April 26, 2015
  4. List of cognitive biases, Wikipedia
  5. Cognitive bias cheat sheet: Because thinking is hard. by Buster Benson, Better Humans Coach Me, September 1, 2016
  6. (Opinion) The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence by David Z. Hambrick and Alexander P. Burgoyne, The New York Times, September 16, 2016
  7. The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changedd Our Minds by Michael Lewis, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, summarized in wikiwand.
     This is an excellent book by Michael Lewis, that examines the highly productive partnership between Daniel Khaneman and Amost Tversky, two Israeli psychologists, that led to a deep understanding of the limitations on human judgment and decision-making.
  8. The Two Friends Who Changed How We Think About How We Think by Cass R. Sunstein and Richart Thaler, The New Yorker, December 7, 2016
     This article is an enthusiastic review of Michael Lewis' The Undoing Project by two scholars who were profoundly influenced by the psychological research of Kahneman and Tversky.
  9. How America Lost Faith in Expertise: And Why That's a Giant Problem by Tom Nichols, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2017
     The bigger concern today is that Americans have reached a point where ignorance — at least regarding what is generally considered established knowledge in public policy — is seen as an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to demonstrate their independence from nefarious elites — and insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they're wrong.
  10. Nine cognitive biases risk managers should know: Bias skews perception, leading to foolish decisions — here are nine examples risk managers should know about by Charles Orton-Jones, Raconteur, April 25, 2018
      One of the biases mentioned here is the Dunning-Kruger effect: "dim people overestimate their skills, while bright people doubt their abilities."
  11. The secrets of the 'high-potential' personaliy by David Robson, BBC News, May 9, 2018
  12. The World Isn't as Bad as Your Wired Brain Tells You: Magnified by the internet's algorithms, our primitive biases make our fears go viral by Christopher Mims, The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2018
  13. When Tech Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself by Nicholas Thompson, Wired, October 4, 2018
  14. The U.S. Is Not Yet Ready for the Era of 'Great Power' Conflict by Michael R. Gordon, The Wall Street Journal March 6, 2023
      This article illustrates a cognitive deficiency, the need to use imagination or, at least, a wargame, to identify critical issues that are not "front-of-mind" but can have highly damaging consequences if not addressed.

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• Management Issues
  

  1. Forget the Pecking Order at Work by Margaret Heffernan, TEDWomen Talk on YouTube, 2015 (Video, duration: 15:29) (Transcript of the talk, 2 Pages)
     This is an excellent talk by Margaret Heffernan in which she examines criteria that are most effective in populating and managing teams of creative professionals.
  2. The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World by Margaret Heffernan, TEDSummit Talk 2019 on YouTube (Videao, duration: 15:45) ( Transcript of the talk, 2 Pages)
     This is an excellent talk by Margaret Heffernan on management in an unpredictable world. In 2019 she spoke about the unpredictable nature of epidemics. She closes by saying the future is uncharted, ... we can't map it till we get there. But that's OK, because we have so much [human] imagination — if we use it.
  3. (Opinion) Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts by David Brooks, The New York Times, January 18, 2004.
     The author calls attention to the enormous growth and cost of bureaucry. [It] costs America over $3 trillion in lost economic output every year, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini estimated in 2016 in The Harvard Business Review. … The Massachusetts Institute of Technology now has almost eight times as many nonfaculty employees as faculty employees.

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• What is Privacy?
  

  1. (Opinion) The Privacy Project, The New York Times
     Privacy has become a very important topic in the age of social media. The New York Times published a series of articles on it. Their latest can be found here.

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• Protecting Data and Privacy
  

  1. Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border: Protecting the Data On Your Devices by the Electronic Freedom Foundation
  2. Protect Your Laptop Data From Everyone, Even Yourself, Bruce Schneier, WIRED, July 15, 2009
  3. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Wikipedia
     The official website can be found here.
  4. 2018 reform of EU data protection rules, European Commission
  5. Reforming the U.S. Approach to Data Protection and Privacy by Nuala O'Connor, Council on Foreign Relations, January 30, 2018
  6. (Opinion) Our privacy regime is broken. Congress needs to create new norms for a digital age., Editorial Board, The New York Times, January 5, 2019
  7. Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time by Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post, May 6, 2018
     This article draws attention to the practice of surveillance capitalism, which is likely to shape our futures. Not only are our speech and movement recorded by home appliances, our wake-sleep cycle is monitored by our smart light systems, and musical preferences recorded through apps.
  8. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), The State of California, United States, 2018
     The law will go into effect on January 1, 2020. A summary provided by the New Jersey Law Journal can be found here.
  9. The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It: A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and "might lead to a dystopian future or something," a backer says. by Kashmir Hill, The New York Times, January 18, 2020

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• Freedom on the Net
  

  1. How Europe's New Internet Laws Threaten Freedom of Expression: Recent Regulations Risk Censoring Legitimate Content, by David Kaye, Foreign Affairs, December 18, 2017
  2. Freedom on the Net 2018: The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism published by Freedom House, 2018
  3. Tech C.E.O.s Are in Love With Their Principal Doomsayer: The futurist philosopher Yuval Noah Harari thinks Silicon Valley is an engine of dystopian ruin. So why do the digital elite adore him so? by Nellie Bowles, The New York Times, November 13, 2018
  4. 10 Most Censored Countries, Committee to Protect Journalists, September, 2019
     Under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to seek and receive news and express opinions. These 10 countries flout the international standard by banning or severely restricting independent media and intimidating journalists into silence with imprisonment, digital and physical surveillance, and other forms of harassment. Self-censorship is pervasive.
  5. Freedom on the Net 2019: The Crisis of Social Media, by Adrian Shahbaz and Allie Funk, Freedom House, November 2019

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• Human Rights
  

  1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
     The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document... . [It was d]rafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world ... [and] was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. ... It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.
  2. IHL and human rights law, International Committee of the Red Cross, November 29, 2010. (More information is available here.)
     "International humanitarian law and international human rights law are two distinct but complementary bodies of law. They are both concerned with the protection of the life, health and dignity of individuals. IHL applies in armed conflict while human rights law applies at all times, in peace and in war."
  3. Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders, Frontline Defenders, February 23, 2016
  4. What Isn't a Norm? Redefining the Conceptual Boundaries of "Norms" in the Human Rights Literature by Michelle Jurkovich, International Relations Review, Vol. 0, 2019.
  5. the age of digital interdependence, Report of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Interdependence, 2019
     "The High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation was convened by the UN Secretary-General to advance global multi-stakeholder dialogue on how we can work better together to realize the potential of digital technologies for advancing human well-being while mitigating the risks." The report makes recommendations on the following topics:
     • Build an inclusive digital economy and society
     • Develop human and institutional capacity
     • Protect human rights and human agency
     • Promote digital trust, security and stability
     • Foster global digital cooperation
  6. (Opinion) I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector.: American companies continue to build surveillance tools that are used to violate human rights. Workers who refuse to comply deserve protections. by Jack Poulson, The New York Times, April 23, 2019
  7. UN expert calls for immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of surveillance tools, Office of the High Commissioner, UN Human Rights, June 25, 2019
  8. Why The UDHR Still Matters by James Andrew Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 30, 2023

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• Workforce Issues
  

  1. Cybersecurity Jobs Report 2018-2021, Cybersecurity Ventures, May 31, 2017
  2. The Cybersecurity Workforce Gap by William Crumpler and James A. Lewis, The Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 2019
  3. 15 major companies announce effort to tackle cybersecurity workforce recruitment issues by Shannon Vavra, cyberscoop, October 30, 2019
  4. Jobs: Companies struggle to find skilled cybersecurity workers as attacks intensify by Kate Rogers, CNBC, November 1, 2019
  5. The SPACE of Developer Productivity by Nicole Forsgren et al, acmqueue, Vol. 19, No. 1, March 6, 2021
     Developer productivity is complex and nuanced, with important implications for software development teams. A clear understanding of defining, measuring, and predicting developer productivity could provide organizations, managers, and developers with the ability to make higher-quality softwarbeand make it more efficiently.

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• Environmental Impact
  

  1. Owning Computing's Environmental Impact, by Andrew A. Chien, Communications of the ACM, March 2019, Vol. 62 No. 3, Page 5
  2. Global 5G wireless networks threaten weather forecasts: Next-generation mobile technology could interfere with crucial satellite-based Earth observations by Alexandra Witze, Nature, April 26, 2019

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• Making Predictions
  

  1. "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future"
     According to Garson O'Toole who is the author of the quoteinvestigator.com website, the earliest known instance of this quote is a remark in Danish voiced during the 1937-1938 Danish parliament by an anonymous source. Variants of it have been uttered by many famous people including Neils Bohr, Yogi Berra, and others.
  2. Can You See the Future? Probably Better Than Professional Forecasters by Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2015
     "I think Philip Tetlock's Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, co-written with the journalist Dan Gardner, is the most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow."
  3. Global Trends published by the US National Intelligence Council.
     "Every four years since 1997, the National Intelligence Council has published an unclassified strategic assessment of how key trends and uncertainties might shape the world over the next 20 years to help senior US leaders think and plan for the longer term." The 2017 report can be found here.
  4. (Opinion) Economists often don't know what they're talking about by Robert Samuelson, The Washington Post, May 12, 2019.
     "To say [that the US and world economy are] changing in detailed and often-unanticipated ways is simply to affirm that mere mortals, including economists, have never been very good at predicting the future."
  5. Alternate Cybersecurity Futures by John Watts, Ben Jenson, JD Work, Chris Whyte, Nina Kollars, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
  6. The Spies Who Predicted COVID-19 by Kent Harrington, Project Syndicate, Apr 16, 2020
  7. US policymakers knew a pandemic was coming: Why they ignored the warnings by Mathew J. Burrows, New Atlanticist, April 28, 2020
     [C]hallenges presenting themselves today are increasingly fast-moving and complex: they involve concurrent interactions among events across multiple dimensions of governance; they have no regard for our customary jurisdictional and bureaucratic boundaries; they cannot be broken apart and solved piece by piece; and rather than stabilizing into permanent solutions, they morph into new problems that have to be continually managed. This pattern profoundly challenges the adaptive capacity of our legacy systems of government, which are essentially modeled on the early industrial period: vertical, hierarchical, segmented, mechanical, and sluggish. Our 19th-century government is simply not built for the nature of 21st-century challenges.

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The Cybersecurity Threat

• How Cyber Attacks Work
• Cyber Deterrence
• Defensive Measures
• Hardware Vulnerabilities
• Firmware Vulnerabilities
• Network Vulnerabilities
• Cyber-Nuclear Threats
• The EMP Threat
• Breaches
• Ransomware Threats
• Security Incidents
• State-Sponsored and Other Significant Attacks
• Assessment of the Huawei Threat
• Supply Chain
• Critical Infrastructure
  • Protecting the Critical Infrastructure (PCI)
  • Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT)
  • Electric Grid
  • Operational Technology (OT)
  • Financial System
  • Other Critical Infrastructure Issues
• Hacking Into Internet of Things (IoT) Devices
• Security of Aircraft, Missiles, Satellites, Ships, Vehicles and Undersea Cables
• Information Warfare
• Cyber Conflict
• Espionage
• Hacker Capabilities
• US Government Shutdown
  Back to Top

• How Cyber Attacks Work
  

  1. How Cyber Attacks Work, National Cyber Security Centre, UK, October 14, 2015
  2. Cyber Primer (2nd Edition), Ministry of Defense, UK, July 2016
     This report provides a comprehensive treatment of cybersecurity. It defines key terms, explains the international dimensions of the problem, describes the threat landscape and illustrates threats with representative case studies, examines the encryption or "going dark" controversy, and explores offensive and defensive cyber operations, and closes with a discussion of the integration of cyber activities with traditional military activities, which includes examples of state-on-state cyber attacks.
  3. Understanding Denial-of-Service Attacks, CISA, Department of Homeland Security, June 28, 2018
     This article provides an introduction to cyber attacks.
  4. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Hijacking, Wikipedia
     BGP is a protocol to announce routes that packets can take to reach an autonomous system (an ISP or equivalent). BGP hijacking occurs when an ISP announcements a route to a block of IP addresses that it does not have the authority to service. It is the illegitimate takeover of groups of IP addresses by corrupting Internet routing tables maintained using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
  5. Inside a Real SMS Phishing Attack (Smishing) by Chris Hays, Medium, February 5, 2020

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• Hardware Vulnerabilities

  1. Meltdown and Spectre: Vulnerabilities in modern computers leak passwords and sensitive data.
     "These hardware vulnerabilities allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. While programs are typically not permitted to read data from other programs, a malicious program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to get hold of secrets stored in the memory of other running programs."
  2. Meltdown Redux: Intel Flaw Lets Hackers Siphon Secrets From Millions of PCs by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, May 14, 2019
     "[More than a] year has passed since security researchers revealed Meltdown and Spectre, a pair of flaws in the deep-seated, arcane features of millions of chip sold by Intel and AMD, putting practically every computer in the world at risk. But even as chipmakers scrambled to fix those flaws, researchers warned that they weren't the end of the story, but the beginninbgthat they represented a new class of security vulnerability that would no doubt surface again and again."
  3. How Hackers Broke WhatsApp With Just a Phone Call: All it took to compromise a smartphone was a single phone call over WhatsApp. The user didn't even have to pick up the phone. by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, May 14, 2019
     Hackers discovered a buffer overflow vulnerability in the implementation of VoIP!
  4. AI spots critical Microsoft security bugs 97% of the time by Kyle Wiggers, VentureBeat, April 16, 2020
     Coralogix estimates that developers create 70 bugs per 1,000 lines of code and that fixing a bug takes 30 times longer than writing a line of code; in the U.S., $113 billion is spent annually on identifying and fixing product defects.
  5. Hide and Seek with Spectres: Efficient discovery of speculative information leaks with random testing by Oleksenko et al, arXiv:2301.07642v1, January 2023

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• Firmware Vulnerabilities

  1. Perilous Peripherals: The Hidden Dangers Inside Windows & Linux Computers, Eclypsium, Inc., 2020
     Unsigned firmware in WiFi adapters, USB hubs, trackpads, laptop cameras and network interface cards provides multiple pathways for malicious attackers to compromise laptops and servers.

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• Network Vulnerabilities

  1. DDoS attack that disrupted internet was largest of its kind in history, experts say by Nicky Woolf, The Guardian, October 26, 2016
     Dyn, the victim of last week's denial of service attack, said it was orchestrated using a weapon called the Mirai botnet as the 'primary source of malicious attack.' ... [T]here had been reports of an extraordinary attack strength of 1.2Tbps.
  2. How Pakistan knocked YouTube offline (and how to make sure it never happens again), by Declan McCullagh, c|net, February 25, 2008
     YouTube became unreachable because of a BGP hijacking by Pakistan Telecom.. [It] isn't the first time that Internet addresses were hijacked. But if it spurs interest in better security, it may be the last.
  3. Russia Has New Tool For Massive Internet Shutdown Attack, Leaked Documents Claim by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, March 21, 2020
     'Exploring how hacked internet of things devices [IoTs] could bring a small country or groups of websites offline ... comports with Russia's previous cyber behavior,' said Justin Sherman, fellow at the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative.

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• Cyber Deterrence

  1. A Collection of Articles on Cyber Deterrence curated by John E. Savage
  2. Cyber Deterrence Is Dead. Long Live Cyber Deterrence! by Max Smeets and Stefan Soesanto, ETH Zurich, CFR Blog, February 18, 2020
     Although the concept of cyber deterrence has fallen out of fashion in academic literature in recent years, it is being remolded in emerging approaches to national security.

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• Defensive Measures

  1. Computer Security Incident Handling Guide by Paul Cichonski, Tom Millar, TimGrance, Karen Scarfone, NIST, August 2012
  2. ISO/IEC 27001, outline of the current version of the ISO 27001 standard, Wikipedia, 2013
  3. CIS Top 20 Critical Security Controls Solutions, RAPID7
  4. Task Force on Cyber Deterrence, Defense Science Board, Department of Defense, February, 2017
  5. NIST Cybersecurity Framework
     "This voluntary Framework consists of standards, guidelines, and best practices to manage cybersecurity-related risk. The Cybersecurity Framework's prioritized, flexible, and cost-effective approach helps to promote the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure and other sectors important to the economy and national security."
  6. An Interview with David Brin on Resiliency: Many risks of catastrophic failures of critical infrastructures can be significantly reduced by relatively simple measures to increase resiliency. by Peter J. Denning, CACM, June 2019
     Brin explains that (a) a simple P2P ad hoc network can be created with cell phones when cell tower services are not available, (b) local electrical service can be provided when the electrical grid is down, (c) electronics can be protected against the EMP threat, (d) smartphones can be converted to smart environmental sensors and generally improve national resiliency, and (e) how citizens can be protected from excessive c surveillance via transparency.
  7. Keeping Good Cyber Hygiene Habits, Sentinel One, 2019
     While cyber hygiene isn't ironclad protection, it's important for everyone in contact with your network, from the CEO to the lowly intern, to act securely with these ten tips.
  8. (DRAFT) Hardware-Enabled Security for Server Platforms: Enabling a Layered Approach to Platform Security for Cloud and Edge Computing Use Cases, NIST, April 28, 2020
  9. Is it a game or is it real? Simulations and wargaming in cyber by Simon Handler, Atlantic Council, May 26, 2020
     Simon Handler posed five questions to five experts on wargames, Maria-Kristina Hayden, Andreas Haggman, Nina Kollars, Jacquelyn Schneider, and John Watts.
  10. Disinformation and the Case for a Well-Regulated Cyber Militia by Steven L. Hall and Stephanie Hartell, The Cipher Brief, July 29, 2020
  11. War-Gaming Taiwan: When Losing to China Is Winning: What military planners learn when they simulate a Chinese attack. by Jeremy Sepinsy, Foreign Policy, April 3, 2022.
  12. Nationwide Cybersecurity Review, Center for Internet Security.

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• Cyber-Nuclear Threats

  1. Stanislav Petrov: The man who may have saved the world by Pavel Aksenov, BBC News, September 26, 2013.
  2. The Path to AI Arms Control:America and China Must Work Together to Avert Catastrophe by Henry A. Kissinger and Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, October 13, 2023.
     Restraints for AI need to occur before AI is built into the security structure of each societbythat is, before machines begin to set their own objectives, which some experts now say is likely to occur in the next five years.
  3. On Cyber Peace by Les Bloom and John Savage, Atlantic Council, August 8, 2011
     The authors argue that the best deterrence to cyber conflict is to aggressively pursue national and international risk mitigation while exploring offensive and defensive cyber measures.
  4. Thermonuclear Cyberwar by Erik Gartzke and Jon Lindsay, SSRN, September 9, 2016
  5. Web of War: How the hair-trigger nuclear age and fears of Armageddon inspired visionary cold warriors to invent the internet by Sharon Weinberger, Aeon, March 9, 2017
  6. North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat by William R. Graham and Peter Vincent Pry, Statement for the Record to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, October 12, 2017
  7. North Korean EMP Attack Would Cause Mass U.S. Starvation, Says Congressional Report by Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, October 23, 2017
     
  8. HACKING NUCLEAR SYSTEMS IS THE ULTIMATE CYBER THREAT. ARE WE PREPARED? by Sean Lyngaas, The Verge, January 23, 2018
  9. How Might Artificial Intelligence Affect the Risk of Nuclear War? by Edward Geist and Andrew J. Lohn, Rand Corporation, 2018
  10. Pentagon Puts Cyberwarriors on the Offensive, Increasing the Risk of Conflict by David Sanger, The New York Times, June 17, 2018
      "Another Pentagon document, dated May 2017, provides a legal basis for attacking nuclear missiles on the launchpad using 'nonkinetic options'".
  11. New Report Finds Nuclear Weapons and Related Systems Increasingly Vulnerable to Cyberattack, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, September 26, 2018
  12. Nuclear Weapons in the New Cyber Age: Report of the Cyber-Nuclear Weapons Study Group by Page O. Stoutland and Samantha Pitts-Kiefer, Nuclear Threat Institute, September 2018
  13. How to Keep a Cyberattack from Turning into Nuclear War? Keep Talking By Ankit Panda, Defense One, October 23, 2018
  14. The Impact of Cyber Warfare on Nuclear Deterrence: A Conceptual and Empirical Overview by Kartik Bommakanti, Observer Research Foundation, November 2018
  15. 'Only a matter of time': nuclear catastrophe is inevitable unless US and Russia cooperate by Ciaran Mcgrath, Express, July 27, 2018
  16. If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War: A Strategy for the New Great-Power Rivalry by Elbridge Colby, Foreign Affairs, November/December Issue, 2018
  17. The Biggest Nuclear Threats of 2018 Will Follow Us into the New Year: We whistled past the graveyard this year. Let's be smarter in 2019 by Joe Cirincione, DefenseOne, December 29, 2018
  18. (Opinion) The Threat of Nuclear War Is Still With Us: The US must re-engage with Russia to ensure the ultimate weapon doesn't spread and is never used. by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry and Sam Nunn, The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2019
      "The risks are compounded by the rising possibility that cyberattacks could target nuclear warning and command-and-control systems, as well as the continuing expansion of global terrorist networks."
  19. Fear of false negatives: AI and China's nuclear posture By Lora Saalman, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 24, 2018
      In the US, military analysts are often concerned "that alarms or early warning systems ... could produce false positives. ... [However,] Chinese analysts ... are much more concerned with false negatives," that is, "failures by China's early warning systems to detect a real attack". As a consequence, "Beijing's integration of AI and autonomy into its military systems is likely to increase. ... Officials in Beijing and Moscow have responded strongly and negatively to the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review."
  20. Apocalypse now? Cyber threats and nuclear weapons systems by Julia Berghofer, European Leadership Network, May 9, 2019
      "[T]he threat of cyber interference in national nuclear weapons systems is not being properly tackled."
  21. The Return of Doomsday: The New Nuclear Arms Race — and How Washington and Moscow Can Stop It by Ernest J. Moniz and Sam Nunn, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019
  22. Cyber Doctrines and the Risk of Nuclear Crisis Instability. Part 1: Issues with U.S. Cyber Strategy by Corbin Stevens, Council on Foreign Relations, August 17, 2020
  23. Cyber Warfare & Inadvertent Escalation by James Aston, Daedalus, Vol. 9, Issue 2, Spring 2020, p. 133-149
      The advent of cyber warfare exacerbates the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation in a conventional conflict.
  24. Statement by the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG): Advancing strategic stability in the Euro-Atlantic region, 2021 and beyond, June 6, 2021
      See also Cyber Peace
  25. US-Russian Contention in Cyberspace: Are Rules of the Road Necessary or Possible? by Lauren Zabierek, Christie Lawrence, Miles Neumann and Pavel Sharikov, Russia Matters, Jun 10, 2021.
      This article reports on points of agreement and disagreement expressed by the Russian and American authors on contention in cyberspace.
  26. Giving an AI control of nuclear weapons: What could possibly go wrong? by Zachary Kallenborn, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1, 2022.
  27. Atom Bombs in Space Are Back to Scare Us Again by William J. Broad, The New York Times, March 6, 2024.

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• The EMP Threat
  

  1. Nuclear Pulse (I): Awakening to the Chaos Factor: A single nuclear blast high above the United States could shut down the power grid and knock out communications from coast to coast, by William J. Broad, Science Magazine, May 29, 1981.
  2. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP): Burst of electromagnetic energy, Wikiwand
     An EMP can also be produced by a solar flare.
  3. Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, enacted pursuant to the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. Final report issued in 2008.
     The damage level could be sufficient to be catastrophic to the Nation, and our current vulnerability invites attack.
  4. Perfect Space Storm Could be Catastrophic on Earth, Study Concludes by Robert Roy Britt, Space.com, January 7, 2009
  5. The EMP threat: fact, fiction, and response (part 1) and (part 2) by Yousaf M. Butt, The Space Review, January 25, 2010
  6. Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism: April Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country's Power Grid by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2014
     This article describes the attack on the Metcalf electric grid substation in San Jose that provides electricity to Silicon Valley.
  7. North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack: An Existential Threat by William R. Graham and Peter Vincent Pry, Statement for the Record to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, October 12, 2017
  8. Congressional Report: A North Korean EMP Attack Would Kill "90% of all Americans": "It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue," by Kyree Leary, Futurism, October 16, 2017.
  9. North Korean EMP Attack Would Cause Mass U.S. Starvation, Says Congressional Report by Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, October 23, 2017
     Citing Peter Vincent Fry, a member of the EMP Commission, an EMP weapon could be carried on an ICBM or loaded onto a satellite. If on a satellite and exploded over the US, it would affact all 48 contiguous states.
  10. Welcome to the nuclear blackmail of Putin's 'new world order' by Peter Pry, The Hill, March 7, 2018
      "On March 1, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin delivered a speech that effectively declared Russia has overwhelming nuclear superiority and war-winning capability against the United States, NATO, and the entire world."
  11. A retired US Navy admiral just laid out a major threat from North Korea — and experts warn it could wipe out 90% of the population by Ben Brimelow, Business Insider, April 26, 2018
      
      • "James Stavridis, a retired US Navy admiral and former NATO commander, warns that an electromagnetic pulse attack by North Korea could be devastating."
      • "Such an attack has been previously estimated to kill up to 90% of the US population within one year."
      • "Stavridis recommends that the US should increase its defenses against an attack by preserving the US' ballistic missile stockpile, invest in new ballistic missile defenses, and focus on early warning systems, especially in space."
  12. The Calm Before the Storms by Sarah Scoles, Science, May 31, 2019
      Most worrisome is the prospect of a major solar storm, such as the Carrington Event of 1859. During that storm, the sun ejected billions of tons of charged particles, causing aurorae as far south as the Caribbean and generating currents in telegraph lines powerful enough to shock operators. Today, the effect of such an event on computers and communications would be dire. Financial transaction systems could collapse. Power and water could easily go out. 'It probably would be The Hunger Games pretty soon,' McIntosh says.
  13. An Interview with David Brin on Resiliency: Many risks of catastrophic failures of critical infrastructures can be significantly reduced by relatively simple measures to increase resiliency. by Peter J. Denning, CACM, June 2019
      Brin explains that (a) a simple P2P ad hoc network can be created with cell phones when cell tower services are not available, (b) local electrical service can be provided when the electrical grid is down, (c) electronics can be protected against the EMP threat, (d) smartphones can be converted to smart environmental sensors and generally improve national resiliency, and (e) how citizens can be protected from excessive surveillance via transparency.
  14. Powerful superflares could pose a threat to Earth: Young and active stars often experience wildly strong eruptions. Now we know our older, calmer Sun may occasionally throw similar tantrums. by Jake Parks, Astronomy, June 11, 2019
      "To prepare ourselves for what may be an inevitable strike by a superflare, Notsu says we need to work on protecting our electronics by investing in radiation shielding and backup systems."
  15. U.S. military tests radiation belt cleanup in space: Radio waves could sweep belts clean of satellite-killing particles after nuclear sneak attack by Richard Stone, Science Magazine, January 3, 2020
  16. (Opinion) The World Won't End: The Danger of an EMP Attack Is More Fantasy Than Fact by Matthew Gault, National Interest, November 9, 2019
  17. This Multi-Trillion Dollar Disaster Is Coming, And Solar Astronomy Is Our Prime Defense by Ethan Siegel, Medium, February 7, 2020
      The NSF's new, cutting-edge solar observatory shows us the Sun as never before. Here's why we need to know.
  18. Above Us Only Stars: Exposing GPS Spoofing in Russia and Syria, C4ADS.
  19. How Vulnerable Is G.P.S.?: An engineering professor has proved—and exploited—its vulnerabilities by Greg Milner, The New Yorker, August 6, 2020
  20. Racing the Sun to Protect America: Lessons from the solar storm of May 1921, Dada A. Goward,Defense One, May 23, 2021.
  21. A Bad Solar Storm Could Cause an 'Internet Apocalypse' by Lily Hay Newman, Wired, August 26, 2021
      Scientists have known for decades that an extreme solar storm, or coronal mass ejection, could damage electrical grids and potentially cause prolonged blackouts. ... New research shows that the failures could be catastrophic, particularly for the undersea cables that underpin the global internet.
  22. Massive solar flare barreling toward Earth this Halloween by Brandon Spektor, Live Science, October 29, 2021
  23. Solar Storm Destroys 40 New SpaceX Satellites in Orbit: The geomagnetic incident resulted in the Starlink transmitters drifting back into Earth's atmosphere, where they will burn up, potentially costing the company about $100 million by Robin George Andrews, The New York Times, February 9, 2022
  24. Electromagnetic Pulse Shielding Mitigations: Best Practices for Protection of Mission Critical Equipment, Department of Homeland Security, August 2022
  25. Here Comes the Sun—to End Civilization: Every so often, our star fires off a plasma bomb in a random direction. Our best hope the next time Earth is in the crosshairs? Capacitors by Matt Ribel, Wired, June 21, 2022
  26. Timeline of sabotage triggering North Carolina power outage by Bill Hutchinson, ABCNews, December 6, 2022
  27. Scientists Are Making Lab-Grown Solar Flares by Will Lockett, Medium, April 22, 2023.
      The article refers to a Nature article on the generation of "braided plasma loops."
  28. The sun's activity is peaking sooner than expected by Ashley Strickland, CNN, July 15, 2023
  29. How Scientists Plan Save Infrastructure From Catastrophic Solar Storms, The Wall Street Journal, December 2-3, 2023. (Video 8.03 mins)
      
  30. The biggest solar flare since 2017 just launched off the sun: Energy from the eruption could cause minor geomagnetic storming on Earth and the northern lights in the high latitudes this weekend by Matthew Cappucci, The Washington Post, December 15, 2023
  31. U.S. Fears Russia Might Put a Nuclear Weapon in Space by David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times, February 17, 2024
      This article refers to space-based nuclear weapons that could not only destroy satellites but also generate an EMP that could destroy electronics on the ground.
  32. Atom Bombs in Space Are Back to Scare Us Again by William J. Broad, The New York Times, March 6, 2024.
  33. He Monitors Solar Flares. Here's What Keeps Him Up at Night by Katrina Miller, The New York Times, Jun2 25, 2024

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• Breaches
  

  1. Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017 by Rebecca Klahr, Jayesh Navin Shah, Paul Sheriffs, Tom Rossington, Gemma Pestell, Mark Button and Victoria Wang, UK Department for Media, Culture and Sport, 2017
  2. The Global State of Information Security® Survey 2018, PwC
  3. GDPR impact complex, expert warns by Warwick Ashford, Computer Weekley, November 15, 2017
  4. Cyber security: British businesses could be fined $23.9 million if they don't have effective measures in place by Anmar Frangoul, CNBC, January 29, 2018
  5. Identity Fraud Hits Record Number of People: Equifax breach, more-sophisticated schemes drive 8% rise in victims by Peter Rudegeair and AnnaMaria Andriotis, The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2018
  6. The WIRED Guide to Data Breaches by Lily Hay Newman, Wired, December 7, 2018
  7. The 18 biggest data breaches of the 21st century by Taylor Amerding, CSO, December 20, 2018
  8. (Opinion) Why Was SolarWinds So Vulnerable to a Hack?: It's the economy, stupid by Bruce Schneier, The New York Times, February 23, 2021.
  9. Massive Hacks Linked to Russia, China Exploited U.S. Internet Security Gap: Protecting U.S. networks from cyberattacks launched domestically emerges as an intelligence blind spot, security experts say by Dustin Volz and Robert McMillan, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2021
     China-backed hackers broke into Microsoft's Exchange software used by tens of thousands of customers and Russia-backed hackers broke into the update software for the Solar Winds Orion network management software used by at least 18,000 companies and government agencies. U.S. lawmakers and security experts are voicing concern that foreign governments are staging cyberattacks using servers in the U.S., in an apparent effort to avoid detection by America's principal cyberintelligence organization, the National Security Agency.
  10. A 'Worst Nightmare' Cyberattack: The Untold Story Of The SolarWinds Hack by Dina Temple-Raston, NPR, April 26, 2021
      Hackers roamed around American computer networks for nine months. ... The SolarWinds attackers ran a master class in novel hacking techniques..

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• Ransomware Threats
  

  1. The Untold Story of Notpetya, The Most Devastating Cyberattack In History: Crippled ports. Paralyzed corporations. Frozen government agencies. How a single piece of code crashed the world. by Andy Greenbergby, WIRED, August 22, 2018
  2. Ransomware warning: A global attack could cause $200bn in damage - and we're just not ready: WannaCry and NotPetya just scratched the surface of the damage ransomware could do. This gloomy scenario looks at what could really go wrong. by Danny Palmer, ZDNet, January 29, 2019
  3. NotPetya Ushered In a New Era of Malware: EternalBlue and NotPetya through the eyes of influence by Roel Schouwenberg, Vice, Motherboard, August 26, 2019
  4. These Researchers Want to Save You From Ransomware (for Free) by Michael Kan, PC Magazine, October 9, 2019
     A group of security researchers at Emsisoft, Avast, and elsewhere are developing free tools that can (sometimes) reverse ransomware infections. Here's why they pursue this occasionally dangerous hobby, and how you can get your hands on their tools.
  5. Iran Suspected of Creating New Ransomware Malware by Samuel Gush, Communal News, January 30, 2020
     There is a new ransomware Trojan on the loose that is reportedly capable of disabling industrial control systems.
  6. Ransomware Attacks Grow, Crippling Cities and Businesses by Nathaniel Popper, The New York Times, February 9, 2020
     [T]wo security firms have identified a new form of ransomware, known as Snake or Ekans, that appears to be focused on freezing the software responsible for industrial processes at big oil and petroleum companies.
  7. Merck Cyberattack's $1.3 Billion Question: Was It an Act of War? by David Voreacos, Katherine Chiglinsky, and Riley Griffin, Bloomberg News, December 3, 2019
     For two weeks, there was nothing being done. Merck is huge. It seemed crazy that something like this could happen.
  8. Disruptionware II — The "Cyber Terminator" and What This New Threat Means to You and Your Data by Jason G. Weiss, The National Law Review, March 2, 2020
     Disruptionware is an emerging form of malware, with a greater adverse impact than more traditional, standalone ransomware attacks, in that it is designed to actually suspend physical operations within a victim organization.
  9. California university pays $1 million ransom amid coronavirus research by Jeff Stone, cyberscoop, June 29, 2020
  10. The Rising Ransomware Tide, Chinese Spy Cranes, and The Biden Executive Order On Maritime Cyber Security By Nina Kollars, Blake Benson, and Austin Reid, War On the Rocks, April 17, 2024

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• Security Incidents
  

  1. Inaudible ultrasound commands can be used to secretly control Siri, Alexa, and Google. Now It's an effective hack, but unlikely to do much damage in the real world, by James Vincent, The Verge, September 7, 2017
  2. How a Dorm Room Minecraft Scam Brought Down the Internet by Garrett M. Graff, Wired, December 13, 2017
  3. OWASP Top Ten: Surviving in the cyber wilderness By Peter Loshin, TechTarget, December 7, 2017
  4. The time to deal with IoT security is now: The Internet of Things is already too big to put off security concerns by Fredric Paul, Network World, December 20, 2017
  5. Year in Review: Malware Attacks Impact Operations and the Bottom Line: 2017 will be remembered as the year that cyber incidents started inflicting real economic losses on companies blog post by Robert Knake, the Council on Foreign Relations, December 22, 2017
  6. Researchers Discover Two Major Flaws in the World's Computers by Cade Metz and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, January 3, 2018
  7. Critical computer flaws set up security challenge in Washington by Morgan Chalfant and Ali Breland, The Hill, January 4, 2018
  8. Two security flaws in modern chips cause big headaches for the tech business: Fixing the underlying problems will take a long time, The Economist, January 4, 2018
  9. Cybersecurity in self-driving cars: U-M releases threat identification tool, Michigan University News, January 4, 2018
  10. U.S. soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging by Liz Sly, The Washington Post, January 29, 2018
  11. Five worrying cyberthreats to connected tech by Davey Winder, Raconteur, March 7, 2018
  12. Any Hope for Cyber Deterrence Goes Out the Window with AI by Emilio Iasiello, TechNative, April 6, 2018
  13. The Biggest Digital Heist in History Isn't Over Yet: Carbanak's suspected ringleader is under arrest, but $1.2 billion remains missing, and his malware attacks live on by Charlie Devereux, Franz Wild and Edward Robinson, Bloomberg Businessweek, June 25, 2018
  14. Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power by Paul Mozur, The New York Times, June 22, 2018
  15. The Untold Story of Notpetya, The Most Devastating Cyberattack In History: Crippled ports. Paralyzed corporations. Frozen government agencies. How a single piece of code crashed the world. by Andy Greenbergby, WIRED, August 22, 2018

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• State-Sponsored and Other Significant Attacks
  

  1. Significant Cyber Incidents, Center for Strategic and International Studies
     "This timeline records significant cyber incidents since 2006. We focus on cyber attacks on government agencies, defense and high tech companies, or economic crimes with losses of more than a million dollars."
  2. Cyber Operations Tracker, The Council on Foreign Relations
     This is a database of the publicly known state-sponsored incidents that have occurred since 2005.
  3. Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core by Scott Shane, Nicole Perlroth and David Sanger, The New York Times, November 12, 2017
  4. Russia could cut off internet to Nato countries, British military chief warns by Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, December 14, 2017
  5. Internet traffic redirected through Russia in 'suspicious' event by James Walker, Digital Journal, December 14, 2017
  6. Will Ukraine Be Hit by Yet Another Holiday Power-Grid Hack? by Alyza Sebenius, Defense One, December 14, 2017
  7. Hackers breach safety system and halt operations at critical infrastructure facility in 'watershed' cyberattack: experts, The Japan Times, December 15, 2017
  8. How Antivirus Software Can Be Turned Into a Tool for Spying by Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, January 1, 2018
  9. How Kaspersky's Software Fell Under Suspicion of Spying on America by Shane Harris, Gordon Lubold and Paul Sonne, The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2018
  10. U.S. Disrupts Russian Botnet of 500,000 Hacked Routers, SecurityWeek, May 24, 2018
  11. Russian Hackers Reach U.S. Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say: Blackouts could have been caused after the networks of trusted vendors were easily penetrated by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2018
  12. Developing Responses to Cyber-Enabled Information Warfare and Influence Operations by Herb Lin, Lawfare, September 6,2018
  13. The Weaponization of Everything by Nathan Freier, Defense One, September 9, 2018
      The auther observes that the Russians and Chinese are using a variety of "'hammers' [that] range from political coercion, predatory economics and strategic extortion, to information warfare and subversion, covert action, and overt disregard for international norms [to] achieve exploitable hypercompetitive advantages" against the US.
  14. (Opinion Video) OPERATION INFEKTION: Russian Disinformation from Cold War to Kanye by Adam B. Ellick and Adam Wetbrook, The New York Times, November 12, 2018
      These three short videos describe active measures, techniques employed by the Soviets and now the Russian Federation to undermine the Western alliance.

      Active measures, a Russian term, involve the following seven steps:

      1. Find rifts in public issues and use them to exploit divisions
      2. Create the Big Lie
      3. Wrap the big lie around a truth
      4. Conceal your hand
      5. Find a useful idiot who will promote the Big Lie
      6. Deny, deny, deny
      7. Play the long game
      
      
  15. Hackers Leak Details of German Lawmakers, Except Those on Far Right by Melissa Eddy,The New York Times, January 4, 2019
  16. UAE Used Cyber Super-Weapon to Spy on iPhones of Foes by Joel Schectman and Christopher Bing, Reuters, January 30, 2019
  17. How to Defeat Hybrid Warfare Before It Starts by Luke Coffey, Defense One, January 21, 2019
      Three measures that help to prevent hybrid warfare from being successful are 1) establish good governance at the local and national levels, 2) ensure that the populace believes that the economy is stable and that economic futures are bright, and 3) develop trust between the average person and law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
  18. (Opinion) Putin's One Weapon: The 'Intelligence State' by John Sipher, The New York Times, February 24, 2019
      "Russia's leader has restored the role its intelligence agencies had in the Soviet era — keep citizens in check and destabilize foreign adversaries."
  19. Triton is the world's most murderous malware, and it's spreading by Martin Giles, MIT Technology Review, March 5, 2019
      "The rogue code can disable safety systems designed to prevent catastrophic industrial accidents. ... This was the first time the cybersecurity world had seen code deliberately designed to put lives at risk."
  20. Russian Hackers Scrambled to Erase Digital Footprints After Triton Attribution Report by Eduard Kovacs, TechBizWeb, April 17, 2019
  21. Media Disruption and Revolutionary Unrest: Evidence from Mubarak's Quasi-Experiment by Navid Hassanpout, GigaNet: Global Internet Governance Academic Network, Annual Symposium, August 25, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2809789 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2809789 Conventional wisdom suggests that universal lapses in media connectivity — for example, disruption of Internet and cell phone access — have a negative effect on political mobilization. On the contrary, I argue that sudden and ubiquitous interruption of mass communication can facilitate revolutionary mobilization and proliferate decentralized contention.
  22. Iranian hackers have been hacking VPN servers to plant backdoors in companies around the world by Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet, February 16, 2020
      According to the ClearSky report, the purpose of these attacks is to breach enterprise networks, move laterally throughout their internal systems, and plant backdoors to exploit at a later date.
  23. Russia-connected group pushed fake documents aimed at political flashpoints, researchers say by Kevin Collier, NBC News, April 8, 2020
      The report is based on analysis provided by the Atlantic Council called Operation Secondary Infektion and a report provided by Recorded Future.
  24. Strengthening America's Resilience Against the PRC Cyber Threats by Jen Easterly, Director, CISA.
      In this posting Director Easterly describes congressional testimony that she gave in which she celebrated the work of CISA cyber defenders in reducing a threat against the criticial infrastructure called Volt Typhoon launched by the PRC "with the goal of inducing societal panic and deterring our ability to marshal military might and citizen will to expend American blood and treasure in defense of Taiwan."

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• Assessment of the Huawei Threat
  

  1. Investigative Report on the U.S. National Security Issues Posed by Chinese Telecommunications Companies Huawei and ZTE, Mike Rodgers, Chairman, and C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Ranking Member, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, US House of Representatives, October 8, 2012
  2. Could Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei Put U.S. Cyber-Security At Risk?, Interview of David Sanger by Terry Gross, NPR, January 31, 2019
     David Sanger explains the 5G threat and assesses the challenges that would arise were nations to negotiate cyber arms control treaties.
  3. What Do the Huawei Indictments Mean for the Future of Global Tech?, A ChinaFile Conversation by Adam Segal, Samm Sacks, Cobus van Staden, Elsa Kania, Elliott Zaagman, and Anna Holzmann, February 2, 2019
  4. Security, complexity and Huawei; protecting the UK's telecoms networks by Ian Levy, NCSC, February 20, 2019
     This blog-post provides a high-level overview of telecom operations, discusses risk management when using various 5G vendors, and describes the steps that the UK has taken to continuously monitor the Huawei equipment installed in their telecommunication systems through their Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSC).
  5. Huawei Frightens Europe's Data Protectors. America Does, Too by Helene Fouquet and Marie Mawad, Bloomberg, February 24, 2019
     "Some people are drawing parallels between the legislation [the CLOUD Act] and the National Intelligence Law that China put in place in 2017 requiring all its organizations and citizens to assist authorities with access to information."
  6. US Lawyers Don't Buy Huawei's Argument on Chinese Hacking by Tom Simonite, WIRED, March 4, 2019
  7. British spy agency delivers scathing assessment of security risks posed by Huawei to U.K. telecom networks by Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, March 28, 2019
     "This is the second consecutive year ... GCHQ ... has identified serious problems."
  8. The Improbable Rise of Huawei: How did a private Chinese firm come to dominate the world's most important emerging technology? by Keith Johnson and Elias Groll, Foreign Policy, April 3,2019
  9. Huawei must raise 'shoddy' standards, says senior UK cybersecurity official: GCHQ technical director says he hasn'tseen anything that reassures him company is taking necessary security steps, Reuters, June 6, 2019
  10. The Confused U.S. Messaging Campaign on Huawei by Justin Sherman and Robert Morgus, Lawfare, June 25, 2019
  11. Why Blacklisting Huawei Could Backfire: The History of Chinese Indigenous Innovation by Lorand Laskai, Foreign Affairs, June 19, 2019
      "[T]he United States may find that it has done more for self-reliance by banning ZTE and Huawei than the Chinese government has managed in a decade of official policy."
  12. Huawei CEO is considering licensing the company's 5G tech exclusively to a US firm by Saheli Roy Choudhury, CNBC, September 26, 2019
  13. U.S. Officials Say Huawei Can Covertly Access Telecom Networks by Bojan Pancevski, The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2020
      U.S. officials said Huawei has built equipment that secretly preserves its ability to access networks through these interfaces, without the carriers' knowledge.

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• Supply Chain
  

  1. Purchasing Secure ICT Products and Services: A Buyers Guide, EastWest Institute, 2016
  2. Cyber Supply Chain, a Report of the Defense Science Board, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC, 2017
  3. Everybody Does It: The Messy Truth About Infiltrating Computer Supply Chains by Micah Lee, Henrik Moltke, The Intercept, January 24, 2019
  4. How two supply chain security efforts can co-exist by Derek B. Johnson, FCW, March 28 2019
  5. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Task Force, CISA, DHS
  6. The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies by Jonathan Robertson and Michael Riley, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, October 4, 2018
     The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America's technology supply chain, according to extensive interviews with government and corporate sources.
  7. There's No Good Fix If the Supply Chain Gets Hacked by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, October 4, 2018
  8. A Mysterious Hacker Group Is on a Supply Chain Hijacking Spree by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, May 3, 2019
  9. How China Weaponized the Global Supply Chain by Christopher R. O'Dea, National Review, July 8,2019
  10. Audit of the DoD's Management of the Cybersecurity Risks for Government Purchase Card Purchases of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Items by Inspector General, US Department of Defense, July 26, 2019
  11. (Opinion) Every Part of the Supply Chain Can Be Attacked by Bruce Schneier, The New York Times, September 25, 2019
      When it comes to 5G technology, we have to build a trustworthy system out of untrustworthy parts.
  12. Planting Tiny Spy Chips in Hardware Can Cost as Little as $200: A new proof-of-concept hardware implant shows how easy it may be to hide malicious chips inside IT equipment by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, October 10, 2019
  13. China's supply chain threat to U.S. national security by Jim Banks, RealClear Defense, April 30, 2020
  14. Weathering TechNationalism:A Security and Trustworthiness Framework to Manage Cyber Supply Chain Risk, Andreas Kuhn and Bruce McConnell, EastWest Institute, 2020
  15. Breaking trust: Shades of crisis across an insecure software supply chain by Trey Herr, William Loomis, Stewart Scott, and June Lee, The Atlantic Council, July 26, 2020
      A summary of their findings can be found here.
  16. Building Resilient Supply Chains Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth: 100-Day Reviews under Executive Order 14017, June 2021
  17. The Internet of Trash Geoff Huston, APNIC Blog, February 2021
      The author reflects on need for governmental regulation to address the proliferation of unmaintained Internet-based devices.
  18. Critical Log4Shell security flaw lets hackers compromise vulnerable servers, by Lance Whitney, TechRepublic, December 13, 2021
      The Log4j vulnerability affects everything from the cloud to developer tools and security devices. Here's what to look for, according to the latest information.
  19. US-China Trade Tensions Threaten Europe's Biggest Tech Company: ASML quietly built a chip machine manufacturing empire but a sales ban on its most advanced tech in China may hinder its growth plans, by Morgan Meaker, Wired, January 11, 2022
  20. The United States Can't Afford to Stay Entangled with China: Russia's war shows paying the price of decoupling now is worth it. by Jacob Helberg and Enes Kanter Freedom, Foreign Policy, June 1, 2022.
  21. The Floating Traffic Jam That Freaked Us All Out: The coronavirus pandemic schooled the world in the essential role of global supply chains. Have we learned anything from it? by Peter S. Goodman, The New York Times, June 2, 2024.
  22. The Exploding Pagers Deliver a Supply Chain Warning: attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon are likely to generate greater momentum for moving factory production closer to home by Peter S. GoodmanNell Gallogly and Lauren Hirsch, The New York Times, Septmeber 21, 2024
  23. Israel's Pager Attacks Have Changed the World by Bruce Schneier, The New York Times, September 22, 2024
      Our international supply chains for computerized equipment leave us vulnerable. And we have no good means to defend ourselves.
  24. U.S. Tackles a Military Vulnerability in the Pacific: Supply Lines by Mike Cherney, The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2024

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• Critical Infrastructure

  • Protecting the Critical Infrastructure (PCI)
  • Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT)
  • Electric Grid
  • Operational Technology (OT) (Includes Control System Infrastructure (SCADA))
  • Financial System
  • Other Critical Infrastructure Issues
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  Protecting the Critical Infrastructure (PC)

  1. Cyberattacks on our energy infrastructure: The need for a national response to a national security threat by Jeh Johnson, The Atlantic Council, December 13, 2020
  2. The Biden Administration's Cyber Plans for Critical Infrastructure: Focus on Pipelines, Rails, Aviation, a one-hour video of a discussion at CSIS between Anne Neuberger, Rob Silvers, David Pekokse moderated by James A. Lewis, June 1, 2023. A transcript of the discussion can be found here.
     You need a balanced approach that looks at the burden on companies, ... the needs of safety and security ... and that avoids ... technology specifics as much as possible.

  Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT)

  1. Best Practices for Improved Robustness of Time and Frequency Sources in Fixed Locations, CISA, Department of Homeland Security, 6 January 2015
  2. Navy Resumes Celestial Navigation Course by David Dickinson, Sky \& Telescope, April 5, 2016.
     The United States Navy recently recognized modern vulnerabilities by bringing back an old method for navigating at sea: celestial navigation. [A] deliberate attack may not even be necessary ... [to take out GPS]. A space debris chain reaction known as an ablation cascade could knock out our GPS capability, or a strong Earth-directed solar storm such as the 1859 Carrington super-flare event could do the job just as well.
  3. Trump signs executive order to guard critical infrastructure that relies on GPS by Morgan Chalfant and Maggie Miller, The Hill, February 12, 2020
     [The] executive order ... directs federal agencies to take steps to reduce the disruption of critical infrastructure that relies on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services like GPS.
     The Office of Science and Technology Policy will also coordinate a national plan within one year of the executive order that provides for research and development into secure PNT services that will not be dependent on global navigation satellite systems.

     The US Department of Defense is responding to the PNT threat with its own plans, summarized. here.
     The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) includes the US Global Positioning System (GPS), the Russian GLONASS system, the European Union's Galileo system and China's Beidou system.

  4. National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018
     Subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary of Transportation shall provide for the establishment, sustainment, and operation of a land-based, resilient, and reliable alternative timing system.
  5. China's version of GPS is almost complete. Here's what it means by P. W. Singer and Taylor A. Lee, Popular Mechanics, March 31, 2020
     It's called BeiDou, and it's key for the military, tech industry, and more.
  6. Above Us Only Stars: Exposing GPS Spoofing in Russia and Syria, C4ADS.
  7. (Opinion) America Has a GPS Problem: The system is essential but also vulnerable. We need a backup. by Kate Murphy, The New York Times, January 23, 2021
  8. Will We Be Ready if GPS Goes Down? by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2021
  9. Hyper-accurate positioning is rolling out worldwide by Ling Xin, MIT Technology Review, February 24, 2021
  10. Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Program, Homeland Security.
  11. The Air Force Is Going to Navigate Jets Using Earth's Magnetic Field by Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, July 9, 2021.
      The U.S. Air Force is preparing to test a new pod-based positioning system that should be able to replace satellite-based GPS in an emergency. The system would look down — not up — for positioning data using Earth's own magnetic field. If successful, the tech could provide an effective backup in the event space satellites aren't available.
  12. Phantom Warships Are Courting Chaos in Conflict Zones: The latest weapons in the global information war are fake vessels behaving badly, by Mark Harris, Wired, July 20, 2021.
      According to analysis conducted by conservation technology nonprofit SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, over 100 warships from at least 14 European countries, Russia, and the US appear to have had their locations faked, sometimes for days at a time, since August 2020.
  13. 'Local' Russian GPS jamming in Ukraine hasn't affected US support ops, so far: The Pentagon doesn't believe Russia has fully unleashed its significant electronic warfare capabilities, a senior defense official said by Theresa Hitchenes, Breaking Defense, March 1, 2022.
  14. Phantom Warships Are Courting Chaos in Conflict Zones: The latest weapons in the global information war are fake vessels behaving badly.
      According to analysis conducted by conservation technology nonprofit SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, over 100 warships from at least 14 European countries, Russia, and the US appear to have had their locations faked, sometimes for days at a time, since August 2020.
  15. 'Local' Russian GPS jamming in Ukraine hasn't affected US support ops, so far: The Pentagon doesn't believe Russia has fully unleashed its significant electronic warfare capabilities, a senior defense official said by Theresa Hitchenes, Breaking Defense, March 1, 2022.
  16. Starlink signals can be reverse-engineered to work like GPS—whether SpaceX likes it or not by Mark Harris, MIT Technology Review, October 21, 2022
  17. This algorithm can make satellite signals act like GPS, Press Release by Tatyana Woodall, Ohio University, May 5, 2023.
      The paper cited in the press is Multi-Constellation Blind Beacon Estimation, Doppler Tracking, and Opportunistic Positioning with OneWeb, Starlink, Iridium NEXT, and Orbcomm LEO Satellites by Sharbel Kozhaya, Haitham Kanj, and Zaher M. Kassas, 2023 IEEE/ION Position Location and Navigation Symposium (PLANS), Monterey, California.
  18. Unprecedented GPS jamming attack affects 1600 aircraft over Europe: A 63-hour-long marathon of GPS jamming attacks disrupted global satellite navigation systems for hundreds of aircraft flying through the Baltic region – and Russia is thought to be responsible by Jeremy Hsu, New Scientist, March 29, 2024
  19. One Satellite Signal Rules Modern Life. What if Someone Knocks It Out?: Threats are mounting in space. GPS signals are vulnerable to attack. Their time-keeping is essential for stock trading, power transmeission and more. by Selam Gebrekidan, John Liu and Chris Buckley, The New York Times, March 30, 2024.

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  • Electric Grid

    1. 'Military-Style' Raid on California Power Station Spooks U.S. by Shane Harris, Foreign Policy, December 27, 2013.
       This article describes the attack on the Metcalf electric grid substation in San Jose that provides electricity to Silicon Valley. Large transformers were destroyed
    2. Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism: April Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country's Power Grid by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2014
       This article also describes the attack on the Metcalf electric grid substation in San Jose that provides electricity to Silicon Valley. Large transformers were destroyed
    3. Securing The U.S. Electrical Grid, The Honorable Thomas F. McLarty III and The Honorable Thomas J. Ridge, Project Co-Chairs, The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, 2014
       [T]he secure and reliable delivery of electricity is a vital cornerstone of modern American society. For those who would seek to do our Nation significant physical, economic, and psychological harm, the electrical grid is an obvious target. ... This project has sought to address these challenges and begin a new conversation about the security of a changing grid. ... [it] has examined the threats of cyberattack, physical attack, electromagnetic pulse, and severe weather. ... [W]e have assembled .. twelve key recommendations ... on the security of the grid and its future.
    4. Fear of Frying Electromagnetic weapons threaten our data networks. Here's how to stop them by William Radasky, IEEE Spectrum, September 2014
       In the 2001 action movie Ocean's Eleven, criminals use an electromagnetic weapon to black out a portion of Las Vegas. Very futuristic, you may say, but the threat is real and growing.
    5. Securing the North American Electric Grid, February 13-17, 2017, a 43 min video of a talk at the 2017 RSA Conference explaining how the grid works by Marcus H. Sachs of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
    6. How An Entire Nation Became Russia's Test Lab For Cyberwar by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, June 20, 2017
       The author describes attacks against the Ukraine's electric grid that turned off the electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes.
    7. Grid Shock: Coordinated Load-Changing Attacks on Power Grids by Adrian Dabrowski, Johanna Ullrich, and Edgar R. Weippl, Procs. 33rd Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC 2017), December 2, 2017
       The Non-Smart Power Grid is Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks As Well.
    8. Russian Hackers Attacking U.S. Power Grid and Aviation, FBI Warns by Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Michael Riley, Bloomberg, March 16, 2018
    9. Space weather threatens high-tech life by Roger Dube, The Conversation, March 29, 2018
       Citing the masssive Carrington Event of 1859, the author warns that a coronal mass ejection today could cause a massive collapse of electric grids that could take up to a decade to remediate.
    10. What threats face America's electrical grid?, Fox News, April 22, 2018
        "What would happen if America's electrical grid goes down and what can be done to protect it? EMP task force director Peter Pry shares insight on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.'"
        The US electric grid relies on 2,000 Extremely High Voltage (EHV) transformers. Many of them can be destroyed by a direct solar flare or and EMP attack. The world-wide capacity to manufacture EHV transformers is 200.
    11. A retired US Navy admiral just laid out a major threat from North Korea — and experts warn it could wipe out 90% of the population by Ben Brimelow, Business Insider, April 26, 2018
        
        • "James Stavridis, a retired US Navy admiral and former NATO commander, warns that an electromagnetic pulse attack by North Korea could be devastating."
        • "Such an attack has been previously estimated to kill up to 90% of the US population within one year."
        • "Stavridis recommends that the US should increase its defenses against an attack by preserving the US' ballistic missile stockpile, invest in new ballistic missile defenses, and focus on early warning systems, especially in space."
    12. Hackers breached US electric utilities: analysts by Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, August 2, 2018 Hackers likely working for a nation-state recently breached safety systems at a critical infrastructure facility, in a watershed attack that halted plant operations[.]
    13. U.S. Officials Push New Penalties for Hackers of Electrical Grid: Red line set for cyberattacks on infrastructure after Russian agents penetrated utility control rooms by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2018
    14. How Hacked Water Heaters Could Trigger Mass Blackouts, by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, August 13, 2018
    15. Electric Grid Cybersecurity, Congressional Research Service, September 4, 2018
    16. Cyberattacks on Primary Frequency Response Mechanisms in Power Grids by V. B. Krishna, Z. Wu, V. V. Ambardekar, R. Macwan, W. H. Sanders, Computer Magazine, Vol. 51, Nov. 2018, pp. 37-45
    17. Mock grid, real threats: DARPA borrows an island for a cyberattack drill by Sean Lyngaas, cyberscoop, November 16, 2018
        Plum Island ... serve[d] as a guinea pig ... for a decidedly 21st-century threat: cyberattacks that could hamstring a power grid.
    18. NATO's Achilles' Heel: Power Grids by Lukas Trakimavicius, Atlantic Council, Janauary 8, 2019
    19. America's Electric Grid Has a Vulnerable Back Door — and Russia Walked Through It: A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the worst known hack into the nation's power system reveals attacks on hundreds of small contractors by Rebecca Smith and Rob Barry, The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2019
    20. U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, June 15, 2019
    21. FERC And NERC Advance Dramatically Expanded Mandatory Cybersecurity Reporting Standards by Norma M. Krayem, Holland & Knight, July 8, 2019
    22. Risks Posed by Firewall Firmware Vulnerabilities, Lessons Learned, NERC, September 4, 2019
    23. The US electric grid has been cyber attacked for years yet NERC won't acknowledge facts by Joe Weiss, Control, September 8, 2019
    24. New Clues Show How Russia's Grid Hackers Aimed for Physical Destruction by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, September 12, 2019
        A fresh look at the 2016 blackout in Ukraine suggests that the cyberattack behind it was intended to cause far more damage ... for weeks or even months. ... [This] malware [is] one of only three pieces of code ever spotted in the wild aimed at not just disrupting physical equipment but destroying it, as Stuxnet did in Iran in 2009 and 2010 and the malware Triton was designed to do in a Saudi Arabian oil refinery in 2017.
    25. CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION: Actions Needed to Address Significant Cybersecurity Risks Facing the Electric Grid, U.S. General Accountability Office, September 25, 2019
        GAO recommends that the Department of Energy develop a cybersecurity strategy to protect the electric grid from vulnerable IoTs and loss or interruption of GPS, which is used to synchronize the grid, due to solar flares or spoofing of GPS signals.
    26. First-of-a-kind U.S. grid cyberattack hit wind, solar by Blake Sobczak, E&E News, October 31, 2019
        The cybersecurity incident is the first confirmed to have caused 'interruptions of electrical system operations,' based on DOE records.
    27. A Cyberattack on the U.S. Power Grid by Robert K. Knake, Council on Foreign Relations, April 2017
        The U.S. power grid has long been considered a logical target for a major cyberattack. ... An attack on the power grid could be part of a coordinated military action, intended as a signaling mechanism during a crisis, or as a punitive measure in response to U.S. actions in some other arena. ... [A]ttackers would need to conduct extensive research, gain initial access to utility business networks, ... work to move through the business networks to gain access to control systems, and then identify targeted systems and develop the capability to disable them. Such sophisticated actions would require extensive planning.
    28. The five worst cyberattacks against the power industry since 2014 by Ilaria Grasso Macola, Power Technology, April 2, 2020
    29. Executive Order (EO) 13920, Securing the United States Bulk-Power System, The Whitehouse, May 1, 2020
    30. President Orders National Security Review for Certain Electric System Equipment by Van F. Smith, Darshana Singh, and Joseph B. Nelson, The National Law Review, May 5, 2020
    31. Small vulnerable sets determine large network cascades in power grids by Yang Yang, Takashi Nishikawa and Adilson E. Motter, Science, November 17, 2017.
    32. Transformative Times: Update on the U.S. Transformer Supply Chain by Jeff Postelwait, T&D World, July 12, 2022
    33. Utilities sound alarm over distribution transformer shortage as procurement times surpass 1 year and costs triple by Robert Walton, Utility Dive, December 19, 2022
        "We've known for a while that large power transformer manufacturing has gone offshore," said [Joy] Ditto[, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association] ... . It's a much more complex piece of equipment, much larger, much more difficult to transport."
    34. Attacks on 4 Washington Substations Cut Power to Thousands, Officials Say by Livia Albeck-Ripka, The New York Times, December 27, 2022
    35. Power-Grid Attacks Surge and Are Likely to Continue, Study Finds: Confidential analysis shows sharp rise in targeting of facilities with gunfire, intrusion and vandalism by Katherine Blunt, The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2023.
    36. OSU research shows how hackers can target smart meters to destabilize electricity grid by Steve Lundberg, Oregon State University, May 3, 2023
    37. We Desperately Need a New Power Grid. Here's How to Make It Happen by Editorial Board, New York Times, May 4, 2023

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  • Operational Techology (OT) (Includes Control System Infrastructure (SCADA))

    1. Exclusive: Cyberattack leaves natural gas pipelines vulnerable to sabotage: A government report says a cyberattack against 23 natural gas pipeline operators stole crucial information that could compromise security. Experts strongly suspect China's military by Mark Claytonb, The Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 2013
    2. Hackers breach safety system and halt operations at critical infrastructure facility in 'watershed' cyberattack: experts, The Japan Times, December 15, 2017
    3. Triton is the world's most murderous malware, and it's spreading by Martin Giles, March 5, 2019
       "This was the first time the cybersecurity world had seen code deliberately designed to put lives at risk."
    4. Russian Hackers Scrambled to Erase Digital Footprints After Triton Attribution Report by Eduard Kovacs, TechBizWeb, April 17, 2019
    5. A Notorious Iranian Hacking Crew Is Targeting Industrial Control Systems by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, November 20, 2019
       The recent shift away from IT networks raises the possibility that Iran's APT33 is exploring physically disruptive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
    6. Iran Suspected of Creating New Ransomware Malware by Samuel Gush, Communal News, January 30, 2020
       There is a new ransomware Trojan on the loose that is reportedly capable of disabling industrial control systems.
    7. Chinese Gas Pipeline Intrusion Campaign, 2011 to 2013, CISA Alert, July 21, 2021
    8. Gartner Predicts By 2025 Cyber Attackers Will Have Weaponized Operational Technology Environments to Successfully Harm or Kill Humans, Gartner, July 21, 2021.
    9. With MOSAICS, Johns Hopkins APL Brings the Future of Industrial Cybersecurity into Focus by Ajai Raj, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, April 5, 2022.
    10. Urgent Warning from Multiple Cybersecurity Organizations on Current Threat to OT Systems NSA Press Release, May 1, 2024
        OT is an acronym for operational technology systems such as water purification plants, petroleum refineries or electric power generators.

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  • Financial System

    1. Top Wall Street CEOs keep saying their No. 1 fear is a cyberattack that'll take down the financial system by Arjun Reddy, MarketsInsider, April 30, 2019
    2. What is Sheltered Harbor?
       Sheltered Harbor was created to protect customers, financial institutions, and public confidence in the financial system if a catastrophic event like a cyberattack causes critical systems – including backups – to fail.
    3. The US Must Prepare for a Cyber 'Day After' by Samantha Ravich, Defense One, August 28, 2019
       [T]he attacks that could damage or destroy the very foundation of what makes our economy — and our lives — run must concentrate the minds of U.S. policymakers.
    4. New York Fed Paper Warns a Cyberattack on Banks Could Cause Major Disruption by Michael S. Derby, The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2020
       The authors say if a cyberattack were to compromise banks'systems, there could be severe implications for the broader financial system. The report is available here.

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  • Other Critical Infractructure Issues

    1. Warning over 'panic' hacks on cities by Dave Lee, BBC, August 9, 2018
    2. How To Hack An Aircraft by Kate O'Flaherty, Forbes, August 22, 2018
    3. Hacking, cyberattacks now the biggest threat to U.S., Trump's Homeland Security chief warns by Nick Miroff, The Washington Post, September 5, 2018
    4. National Critical Function Sets published by the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the Department of Homeland Security
       "National Critical Functions: The functions of government and the private sector so vital to the United States that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof."
    5. China's Next Naval Target Is the Internet's Underwater Cables: Worried about Huawei's 5G? Wait till it gets into the game for 95 percent of all data and voice traffic. by James Stavridis, Bloomberg, April 8, 2019
    6. Recoverability as a First-Class Security Objective, National Academis Press, 2018
    7. An Operating System (VxWorks) Bug Exposes 200 Million Critical Devices by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, July 29, 2019
       "VxWorks is designed as a secure, 'real-time' operating system for continuously functioning devices, like medical equipment, elevator controllers, or satellite modems. ... Armis researchers found a cluster of 11 vulnerabilities in the platform's networking protocols, six of which could conceivably give an attacker remote device access, and allow a worm to spread the malware to other VxWorks devices around the world. ... 'The worst-case scenario for me is what a determined nation-state could do with such a powerful vulnerability.' "
    8. Kill Switch: Why Connected Cars Can Be Killing Machines And How To Turn Them Off, Consumer Watchdog, 2019
       Consumer Watchdog is a non-profit group. It worked with auto industry technologists to identify cybersecurity threats to automobiles. Here is a quote from their report:
       Technical experts explain that using smartphone technology in cars, technology that was never designed to protect safety-critical systems, is a recipe for disaster. A plausible scenario involving a fleet-wide hack during rush hour in major U.S. metropolitan areas could result in approximately 3,000 fatalities, the same death toll as the 9/11-attack.
    9. The US Must Prepare for a Cyber 'Day After' by Samantha Ravich, Defense One, August 28, 2019
       [T]he attacks that could damage or destroy the very foundation of what makes our economy — and our lives — run must concentrate the minds of U.S. policymakers.
    10. Do No Harm 2.0 by Robert Lord and Dillon Roseen, New America Foundation, October 2019
        [W]e aim to highlight the need to mitigate the risks to patient safety created by the growing integration of information technology and operational technology into healthcare, and to propose ways to mitigate that risk.
    11. Ending the Cycle of Crisis and Complacency in U.S. Global Health Security by Kelly Ayotte, Julie Gerberding, and J. Stephen Morrison, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 2019
        A growing number of policymakers now appreciate how health security risks undermine the social, economic, and political security of nations. Epidemics can produce Black Swan events.
    12. Special Report: 2020 U.S. census plagued by hacking threats, cost overruns by Nick Brown, Reuters, December 4, 2019
    13. Federal council to Trump: Cyber threats pose 'existential threat' to the nation by Maggie Miller, The Hill, December 9, 2019
    14. Theft of farming secrets is backdrop for U.S.-China trade deal by Scott Tong, Marketplace, January 15, 2020
    15. How Hackers and Spies Could Sabotage the Coronavirus Fight by Bruce Schneier and Margaret Bourdeaux, Foreign Policy, February 28, 2020
        Intelligence services have a long history of manipulating information on health issues, and an epidemic is especially tempting for interference. Why aren't we better prepared?
    16. Disruptionware II — The "Cyber Terminator" and What This New Threat Means to You and Your Data by Jason G. Weiss, The National Law Review, March 2, 2020
        Disruptionware is an emerging form of malware, with a greater adverse impact than more traditional, standalone ransomware attacks, in that it is designed to actually suspend physical operations within a victim organization.
    17. The Really Big One: An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when by Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, July 13, 2015
        [The] Cascadia subduction zone ... runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. ... When the next full-margin rupture happens, that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America, outside of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which killed upward of a hundred thousand people.
    18. Urgent Warning from Multiple Cybersecurity Organizations on Current Threat to OT Systems NSA Press Release, May 1, 2024
        OT is an acronym for operational technology systems such as water purification plants, petroleum refineries or electric power generators.
    19. America's War Machine Runs on Rare–Earth Magnets. China Owns the Market: U.S. defense needs are pushing revival effort after decades of deindustrialization by Jon Emont, The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2024.

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• Hacking Into Internet of Things (IoT) Devices
  

  1. Shodan: The world's first search engine for Internet-connected devices
  2. Brown University Paper Shows Research Robot Vulnerability
     The paper in question can be found here.

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• Security of Aircraft, Missiles, Satellites, Ships, Vehicles and Undersea Cables
  

  1. Hacker uses an Android to remotely attack and hijack an airplane by Darlene Storm, COMPUTERWORLD, April 10, 2013
  2. Left of Launch: Countering Theater Ballistic Missiles by Herbert C. Kemp, Atlantic Council Issue Brief, July 2017
  3. Aviation Cybersecurity: Finding Lift, Minimizing Drag by Pete Cooper, Atlantic Council, November 2017
  4. Russian Hackers Attacking U.S. Power Grid and Aviation, FBI Warns by Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Michael Riley, Bloomberg, March 16, 2018
  5. Cybersecurity and the New Era of Space Activities by David P. Fidler, Council on Foreign Relations, April 2, 2018
  6. This Guy Hacked Hundreds Of Planes From The Ground by Thomas Fox-Brewster, Forbes, August 9, 2018
  7. US Weapons Systems Are Easy Cyberattack Targets, New Report Finds by Emily Drefuss, August 10, 2018
     "[A] new report from the US Government Accountability Office finds that the Department of Defense remains in denial about cybersecurity threats to its weapons systems."
  8. How To Hack An Aircraft by Kate O'Flaherty, Forbes, August 22, 2018
  9. In Cyberwar, There Are No Rules: Why the world desperately needs digital Geneva Conventions by Tara Wheeler, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2018
     This article mentions various types of cyberattack including against aircraft.
  10. In Indonesia Lion Air Crash, Black Box Data Reveal Pilots' Struggle to Regain Control by James Glanz, Muktita Suhartono and Hannah Beech, The New York Times, November 27, 2018
  11. Pilots say they were 'in the dark' about Boeing's 737 safety update by Craig Timberg, Aaron Gregg, and Ashley Halsey III, The Washington Post, November 28, 2018
  12. National Strategy for Aviation Security of the United States of America, December 2018
  13. China, Russia Building Attack Satellites and Space Lasers: Pentagon Report by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, February 12, 2019
  14. U.S. Revives Secret Program to Sabotage Iranian Missiles and Rockets by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, The New York Times, February 13, 2019
      American military officials urged Congress to put more money into programs they obliquely hailed in open testimony as 'left of launch' techniques — so called because they rely on sabotaging launchers before they are fired.
  15. Left of Launch: Countering Theater Ballistic Missiles by Herbert C. Kemp, Atlantic Council Issue Brief, July 2017
  16. India Conducted a Failed Anti-Satellite Test in February 2019 by Ankit Panda, The Diplomat, March 30, 2019
  17. U.S. Airlines Report Delays Caused by System Fault: FAA said it was aware that several airlines were experiencing issues with a flight-planning program by Robert Wall and Alison Sider, The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2019
  18. Cybersecurity of Nato's Space-Based Strategic Assets by Beyza Unal, International Security Department, Chatham House, July 2019
      NATO's missions and operations are conducted in the air, land, cyber and maritime domains. Space-based architecture is fundamental to the provision of data and services in each of these contexts. The critical dependency on space has resulted in new cyber risks that disproportionately affect mission assurance. Investing in mitigation measures and in the resilience of space systems for the military is key to achieving protection in all domains.
  19. Kill Switch: Why Connected Cars Can Be Killing Machines And How To Turn Them Off, Consumer Watchdog, 2019
      Consumer Watchdog is a non-profit group. It worked with auto industry technologists to identify cybersecurity threats to automobiles. Here is a quote from their report:
      Technical experts explain that using smartphone technology in cars, technology that was never designed to protect safety-critical systems, is a recipe for disaster. A plausible scenario involving a fleet-wide hack during rush hour in major U.S. metropolitan areas could result in approximately 3,000 fatalities, the same death toll as the 9/11-attack.
  20. A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, August 7, 2019
      Santamarta claims that leaked code has led him to something unprecedented: security flaws in one of the 787 Dreamliner's components, deep in the plane's multi-tiered network. He suggests that for a hacker, exploiting those bugs could represent one step in a multi-stage attack that starts in the plane's in-flight entertainment system and extends to highly protected, safety-critical systems like flight controls and sensors.
  21. The Four-Second Catastrophe: How Boeing Doomed the 737 MAX: At the root of the company's miscalculation was a flawed assumption that pilots could handle any malfunction by Andrew Tangel, Andy Pasztor and Mark Maremont, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2019
  22. As Automatic Braking Becomes More Common in Cars, So Do Driver Complaints by Ben Foldy, The Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2019
      [T]he National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has fielded more than 400 individual complaints in the last three years from drivers of vehicles made by Nissan Motor Co. , Volkswagen AG , Honda Motor Co. and other major car manufacturers flagging auto-braking problems, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the agency's public database.
  23. Feds Say Tesla Autopilot Is Partly to Blame for a 2018 Crash by Jasper Junien, WIRED, September 4, 2019
      The National Transportation Safety Board says the design of Tesla's Autopilot contributed to a crash in which the driver did not actively steer for 13 minutes.
  24. The cyber threat to satellites, by Malcolm Davis, The Strategist, Australiaon Strategic Policy Institute, September 9, 2019
  25. Shipping Cyber Terrorism Threat Heightened By Digitalization Yahoo Finance, September 11, 2019
  26. Sen. Ben Sasse warns of cyber war with China By Mark Moore, The New York Post, September 15, 2019
      GOP Sen. Ben Sasse warned of a doomsday scenario in which China wipes out US satellites to cripple the military's GPS and communications systems in a cyber war that takes place in outer space.
  27. The Air Force Will Let Hackers Try to Hijack an Orbiting Satellite by Brian Barrett, WIRED, September 17,2019
  28. How Lockheed Martin Is Trying To Link Everything on the Battlefield by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, November 17, 2019
  29. 'It's Creepy': Unexplained Drones Are Swarming by Night Over Colorado by Mitch Smith, The New York Times, January 1, 2020
  30. War on Autopilot? It Will Be Harder Than the Pentagon Thinks by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, February 12, 2020
      The DoD's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which would integrate all US military aircraft, ships, vehicles and soldiers in the field, has been severely critized by the Government Accountability Office.
  31. Hackers Could Shut Down Satellites — or Turn Them into Weapons by William Akoto, Nextgov, February 13, 2020
  32. (Opinion) To Secure Satellites, Bolster Cybersecurity Standards in Space by William Akoto, UNDARK, February 25, 2020
      Without stronger cybersecurity standards, satellites remain vulnerable to hackers, who could corrupt or weaponize them.
  33. Hacked: How the F-15 Fighter Can Be Taken [D]Own by a Cyber Attack by David Axe, The National Interest, March 12, 2020
      A team of hackers in early August 2019 gained access to an F-15 fighter in an eye-opening U.S. military test.
  34. New Satellites Will Be a Big Step in the Pentagon's Plan to Link Everything by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, April 3, 2020
      A new 'transport layer' constellation will help distribute tactical data — but won't have defenses to anti-statellite weapons.
  35. A Deep-Diving Sub. A Deadly Fire. And Russia's Secret Undersea Agenda by James Glanz and Thomas Nilsen, The New York Times, April 20, 2020
      This article has a good map of undersea cables. They carry 97% of all Internet traffic!
  36. Coronavirus Not Slowing Russian, Chinese Space Activities, US General Says by Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One, May 12, 2020
      Unfortunately in the case of the Russians, their increasing penchant for unsafe and what I would consider unacceptable behavior in space has not slowed down, Lt. Gen. David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force vice commander.
  37. The State of Civil Aviation Cybersecurity by Anastasios Arampatzis, tripwire, August 9, 2020
  38. Russia Tests a Satellite That Rams Other Satellites, US Says by Patrick Tucker, July 23, 2020
  39. Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), Congressional Research Service, November 16, 2020
      JADC2 intends to enable commanders to make better decisions by collecting data from numerous sensors (across all military sources), processing the data using artificial intelligence algorithms to identify targets, then recommending the optimal weapon — both kinetic and nonkinetic (e.g., cyber or electronic weapons) — to engage the target.
  40. Cyber defense across the ocean floor: The geopolitics of submarine cable security by Justin Sherman, Atlantic Council, September 13, 2021
      The security and resilience of undersea cables and the data and services that move across them are an often understudied and underappreciated element of modern Internet geopolitics.
  41. Raising the colors: Signaling for cooperation on maritime cybersecurity by William Loomis, Virpratap Vikram Singh, Dr. Gary C. Kessler, Dr. Xavier Bellekens, Atlantic Council, October 4, 2021
  42. Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power: The four tech giants increasingly dominate the internet's critical cable infrastructure by Christopher Mims, January 15, 2022, The Wall Street Journal
  43. Cord-cutting,Russian style: Could the Kremlin sever global internet cables? by Justin Sherman, Atlantic Council, January 31, 2022
  44. Tesla drivers report a surge in 'phantom braking': Owners say their cars are suddenly slamming the brakes at high speeds, nearly causing crashes in many cases by Faiz Siddiqui and Jeremy B. Merrill, The Washington Post, February 2, 2022
  45. Digital warfare tech at sea helping US foes evade sanctions by Joshua Goodman, AP, February 3, 2020.
      Technology to hide a ship's location previously available only to the world's militaries is spreading fast through the global maritime industry as governments from Iran to Venezuela — and the rogue shipping companies they depend on to move their petroleum products — look for stealthier ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions.
  46. Russian military behind hack of satellite communication devices in Ukraine at war's outset, U.S. officials say by Ellen Nakashima, March 24, 2022
  47. KA-SAT Network cyber attack overview, Viasat, March 30, 2022
      [T]he cyber-attack against the KA-SAT network ... resulted in a partial interruption of KA-SAT's consumer-oriented satellite broadband service.
  48. Shetland Cut Off From the World After Undersea Cable Breaks by Derrick Bryson Taylor and Christine Chung, The New York Times, October 21, 2022
      This article has a link to this TeleGeography submarine app that provides maps of all submarine cables.
  49. How the U.S. Is Racing to Build a Drone Fleet to Compete With China, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2023.
      The U.S. is racing to assemble a fleet of next-generation drones to stay competitive with China, as concerns rise about a potential conflict over Taiwan. WSJ explores whether the U.S. can work fast enough to deter its adversary in the South China Sea.
  50. The U.S. Is Defenseless Against a Drone Terror Attack: The Hamas attack in Israel showed the power and danger of drones, but federal law makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to respond to potential threats. by Richard Whittle, The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2023.
  51. (Opinion) Is This a Sputnik Moment? by Kari A. Bingen and Heather W. Williams, The New York Times, February 17, 2024.
      A Russian nuclear weapon [in a satellite] capable of targeting [other] satellites would be alarming for a list of reasons. For a start, it's illegal. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Russia is a party, prohibits the placement of "nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.
  52. The US is still falling behind on electronic warfare, special operators warn: New space and low-power solutions are needed to operate against modern jamming by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, May 13, 2024.
  53. New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit — Citing rapid advances by China and Russia, the United States is building an extensive capacity to fight battles in space by Eric Lipton, The New York Times, May 17, 2024.
  54. U.S. Fears Undersea Cables Are Vulnerable to Espionage From Chinese Repair Ships: Google, Meta Platforms and others partially own many cables, but they rely on maintenance specialists, including some with foreign ownership by By Dustin Volz, Drew FitzGerald, Peter Champelli and Emma Brown, The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2024.
  55. Meet the Air Force's secretive long-range drone that flies for days: The robot surveillance aircraft can fly for 80 hours without refueling by Audrey Decker, Defense One, July 2, 2024
  56. The US Wants to Integrate the Commercial Space Industry With Its Military to Prevent Cyber Attacks by Sharon Lemac-Vincere, WIRED, June 29, 2024
  57. Severing of Baltic Sea Cables Was 'Sabotage,' Germany Says: Germany's defense minister said damage to two fiber-optic cables on the sea floor appeared deliberate, but culprit unknown by Melissa Eddy and Johanna Lemola, The New York Times, November 19, 2024.
      One cable linked Germany and Finland. The other linked Lithuania and Sweden.
  58. Europe Vows to Step Up Baltic Sea Security After a New Cable Break: The bloc announced new steps to prevent threats to undersea lines after Sweden discovered damage to one east of Gotland island by Isabella KwaiChristina Anderson and Johanna Lemola, The New York Times, February 21, 2025
  59. Safeguarding Subsea Cables Protecting Cyber Infrastructure amid Great Power Competition by Daniel Runde, Erin Murphy and Thomas Bryja, Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 2024.

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• Information Warfare
  

  1. Information Warfare in an Information Age by William R. Gery, SeYoung Lee, and Jacob Ninas, Joint Forces Quarterly 85, April 1, 2017
     'The goals of an offensive information-warfare campaign are to deny, corrupt, degrade, or destroy the enemy's sources of information on the battlefield. Doing so successfully, while maintaining the operational security of your own information sources, is the key to ... the ability to see the battlefield while your opponent cannot. ... This [was said] best by Sun Tzhu ... 'To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.' ... [T]he Russian operations in Crimea provide a modern case study where the outcome of operations was directly attributed to IW principles and capability.
  2. Data, Power, And War: We've built a power structure that leaves the public good begging at the door. This must change. by John Battelle, Shift, NewCo, December 7, 2017
     "And while it feels odd to write this, no serious scholar of modern geopolitics disputes that we are now at war — a new kind of information-based war, but war, nevertheless — with Russia in particular, but in all honesty, with a multitude of nation states and stateless actors bent on destroying western democratic capitalism. They are using our most sophisticated and complex technology platforms to wage this war — and so far, we're losing. Badly."
  3. Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare by Lt Col Jarred Prier, USAF, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2017
  4. 'Russia Is Our Adversary' by Will Hurd, DefenseOne, February 11, 2018
     "To address continued Russian disinformation campaigns, we need to develop a national counter-disinformation strategy."
  5. Hotspot Analysis: Cyber and Information warfare in the Ukrainian conflict by Center for Cyber Security, ETH, Zurich, October 2018
  6. Inside the Massive Cyber War Between Russia and Ukraine by David Gilbert, Vice News, March 29, 2019
  7. Welcome to Social Cyber Warfare by Lydia Snider, The CyberEdge, April 1, 2019
  8. Loose Lips Sink Democracies? by Elizabeth Braw, Foreign Policy, November 19, 2019
     Russia has started using the West's own reporting against it. Here's how to respond.
  9. Russian disinformation network is said to have helped spread smear of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, by Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post, December 17, 2019
     The web analysis firm Graphika has linked posts to a known Russian operation.
  10. On the Integration of Psychological Operations with Cyber Operations by Herb Lin, Lawfare, January 9, 2020
  11. Making Cyberspace Safe for Democracy: The New Landscape of Information Competition by Laura Rosenberger, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2020
      Democratic countries view information as an empowering force in the hands of people: the free and open flow of ideas, news, and opinion fuels deliberative democracy. Authoritarian systems see this model as a threat, viewing information as a danger to their regimes and something the state must control and shape. Using surveillance, censorship, and the manipulation of information, authoritarian regimes shore up their power at home while weakening democratic competitors abroad. ... The United States and its democratic allies have not adjusted to this reality. ... The typically hands-off approach that many democratic governments take to information will make it hard for them to compete. .... Democracies face a dilemma. If they don't take an active role in the information contest, they will leave themselves vulnerable at home and lose ground abroad. But if they are more proactive and aggressive in the wrong ways, they will risk mimicking the heavy-handed behavior of autocracies and creating the kind of rigidly controlled environment autocrats seek.

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• Cyber Conflict
  

  1. The dynamics of cyber conflict between rival antagonists, 2001 – 11 by Brandon Valeriano and Ryan Maness, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 347-360, 2014
  2. Writing the Rules of Cyberwar: The line between offensive and defensive attacks is far from clear, a new book argues. by Alyza Sebenius, The Atlantic, June 28, 2017
  3. The crooked timber of humanity: Nearly two centuries ago, France was hit by the world's first cyber-attack by Tom Standage, 1843 Magazine, The Economist, October 5, 2017
  4. Understanding Cyber Conflict: 14 Analogies by George Perkovich and Ariel (Eli) Levite, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 16, 2017
  5. Invisible Digital Front: Can Cyber Attacks Shape Battlefield Events? by Nadiya Kostyuk and Yuri M. Zhukov, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Volume 63(2), November 10, 2017
     Our finding — that cyber attacks are not (yet) effective as tools of coercion in war — has potentially significant implications for other armed conflicts with a digital front.
  6. Why Hackers Aren't Afraid of Us by David Sanger, The New York Times, June 16, 2018
  7. The Next Cyber Battleground: Defending the U.S. Power Grid From Russian Hackers by Rob Knake, Foreign Affairs, July 19, 2018
  8. Cyber Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare, an interview with Laura Galante, Robert Knake and David Sanger, The Council on Foreign Relations, June 20, 2018
  9. In Cyber Warfare, the Front Line Is Everywhere the U.S. Government Isn't by Christopher Porter, Lawfare, August 24, 2018
  10. Military Operations in Cyberspace, a report by Paul Cornish on a conference hosted by Wilton Park, October 2018
      This report addresses the question: Is cyberspace a battlespace?
  11. In Cyberwar, There Are No Rules: Why the world desperately needs digital Geneva Conventions by Tara Wheeler, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2018
      This article mentions various types of cyberattack including against aircraft.
  12. In Cyberwar, There Are Some (Unspoken) Rules by Miguel Alberto N. Gomez, Foreign Policy, November 6, 2018
      "A recent article (see above) argues that the lack of legal norms invites cyberconflict. But governments know the price of overreach and are refraining from unleashing their full capabilities."
  13. The State of the Field of Cyber Conflict by Jason Healey and Christopher Hocking, The Council on Foreign Relations, November 12, 2018
  14. Cyberconflict: Why the Worst Is Yet to Come (Video) by David Botti, Sameen Amin, Aaron Byrd and Jonah M. Kessel, The New York Times, January 7, 2019
      This is an interview with David Sanger of the New York Times.
  15. Cyber Warfare — Tales from the Battlefield by John Sjoholm, Lima Charlie, July 2, 2019
  16. Cyber War as an Intelligence Contest by Joshua Rovner, War on the Rocks, September 16, 2019
      An intelligence contest has five elements. First, it is a race among adversaries to collect more and better information. Second, it is a race to exploit that information to improve one's relative position. Third, it is a reciprocal effort to covertly undermine adversary morale, institutions, and alliances. Fourth, it is a contest to disable adversary capabilities through sabotage. Fifth, it is a campaign to preposition assets for intelligence collection in the event of a conflict. Note that none of these elements are directly related to military posturing or war, and only the last one hints at the prospect of combat. Instead, an intelligence contest is a part of an open-ended competition among rival states.
  17. In this 4:20 video David Sanger of the New York Times gives his assessment of the risks associated with the cyber conflict. This video is cited in this January 8, 2020 article.

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• Espionage
  

  1. Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core: A serial leak of the agency's cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide. by Scott Shane, Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, November 12, 2017
  2. North Korea reuses code in major hacks, researchers find by Ryan Duffy, cyberscoope, August 10, 2018
  3. Even Anonymous Coders Leave Fingerprints by Louise Matsakis, WIRED, August 10, 2018
     Stylometry, the statistical analysis of linguistic style, can been used to identify coders.
  4. Governments of the world just ramped up spying on reporters by Ahana Datta, Columbia Journalism Review, February 17, 2020
     The author describes many incidents in which Financial Times reporters were spied upon by governments using sophisticated tools.
  5. The Full Story of the Stunning RSA Hack Can Finally Be Told by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, May 20, 2021
     In 2011, Chinese spies stole the crown jewels of cybersecurit — stripping protections from firms and government agencies worldwide. Here's how it happened.

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• Hacker Capabilities
  

  1. APT1 – Exposing One of China's Cyber Espionage Units by Mandiant, 2013.
     The Appendix describes the Attack Lifecycle.
  2. First-Ever Adversary Ranking in 2019 Global Threat Report Highlights the Importance of Speed by Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike, February 19, 2019
  3. Crowdstrike: There's No Excuse for Getting Owned by China: Why are Chinese hackers slowpokes? Crowdstrike's new report raises questions about the sophistication of Chinese APTs. Blog Post by Robert K. Knake, Council on Foreign Relations, February 25, 2019
  4. Russian Hackers Go From Foothold To Full-On Breach In 19 Minutes by Andy Greenberg, WIRED, February 19, 2019
  5. Florian Roth's APT Tracker is a spreadsheet of APT actors. He explains the naming conventions used by various analysts and his classification scheme in the paper The Newcomer's Guide to Cyber Threat Actor Naming published by Medium, March 25, 2018.

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• Cost of Cyber Attacks
  

  1. How much does it cost to launch a cyberattack? by Dan Swinhoe, CSO Online, November 12, 2019
     [A] new report from Deloitte has found the cost of committing cyber crime is incredibly low. ... [The] disparity between the profit criminals make versus the cost of repairing the damage is huge, says Oliver Rochford, director of research at Tenable. ... While estimated global revenue of cybercrime is around $1.5 trillion, Rochford says the cost of damage is thought to be upwards of $6 trillion.

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• Impact of US Government Shutdowns on Federal Cybersecurity
  

  1. (Opinion) Federal Cybersecurity Needs Its Own Shutdown: The government shutdown could be disastrous for federal network security. In order to mitigate the risk, federal IT employees should shut down as much federal IT infrastructure as possible. by Robert K. Knake, Blog Post, The Council on Foreign Relations, January 24, 2019

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• Cyber Resources
• Cybersecurity Best Practices
• Open Source Software
• Bug Bounty Programs
• General Defensive Measures
• Active Defense and Hacking Back
• Intelligence Agencies
• Open Source Intelligence
• Command Vision for US Cyber Operations
• Information Sharing Organizations
• Cyber Insurance
• Making Security Sustainable
• Botnets
• Cloud-Based Security
• Credential Spills
• Coronavirus Pandemic Response
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• Cyber Resources
  

  1. The Cyber Security Body Of Knowledge by the Bristol Cyber Security Group of the University of Bristol.
     A comprehensive Body of Knowledge is being assembled to inform and underpin education and professional training for the cyber security sector. Here are documents covering two knowledge areas (KAs).
  2. Intro to Malware Detection using YARA by Vickie Li, INFOSEC writeup, Medium, February 17, 2020
     YARA is a tool to identify files meeting a wide variety of conditions that is used primarily to identify malware. It is supported by extensive documentation.

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• Cybersecurity Best Practices
  

  1. Center for Internet Security (CIS®)
     "CIS® is a forward-thinking, non-profit entity that harnesses the power of a global IT community to safeguard private and public organizations against cyber threats."
     "The CIS Controls™ and CIS Benchmarks™ are the global standard and recognized best practices for securing IT systems and data against the most pervasive attacks. These proven guidelines are continuously refined and verified by a volunteer, global community of experienced IT professionals."
     "Our CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine emulations preconfigured to provide secure, on-demand, and scalable computing environments in the cloud."
     "CIS is home to both the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (MS-ISAC®), the go-to resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, response, and recovery for U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial government entities, and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center™ (EI-ISAC™), which supports the Industrial Control System Information Sharing and Analysis Center"
  2. Human Computable Passwords by J. Blocki, M. Blum., A. Datta, and S. Vempala, arXiv:1404.0024v3, October 2, 2014
  3. Best Practices for Improved Robustness of Time and Frequency Sources in Fixed Locations, CISA, Department of Homeland Security, 6 January 2015
  4. Using passwords to protect your data, National Cyber Security Centre, UK, December 20, 2017
  5. The Motherboard Guide to Not Getting Hacked, Motherboard, November 15, 2017
  6. Surveillance Self-Defense: Tips, Tools and How-Tos for Safer Online Communications, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  7. Digital Security Low Hanging Fruit by John Scott-Railton, January 2017
  8. Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders, Frontline Defenders, February 23, 2016
  9. Cybersecurity Campaign Playbook, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, November 2017
  10. NIST Cybersecurity Framework
      "This voluntary Framework consists of standards, guidelines, and best practices to manage cybersecurity-related risk. The Cybersecurity Framework's prioritized, flexible, and cost-effective approach helps to promote the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure and other sectors important to the economy and national security."
  11. Securing the Public Cloud: Seven Best Practices, Sophos, June 2019
  12. The Elections Battle Staff Playbook, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, December 2019
  13. DNC Security Checklist, March 2022
  14. DMARC
      Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is an email-validation system designed to detect and prevent email spoofing, the use of forged sender addresses often used in phishing and email spam.
  15. How to Protect Your Networks from Ransomware, U.S. Department of Justice
  16. MS-ISAC Security Primer on Ransomware, MS-ISAC, May 2018
  17. Google: Security Keys Neutralized Employee Phishing, KrebsOnSecurity, July 18, 2018
  18. Code of Practice for consumer IoT security, UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, October 14, 2018
  19. Cybersecurity Resource Guide prepared by the National Association of Secretaries of State
      This document provides links to a large number of organizations to whom Secretaries of State and others can turn for advice and help.
  20. What is microsegmentation? How getting granular improves network security by Ann Bednarz, Network World, January 30, 2018
      Microsegmentation is a way to create secure zones in data centers and cloud deployments that allow you to isolate workloads and protect them individually. ... Microsegmentation gives companies greater control over the growing amount of east-west or lateral communication that occurs between servers, bypassing perimeter-focused security tools. If breaches occur, microsegmentation limits potential lateral exploration of networks by hackers. ... Microsegmentation is typically done in software, which makes it easier to define fine-grained segments. And with microsegmentation, IT can work to centralize network segmentation policy and reduce the number of firewall rules needed.
  21. The Election Official's Handbook: Six steps local officials can take to safeguard America's election system by David Levine, Alliance for Securing Democracy, February 13, 2020
      This handbook ... provides a list of [six] steps that local election officials can implement at relatively little cost to fortify their elections systems before the 2020 presidential election.
  22. (DRAFT) Data Integrity: Detecting and Responding to Ransomware and Other Destructive Events, NIST SPECIAL PUBLICATION 1800-25, by Jennifer Cawthra, National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, NIST and Michael Ekstrom, Lauren Lusty, Julian Sexton, and John Sweetnam, The MITRE Corporation McLean, Virginia, January 2020
  23. Mitigating malware and ransomware attacks: How to defend organisations against malware or ransomware attacks, National Cyber Security Centre, February 13, 2020
  24. MITRE ATT&CK^®: Design and Philosophy, by Blake E. Strom Andy Applebaum, Doug P. Miller, Kathryn C. Nickels, Adam G. Pennington, and Cody B. Thomas, MITRE, March 2020
      MITRE ATT&CK^® Matrix for Enterprise
  25. I've Dealt With Foreign Cyberattacks. America Isn't Ready for What's Coming by Glenn S. Gerstell, The New York Times, March 4, 2022
  26. Electromagnetic Pulse Shielding Mitigations: Best Practices for Protection of Mission Critical Equipment, Department of Homeland Security, August 2022
  27. A Conversation on Cybersecurity with NSA's Rob Joyce, CSIS, April 11, 2023
      [W]e have intelligence capabilities that are vital to the defense of cyberspace. Industry owns and operates most of the digital landscape, and if we can't figure out how to take the things we understand from that foreign intelligence mission, reaching into adversary space, and pulling down threats, tools, tradecraft, and information about those operations, and get them to the people who could do something about it, were not very effective, right? So its no good if we know something, if we don't do something about it.

      [W]e're seeking mid-career people looking to come to, one, the stability, but two, also the opportunity to come into the intel community.

  28. Automated Behavioral Analysis of Malware: A Case Study of WannaCry Ransomware by Q. Chen and R. A. Bridges, 2017 16th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), Cancun, Mexico, 2017, pp. 454-460.

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• Open Source Software
  

  1. What is open source? Opensource.com
     This article defines open source software, compares it to propietary software, and discusses licensing of it. It also explains its importance, the reasons programmers choose to use it, and that does not imply that software applications that use open sources software is always free. Finally, it describes the open source philosophy of sharing.
  2. In January, the EU starts running Bug Bounties on Free and Open Source Software, by Julia Reda, January 20, 2019
  3. The NSA Makes Ghidra, a Powerful Cybersecurity Tool, Open Source by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, March 5, 2019.
     Ghidra is a tool for the reverse engineering of compiled software. "Reverse engineering is a crucial process for malware analysts and threat intelligence researchers."
  4. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
     "The Internet Engineering Task Force is the premier Internet standards body, developing open standards through open processes."
  5. The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
     "The World Wide Web Consortium is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web."
  6. Inside the Government's Quest to Safely Use Open-Source Code by Jack Corrigan, Defense One, May 23, 2019
     This is a good article on open source software. Here are some excerpts: "Researchers ... estimate 80 to 90 percent of every modern application is comprised of open source components. But despite its efficiency, open source development could also pose serious cybersecurity issues." Fixing bugs in software that contains open source components is very challenging primarily because software engineers generalely do not retain, what is called, a "software bill of materials (SBoM)." Good cybersecurity policy argues for retention of a SBoM for each application.
  7. Ex-Windows chief: Here's why Microsoft waged war on open source by Liam Tung, ZDNet, May 26, 2020
     Former Windows Division chief Steven Sinofsky has offered some context and a defense for Microsoft's war on open source in the 1990s and early 2000s.
  8. Readout of White House Meeting on Software Security, January 13, 2022
     Note: Attendees endorsed the use of Software Bills of Material (SBOM) when developing software.
  9. Move Over JARVIS, Meet OSCAR: Open-Source, Cloud-Based, AI-Enabled Reporting for the Intelligence Community, Emily Harding, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2022
  10. Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices for Managing Open-Source Software and Software Bill of Materials, Enduring Security Framework, December 2023
      The National Security Agency (NSA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) developed this document in furtherance of their respective cybersecurity missions, including their responsibility to develop and issue cybersecurity recommendations and mitigation strategies. This information may be shared broadly to reach all appropriate stakeholders.

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• Counterintelligence
  

  1. China Set Traps To Capture Dangerous NSA Cyberattack Weapons: New Report by Zak Doffman, Forbes, September 5, 2019
  2. Release of Ukraine Intelligence Represents New Front in U.S. Information War With Russia: To fight Kremlin, Biden authorized initiative to declassify and share information with the public and allies by Warren P. Strobel, The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2022

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• Bug Bounty Programs
  

  1. 10 Essential Bug Bounty Programs of 2017, by David Bisson, Tripwire, September 3, 2017
  2. In January, the EU starts running Bug Bounties on Free and Open Source Software, by Julia Reda, January 20, 2019

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• General Defensive Measures
  

  1. 'Crypto Anchors' Might Stop The Next Equifax-Style Megabreach by Andy Greenberg, Wired, October 11, 2017
  2. Avoiding Phishing Attacks, National Cyber Security Centre, GCHQ, October 11, 2017
  3. Banks Build Line of Defense for Doomsday Cyberattack by Telis Demos, The New York Times, December 3, 2017
  4. Google Releases Tool To Help iPhone Hackers: Google's elite team of hackers released a much-anticipated tool to help security researchers hack and jailbreak the iPhone by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Motherboard, December 11, 2017
  5. Computers Have Found a Better Way to Spot Emailed Malware, Researchers Say by Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, July 23, 2018
  6. DHS Creates Cyber Risk Center to Protect High-Value Targets by Joseph Marks, Defense One, August 1, 2018
  7. Joint report on publicly available hacking tools, published by National Cyber Security Centre, a part of GCHQ, UK, 2018
     "In [this report] we highlight the use of five publicly-available tools, which have been used for malicious purposes in recent cyber incidents around the world. To aid the work of network defenders and systems administrators, we also provide advice on limiting the effectiveness of these tools and detecting their use on a network."
  8. An Interview with David Brin on Resiliency: Many risks of catastrophic failures of critical infrastructures can be significantly reduced by relatively simple measures to increase resiliency. by Peter J. Denning, CACM, June 2019
     Brin explains that (a) a simple P2P ad hoc network can be created with cell phones when cell tower services are not available, (b) local electrical service can be provided when the electrical grid is down, (c) electronics can be protected against the EMP threat, (d) smartphones can be converted to smart environmental sensors and generally improve national resiliency, and (e) how citizens can be protected from excessive surveillance via transparency.
  9. SANS 2018 Threat Hunting Survey Results by Robert M. Lee and Rob T. Lee, SANS, September 2018

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• Active Defense and Hacking Back

  1. DoD Cyber Strategy, US Department of Defense, 2018
     Our focus will be on the States that can pose strategic threats to U.S. prosperity and security, particularly China and Russia. We will conduct cyberspace operations to collect intelligence and prepare military cyber capabilities to be used in the event of crisis or conflict. We will defend forward to disrupt or halt malicious cyber activity at its source, including activity that falls below the level of armed conflict. We will strengthen the security and resilience of networks and systems that contribute to current and future U.S. military advantages.
  2. Into the Gray Zone: The Private Sector and Active Defense against Cyber Threats, Center for Cyber & Homeland Security, The George Washington University, October 2016
  3. Hack-back in the Real World, posted on Thoughts on Security by Matt Weeks, August 2017
  4. DoD Cyber Strategy, Summary, US Department of Defense, 2018
  5. Active Cyber Defence - One Year On by Dr. Ian Levy, Technical Director, UK National Cyber Security Centre, February 5, 2018
  6. Evaluating the U.K.'s 'Active Cyber Defence' Program by Stuart Russell and Nadiya Kostyuk, Lawfare, February 14, 2018
  7. The Digital Vigilantes Who Hack Back, by Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker, May 7, 2018
  8. Active Defense and Hacking Back: A Primer by Scott Berinato, Harvard Business Review, May 21, 2018
     This interesting article explores types of active defense that are considered acceptable and unacceptable.
  9. Instead of Hacking Back, U.S. Companies Should Let Cyber Command Do It for Them, blog post by Robert K. Knake, Council on Foreign Relations, May 30, 2018
  10. (Opinion) The U.S. needs to think about the unthinkable on cybersecurity by Stewart Baker, The Washington Post, August 21, 2018
  11. The Implications of Defending Forward in the New Pentagon Cyber Strategy by Ben Buchanan, Blog Post, Council on Foreign Relations, September 25, 2018
  12. Pentagon launches first cyber operation to deter Russian interference in midterm elections by Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, October 23, 2018
  13. U.S. Begins First Cyberoperation Against Russia Aimed at Protecting Elections by Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times, October 23, 2018
  14. The U.S. military is quietly launching efforts to deter Russian meddling by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, February 7, 2019
      The head of Cyber Command, General Nakasone, says that the US is responding to Russian influence operations by "defending forward."
  15. (Opinion) The Mueller report won't fix the problem underlying it all by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, March 21, 2019
      "U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency have already gone on the offensive against Moscow. Last fall, their joint Russia Small Group secretly 'hacked back' ... against Russia's Internet Research Agency. ... But, Chertoff cautioned in an interview, 'Don't try this at home.'"
  16. US Cyber Command Signals More Aggressive Approach Involving Persistent Engagement Ahead of 2020 Election by Nicole Lindsey, CPO Magazine, September 16, 2019
  17. Here's how Cyber Command is using 'defend forward' by Mark Pomerleau, FithDomain, November 9, 2019
      [W]e have a chance to see what our adversaries are doing in cyberspace because we now have the authority under the National Defense Authorization Act 2019 to operate outside the DoD networks to help our allies defend ... inside their networks. ... This is what [DoD] calls 'defending forward.'
  18. When cybercrime and nation-state warfare collide by Marcus Fowler, ITProPortal, May 4, 2020
  19. Defense Primer: Cyberspace Operations, Congressional Research Service, January 14, 2020
  20. (Opinion) Accuse, Evict, Repeat: Why Punishing China and Russia for Cyberattacks Fails by David Sanger, The New York Times, July 22, 2020

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• Intelligence Agencies

  1. Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: Why U.S. Intelligence Agencies Must Adapt or Fail by Amy Zegart and Michael Morell, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2019 Issue
  2. The Ghost Protocol, The Council on Foreign Relations, May 31, 2019
     "In an open letter to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), over forty signatories criticized the UK security agency's proposal to access encrypted messages."
  3. Senate Intel Releases New Report on Intel Community Assessment of Russian Interference, Press Release, April 21, 2020
  4. (Opinion) Two Ways to Stop Secrecy from Undermining US National Security by McDaniel Wicker, DefenseOne, June 16, 2020
  5. The Declining Market for Secrets: U.S. Spy Agencies Must Adapt to and Open-Source World by Zachery Tyson Brown and Carmen A. Medina, Foreign Affairs, March 9, 2021
  6. American Spy Agencies Are Struggling in the Age of Data: Massive amounts of data are revolutionizing the work of intelligence — and not necessarily in a good way, by Amy Zegart, Wired, February 2, 2022
  7. Why the U.S. is enlisting a spy agency during hurricanes: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency usually monitors Iranian protests and North Korean missiles. It'a now helping find hurricane victims, too. by Michael Birnbaum, The Washington Post, January 2, 2023
  8. The Next Wave (TNW) is a journal discussing the research and technological innovation taking place at the NSA.

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• Open Source Intelligence

  1. What Is Open Source Intelligence and How Is it Used? by The Recorded Future Team, February 19, 2022, Recorded Future
  2. Spies Like Us; The Promise and Peril of Crowdsourced Intelligence by Amy Zegart, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021, a review of the book We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News by Eliot Higgins, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021
     On January 6, throngs of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump rampaged through the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to derail Congress's certification of the 2020 presidential election results. ... It was the first attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812 and the first violent transfer of presidential power in American history. ... Only a handful of the rioters were arrested immediately. Most simply left the Capitol complex and disappeared into the streets of Washington. But they did not get away for long. ... Amateur sleuths immediately took to Twitter, self-organizing to help law enforcement agencies identify and charge the rioters. Their investigation was impromptu, not orchestrated, and open to anyone, not just experts. Participants didn't need a badge or a security clearancbejust an Internet connection. Within hours, this crowd-sourcing effort had collected hundreds of videos and photographs before rioters could delete them or social media platforms started taking them down. ... By March, the volunteer community of amateur investigators had sent some 270,000 digital tips to the FBI; hundreds of suspects have now been arrested and charged.
  3. Bellingcat is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British citizen journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site's contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies .(See this Wikipedia website.)

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• Command Vision for US Cyber Operations

  1. Achieve and Maintain Cyberspace Superiority, Cyber Command, 2018
  2. Triggering the New Forever War, in Cyberspace by Jason Healey, Cipher, April 1, 2018
  3. Pentagon Puts Cyberwarriors on the Offensive, Increasing the Risk of Conflict by David Sanger, The New York Times, June 17, 2018
     "Another Pentagon document, dated May 2017, provides a legal basis for attacking nuclear missiles on the launchpad using 'nonkinetic options'".
  4. A Cyber Force for Persistent Operations by Paul M. Nakasone, Joint Force Quarterly 92, January 22, 2019
     U.S. Cyber Command ... has evolved from a 'response force' to a 'persistence force' ... A persistence force has a much higher chance of disrupting adversary plots and protecting Americans, compared with a force that is confined to sporadic reconnaissance. ... Activities and operations in, through, and from cyberspace now offer states the means to augment their power, degrade or usurp the power of others, and gain strategic advantage through competition without triggering armed conflict ... We must 'defend forward' in cyberspace, as we do in the physical domains. ... Strategic effects in cyberspace come from the use — not the mere possession — of cyber capabilities to gain the initiative over those who mean us harm. ... Its purpose is to limit the terrain over which the enemy can gain influence or control. We cannot afford to let adversaries breach our networks, systems, and data (intellectual property and personally identifiable information).
  5. Through Persistent Engagement, the U.S. Can Influence 'Agreed Competition' by Michael P. Fischerkeller, Richard J. Harknett, Lawfare, April 15, 2019
  6. Persistent Engagement: Foundation, Evolution and Evaluation of a Strategy by Jacquelyn G. Schneider, Lawfare, May 10, 2019
  7. US Weapons Systems Are Easy Cyberattack Targets, New Report Finds by Emily Drefuss, August 10, 2018
     "[A] new report from the US Government Accountability Office finds that the Department of Defense remains in denial about cybersecurity threats to its weapons systems."
  8. In Cyberwar, There Are No Rules: Why the world desperately needs digital Geneva Conventions by Tara Wheeler, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2018
     This article mentions various types of cyberattack including against aircraft.
  9. Sen. Ben Sasse warns of cyber war with China By Mark Moore, The New York Post, September 15, 2019
     GOP Sen. Ben Sasse warned of a doomsday scenario in which China wipes out US satellites to cripple the military's GPS and communications systems in a cyber war that takes place in outer space.
  10. How Lockheed Martin Is Trying To Link Everything on the Battlefield by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, November 17, 2019
  11. War on Autopilot? It Will Be Harder Than the Pentagon Thinks by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, February 12, 2020
      The DoD's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which would integrate all US military aircraft, ships, vehicles and soldiers in the field, has been severely critized by the Government Accountability Office.
  12. New Satellites Will Be a Big Step in the Pentagon's Plan to Link Everything by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, April 3, 2020
      A new 'transport layer' constellation will help distribute tactical data — but won't have defenses to anti-statellite weapons.
  13. The Pentagon Will Use AI to Predict Panic Buying, COVID-19 Hotspots by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, April 22, 2020
  14. How to Compete in Cyberspace: Cyber Commands's New Approach by Paul M. Nakason and Michael Sulmeyer, Foreign Affairs, August 25, 2020.
  15. US targets Russian disinformation in bid to defend Ukraine by Laura Kelly, The Hill, January 29, 2022
      [Jessica] Brandt [of the Brookings Institution] added that calling out possible sabotage operations [in advance] — such as the alleged false flag operation and 'pro-Russian' government plot — can make 'it impossible for, or at least considerably harder, for the Kremlin to carry out that plot with a straight face.' `
  16. What It Means that the U.S. Is Conducting Offensive Cyber Operations Against Russia: Gen. Paul Nakasone's remarks this month about offensive operations against Russia caused a stir. But have people misinterpreted his words? by Kim Zetter, Zero Day, June 17, 2022.

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• Information Sharing Organizations
  

  1. Global Cyber Alliance
     The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to eradicating cyber risk and improving our connected world.
  2. Cybersecurity Tech Accord
     The Cybersecurity Tech Accord is a public commitment among more than 60 global companies to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace.
  3. National Council of ISACs
     "Sector-based Information Sharing and Analysis Centers collaborate with each other via the National Council of ISACs."
  4. Center for Internet Security (CIS®)
     "CIS® is a forward-thinking, non-profit entity that harnesses the power of a global IT community to safeguard private and public organizations against cyber threats."
     "The CIS Controls™ and CIS Benchmarks™ are the global standard and recognized best practices for securing IT systems and data against the most pervasive attacks. These proven guidelines are continuously refined and verified by a volunteer, global community of experienced IT professionals."
     "Our CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine emulations preconfigured to provide secure, on-demand, and scalable computing environments in the cloud."
     "CIS is home to both the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center® (MS-ISAC®), the go-to resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, response, and recovery for U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial government entities, and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center™ (EI-ISAC™), which supports the Industrial Control System Information Sharing and Analysis Center"
  5. Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA)
     "The CTA is a not-for-profit organization that is working to improve the cybersecurity of our global digital ecosystem by enabling near real-time, high-quality cyber threat information sharing among companies and organizations in the cybersecurity field." See for example: Top cybersecurity companies are pooling their intel to stop cyberattacks by Joseph Marks, The Washington Post, May 23, 2019
  6. Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center
     The Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) gathers and analyzes security data, shares appropriate data with stakeholders, coordinates incident management, and communicates mitigation strategies with stakeholders.
  7. CyberPeace Institute
     The goals of this institute are to a) understand the impact of cyberattacks, b) work to develop rules for proper conduct in cyberspace, and c) to help the most vulnerable victims of cyberattacks become more resilient.
  8. Dreamport
     DreamPort is a combination of state-of-the-art facilities, innovative programs, and imaginative people charged with finding that spark that leads to unparalleled capability for USCYBERCOM and the warfighters at large.

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• Cyber Insurance
  

  1. Business Blackout: The insurance implications of a cyber attack on the US power grid, Emerging Risk Report, Lloyd's and Cambridge University Business School, 2015
     "The total impact to the US economy is estimated at $243bn, rising to more than $1trn in the most extreme version of the scenario."
  2. Systemic Risk and Cyber Insurance, EastWest Institute, 2018
  3. Marsh Partners with Insurers on Program to Help Firms Pick Best Cybersecurity Products by Andrew G. Simpson, Insurance Journal, March 27, 2019
  4. Big Companies Thought Insurance Covered a Cyberattack. They May Be Wrong. by Adam Satariano and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, April 15, 2019
     This article not only summarizes the NotPetya 2017 attack, it says that insurance companies are invoking the "war exclusion" clause in insurance contracts to avoid compensating clients for losses from cyber incidents.
  5. The Economic Cost of Cyber Risk, Chris Nolan and Annie Fixler, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, June 28, 2021.
     This memo prescribes enhanced corporate disclosures related to risk controls, cyber breaches, and vulnerabilities to improve the quality of information available to regulators and investors. Market forces can then incentivize corporate stakeholders to improve their company's resilience and security. The goal is to minimize the likelihood of cyber breaches on the scale of SolarWinds — or worse — in the future.

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• Making Security Sustainable
  

  1. Making Security Sustainable by Ross Anderson, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 61 No. 3, Pages 24-26, 2018
     The widespread adoption of computerization imposes new safety and security requirements on software development.

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• Botnets
  

  1. Expert: IoT Botnets the Work of a 'Vast Majority' by KrebsonSecurity, January 18, 2018
  2. To Get to Zero Botnets, Don't Wait for Governments to Lead by Robert Knake, The Council on Foreign Relations, November 26, 2018

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• Cloud-Based Security
  

  1. (Opinion) Interview with Dmitri Alperovitch, Crowdstrike, and Barry Russell, Amazon Web Services, 2018
  2. Securing the Public Cloud: Seven Best Practices, Sophos, June 2019 <
  3. Partnership on AI
     "Established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public's understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society."

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• Credential Spills
  

  1. 2018 Credential Spill Report, Shape Security, 2018
     Credentials are username-password combinations. A credential spill is the use of stolen credentials to break into a website.

• Coronavirus Pandemic Response
  

  1. How Hackers and Spies Could Sabotage the Coronavirus Fight by Bruce Schneier and Margaret Bourdeaux, Foreign Policy, February 28, 2020
     Intelligence services have a long history of manipulating information on health issues, and an epidemic is especially tempting for interference. Why aren't we better prepared?
  2. The Spies Who Predicted COVID-19 by Kent Harrington, Project Syndicate, Apr 16, 2020
  3. US policymakers knew a pandemic was coming: Why they ignored the warnings by Mathew J. Burrows, New Atlanticist, April 28, 2020
     [C]hallenges presenting themselves today are increasingly fast-moving and complex: they involve concurrent interactions among events across multiple dimensions of governance; they have no regard for our customary jurisdictional and bureaucratic boundaries; they cannot be broken apart and solved piece by piece; and rather than stabilizing into permanent solutions, they morph into new problems that have to be continually managed. This pattern profoundly challenges the adaptive capacity of our legacy systems of government, which are essentially modeled on the early industrial period: vertical, hierarchical, segmented, mechanical, and sluggish. Our 19th-century government is simply not built for the nature of 21st-century challenges.
  4. The Cybersecurity 202: Security pros form alliance to help hospitals facing hacking threats during pandemic by Joseph Marks, The Washington Post, May 4, 2020
  5. Amid COVID-Related Cyber Threats, the Netherlands Leads UN Efforts by Josh Gold, Council on Foreign Relations, May 4, 2020
     In light of growing concern about malicious cyber disruption during the COVID-19 outbreak, the United Nations' Open-Ended Working Group should play a leading role in further developing a global framework to ensure responsible behavior in cyberspace.

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Policy Issues

• Charter of the United Nations
• Political Science Analysis
• Cyberspace Solarium Commission
• Emerging Military Technologies
• Cybersecurity Policy
• Techno-Nationalism
• Policy Recommendations
• Reflections on Norms
• UN GGE & OEWG Cyber Norms Discussions
• Cyber Norms In General
• Internet Governance
• Digital Cooperation
• Multistakeholder Governance
• US & UK Government Policy Reports
• Commentary on Cybersecurity Moonshot
• Encryption Policy
• Net Neutrality
• Cyber Regulation
• Ethics in CS, Engineering and Law
• Software Vulnerability Disclosure
• Surveillance and Accountability
• Grand Strategy
• US Pol-Military Policy
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• Charter of the United Nations
  

  1. Charter of the United Nations

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• Political Science Analysis
  

  1. The Precautionary Principle
  2. The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War? by Graham Allison, The Atlantic, September 24, 2015
  3. Why Cyber Conflict as an Academic Discipline Struggles to Make Its Mark in Political Science by Melissa K. Griffith, Blog Post, The Council on Foreign Relations, September 6, 2018
     It is easy to draw analogies between early nuclear scholarship and its cyber counterpart. However, three factors make scholarly research about cyber conflict a significantly more challenging task.
  4. Cyber Conflict as an Academic Discipline: It's Not All Doom-and-Gloom, by Jamie Collier and Monica Kaminska, Blog Post, The Council on Foreign Relations, September 18, 2018
     Although there are challenges facing the study of cyber conflict, they are not insurmountable.
  5. The Pentagon's New Cyber Strategy: Defend Forward by Dave Weinstein, Lawfare, September 21, 2018
  6. The Dictator's Last Stand: Why the Autocrats Are Weaker Than They Look by Yascha Mounk, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019
     It has been a good decade for dictatorship ... [and] a terrible decade for democracy. ...

     In 2014, I suggested in these pages that a rising tide of populist parties and candidates could inflict serious damage on democratic institutions. At the time, my argument was widely contested. ... Today, that old consensus is dead. ... The controversial argument I made five years ago has become the conventional wisdom. But this new consensus is now in danger of hardening into an equally misguided orthodoxy. ... [T]his narrative overlooks a crucial factor: the legitimacy of populist dictators depends on their ability to maintain the illusion that they speak for 'the people.' And the more power these leaders concentrate in their own hands, the less plausible that pretense appears. ...

     Recently, a series of writers have suggested that the rise of digital technology will skew this competition in favor of popular discontent. ... This argument, however, fails to take into account the differences in how dictatorships and democracies wield power. Whereas dictatorships are capable of using all the resources of a modern state to quash a popular insurgency, democracies are committed to fighting their opponents with one hand tied behind their back. ... This imbalance raises the prospect of a dark future in which digital technology allows extremist networks to vanquish moderate hierarchies. ... It is too early to conclude that the populist dictatorships that have arisen in many parts of the world in recent years will be able to sustain themselves in power forever. ...

     And so the best way to fight demagogues with authoritarian ambitions remains what it has always been: to defeat them at the ballot box before they ever step foot in the halls of power.

  7. How China Rode the Foreign Technology Wave by Stephen Brent, The American Interest, October 10, 2019
     In this brilliant article the author explains that the secret of China's astounding success is due to foreign technology ... provided by American companies operating in China [and] U.S. universities educating Chinese students [as well as] China's aggressive pursuit of intellectual property and cyber theft.
  8. Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal: In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong. by Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods, The Atlantic, April 27, 2020.
  9. Beyond Trade: The Confrontation Between the U.S. and China by Graham Allison, Security Times, February 2020
     Could China and the US be stumbling down the path Germany and the United Kingdom took at the beginning of the last century? ... My answer to the question of whether we are sleepwalking toward war is 'yes.'
  10. China Is a Declining Power — and That's The Problem by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley, Foreign Policy, September 24, 2021
      The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite. (Because it's power has peaked.)

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• Cyberspace Solarium Commission
  

  1. Cyberspace Solarium Commission Overview, Senator Ben Sasse
     The Commision, sponsored by Senator Sasse, was created by the 2019 John McCain National Defense Authorization Act.
  2. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission: A Timely Proposal by Robert Chesney, Lawfare, June 20, 2018
  3. Washington Needs a New Solarium Project To Counter Cyberthreats by Peter Feavers and Will Inboden, Foreign Policy, June 26, 2018
     President Eisenhower confronted the unprecedented nuclear threat of the 1950s with a novel exercise [Project Solarium]. The United States needs a similar approach to tackle today's cyber threats.
  4. The US cyberspace commission is taking shape ... slowly by Brandon Knapp, FifthDomain, September 27, 2018
     The Cyberspace Solarium Commission, modeled after President Eisenhower's Project Solarium, was established by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019. The purpose of the commission, according to the legislation, is "to develop a consensus on a strategic approach to defending the United States in cyberspace against cyberattacks of significant consequences."
  5. Announcing the Cyberspace Solarium Commission by Senator Angus King and Representative Mike Gallagher, Lawfare, August 19, 2019
     The world is facing a new era of technological ubiquity. ... Unfortunately, U.S. politics, laws and national security policy have not kept up with both the risks and the opportunities stemming from the dynamism of technological change. ... This new Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which we are co-chairing, draws inspiration from Eisenhower's historical legacy, [the Solarium Project]. ... [T]his bipartisan, intergovernmental and multisector body is charged with evaluating divergent approaches to defending the United States in cyberspace and driving consensus toward a comprehensive strategy.
  6. How the executive branch shaped the Cyber Solarium Commission by Andrew Everdsen, Fifth Domain, February 26, 2020
  7. U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission Report, Senator Angus King and Representative Mike Gallagher, Co-Chairmen, March 2020
  8. U.S. Lacks Key Abilities to Avert Cyberattacks, Commission Says: Report calls for drastic overhaul of the federal government to address cyber threats by Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2020
     The U.S. government needs to adopt structural changes not seen since the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks to confront proliferating cyber threats that increasingly endanger national and economic security, a government commission has concluded.
  9. U.S. Lacks Key Abilities to Avert Cyberattacks, Commission Says: Report calls for drastic overhaul of the federal government to address cyber threats by Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2020
     The U.S. government needs to adopt structural changes not seen since the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks to confront proliferating cyber threats that increasingly endanger national and economic security, a government commission has concluded.
  10. Legislative Proposals, U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, Senator Angus King and Representative Mike Gallagher, Co-Chairmen, March 2020
  11. Defend Forward as a Whole-of-Nation Effort by Erica D. Borghard and Mark Montgomery, Lawfare, March 11, 2020
  12. Deterrence by Denial: The Missing Element of U.S. Cyber Strategy by Robert Morgus, John Costello, Charles Garzoni, Michael Garcia, Lawfare, March 11, 2020
      To be effective, deterrence by denial must make the cost of aggression 'unprofitable by rendering the target harder to take, harder to keep, or both.'
  13. What's Ahead in the Cyber Norms Debate? by Elaine Korzak, Lawfare, March 16, 2020
  14. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission Report: A Lawfare Series
      After a year's worth of intensive work, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission today issues its full report. Lawfare is hosting a series of posts exploring the commission's highlights ... .
  15. Did The Cyberspace Solarium Commission Live Up To Its Name? by Joshua Rovner, War on the Rocks, March 19, 2020
  16. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission Report and Persistent Engagement by Michael P. Fischerkeller, Lawfare, March 23, 2020
  17. The Cyberspace Solarium Commission on Norms by Sang Lee, Ainsley Katz, Karrie Jefferson, Val Cofield, and Laura Bate, Blog Post, Council on Foreign Relations, April 16, 2020
  18. U.S. Cyber Command's Malware Inoculation: Linking Offense and Defense in Cyberspace by Erica D. Borghard and Shawn W. Lonergan, Council on Foreign Relations, April 22, 2020 'Defend Forward' is frequently misunderstood to be purely offensive in nature. However, U.S. Cyber Command's malware inoculation initiative illustrates how the strategy also serves defensive objectives.
  19. Reexamining the Solarium Commission's Proposal for a National Cyber Director by Mieke Eoyang and Anisha Hindocha, Lawfare, May 21, 2020
  20. Cybersecurity Lessons from the Pandemic: CSC White Paper #1, Cyberspace Solarium Commission, May 2020.
      This report adds four new recommendations to the more than 30 original recommendations.
  21. Persistent Vulnerabilities: Strengthening Cybersecurity Requirements for the Department of Defense by Erica D. Borghard and Madison Creery, Council on Foreign Relations, June 17, 2020
      Cyber vulnerabilities in major weapons platforms pose a significant threat to U.S. national security. Developing a comprehensive evaluation process is essential to ensuring the security and resilience of the technologies that underpin U.S. deterrence and warfighting.
  22. How Biden's 'Dream Team' Was Undone by Internal Strife: National Cyber Director Chris Inglis resigned primarily due to clashes with another top official, according to people familiar and correspondence by William Turton and Katrina Manson, Bloomberg, April 3, 2023

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• Emerging Military Technologies
  

  1. (Opinion) The Role of Emerging Technologies in Military Conflicts by Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Inter Press Service News Agency, October 10, 2019
     Throughout history, technology has transformed armed conflict. The carnage of First World War battlefields is a stark example of what happens when advances in weaponry outpace the normative frameworks around its use. ... Today, we are experiencing a technological revolution that holds incredible promise for human development and welfare. From genome editing to quantum computing and artificial intelligence, emerging technologies offer us powerful new ways to achieve our shared commitments, including the Sustainable Development Goals.
  2. War on Autopilot? It Will Be Harder Than the Pentagon Thinks by Patric Tucker, DefenseOne, February 12, 2020
     [M]ilitary officials detail their ... efforts to link up jets, tanks, ships, and soldiers.

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• Cybersecurity Policy
  

  1. UNIDIR Cyber Policy Portal
     This site contains a compilation of national cyber policies, national organizations supporting these policies, national legal frameworks, and cooperative entities with which nations are affiliated.
     This portal was created by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)
  2. Cyber Analogies by Emily O. Goldman and John Arquilla (Eds.), Naval Postgraduate School, February 28, 2014.
     This anthology of cyber analogies will resonate with readers whose duties call for them to set strategies to protect the virtual domain and determine the policies that govern it. Our belief is that learning is most effective when the concepts under consideration can be aligned with already-existing understanding or knowledge.
  3. The right to privacy in the digital age, Resolution A/RES/71/199 adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2016
  4. Year in Review: The Trump Administration Disrupts U.S. Cyber Diplomacy by David P. Fidler, Council on Foreign Relations, December 18, 2017
  5. The Failure of Internet Freedom by Jack Goldsmith, The Knight First Amendment Institute, Columbia University, 2018
  6. Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect, and States by James Andrews Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 9, 2018
  7. How to tame the tech titans: The dominance of Google, Facebook and Amazon is bad for consumers and competition, The Economist, January 18, 2018
  8. Getting the International Development Community to Care About Cybersecurity blogpost by Robert Morgus, The Council on Foreign Relations, May 7, 2018
  9. How Europe Can Promote a Free and Open Internet, a Council on Foreign Relations blog post by Thorsten Benner and Mirko Hohmann, June 27, 2018
  10. The Kaljarund Commission: Building Bridges Over Troubled Cyber-Water by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, CircleID, December 2, 2017
  11. What Alexander Hamilton Can Teach Us About Cyber Policy by by Jessica Malekos Smith, Defense One, July 21, 2018
  12. IN CYBERWAR, THERE ARE NO RULES: Why the world desperately needs digital Geneva Conventions by Tara Wheeler, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2018
  13. Year in Review: The Year of Data Protection by Lorand Laskai, Blogpost, The Council on Foreign Relations, January 8, 2019
      2018 was the year that a handful of countries got serious about protecting users' data.
  14. The zero-day war? How cyber is reshaping the future of the most combustible conflicts by Simon Handler, The New Atlanticist, October 28, 2019
      [R]ecent history has shown that states have more often availed themselves of their offensive cyber arsenals to achieve surprisingly de-escalatory effects.
  15. Advancing Cyberstability: Final Report, Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, November 2019
  16. The Case for a Mostly Open Internet by Michael McLaughlin and Daniel Castro, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, December 16, 2019
      Policymakers should seek to maximize the benefits of Internet openness while maintaining carefully designed guardrails that reduce the Internet's most clearly harmful uses.
      This ar governments to limit access to the Internet and the consequences.
  17. Why more research is needed to craft good cyber policy by Mark Pomerleau, Fifth Domain, February 13, 2020
      If anything, cyber operations proved to be a de-escalation mechanism. It was a way that players opted to try to manage complex interactions underneath the threat of escalation.
      The report cited here is What Do We Know About Cyber Escalation? Observations From Simulations And Surveys by Benjamin Jensen and Brandon Valeriano, Atlantic Council, November 2019.
  18. The Emergence of Cyber Diplomacy in an Increasingly Post-Liberal Cyberspace by Andre Barrinha and Thomas Renard, Blogpost, The Council on Foreign Relations, June 10, 2020
      The power relations, values, and institutions that governed cyberspace since its initial development in the 1960s are being challenged by those that did not have a say in how it was structured. As conflicting visions for the future of the global internet inevitably collide, cyber diplomats will have to negotiate these difficult choices.
      This article describes several important Chinese initiatives designed to replace existing Internet protocols, dubbed New IP, rewrite the Cybercrime Convention, and engage in serious cyber diplomacy.
  19. Alliance Power for Cybersecurity by Kenneth Geers, The Atlantic Council, August 2020
  20. National Cybersecurity Strategy Implementation Plan, Version 2, The White House, May 2024

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• Techno-Nationalism
  

  1. (Opinion) There May Soon Be Three Internets. America's Won't Necessarily Be the Best by The Editorial Board, The New York Times, October 15, 2018
     A breakup of the web grants privacy, security and freedom to some, and not so much to others.
  2. Techno-Nationalism vs. the Fourth Industrial Revolution by Robert A. Manning, GlobalAsia, March 28, 2019
     There is a clear global trend toward techno-nationalism (as opposed to techno-globalism), a set of industrial policies aimed at self-sufficiency, cultivating 'national champions' in tech sectors while curbing foreign competition just as a new era of advanced technology is unfolding.
     The technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, namely, big data, machine learning, robotics, autonomous vehicles, biotech, additive manufacturing, quantum computing, 5G wireless, and others, are driving disruptive growth. Beijing's Made in China 2025 plan and recent US trade and investment policies threaten to turn nations toward autarchy.
     We are at a pivotal moment not only for sustaining the world economic order, but for updating it, because there is a large deficit of rules/norms/standards for the suite of emerging technologies ... that will drive economic growth in the 2020s and 2030s.
  3. The US, China and 'Technology War' by Darren Lim, GlobalAsia, March 27, 2019
     High-end technologies are increasingly embedded within complex transnational supply chains, in which multiple countries contribute value toward the manufacturing of a final good. If the two major powers seek to exclude the other from participating in the physical manufacture of goods and services employing sensitive technologies ... the result will be the formation of parallel trade and investment networks. Physical separation could also beget social separation, through restrictions on educational exchanges, foreign PhD student enrollments, worker secondments and other forms of cross-national collaboration in research and development.
  4. How China's Policies Have Stifled Global Innovation by Robert Atkinson, Brink News, January 14, 2020
     This news article summarizes Atkinson's report published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
  5. Fear Not Technological Disengagement And Competition With China by Jack Bianchi, War on the Rocks, January 14, 2020
     Washington lacks defined peacetime competitive strategies that use latent national power to shape China's strategic behavior.

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• Policy Recommendations
  

  1. Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge by James Manyika and William H. McRaven, Independent Task Force No. 77, The Council on Foreign Relations, September 2019
     Addressing the challenge from China and other rising science powers requires an ambitious plan of national investment in science and technology.
  2. The C2 Consensus on IoT Device Security Baseline Capabilities, Report, Council to Secure the Digital Economy, 2019
  3. Research Collaboration in an Era of Strategic Competition by Stephanie Segal and Dylan Gerstel, CSIS, September 2019
     The following recommendations aim to balance openness with the need to protect national security and prioritize the need to invest in innovative capacity at home. ...
     1. Strengthen efforts to produce domestic STEM talent and retain foreign researchers. ...
     2. Develop a realistic inventory of global innovation leadership. ...
     3. Limit restrictions on collaboration only to those areas that pose an identified threat to national security. ...
     4. Standardize federal policy guidance to agencies and research institutions. ...
     5. Deepen processes to connect government and non-government stakeholders. ...
     6. Enhance efforts to enforce existing policies. ...
     7. Work with allies and partners in areas of highest concern.
  4. In the New Cold War, Deindustrialization Means Disarmament: Chinese security threats offer the chance to rethink the U.S. economy. by Jacob Helberg, Foreign Policy, August 12, 2020
  5. Global Strategy 2023: Winning the tech race with China By Peter Engelke and Emily Weinstein, The Atlantic Council, June 27, 2023.

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• Reflections on Norms
  

  1. Getting beyond Norms: New Approaches to International Cyber Security Challenges by Eileen Donahoe, Melissa Hathaway,James Andrew Lewis, Joseph S. Nye Jr., Eneken Tikk and Paul Twomey, Centre for International Governance Innovation, September 7, 2017
  2. (Opinion) People Can Savage Social Norms, but Also Revive Them: Individuals can change the way we see. by David Brooks, The New York Times, April 8, 2019
     Referring to a new book by Cass Sunstein entitled How Change Happens, Brooks says Sunstein "puts norms at the center of how we think of change." Brooks identifies five types of "norm-shifters," "namers," who make the invisible visible, "confrontationalists," who make disgraceful behavior unacceptable, "illuminators," who establish the credibility of new norms, "conveners," "who organize gatherings for those who want to shift some norm," and "celebrities," who use their reputations to publicize new norms.
  3. How Norms Change by Maria Konnikova, The New Yoker, October 11, 2017
  4. What Isn't a Norm? Redefining the Conceptual Boundaries of "Norms" in the Human Rights Literature by Michelle Jurkovich, International Relations Review, Vol. 0, 2019.

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• UN GGE & OEWG Cyber Norms Discussions
  

  1. Three UN committees, Government Groups of Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (UN GGE), produced unanimous recommendations in 2010, 2013 and 2015 that were endorsed by the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The following summary was published by DigitalWatch Observatory.
     • The 2015 UN GGE Report includes: (The 2015 norms are summarized here.)
       • Norms, rules, and principles on the responsible behaviour of States
       • Confidence-building measures
       • International cooperation and assistance in ICT security and capacity-building
       • How international law applies to the use of ICTs
     • The 2013 UN GGE Report includes:.
       • Recognition that international law, and in particular the UN Charter, applies to digital space
       • Norms, rules, and principles on the responsible behaviour of States
       • Reference that state sovereignty applies to the digital field
       • The principle that states must meet their international obligations regarding internationally wrongful acts in cyberspace attributable to them
     • The 2010 UN GGE Report includes:.
       • Futher dialogue among States to reduce the risk and protect critical national and international infrastructured
       • Confidence-building, stability and risk reduction measures
       • Information exchanges on national legislation and strategies, and capacity-building measures
       • The elaboration of common terms and definitions related to information security
  2. The 2017 UN GGE did not produce unanimous recommendations. The following are commentaries on this outcome.
     • Explanation of Position at the Conclusion of the 2016-2017 UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security by Michelle Markoff, U.S. State Department, June 23, 2017
     • International Cyber Law Politicized: The UN GGE's Failure to Advance Cyber Norms by Michael Schmitt and Liis Vihul, JustSecurity, June 30. 2017
       The authors summarize the history of decisions by the first four GGEs and comment on the failure to produce a report by the fifth.
     • The UN GGE Failed. Is International Law in Cyberspace Doomed As Well? by Arun M. Sukumar, Lawfare,July 4, 2017
     • The Development of Cyber Norms at the United Nations Ends in Deadlock. Now What?, a blog post by Adam Segal, The Council on Foreign Relations, June 29, 2017
       The author comments on outcome of the fifth GGE and discusses the origins of the WannaCry ransomware attack and the Petya/NotPetya attack, summarizes the set of agreements that China has signed with other nations "not to conduct cyber espionage for commercial gain against each other."
     • Dispute along cold war lines led to collapse of UN cyberwarfare talks: Thirteen years of negotiations came to an abrupt end in June, it has emerged, because of a row over the right to self-defence in the face of attacks by Owen Bowcott, The Guardian, August 23, 2017
     • The UN GGE is dead: Time to fall forward, Commentary by Stefan Soesanto and Fosca D'Incau, European Council on Foreign Relations, August 15, 2017
  3. Voluntary, Non-Binding Norms for Responsible State Behaviour in the Use of Information and Communications Technology: A Commentary, Civil Society and Disarmament, UNODA, 2017
  4. Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems at the First and Second U.N. GGE Meetings by Hayley Evans, Lawfare, April 9, 2018
  5. Private-Sector Initiatives for Cyber Norms: A Summary by Garrett Hinck, Lawfare, June 25, 2018
  6. U.S. Looks to Restart Talks on Global Cyber Norms by Sean Lyngaas, cyberscoop, October 1, 2018
  7. Peace or War in Cyberspace? by Prof. Alexander Zinchenko, moderndiplomacy, October 31, 2018
  8. A surprising turn of events: UN creates two working groups on cyberspace, CCDCOE, Estonia, March 11, 2019
  9. Joint Statement on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace, U.S. Department of State, September 23, 2019
  10. Cyber Governance Issues Take on High-Profile Status at the UN by Nicole Lindsey, CPO Magazine, October 14, 2019
      [T]he next two years are going to be absolutely fundamental to the future development of cyberspace. ... At the United Nations ... there are now two different groups[, the Government Group of Experts (GGE) and the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG),] that are vying for control over who gets to make the rules for cyberspace, and by extension, the rules for international peace and security.
  11. Playing with fire: Global offensive cyber operations by Anthony J. Ferrante, The Hill, October 28, 2019
      27 countries signed an agreement on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace. The statement can be found here.
  12. Unpacking the GGE's framework on responsible state behaviour: Cyber norms, by Anriette Esterhuysen, Deborah Brown and Sheetal Kumar, Global Partners Digital, December 19, 2019
      At the UN First Committee, two processes—the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) and the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG)—are currently exploring the same question: responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
  13. A New UN Cybercrime Treaty? The Way Forward for Supporters of an Open, Free, and Secure Internet by Joyce Hakmeh and Allison Peters, Council on Foreign Relations, January 13, 2020
      Last month, a Russian-led resolution on cybercrime that could pose challenges for countries that support a free and open model for the internet passed in the United Nations.
  14. A Cyberspace 'FIFA' to Set Rules of the Game? UN States Disagree at Second Meeting by Josh Gold, Council on Foreign Relations Blog, March 2, 2020
      [70] [c]ountry representatives gathered ... at the United Nations for the second formal meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on international cybersecurity. ... [T]wo particularly contentious issues stood out. Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Egypt—with some support from China—argued that the existing set of voluntary, non-binding norms ... endorsed ... in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 2015, are insufficient to ensure peace and security in cyberspace. [They said a] new treaty, convention, or ... 'legally-binding instrument,' is needed to hold wrongdoers accountable, and new norms are necessary to cover security issues that have been overlooked. ... Russia's representative ruefully asked the floor, 'if international law applies in cyberspace, why are foreign hackers electing the president of the United States?'
      The second much-discussed point of contention concerned offensive cyber operations and the (poorly defined) 'militarization' of cyberspace. Here, a number of states called for a ban on military cyber operations and offensive cyber capabilities—also in the form of a binding treaty. This again included Iran, Cuba, Russia, and China.
  15. Cyber Norms and the United Nations: Between Strategic Ambiguity and Rules of the Road by Dennis Broeders and Fabio Cristiano, Italian Institute for International Political Studies, April 2, 2020
  16. Intial 'Pre-Dratt' of the report of the OEWG on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security, draft report on international norms for cybersecurity from the UN's Open-Ended Working Group.

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• Cyber Norms in General
  

  1. A Digital Geneva Convention to protect cyberspace, Microsoft Policy Papers
  2. International Cybersecurity Norms, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  3. Cyber Norms Index, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
     This is "an interactive web tool that allows users to compare existing international language of standards of appropriate state behavior in cyberspace. This tool tracks important milestones in the development of information and communications technology norms."
  4. In Defense of Due Diligence in Cyberspace by Michael N. Schmitt, The Yale Law Journalo, June 22, 2015
  5. Stateless Attribution: Toward International Accountability in Cyberspace by John S. Davis II, Benjamin Boudreaux, Jonathan William Welburn, Jair Aguirre, Cordaye Ogletree, Geoffrey McGovern, Michael S. Chase, RAND, 2017
  6. G7 Ise-Shima Summit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, May 26-27, 2016
     The G7 Priniciples and Actions on Cyber, 2016
  7. Why we urgently need a Digital Geneva Convention, Oberver Research Foundation, December 29, 2017
  8. Microsoft calls for 'new Digital Geneva Convention' after spate of high-profile cyberattacks by Sam Meredith, CNBC, January 26, 2018
  9. Charter of Trust, signed at the Munich Security Conference on February 16, 2018
     • The Charter of Trust was signed by representatives from Siemens, Airbus, Allianz, Daimler Group, IBM, MSC, NXP, SGS, and Deutsche Telekom.
     • The goal is to increase trust in technology among individuals and organizations to boost efforts in digital transformation.
  10. Cybersecurity and the Concept of Norms by Martha Finnemore, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 30, 2017
      Professor Finnemore defines norms in the context of principles and laws and discusses the formulation of cybersecurity norms.
  11. Outlook on International Cyber Norms: Three Avenues for Future Progress by Tim Maurer and Kathryn Taylor, JustSecurity, March 2, 2018
  12. How Will New Cybersecurity Norms Develop? by Joseph S. Nye, Project Syndicate, March 8, 2018
  13. Inside the Information Society: Permissionless innovation and the precautionary principle by David Souter, Association for Progressive Communications, April 2, 2018
  14. Tech Firms Sign 'Digital Geneva Accord' Not to Aid Governments in Cyberwar by David Sanger, The New York Times, April 17, 2018
  15. Voluntary, Non-Binding Norms for Responsible State Behaviour in the Use of Information and Communications Technology — A Commentary, Civil Society and Disarmament, UNODA, 2017
  16. China, EU seize control of the world's cyber agenda: The U.S. guided global internet policy for decades. Now, the EU and China are taking the lead, by Eric Geller, POLITICO, July 22, 2018
  17. The UN GGE is dead: Time to fall forward, Commentary by Stefan Soesanto and Fosca D'Incau, European Council on Foreign Relations, August 15, 2017
  18. Norm Package Singapore, Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace, November, 2018
  19. Cybersecurity: Paris Call of 12 November 2018 for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, France Diplomatie.
  20. Microsoft sounds an alarm over facial recognition technology: How Chinese-style monitoring could come to the United States by Casey Newton, The Verge, December 7, 2018
  21. A New Old Threat: Countering the Return of Chinese Industrial Cyber Espionage by Lorand Laskai and Adam Segal, The Council on Foreign Relations, December 6, 2018
      "China is once again conducting cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property to advance its technological capabilities. To combat the problem, the United States should build a multinational coalition, sanction Chinese companies, and strengthen cyber defenses."
  22. 2018: The year that cyber peace became non-binding by Dr. Eneken Tikk, ICT4Peace, December 31, 2018
  23. The Cybersecurity 202: Microsoft chief urges Trump administration to stand with democracies in cyberspace by Joseph Marks, The Washington Post, January 25, 2019
      "Microsoft President Brad Smith has a message for the Trump administration: 2019 is the year for democracies to band together in cyberspace."
  24. Moving the needle on cyber norms by Derek B. Johnson, FCW, February 1, 2019
  25. (Opinion) People Can Savage Social Norms, but Also Revive Them: Individuals can change the way we see.
  26. Forty-two countries adopt new OECD Principles on Artificial Intelligence, OECD, May 22, 2019.
      The OECD report stating these principles can be found here.
  27. Time to Harden International Norms on Armed Drones by Wim Zwijnenburg, Defense One, September 21, 2019
  28. Online Content: To Regulate or Not To Regulate — Is that the Question? by Dr. Mathias Vermeulen, APC, September 2019
  29. Cyberspace and Geopolitics: Assessing Global Cybersecurity Norm Processes at a Crossroads by Christian Ruhl, Duncan Hollis, Wyatt Hoffman, and Tim Maurer, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2020
      [C]yber norms are at a crossroads where each process's potential (and problems) looms large.
  30. Norm-Skepticism in Cyberspace? Counter-factual and Counterproductive by Michael Schmitt, JustSecurity, February 28, 2020
      Prof. Schmitt provides an excellent summary of the development of cyber norms concluding that international law is alive and well in cyberspace. What's more, aggressive efforts to mature the global communityb s understanding of how international law applies to cyberspace are underway in multinational, national, multi-stakeholder, academic, and private sector fora.
  31. Defending Forward by Defending Norms by Laura Bate, Phoebe Benich, Val Cofield, Karrie Jefferson, Ainsley Katz, Sang Lee, Lawfare, March 11, 2020
  32. Cyberspace and Geopolitics: Assessing Global Cybersecurity Norm Pro cesses at a Crossroads by Christian Ruhl, Duncan Hollis, Wyatt Hoffman, and Tim Maurer, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2020

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• Internet Governance

  1. Internet governance and digital policy, Di PLO
     This website provides background material on Internet Governance.
  2. Internet Government Project
  3. Internet Governance Outlook 2020: The Next Generation of Players and Problems Is Coming by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, CircleID, January 7, 2020
  4. From Multilateral to Multistakeholder? New Developments in UN Processes on Cybersecurity by François Delerue and Elaine Korzak, The Council on Foreign Relations, January 27, 2020
     The United Nations hosted the first intersessional consultation session between UN member states and non-governmental actors interested in peace and security in cyberspace.

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• Digital Cooperation

  1. the age of digital interdependence, Report of the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Interdependence, 2019
     "The High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation was convened by the UN Secretary-General to advance global multi-stakeholder dialogue on how we can work better together to realize the potential of digital technologies for advancing human well-being while mitigating the risks." The report makes recommendations on the following topics:
     • Build an inclusive digital economy and society
     • Develop human and institutional capacity
     • Protect human rights and human agency
     • Promote digital trust, security and stability
     • Foster global digital cooperation
  2. An analytical summary of the Final Report of the UN High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation by Stephanie Borg, Diplo, June 14, 2019
     The author comments on the recommendations of the UN High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation.
  3. The UN Panel on Digital Cooperation: An Agenda for the 2020s by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, CircleID, June 13, 2019
     "The UN Panel on Digital Cooperation presented last week in New York its final report, and an old question is back on the international agenda: Could the global Internet be ordered by a reasonable arrangement among stakeholders which would maximize the digital opportunities and minimize the cyber risks by keeping the network free, open and safe?"

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• Multistakeholder Governance

  1. NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement, April 23, 24, 2014
  2. John Savage Discusses Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance, EastWest Institute, February 17, 2015
  3. Internet Governance — Why the Multistakeholder Approach Works, Internet Society, April 26, 2016
  4. A Multistakeholder Meeting at the United Nations Could Help States Develop Cyber Norms by Josh Gold, Council on Foreign Relations, January 16, 2020
     [This was] the first time that UN deliberations on cyberspace governance and state behavior have been held in a multistakeholder format, whereby businesses and civil society groups could submit their views to UN member states.

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• US & UK Government Policy Reports
  

  1. NSTAC Report to the President on Communications Resiliency, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, April 19, 2011
  2. Law of War Manual, Department of Defense, June 2015 (Updated December 2016)
  3. NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY STRATEGY 2016-2021, HM Government, 2016
  4. Cyber Primer (2nd Edition), Ministry of Defense, UK, July 2016
     This report provides a comprehensive treatment of cybersecurity. It defines key terms, explains the international dimensions of the problem, describes the threat landscape and illustrates threats with representative case studies, examines the encryption or "going dark" controversy, and explores offensive and defensive cyber operations, and closes with a discussion of the integration of cyber activities with traditional military activities, which includes examples of state-on-state cyber attacks.
  5. Nuclear Posture Review, US Department of Defense, 2018
  6. Achieve and Maintain Cyberspace Superiority: Command Vision for US Cyber Command, Cyber Command, March 26, 2018
  7. National Cyber Strategy of the United States, September 2018
  8. New Report Finds Nuclear Weapons and Related Systems Increasingly Vulnerable to Cyberattack, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, September 26, 2018
     This news article provides an overview of the following report.
  9. Nuclear Weapons in the New Cyber Age: Report of the Cyber-Nuclear Weapons Study Group by Page O. Stoutland and Samantha Pitts-Kiefer, Nuclear Threat Institute, September 2018
     "Cyberattacks could lead to false warnings of attack, interrupt critical communications or access to information, compromise nuclear planning or delivery systems, or even allow an adversary to take control of a nuclear weapon."
  10. DRAFT NSTAC Report to the President on a Cybersecurity Moonshot, The President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, October 2018
      "The scale, severity, and complexity of the cybersecurity threat now poses an existential risk to the future of the Nation."
  11. National Cyber Strategy, US White House, September, 2018
  12. WEAPON SYSTEMS CYBERSECURITY: DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities, Report to the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, United States Accountability Office, October 2018
  13. Report to the President on a Cybersecurity Moonshot, a Report of the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), November 14, 2018
      The United States is at an inflection point: simultaneously faced with a progressively worsening cybersecurity threat environment and an ever-increasing dependence on Internet technologies fundamental to public safety, economic prosperity, and overall way of life. Our national security is now inexorably linked to cybersecurity. Therefore, the Nation must build on past efforts and current strategies to seize the opportunity to strategically reorient from a largely reactive, incremental cybersecurity posture to a proactive approach that boldly assures digital trust, safety, and resilience for all Americans. Achieving this audacious outcome will require strong national leadership, political will, and a sustained whole-of-nation investment over an extended period. The U.S. Government can take immediate actions that lay the foundation for this long-term shared cybersecurity vision for the Nation, while simultaneously yielding near-term benefits that ensure continued technological global leadership.
  14. Providing for the Common Defense: The Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission by The Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States, November 14, 2018. A Washington Post summary can be found here.

      This is a disturbing report. Among its conclusions are a) the US would lose a war with Russia or China, b) "US missile defenses offer only uncertain" protection against an ICBM attack from North Korea, and c) "The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously." But, see this commentary on this report.

  15. Security Controls at DoD Facilities for Protecting Ballistic Missile Defense System Technical Information DODIG-2019-034, November 10, 2018
      "We determined that officials did not consistently implement security controls and processes to protect BMDS technical information."
  16. Strategy for the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Enterprise, DoD Chief Information officer, US Department of Defense, November 2018.
  17. Surviving a Catastrophic Power Outage: How to Strengthen the Capabilities of the Nation by the President's National Infrascture Advisory Council (NIAC), December 2018
      "[I]ncreasing threats — whether severe natural disasters, cyber-physical attacks, electromagnetic events, or some combination — present new challenges for protecting the national power grid and recovering quickly from a catastrophic power outage. ... Our recommendations provide a path forward for enhancing the nation's capabilities. These actions require a whole-of-nation approach and strong public-private collaboration."
  18. Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects, edited by Emily Grumbling and Mark Horowitz, National Acdemies Press, 2018
  19. National Strategy for Aviation Security of the United States of America, December 2018
  20. U.S. Revives Secret Program to Sabotage Iranian Missiles and Rockets by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, The New York Times, February 13, 2019
  21. Worldwide Threat Asessment of the US Intelligence Community, by Daniel R. Coats, Director of National Intelligence, January 29, 2019
  22. Recoverability as a First-Class Security Objective, National Academis Press, 2018
  23. Strategic Intent, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, August 2019.
  24. Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, October 2019
  25. (Opinion) The U.S. Government Is Fueling Cyberwars: Reporter Andy Greenberg on one of the world's most powerful hacking groups and his new book, 'Sandworm' by Hope Reese, One Zero, November 4, 2019
  26. National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States of America, 2020-2022, National Counterintelligence and Security Center, January 7, 2020
  27. Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, US Department of Defense, March 18 2020

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• Commentary on the NSTAC Cybersecurity Moonshot
  

  1. NSTAC Report to the President on a Cybersecurity Moonshot, November 14, 2018
     Item 9 above contains an excerpt from the Introduction to the report and a link to the Unisys website that contains additional materials on the report.
  2. Evaluating a "Cybersecurity Moonshot" by James Andrew Lewis, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 26, 2018
     The author contrasts the Manhattan Project and Project Apollo with a potential "cybersecurity moonshot." (See this news report. The report itself is the ninth item above.)
  3. (Opinion) Hey Google, What's a Moonshot?: How Silicon Valley Mocks Apollo by Thomas Haigh, Communications of the ACM, January 2019, Vol. 62 No. 1, Pages 24-30
     The author contrasts the Apollo "moonshot" with the contemporary use of that term.

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• Encryption Policy
  

  1. Papers and Articles on Encryption and the FBI/Apple Dispute, compiled by John Savage and Kamlesh Bajaj
  2. Principles for a More Informed Exceptional Access Debate by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson, Lawfare, November 9, 2018
  3. Australia's Encryption‐Busting Law Could Impact Global Policy by Lily Hay Newman, Wired, December 7, 2018
  4. Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Encryption by the Council on Foreign Relations
  5. The Ghost Protocol, The Council on Foreign Relations, May 31, 2019
     "In an open letter to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), over forty signatories criticized the UK security agency's proposal to access encrypted messages."
  6. Why the Ghost Keys 'Solution' to Encryption is no solution by Ross Schulman, JustSecurity, July 18, 2019
  7. (Opinion) Encryption Backdoors Won't Stop Crime But Will Hurt U.S. Tech by Michael Hayden, Bloomberg, December 10, 2019 If U.S. authorities can get access to encrypted data, so will the Chinese and Russians.
  8. 'The Intelligence Coup of the Century' by Greg Miller, The New York Times, February 11, 2020
     For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.

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• Net Neutrality
  

  1. FCC Got 444,938 Net-Neutrality Comments From Russian Email Addresses by Todd Shields, Bloomberg Politics, November 29, 2017
  2. The FCC just voted to repeal its net neutrality rules, in a sweeping act of deregulation by Brian Fung, The Washington Post, December 14, 2017
  3. Why Net Neutrality Was Repealed and How It Affects You by Keith Collins, the New York Times, December 14, 2017
  4. The Internet Is Dying. Repealing Net Neutrality Hastens That Death by Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, November 29, 2017
  5. It ain't over: Net neutrality advocates are preparing a massive new war against Trump's FCC by Tony Romm, Recode, January 4, 2018

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• Cyber Regulation
  

  1. 8 States Impose New Rules on Equifax After Data Breach by Stacy Cowly, The New York Times, June 27, 2018
  2. Microsoft Pushes Urgency of Regulating Facial-Recognition Technology
  3. How to Regulate the Internet Without Becoming a Dictator:The British model of filtering data rather than content can protect citizens while preserving an open internet. by Justin Sherman, Foreign Policy, February 18, 2019 by Jay Greene and Douglas MacMillan, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2018
  4. (Opinion) Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas by Mark Zuckerber, The Washington Post, March 30, 2019
  5. (Opinion) The dark side of regulating speech on Facebook by Editorial Board, The Washington Post, April 3, 2019
  6. The Week in Tech: Facebook Is Desperate to Shape Tech Regulation. Should It? by Jamie Condliffe, The New York Times, April 5, 2019
  7. (Opinion) Facebook Wants a Faux Regulator for Internet Speech. It Won't Happen. Not in the United States, anyway. by Sarah Jeong, The New York Times, April 7, 2019
  8. PG&E Among Utilities Cited for Failing to Protect Against Cyber and Physical Attacks by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2019
     The identity of PG&E was "divulged by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees the nation's bulk-power system."
  9. How to Cyberproof the Private Sector: The U.S. Can Harness the Market to Tackle the Cybersecurity Challenge by Raj M. Shah and Kiran Sridhar, Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2022
     The authors describe steps that governments, working with the private sector and the insurance industry, can take to improve information sharing and reduce cyber risks.
  10. Don't Let Texas and Florida Chew Up the Internet: The Supreme Court should strike down the two states' efforts to regulate online speech. Those choices should be left to users, empowered by new technologies, by Daphne Keller and Francis Fukuyama, The Wall Street Journal, February 29, 2024.
  11. The US Supreme Court Kneecapped US Cyber Strategy: After the Supreme Court limited the power of federal agencies to craft regulations, it's likely up to Congress to keep US cybersecurity policy intact, by Eric Geller, WIRED, July 17, 2024
      The 2022 Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA) is meant to close massive gaps in the government's awareness of the cyberattacks plaguing US companies every day.
      By overturning the Chevron deference, the Supreme Court said that the Framers of the Constitution intended for courts to be the final interpreters of the law. This implies that the courts must now develop the expertise to rule on technical matters for which the agencies were created.

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• Ethics in CS, Engineering and Law
  

  1. The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence by Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky, Chapter 15, The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Keith Frankish and William Ramsey, Cambridge University Press, pp. 316-334, 2014
  2. Volkswagen Official Gets 7-Year Term in Diesel-Emissions Cheating by Bill Vlasic, The New York Times, December 6, 2017
  3. Artificial Intelligence Seeks an Ethical Conscience by Tom Simonite, Wired, December 7, 2017
  4. The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
  5. (Opinion) How Evil Is Tech? by David Brooks, The New York Times, November 20, 2017
  6. France goes after companies for deliberately shortening life of hardware: French prosecutors investigate a 'planned obsolescence' complaint against printer maker Epson. A conviction could have far-reaching global ramifications by Patrick Nelson, NETWORKWORLD, January 5, 2018
  7. 2018 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
  8. Artificial Intelligence Rules More of Your Life. Who Rules AI? by Heidi Vogt, The Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2018
  9. 'The Business of War': Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon by Scott Shane and Daisuke Wakabayashi, The New York Times, April 4, 2018
  10. Military Work Threatens Science, Nature, April 19, 2018
  11. AI can be sexist and racist — it's time to make it fair by James Zou and Londa Schiebinger, Nature, July 18, 2018
      Computer scientists must identify sources of bias, de-bias training data and develop artificial-intelligence algorithms that are robust to skews in the data.
  12. (Opinion) Who Will Teach Silicon Valley to Be Ethical? Some think chief ethics officers could help technology companies navigate political and social questions. by Kara Swisher, The New York Times, October 21, 2018
  13. Efforts to Acknowledge the Risks of New A.I. Technology by Cade Metz, The New York Times, October 22, 2018
  14. New Ethics Guidance for Lawyers from the American Bar Association (ABA) Regarding Data Breach and Cyber-attack by Deborah George, Robinson+Cole, October 22, 2018
  15. U.N.'s Guterres urges ban on autonomous weapons by Axel Bugge, Reuters, November 5, 2018
  16. Are We Having An Ethical Crisis in Computing? by Moshe Y. Vardi, Communications of the ACM, January 2019, Vol. 62 No. 1, Page 7
  17. Pentagon Seeks a List of Ethical Principles for Using AI in War by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, January 4, 2019
  18. Google and Microsoft Warn That AI May Do Dumb Things by Tom Simonite, WIRED, February 11, 2019
      This article reports declarations of ethical concerns with AI highlighted by Alphabet, the parent of Google, and Microsoft in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Anecdotes in the article, and others linked from it, illustrate the hazards introduced by the use of AI in several areas including autonomous vehicles and facial recognition.
  19. Call to ban killer robots in wars by Pallab Ghosh, BBC News, February 15, 2019
  20. Solving One of the Hardest Problems of Military AI: Trust by Luke Hartig, DefenseOne, April 1, 2019
      "To a technologist, the concept of trust in AI is nothing new ... Yet AI and autonomy will force a deeper human-machine reckoning beyond what we have grappled with to date. ... AI is generally not set up to explain its reasoning to the skeptical user and assure that it has reached the right conclusion. (Although this may be possible in the future.) ... DOD and the State Department should engage in earnest in the hard work of establishing international norms around AI and national security, which will be key to overcoming trust issues among nations. (Work on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) has begun at the UN.)"
  21. (Opinion) I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector.: American companies continue to build surveillance tools that are used to violate human rights. Workers who refuse to comply deserve protections. by Jack Poulson, The New York Times, April 23, 2019
  22. AI Principles: Recommendations on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence by the Department of Defense, Defense Innovation Board, US Department of Defense, October, 2019
  23. Crowdsourcing Moral Machines by Edmond Awad, Sohan Dsouza, Jean-François Bonnefon, Azim Shariff, Iyad Rahwan, Communications of the ACM, March 2020
  24. The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work by Phillip Rogoway, 25th USENIX Security Conference, August 10-12, 2016
  25. The Third Revolution in Warfare — First there was gunpowder. Then nuclear weapons. Next: artificially intelligent weapons. by Kai-Fu Lee,Defense One, September 13, 2021.

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• Software Vulnerability Disclosure

  1. Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), Wikipedia
     The VEP was created by the U.S. federal government to decide which software vulnerabilities that it discovers should be disclosed to the public and the organizations that generated the software.
  2. When Security Experts Gather to Talk Consensus, Chaos Ensues by Kim Zetter, Wired, October 1, 2015
     The author reports on a meeting sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce to discuss software vulnerability disclosure.
  3. Australia's Intelligence Agency Publishes its Vulnerability Disclosure Process by Kevin Townsend, SecurityWeek, March 18, 2019

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• Surveillance and Accountability
  

  1. Surveillance Self-Defense: Tips, Tools and How-Tos for Safer Online Communications, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
  2. Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time by Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post, May 6, 2018
     This article draws attention to the practice of surveillance capitalism, which is likely to shape our futures. Not only are our speech and movement recorded by home appliances, our wake-sleep cycle is monitored by our smart light systems, and musical preferences recorded through apps.
  3. AUDIT: Practical Accountability of Secret Processes by Jonathan Frankle, Sunoo Park, Daniel Shaar, Shafi Goldwasser and Daniel J. Weitzner, CSAIL and IPRI, MIT, August 2018
     "Computer scientists propose a new cryptographic system to improve accountability of government surveillance while maintaining enough confidentiality for the police to do their jobs." A synopsis of this article, provided by the MIT News Service, can be found here.
  4. (Book Review) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff review — we are the pawns by James Bridle, The Guardian, February 2, 2019 (An interview with the author can be found here.)
  5. (Opinion) I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector.: American companies continue to build surveillance tools that are used to violate human rights. Workers who refuse to comply deserve protections. by Jack Poulson, The New York Times, April 23, 2019
  6. Shutdowns, surveillance, and censorship: UPR reviews highlight threats to digital rights by Isedua Oribhabor and Peter Micek, accessnow, May 20, 2019
  7. How a quantum computer could break 2048-bit RSA encryption in 8 hours: A new study shows that quantum technology will catch up with today's encryption standards much sooner than expected. That should worry anybody who needs to store data securely for 25 years or so, by Emerging Technology from the arXiv, MIT Technology Review, May 30, 2019
  8. The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It by Kashmir Hill, The New York Times, January 18, 2020
     A little-known [facial-recognition] start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images—and 'might lead to a dystopian future or something,' a backer says.
  9. Inside the NSA's Secret Tool for Mapping Your Social Network: Edward Snowden revealed the agency's phone-record tracking program. But thanks to "pre-computed contact chaining," that database was much more powerful than anyone knew. by Barton Gellman, WIRED, May 24, 2020
     Mere creation of such a database, especially in secret, profoundly changed the balance of power between government and governed.
  10. How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet by Steven Levy, Wired, January 7, 2014.
      Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and the other tech titans have had to fight for their lives against their own government. An exclusive look inside their year from hell—and why the Internet will never be the same.

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• Grand Strategy
  

  1. Grand Strategy, Wikipedia
  2. The Meaning of Sharp Power: How Authoritarian States Project Influence by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, Foreign Affairs, November 16, 2017
  3. Faster, Transient, Endless: How America Must Adapt to Today's Great-Power Competition by Nathan Freier, Defense One, July 22, 2018
     "The United States is in a dangerous hypercompetitive struggle for advantage with two capable great-power rivals. ... In the face of persistent Chinese and Russian counter-U.S. gray-zone campaigning, American great-power is hobbled, uncertain, and dangerously conflicted, its policymakers persistently outplayed by opportunistic and inventive regimes that wield strategic risk-taking and risk-manipulation as competitive instruments. To regain the advantage, the United States must be equally inventive and assertive in defense of its interests."
  4. The age of cyberwar is here. We can't keep citizens out of the debate by David Sanger, The Guardian, July 28, 2018
  5. The Fourth Founding: The United States and the Liberal Order by Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2019
     This article provides a history of the American experiment and the emergence of a national grand strategy that served as the basis for the current liberal international world order.
  6. How a World Order Ends: And What Comes in Its Wake by Richard Haass, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2019
  7. How the Internet Is Taking Center Stage in Great-Power Competition by Justin Sherman, New America, February 7, 2019
     This news article identifies an overlooked finding in the US Intelligence Community's 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment that deserves attention, namely, the important "role of the internet and internet governance in great-power competition and the future world order."
  8. Searching for a Grand Strategy to Meet the China Challenge by Graham Allison, Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School, March 2019
     "How the U.S. manages a rising China is one of the great questions of our time. ... Professor Graham Allison ... invites the public to develop a grand strategy to meet the China challenge."
  9. 2020 Budget Request Reveals Slow Shift Toward Great-Power War by Marcus Weisgerber and Patrick Tucker, Defense One, March 12, 2019
  10. (Opinion) The National Defense Strategy Is No Strategy by Gregory D. Foster, Defense One, April 4, 2019
  11. Beating the Americans at their Own Game: An Offset Strategy with Chinese Characteristics by Robert O. Work and Greg Grant, CNAS, June 2019
      "Chinese technological capabilities are growing as rapidly as its economic power. The Soviets were never able to match, much less overcome, America's technological superiority. The same may not be true for China."
  12. China's Digital Silk Road: Strategic Technological Competition and Exporting Political Illiberalism by Clayton Cheney, Council on Foreign Relations, September 26, 2019
      With China promoting a model of state-led capitalism and political illiberalism, and digital technology playing an increasingly central role in all aspects of society, the United States should work with its allies to promote core liberal values and provide a positive model of technological development and digital connectivity.
  13. In Future Wars, the U.S. Military Will Have Nowhere to Hide: New technologies enable Russia and China to destroy U.S. bases and logistics networks — including those on the homeland. by Michael Beckley, Foreign Affairs, November 20, 2019
  14. How computational power — or its absence — shaped World War naval battles by Haomiao Huan, Ars Technica, March 25, 2020
      Situational awareness before GPS and computers was a serious challenge.
  15. (Opinion) Think we have military primacy over China? Think again. by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, May 12, 2020
  16. Look at Great Power Competition Through a Special Operations Lens by Kevin Blims and Christopher P. Costa, Defense One, June 18, 2020
      The authors argue that great power competition today is in the gray zone below the level of the use of force, the area in which US Special Operations Forces (SOF) operate. Lessons learned from SOF experience can be profitably applied to address gray zone competition. Governments should
      • be agile, laser-focused, use all relevant resources,
      • leverage partners and allies by sharing costs, resources, personnel and knowledge,
      • seek exquisite understanding of the competitive landscape, and
      • exhibit a bias toward action with the goal of avoiding outright conflict.
  17. Global Governance: Explore the international institutions designed to promote peace and prosperity, World 101, The Council on Foreign Relations.
      • What Is the Liberal World Order?
      • What Is the UN Security Council?
      • What is International Law?
      • What are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund?

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• US Pol-Military Policy
  

  1. Cyber Civil-Military Relations: Balancing Interests on The Digital Frontier by Benjamin Jensen and J.D. Work, War on the Rocks, September 4, 2018
  2. Rethinking Secrecy in Cyberspace: The Politics of Voluntary Attribution by Michael Poznansky and Evan Perkoski, Journal of Global Security Studies, Volume 3, Issue 4, 1 October 2018, Pages 402-416, September 8, 2018
  3. Operatives to Deter Election Meddling. Here's Why. by Evan Perkoski and Michael Poznansky, Blog Post, Council on Foreign Relations, October 31, 2018
  4. Pentagon Doesn't Want Real Artificial Intelligence In War, Former Official Says by Aaron Boyd, Defense Once,October 31, 2018
  5. Strategic Intelligence and the Decision To Go To War by Leon Hall, Modern War Institute, West Point, November 2, 2018
  6. Are Killer Robots the Future of War? Parsing the Facts on Autonomous Weapons by Kelsey D. Atherton, The New York Times, November 15, 2018

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Artificial Intelligence

• Applications of AI
• Assessments of AI Technology
• AI and National Security
• Machine Learning
• AI Training Issues
• Deep Fakes
• Coping with Deep Fakes
• AI Regulation and Safety
• Ethical and Social Implications of AI
• AI Professional Associations
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• Applications of AI
  

  1. OpenAI Unveils A.I. Tool That Can Do Research Online by Cade Metz, Febuary 2, 2025
     A week ago, OpenAI released a tool that can go online to shop for groceries or book a restaurant reservation. Now it is offering A.I. technology that can gather information from across the internet and synthesize it in concise reports.

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• Assessments of AI Technology
  

  1. The Real Risks of Artificial Intelligence by David Lorge Parnas, Communications of the ACM, Octonber 2017
     My engineering teachers showed me how to use physics and mathematics to thoroughly analyze problems and products; my AI teachers relied almost entirely on intuition.
  2. A Layered Model for AI Governance by Urs Gasser and Virgilio A.F. Almeida, IEEE Internet Computing, November/December 2017
     [W]e discuss different issues associated with governance of AI systems, and introduce a conceptual framework for thinking about governance for AI, autonomous systems, and algorithmic decision-making processes.
  3. Attention Is All You Need by Ashish Vaswani, Noam Shazeer, Niki Parmar, Jakob Uszkoreit, Llion Jones, Aidan N. Gomez, Lukasz Kaiser, Illia Polosukhin, 31st Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS 2017), Long Beach, CA, USA.
  4. The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society, a book published by Microsoft, 2018
     The Foreword is written by Brad Smith and Harry Shum.
  5. The GANfather: The man who's given machines the gift of imagination: By pitting neural networks against one another, Ian Goodfellow has created a powerful AI tool. Now he, and the rest of us, must face the consequences. by Martin Giles, MIT Technology Review, February 21, 2018
  6. The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation by Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin, Jack Clark, Helen, Toner Peter Eckersley, Ben Garfinkel, Allan Dafoe, Paul Scharre, Thomas Zeitzoff, Bobby Filar, Hyrum Anderson, Heather Roff, Gregory C. Allen, Jacob Steinhard, Carrick Flynn, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Simon Beard, Haydn Belfield, Sebastian Farquhar, Clare Lyle, Rebecca Crootof, Owain Evans, Michael Page, Joanna Bryson, Roman Yampolskiy, Dario Amodei, published by the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge, Center for a New American Security, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and OpenAI, February 2018.
     This important publication has been announced by several of the 14 organizations represented by its 26 authors. EFF is one of these.
  7. Artificial Intelligence — The Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet by Michael Jordan, Medium, April 19, 2018
     "[We] do have a major challenge on our hands in bringing together computers and humans in ways that enhance human life. ... One could argue that an AI system would not only imitate human intelligence, but also "correct" it, and would also scale to arbitrarily large problems."
     "[The] scope ... [should be] more about the need for humans to understand and shape technology as it becomes ever more present and influential in their daily lives. Moreover, ... there is a need for a diverse set of voices from all walks of life, not merely a dialog among the technologically attuned. Focusing narrowly on human-imitative AI prevents an appropriately wide range of voices from being heard."
     "And, unfortunately, we are not very good at anticipating what the next emerging serious flaw will be. What we're missing is an engineering discipline with its principles of analysis and design."
  8. Five myths about artificial intelligence by Bill LaPlante and Katherine White, The Washington Post, April 27, 2018
  9. Amazon's Facial Recognition Fans Big Brother Fears by Jay Greene, The Washington Post, May 22, 2018
  10. Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and the Feud Over Killer Robots by Cade Metz, The New York Times, June 9, 2018
      "As the tech moguls disagree over the risks presented by something that doesn't exist yet, all of Silicon Valley is learning about unintended consequences of A.I."
  11. Is There a Smarter Path to Artificial Intelligence? Some Experts Hope So by Steve Lohr, The New York Times, June 20, 2018
  12. The Real Payoff From Artificial Intelligence Is Still a Decade Off by Edoardo Campanella, Forein Policy, August 9, 2018
  13. (Opinion) Natural Intelligence Still Has Its Advantages: AI is disruptive, but it hasn't rendered humanity obsolete by Vincent Conitzer, The Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2018
  14. The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All by Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer, WIRED, October 23, 2018
      Democracy's on the ropes. Social media may be to blame. And artificial intelligence could be the ultimate authoritarian tool. But one thing's for sure: Charging into an AI arms race against China is a huge mistake.
  15. A Top Roboticist Says A.I. Will Not Conquer Humanity: Cars will drive themselves, robots will clean your toilet – but exponential progress is unlikely by Brian Bergstein, Medium, January 4, 2019
  16. Is Deep Learning Already Hitting its Limitations? — And Is Another AI Winter Coming? by Thomas Nield, Medium, January 5, 2019
  17. Never Mind Killer Robots — Here Are 6 Real A.I. Dangers to Watch Out for in 2019 by Will Knight and Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review, January 10, 2019
  18. Do You Take This Robot ... by Alex Williams, The New York Times, January 19, 2019
  19. Remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum by George Soros, January 24, 2019.
      "Tonight I want to call attention to the mortal danger facing open societies from the instruments of control that machine learning and artificial intelligence can put in the hands of repressive regimes."
  20. Experimental Security Research of Tesla Autopilot released by the Tencent Keen Security Lab, March 2019
      "In our research, we believe that we made three creative contributions:
      • We proved that we can remotely gain the root privilege of APE and control the steering system.
      • We proved that we can disturb the autowipers function by using adversarial examples in the physical world.
      • We proved that we can mislead the Tesla car into the reverse lane with minor changes on the road."
  21. Data Challenges Are Halting AI Projects, IBM Executive Says: The cost and hassle of collecting and preparing data comes as a shock for some companies, according to Arvind Krishna by Jared Council, The Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2019
      "[A]bout 80% of the work with an AI project is collecting and preparing data."
  22. How Robots Change The World: What Automation Really Means For Jobs And Productivity, Oxford Economics, June 2019
      This report estimates that up to 20 million manufacturing jobs, 8.5% of the workforce, could be displaced by industrial robots.
  23. The Metamorphosis: AI will bring many wonders. It may also destabilize everything from nuclear détente to human friendships. We need to think much harder about how to adapt. by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher, The Atlatic, August 2019
  24. Researchers Easily Trick Cylance's AI-Based Antivirus Into Thinking Malware Is 'Goodware' by Kim Zetter, Vice, July 18, 2019
      By taking strings from an online gaming program and appending them to malicious files, researchers were able to trick Cylance's AI-based antivirus engine into thinking programs like WannaCry and other malware are benign.
  25. Artificial Intelligence Makes Bad Medicine Even Worse: A new study out from Google seems to show the promise of AI-assisted health care. Actually, it shows the threat. by Christie Aschwanden, WIRED, January 18, 2020
  26. Gathering Strength, Gathering Storms: The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) 2021 Study Panel Report, One Hundred Year Study of on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), Stanford University, September 2021.
  27. A.I. Is Not A-OK by Maureen Down, The New York Times, October 30, 2021
  28. The Movement to Hold AI Accountable Gains More Steam by Khari Johnson, WIRED, December 2, 2021
  29. Ethics, Safety, and Autonomous Vehicles by Philip Koopman, Benjamin Kuipers, William H. Widen, and Marilyn Wolf, Computer, December 2021, pp. 28-37, vol. 54
  30. The WIRED Guide to Artificial Intelligence by Tom Simonite, February 8, 2023.
      This article provides a summary of AI hightlights, the status of AI today, and AI challenges, by Tom Simonite, WIRED, February 8, 2023
  31. Meta's Yann LeCun on auto-regressive Large Language Models (LLMs) Futurist, February 13, 2023.
      Yann LeCun summarizes his 'unwavering opinion on current (auto-regressive) Large Language Models (LLMs)' in 14 bullet points. ChatGPT and other conversational AI systems use LLMs.
  32. Why are we so afraid of AI? by Shira Ovide, The Washington Post, February 21, 2023
  33. Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter: We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, Future of Life Institute, March 22, 2023.
      Here is my (JES) position on this matter: Rather than halting research on AI, developers should stop shipping ML systems and instead focus on the research on ML that is needed to develop a science of AI that can explain the behavior of ML systems.
  34. In Sudden Alarm, Tech Doyens Call for a Pause on ChatGPT: Tech luminaries, renowned scientists, and Elon Musk warn of an "out-of-control race" to develop and deploy ever—more—powerful AI systems by Will Knight and Paresh Dave, Wired, March 28, 2023
  35. Will China overtake the U.S. on AI? Probably not. Here's why. by Meaghan Tobin, The Washington Post, July 9, 2023
  36. Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he's now scared of the tech he helped build by Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review, May 2, 2023
      I have suddently switched my views on whether these things are going to more intelligent that us.
  37. A.I. Poses 'Risk of Extinction', Industry Leaders Warn: Leaders from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and other A.I. labs warn that future systems could be as deadly as pandemics and nuclear weapons by Kevin Roose, The New York Times, May 30, 2023
  38. Yann LeCun On How An Open Source Approach Could Shape AI by Billy Perrigo, TIME, February 7, 2024.
      LeCun is a polarizing figure in the world of AI, unafraid to speak his mind on Twitter and in public. The scientist — who has previously predicted that AI will make possible 'a new renaissance for humanity' — has also called the idea that AI poses an existential risk to humankind 'preposterous,' and dismissed AI ethicists who flagged harmful outputs from one of Meta's models as a 'ravenous Twitter mob.'
      This article also quotes Mark Zuckerbeg of Meta as saying in January [2024] that a new goal for his company was the creation of 'artificial general intelligence'.
  39. (Opinion, Guest Essay) Press Pause on the Silicon Valley Hype Machine by Julia Angwin, The New York Times, May 15, 2024.
  40. Two Young Drivers Take the Wheel. One, a Teen. The Other, a Tesla by Matt Richtel, The New York Times, July 6, 2024
  41. AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That's OK: The brain's astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better by Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta, April 30, 2025

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• AI and National Security
  

  1. Artificial Intelligence and Chinese Power: Beijing's Push for a Smart Military — and How to Respond by Elsa B. Kania, Foreign Affairs, December 5, 2017
  2. Artificial Intelligence and National Security by Greg Allen and Taniel Chan, The Belfer Center, July 2017
  3. Artificial Intelligence: Emerging Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications, Highlights of a Forum Convened by the Comptroller General of the United States, March 2018, GAO-18-142SP
  4. Regulate artificial intelligence to avert cyber arms race: Define an international doctrine for cyberspace skirmishes before they escalate into conventional warfare. by Mariarosaria Taddeo and Luciano Floridi, Nature, April 19, 2018
  5. Artificial Intelligence and International Security by Michael Horowitz, Paul Scharre, Gregory C. Allen, Kara Frederick, Anthony Cho and Edoardo Saravalle, Center for a New American Security, July 10, 2018
     This comprehensive assessment of AI and security is summarized in this Axios article.
  6. The Question of Comparative Advantage in Artificial Intelligence: Enduring Strengths and Emerging Challenges for the United States by Andrew Imbrie, Elsa B. Kania and Lorand Laskai, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, January 2020
  7. Spies Like AI: The Future of Artificial Intelligence for the US Intelligence Community by Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, January 27, 2020
  8. Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models by Shafi Goldwasser, Michael P. Kim, Vinod Vaikuntanathan, Or Zamir, 2022 IEEE 63rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), October 1, 2022, p. 931-942
     Given the computational cost and technical expertise required to train machine learning models, users may delegate the task of learning to a service provider. Delegation of learning has clear benefits, and at the same time raises serious concerns of trust. This work studies possible abuses of power by untrusted learners. We show how a malicious learner can plant an undetectable backdoor into a classifier.
     A summary of this paper appears in Undetectable Backdoors Plantable In Any Machine-Learning Algorithm: Outside training vendors could be the source of catastrophic vulnerability, by Charles Q. Choi, IEEE Spectrum, May 10, 2022.
  9. Interim Report, National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, November 2019
     A report to Congress.
  10. Artificial Intelligence, Strategic Stability and Nuclear Risk, by Vincent Boulanin, Lora Saalman, Petr Topychkanov, Fei Su and Moa Peldán Carlsson, SIPRI, June 2020
  11. A National Security Research Agenda for Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence by Ben Buchanan, CSET Issue Brief, May 2020
  12. The Path to AI Arms Control:America and China Must Work Together to Avert Catastrophe by Henry A. Kissinger and Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, October 13, 2023.
      Restraints for AI need to occur before AI is built into the security structure of each societbythat is, before machines begin to set their own objectives, which some experts now say is likely to occur in the next five years.
  13. AI is helping US spies catch stealthy Chinese hacking ops, NSA official says: Machine learning tools are aiding U.S. security agencies to catch operations relying on so-called 'living off the land' techniques. by Aj Vicens, Cyberscoop, January 9, 2024
      U.S. intelligence officials have warned in recent months that Chinese hacking groups are increasingly targeting power generation systems, ports and other critical infrastructure entities by using methods that analysts refer to as 'living off the land' — the use of tools, software and privileges already present on networks to achieve various objectives. Malware that would normally trip detection software or tools is never employed, making it much harder to detect.

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• Machine Learning
  

  1. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for research showing that machine learning, the training of neural networks to classify inputs, is feasible. This work transformed artificial intelligence.The relevant research is cited below.
     • Neural networks and physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities by J. J. Hopfield, Proc. NatL Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 79, pp. 2554-2558, April 1982
     • Learning representations by back-propagating errors by David E. Rumelhart, Geoffrey E. Hinton & Ronald J. Williams, Nature, Vol. 323, pp. 533-536, October 9, 1986.
  2. Learning representations by back-propagating errors by David E. Rumelhart, Geoffrey E. Hinton & Ronald J. Williams, Nature 323, 533-536, October 8, 1986.
     The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2024 to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton.
  3. ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks by Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey E. Hinton, Advances in Neural Information Processing, NIPS 2012 (See also Communications of the ACM, Volume 60, Issue 6, Pages 84 - 90, 2017).
  4. Can A.I. Be Taught to Explain Itself? As machine learning becomes more powerful, the field's researchers increasingly find themselves unable to account for what their algorithms know — or how they know it. by Cliff Kuang, The New York Times, November 21, 2017
  5. The GANfather: The man who's given machines the gift of imagination: By pitting neural networks against one another, Ian Goodfellow has created a powerful AI tool. Now he, and the rest of us, must face the consequences. by Martin Giles, MIT Technology Review, February 21, 2018
  6. US Army Figures Out How To Do Facial Recognition in the Dark by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, April 17, 2018
  7. Invisible Mask: Practical Attacks on Face Recognition with Infrared by Zhe Zhou, Di Tang, Xiaofeng Wang, Weili Han, Xiangyu Liu, Kehuan Zhang, arXiv 1803.04683v1, March 13, 2018
     Infrared light, which is invisible, can be used to illuminate a face and defeat a facial recognition system.
  8. Robust Physical-World Attacks on Deep Learning Visual Classification by Kevin Eykholt, Ivan Evtimov, Earlence Fernandes, Bo Li, Amir Rahnmati, Chaowei Xiao1, Atul Prakash, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Dawn Song, arXiv:1707.08945, April 10, 2018 (Appears in CVPR 2018)
  9. Making Machine Learning Robust Against Adversarial Inputs by Ian Goodfellow, Patrick McDaniel, and Nicolas Papernot, CACM, July 2018, Vol. 61 No. 7, Pages 56-66
  10. Machine Learning and Tracking Terrorists by Joel T. Meyer, The CIPHER Brief, July 12, 2018
  11. AI can be sexist and racist — it's time to make it fair by James Zou and Londa Schiebinger, Nature, July 18, 2018
      Computer scientists must identify sources of bias, de-bias training data and develop artificial-intelligence algorithms that are robust to skews in the data.
  12. Lip-syncing thanks to artificial intelligence: A new piece of software adapts the facial expressions of people in videos to match an audio track dubbed over the film, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, August 27, 2018
  13. Making Algorithms Less Biased by Dave Nyczepir, Nextgov, September 18, 2018
  14. Deep, Skinny Neural Networks are not Universal Approximators by Jesse Johnson, arXiv1810.00393, October 2, 2018
      Limiting the depth and/or width of neural networks limits the class of objects that they can classify well.
  15. Almost Everyone Involved in Facial Recognition Sees Problems by Dina Bass, Bloomberg, December 12, 2018
  16. US Spies Want to Know How to Spot Compromised AI by Dave Gershgorn, Defense One, December 27, 2018
  17. One Giant Step for a Chess-Playing Machine: The stunning success of AlphaZero, a deep-learning algorithm, heralds a new age of insight — one that, for humans, may not last long. by Steven Strogatz, The New York Times, December 26, 2018
  18. Neural Networks Need a Cookbook. Here Are The Ingredients by Kevin Hartnett, WIRED, February 3, 2019
      In neural nets the number of levels and nodes at each level determine their effectiveness in classifying images. Recent work demonstrates that "by increasing depth and decreasing width, you can perform the same functions with exponentially fewer neurons." This means that if a neural net has too few neurons, it will not be able to properly classify a training set. (See this paper.)
  19. An A.I. That Writes Convincing Prose Risks Mass—Producing Fake News by Will Knight, MIT Technology Review, February 14, 2019
  20. Why Chinese Companies Plug a US Test For Facial Recognition by Tom Simonite, WIRED, March 6, 2019
  21. A computerized YouTube fact-checking tool goes very wrong: In flaming Notre Dame, it somehow sees 9/11 tragedy by Craig Timberg and Tony Romm, The Washington Post, April 15, 2018
  22. Academics hide humans from surveillance cameras with 2D prints by Catalin Cimpanu, ZDNet, April 23, 2019
      "Academics from a Belgian university have devised a method that uses a simple 2D image that can be printed on shirts or bags to make wearers invisible to camera surveillance systems that rely on machine learning to recognize humans in live video feeds."
  23. The Challenge of Crafting Intelligible Intelligence by Daniel S. Weld, Gagan Bansal, CACM, June 2019
  24. Three pitfalls to avoid in machine learning: As scientists from myriad fields rush to peform analyses, Google's Patrick Riley calls for clear standards in research and reporting, Patrick, Riley, Nature, July 30, 2019
  25. 'Deepfakes,' deep pockets: Facebook spends $10 million on contest for detecting 'constantly evolving' videos by Marie C. Baca, The Washington Post, September 6, 2019
  26. TrojDRL: Trojan Attacks on Deep Reinforcement Learning Agents by Panagiota Kiourti, Kacper Wardega, Susmit Jha, and Wenchao Li, arXiv:1903.06638v1, March 1, 2019
      An important leap for artificial intelligence in recent years is machine's ability to teach themselves, through endless practice, to solve problems ... [b]ut a few subtle tweaks in the training regime can poison this "reinforcement learning," — like a sleeper agent — to a specified trigger by misbehaving in strange or harmful ways.
  27. London Police Are Taking Surveillance to a Whole New Level by Adam Satariano, The New York Times, January 24, 2020
      The city, stepping into a debate over privacy, says it will use real-time facial recognition technology 'to tackle serious crime.'
  28. Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models by Shafi Goldwasser, Michael P. Kim, Vinod Vaikuntanathan, Or Zamir, 2022 IEEE 63rd Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), October1, 2022, p. 931-942
      Given the computational cost and technical expertise required to train machine learning models, users may delegate the task of learning to a service provider. Delegation of learning has clear benefits, and at the same time raises serious concerns of trust. This work studies possible abuses of power by untrusted learners. We show how a malicious learner can plant an undetectable backdoor into a classifier.
      A summary of this paper appears in Undetectable Backdoors Plantable In Any Machine-Learning Algorithm: Outside training vendors could be the source of catastrophic vulnerability, by Charles Q. Choi, IEEE Spectrum, May 10, 2022.
  29. We know remarkably little about how AI language models work by Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review, September 5, 2023.
  30. Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why. And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models by Will Douglas Heaven, March 4, 2024
  31. AI Is a Black Box. Anthropic Figured Out a Way to Look Inside: What goes on in artificial neural networks work is largely a mystery, even to their creators. But researchers from Anthropic have caught a glimps by Steven Levy, Wired, May 21, 2024
  32. Why bigger is not always better in AI: Smaller models are proving to be equally capable with a far smaller carbon footprint by Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review, October 1, 2024

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• AI Training Issuess
  

  1. Lawsuit Takes Aim at the Way A.I. Is Built: A programmer is suing Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI over artificial intelligence technology that generates its own computer code by Cade Metz, The New York Times, November 23, 2022.
  2. In Neural Networks, Unbreakable Locks Can Hide Invisible Doors: Cryptographers have shown how perfect security can undermine machine learning models by Ben Brubaker, March 2, 2023, Quanta Magazine
     Researchers are now starting to analyze the security of machine learning models in a more rigorous way. In a paper presented at last year's Foundations of Computer Science conference, a team of computer scientists demonstrated how to plant undetectable backdoors whose invisibility is as certain as the security of state-of-the-art encryption methods.
     The paper can be found here.
  3. How judges, not politicians, could dictate America's AI Rules: With politicians struggling to curb AI harms, it's boom time for lawyers by Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review, July 17, 2023
  4. A New Attack Impacts Major AI Chatbots — and No One Knows How to Stop It: Researchers found a simple way to make ChatGPT, Bard, and other chatbots misbehave, proving that AI is hard to tame. by Will Knight, Wired, August 1, 2023
  5. Language models can explain neurons in language models by Steven Bills, Nick Cammarata, Dan Mossing, Henk Tillman, Leo Gao, Gabriel Goh, Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Jeff Wu, William Saunders, OpenAI, May 9, 2023
     Language models have become more capable and more widely deployed, but we do not understand how they work.
     Recent work has made progress on understanding a small number of circuits and narrow behaviors, but to fully understand a language model, we'll need to analyze millions of neurons. This paper applies automation to the problem of scaling an interpretability technique to all the neurons in a large language model. Our hope is that building on this approach of automating interpretability will enable us to comprehensively audit the safety of models before deployment.
  6. Artificial Intelligence Can Make Companies Greener, but It Also Guzzles Energy: For many, using AI has both positive and negative effects on their carbon emissions and water use by Nuha Dolby, The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2023.
  7. The Secret Ingredient of ChatGPT Is Human Advice: Companies like OpenAI hone their bots using hand-tailored examples from well-educated workers. But is this always for the best? by Cade Metz, The New York Times, September 25, 2023
     Companies that provide such services, known as reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), are Upwork, Scale AI, and Surge AI
  8. In Defense of AI Hallucinations: It's a big problem when chatbots spew untruths. But we should also celebrate these hallucinations as prompts for human creativity and a barrier to machines taking over by Steven Levy, Wired, January 5, 2024
  9. Google's A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online: The company's latest A.I. search feature has erroneously told users to eat glue and rocks, provoking a backlash among users by Nico Grant, The New York Times, May 24, 2024
  10. A New Trick Could Block the Misuse of Open Source AI: Researchers have developed a way to tamperproof open source large language models to prevent them from being coaxed into, say, explaining how to make a bomb by Will Knight, WIRED, August 2, 2024
  11. Why the T in ChatGPT is AI's biggest breakthrough — and greatest risk by Alex Wilkins, New Scientist, August 15, 2024
      AI companies hope that feeding ever more data to their models will continue to boost performance, eventually leading to human-level intelligence. Behind this hope is the "transformer", a key breakthrough in AI, but what happens if it fail to deliver?
  12. Image classifiers can not be made robust to small perturbations by Zheng Dai and David Gifford, arXiv:2112.04033v2, August 9, 2022
      The sensitivity of image classifiers to small perturbations in the input is often viewed as a defect of their construction. We demonstrate that this sensitivity is a fundamental property of classifiers.

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• Deep Fakes
  

  1. Kidnapping WhatsApp — Rumors during the search and rescue operation of three kidnapped youth by Tomer Simon, Avishay Goldberg, Dmitry Leykin, and Bruria Adini, Computers in Human Behavior, Elsevier, Vol. 64, 2016, pp. 183-190
  2. Human, Bot or Cyborg? Three clues that can tell you if a Twitter user is fake. by Digital Forensics Lab, The Atlantic Council, December 23, 2016
  3. Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex by Samanth Subramanian, WIRED, February 15, 2017
  4. Lawmakers worry about rise of fake video technology by Ali Breland, The Hill, February 19, 2018
  5. Deep Fakes: A Looming Crisis for National Security, Democracy and Privacy? by Robert Chesney, Danielle Citron, Lawfare, February 21, 2018
  6. The State of Fakery by Esther Shein, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 61 No. 3, Pages 21-23, March 2018
  7. When Fighting Fake News Aids Censorship by Courtney C. Radsch, Project Syndicate, March 1, 2018
  8. Fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter—thanks to people, not bots by Katie Langin, Science, March 8, 2018
  9. The spread of true and false news online by Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, Sinan Aral, Science Magazine, March 9, 2018
  10. How Researchers Learned to Use Facebook 'Likes' to Sway Your Thinking by Keith Collins and Gabriel J.X. Dance, The New York Times, March 20, 2018
  11. The Psychology Of Fake News by Tania Lombrozo, NPR, March 27, 2018
  12. New Algorithm Locates Fake Users on Social Networks, American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, April 17, 2018
  13. Experts Bet on First Deepfakes Political Scandal: Researchers wager on a possible Deepfake video scandal during the 2018 U.S. midterm elections by Jeremy Hsu, IEEE Spectrum, June 22, 2018
  14. The Flourishing Business of Fake YouTube Views: Plays can be bought for pennies and delivered in bulk, inflating videos' popularity and making the social media giant vulnerable to manipulation. by Michael H. Kelleraug, The New York Times, August 11, 2018
  15. What Europe Can Teach America About Russian Disinformation by Jed Willard, Defense One, June 10, 2018
  16. Disinformation on Steroids: The Threat of Deep Fakes by Robert Chesney and Danielle K. Citron, Blogpost, The Council on Foreign Relations, October 16, 2018
  17. These New Tricks Can Outsmart Deepfake Video's for Now by Sarah Scoles, WIRED, October 17, 2018
  18. (Opinion) This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin by Ben Sasse, The Washington Post, October 19, 2018
  19. ALERT: Don't Believe Everything You Read About The Migrant Caravan by Emily Dreyfuss, WIRED, October 23, 2018
  20. The Problem With Fixing WhatsApp? Human Nature Might Get in the Way by Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, October 24, 2018
  21. How Do You Say 'Fake News' in Russian? by Amy McKinnon, Foreign Policy, November 1, 2018
  22. Ethics & Algorithms Toolkit: A risk management framework for governments (and other people too!), November 14, 2018
      Algorithms have become essential components of commercially available and societally essential technologies. Legislators and regulators who are responsible for their ethical use need to understand them. This website provides a practical toolkit to help governments understand the implications of using an algorithm, clearly articulates the potential risks, and identifies ways to mitigate them.
  23. Fake news, BBC News, November 27, 2018
      This BBC report describes the activities of Christopher Blair, who made his living by producing satire targeting conservatives, and his nemesis, Maarten Schenk, a fact checker.
  24. He Predicted The 2016 Fake News Crisis. Now He's Worried About An Information Apocalypse. by Charlie Warzel, BuzzFeedNews, February 11, 2018
      In mid-2016, Aviv Ovadya realized there was something fundamentally wrong with the internet, something so wrong that he abandoned his work and sounded the alarm.
  25. China's Lessons for Fighting Fake News: What Washington should — and shouldn't — learn from Beijing's example by Maria Repnikova, Foreign Policy, September 8, 2018
  26. Inside Facebook's Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech by Max Fisher, The New York Times, December 27, 2018
  27. Fake-porn videos are being weaponized to harass and humiliate women: 'Everybody is a potential target' by Drew Harwell, The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2018
  28. (Opinion) Why Do People Fall for Fake News? by Gordon Pennycook and David Rand, The New York Times, January 19, 2019
      The authors, who are pscyhologists, report on their research and that of others to explain why humans succumb to fake news. They also explain how we can avoid such errors.
  29. Software that can automatically detect fake news, Fraunhofer Institute, Press Release, January 2, 2019
      The authors train an ML system on markers found in fake news.
  30. Warnings of a Dark Side to A.I. in Health Care by Cade Metz and Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, March 21, 2019
  31. Hospital viruses: Fake cancerous nodes in CT scans, created by malware, trick radiologists by Kim Zetter, The Washington Post, April 3, 2019
  32. Alexa and Siri Can Hear This Hidden Command. You Can't by Craig S. Smith, The New York Times, May 10, 2019
  33. AI can now defend itself against malicious messages hidden in speech: Computer scientists have thwarted programs that can trick AI systems into classifying malicious audio as safe. by Matthew Hutson, Nature, May 10, 2019
  34. Top AI researchers race to detect 'deepfake' videos: 'We are outgunned.' by Drew Harwell, The Washington Post, June 12, 2019
      This is a good survey article on deepfakes that describes potential responses to the threat.
  35. Three pitfalls to avoid in machine learning: As scientists from myriad fields rush to peform analyses, Google's Patrick Riley calls for clear standards in research and reporting. Nature, July 30 2019
  36. Why deep-learning AIs are so easy to fool: Artificial-intelligence researchers are trying to fix the flaws of neural networks. by Douglas Heaven, Nature, October 9, 2019
  37. Trust Your Eyes? Deepfakes Policy Brief by James Andrews Lewis and Arthur Nelson, The Center for Strategic and International Relations, October 23, 2019
  38. How fake accounts pushing inflammatory content went viral — with the help of YouTube's algorithms by Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, December 13, 2019
  39. Facebook bans deepfakes, but new policy may not cover controversial Pelosi video by Tony Romm, Drew Harwell and Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post, January 7, 2020
  40. Tainted Data Can Teach Algorithms the Wrong Lessons: Researchers show how AI programs can be sabotaged by even subtle tweaks to the data used to train them. by Will Knight, WIRED, November 25, 2019
  41. Repurposing Neural Networks to Generate Synthetic Media for Information Operations by Philip Tully and Lee Foster, FireEye, August 5, 2020
  42. Deep Fakes and National Security by Lurie A. Harris and Kelley M. Sayler, Congressional Research Service, April 17, 2023
  43. Why AI-generated audio is so hard to detect: Dozens of tools and apps have sprung up to try to detect AI-created audio, but they are inherently flawed, experts told NBC News by Kevin Collier and Jasmine Cui, NBC News, January 4, 2024

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• Coping with Deep Fakes
  

  1. The Problem With Believing What We're Told: In an age of information overload, it's important to find ways to resist the brain's difficulty in separating fact from falsehood by Gary Marcus and Annie Duke, The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2019
  2. Could language be the key to detecting fake news? by David Shariatmadari, The Guardian, September 2, 2019
     Purveyors of disinformation can be caught out by the particular words they use, according to new research.
  3. Facebook, Microsoft Back Contest to Better Detect Deepfakes by Klint Finely, WIRED, September 5, 2019.
     Deepfakes are improving. The contest, which will include deepfakes created by Facebook, is designed to help researchers keep up.
  4. The Tools to Defeat Facial Recognition Are Free Online: It only takes two stickers to fool this Huawei system by Dave Gershgorn, OneZero, October 21, 2019
  5. Markpainting: Adversarial Machine Learning Meets Inpainting by David Khachaturov, Ilia Shumailov, Yiren Zhao, Nicolas Papernot, Ross Anderson, arXiv.org
     Inpainting is used to repair and retouch paintings. When combined with machine learning, it can reconstruct missing pieces of an item.
  6. Contextualizing Deepfake Threats to Organizations published by NSA, FBI, and CISA, September 2023.
  7. See why AI detection tools can fail to catch election deepfakes by Kevin Schaul, Pranshu Verma and Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post, August 15, 2024

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• AI Regulation and Safety
  

  1. Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, Joseph R. Biden Jr., The White House, October 30, 2023.
     This fact sheet summarizes the EO.
  2. The Bletchley Declaration by Countries Attending the AI Safety Summit, 1-2 November 2023
  3. The U.N. Gets the World to Agree on AI Safety: A new resolution on safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence was endorsed by all 193 member countries by Rishi Iyengar, Foreign Policy, March 21, 2024
  4. The US Is Forming a Global AI Safety Network With Key Allies: US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo says the US is collaborating with other countries, including the UK, Japan, and Canada, to manage the risks posed by artificial intelligence by Will Knight, WIRED, May 21, 2024
  5. The AI Seoul Summit, May 23, 2024.
  6. The AI Safety Institute — A directorate of the UK Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology
  7. EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence, European Parliament, June 18, 2024.

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• Ethical and Social Implications of AI
  

  1. A Cute Toy Just Brought a Hacker Into Your Home by Sheera Frankel, The New York Times, December 21, 2017
  2. (Opinion) A.I. and Big Data Could Power a New War on Poverty by Elisabeth A. Mason, The New York Times, January 1, 2018
  3. (Opinion) Leave A.I. Alone by Andrew Burt, The New York Times, January 4, 2018
  4. (Opinion) Our Hackable Political Future by Henry J. Farrell and Rick Perlstein, The New York Times, February 4, 2018
  5. How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist by Tristan Harris, ThriveGlobal, May 18, 2016
  6. How the Enlightenment Ends: Philosophically, intellectually — in every way — human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence, by Henry Kissinger, The Atlantic, June 2018
  7. Work in an Age of Automation by Susan Lund and Eric Hazan, Project Syndicate, Work in an Age of Automation, July 12, 2018
  8. When Machine Learning Is Facially Invalid: Observations on the use of machine learning and facial inferences to classify people using inexplicable data by Frank Pasquale, CACM, September 2018
     "Facial inferences via machine learning are deeply troubling. When such methods of pattern recognition are used to classify persons, they overstep a fundamental boundary between objective analysis and moral judgment. When such moral judgments are made, people deserve a chance to understand and contest them."
  9. Facebook's Private Groups Offer Refuge to Fringe Figures by Kevin Roose, The New York Times, September 3, 2018
  10. A Facebook War: Libyans Battle on the Streets and on Screens by Declan Walsh and Suliman Ali Zway, The New York Times, September 4, 2018
  11. Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning by Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand, Cognition, Elsevier, June 20, 2018
  12. Truth, lies, and tribal voters by Peter Dizikes, MIT Technology Review, October 23, 2018
      At MIT, scholars are taking a rational look at increasingly irrational political discourse.
  13. When Robots Ring the Bell by Janet Morrissey, The New York Times, November 7,2018
      "While new jobs will offset [job] losses, retraining and education will be critical. As many as 375 million workers globally will need to change job categories and learn new skills to survive the transition, according to the McKinsey Global Institute report."
  14. "Superhuman" AI Triumphs Playing the Toughest Board Games by Bret Stetka, Scientific American, December 6, 2018
  15. Artificial Intelligence vs. the Hackers: Machine-learning algorithms watch hackers' behavior and adapt to their evolving tactics. by Dina Bass, Bloomberg, January 3, 2019
  16. Pricing algorithms can learn to collude with each other to raise prices, MIT Technology Review, February 12, 2019
  17. Resistance to killer robots growing, by Nina Werkhäuser, Deutsche Welle, March 24, 2019
      "Activists from 35 countries met in Berlin this week to call for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, ahead of new talks on such weapons in Geneva."
  18. These Influencers Aren't Flesh and Blood, Yet Millions Follow Them by Tiffany Hsu, The New York Times, June 17, 2019
  19. (Opinion) How to Build Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust: Computer systems need to understand time, space and causality. Right now they don't. by Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis, The New York Times, September 6,2019
  20. Pentagon adopts new ethical principles for using AI in war by Matt O'Brien, Associated Press, February 24, 2020
  21. America Must Shape the Worlds AI Norms — or Dictators Will by William Cohen, Leon E. Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ash Carter, Defense One, February 27. 2020
  22. Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People, prepared by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House, October 2022.
      A booklet containing the same information is available here.
  23. The sustainability questions policymakers should be asking about AI by Tiffany J. Vora, Kathryn Thomas, Anna FerrC)-Mateu, Catherine Lopes, and Marissa Giustina, Atlantic Council, June 21, 2024

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• AI and The Human Dimension

  1. The AI Revolution is Already Here: Chatbots are rapidly changing how we connect to each other ‐ and ourselves. We're never going back, Rhiannon Williams, MIT Technology Review, February 13, 2025

     The author summarized her interviews with three women and three men about their interactions with chatbots as follows: AI is everywhere, and it's starting to alter our relationships in new and unexpected ways ‐ relationships with our spouses, kids, colleagues, friends, and even ourselves. Although the technology remains unpredictable and sometimes baffling, individuals from all across the world and from all walks of life are finding it useful, supportive, and comforting, too. People are using large language models to seek validation, mediate marital arguments, and help navigate interactions with their community. They're using it for support in parenting, for self-care, and even to fall in love. In the coming decades, many more humans will join them. And this is only the beginning. What happens next is up to us.

     The titles that she chose for her summaries of the interviews follow:

     1. The busy professional turning to AI when she feels overwhelmed, Reshmi, 52, female, Canada
     2. The dad making AI fantasy podcasts to get some mental peace amid the horrors of war, Amir, 49, male, Israel
     3. The expat using AI to help navigate parenthood, marital clashes, and grocery shopping, Tim, 43, male, Thailand
     4. The nursing student who created an AI companion to explore a kink ‐ and found a life partner, Ayrin, 28, female, Australia
     5. The Angeleno learning from AI so he can connect with his community, Oren, 33, male, United States
     6. The mother partnering with AI to help put her son to sleep, Alina, 34, female, France
     
     
  2. Spirals of Delusion: How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous by Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman, and Jeremy Wallace, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2022 Issue, Published on August 31, 2022

  3. I, Human by Margaret Renkl, The New York Times, February 24, 2025
     The title of this article is a play on the title of the science fiction book I, Robot by Isaac Asimov published in 1950 by Gnome Press. It consists of nine stories that he wrote for magazines and illustrates Asimov'e Three Laws of Robotics, shown below.
     1. A robot must not harm a human, or allow harm to come to a human through inaction.
     2. A robot must obey human orders, except when those orders conflict with the first law.
     3. A robot must protect its own existence, except when doing so conflicts with the first or second law.

     Margaret Renkl decries the fact that A flurry of 'AI assistants' has suddenly colonized my inboxes and Word documents and texts saying that letting a robot structure your argument, or flatten your style by removing the quirky elements, is dangerous. It's a streamlined way to flatten the human mind, to homogenize human thought. We know who we are, at least in part, by finding the words — messy, imprecise, unexpected — to tell others, and ourselves, how we see the world. The world which no one else sees in exactly that way. ... 'No robot may harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm' reads Asimov's first law of robotics. But what if the existence of robots itself is what robs us of our humanity? Is that not a way of bringing humans to harm?

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• AI Professional Associations

  1. Big Names Join Group Aiming To 'Responsibly Realise The Promise Of AI' by Sam Shead, Forbes, August 2, 2018
  2. Partnership on AI
     "Established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public's understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society."

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New Technologies

• Security Tools and Techniques
• Quantum Computing
• Unconventional Weapons: GPS, Microwave, Strobe Lights
• 5G Wireless Communications
• Cryptocurrencies
• Blockchains
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• Security Tools and Techniques

  1. (Video) NSA TAO Chief on Disrupting Nation State Hackers by Rob Joyce, USENIX Enigma Conference, January 28 2016 (34:55 minutes)
  The chief of the NSA department that does nation-state exploitation explains how to protect yourself from people like him. "If you really want to protect your network you have to really really know your network." A transcript of Joyce's talk is available here.
  2. Rob Joyce — NSA Talks Cybersecurity, DEFCON 26, August 2018
     The National Security Agency (NSA) has authorities for both foreign intelligence and cyber security. This unique position gives NSA insights into the ways networks are exploited and the methods that are effective in defending against threats. Over time, NSA has adapted the focus of its security efforts and continues to evolve with technologies and the adversaries we face. The talk will look back at some of the inflection points that have influenced NSA and US Government cybersecurity efforts and look at what is necessary to stay safe in the new environment.
  3. The NSA Makes Ghidra, a Powerful Cybersecurity Tool, Open Source by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, March 5, 2019.
     Ghidra is a tool for the reverse engineering of compiled software. "Reverse engineering is a crucial process for malware analysts and threat intelligence researchers."
  4. A Conversation on Cybersecurity with NSA's Rob Joyce, CSIS, April 11, 2023
     [W]e have intelligence capabilities that are vital to the defense of cyberspace. Industry owns and operates most of the digital landscape, and if we can't figure out how to take the things we understand from that foreign intelligence mission, reaching into adversary space, and pulling down threats, tools, tradecraft, and information about those operations, and get them to the people who could do something about it, were not very effective, right? So its no good if we know something, if we don't do something about it.

     [W]e're seeking mid-career people looking to come to, one, the stability, but two, also the opportunity to come into the intel community.

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• Quantum Computing

  1. Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer by Peter Shor, SIAM J. Sci. Statist. Comput. 26 (1997), p. 1484
  2. Quantum Complexity Theory by Ethan Bernstein and Umesh Vazirani, SIAM J. Computing, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp-1411-1473, 1997
     "[T]here is no possibility of giving a mathematical proof that quantum Turing machines are more powerful than classical probabilistic Turing machines (in the unrelativized setting) unless there is a major breakthrough in complexity theory."
  3. Quantum algorithms: an overview by Ashley Montanaro, npj Quantum Information, Vol. 2, January 12, 2016, p. 15023
     "[M]aking reasonable assumptions about underlying hardware, suggests that a 2,000-bit number could be factorised by a quantum computing using ~3×10¹¹ quantum gates, and approximately a billion qubits."
     If this estimate is correct, it will take decades to factor a reasonably large integer into primes and break RSA encryption, if ever.
  4. Quantum technology is beginning to come into its own by Jason Palmer, The Economist, 2017
     This article describes a large variety of potential uses of quantum mechanics and identifies issues that stand in the way of their success.
  5. Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects, edited by Emily Grumbling and Mark Horowitz, National Acdemies Press, 2018
  6. Quantum Computing in the NISQ era and beyond by John Preskill, Quantum, Volume 2, August 6, 2018, page 79. (An E-print version is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00862v3)
     "Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) technology will be available in the near future. Quantum computers with 50-100 qubits may be able to perform tasks which surpass the capabilities of today's classical digital computers, but noise in quantum gates will limit the size of quantum circuits that can be executed reliably."
  7. The WIRED Guide to Quantum Computing by Tom Simonite, WIRED, August 24, 2018
     "It's not productive (or polite) to ask people working on quantum computing when exactly those dreamy applications will become real."
  8. Quantum Computing That Can Crack Modern Encryption More Than a Decade Away by Frank Konkel, Defense One, December 6, 2018
     This news report is based on a definitive National Academies Report entitled Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects, edited by Emily Grumbling and Mark Horowitz, 2018
  9. What is meant by "Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum" (NISQ) technology?, Quantum Computing, 2018
  10. Implications of Quantum Computing for Encryption Policy, Encryption Working Group, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University, April 2019
  11. How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers in 8 hours using 20 million noisy qubits by Craig Gidney and Martin Ekerå, arXiv:1905.09749v1, 23 May 2019
  12. How a quantum computer could break 2048-bit RSA encryption in 8 hours: A new study shows that quantum technology will catch up with today's encryption standards much sooner than expected. That should worry anybody who needs to store data securely for 25 years or so, by Emerging Technology from the arXiv, MIT Technology Review, May 30, 2019
  13. NIST Reveals 26 Algorithms Advancing to the Post-Quantum Crypto 'Semifinals', National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Janbuary 30, 2019
  14. National Science Foundation and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy initiate collaborative effort to develop critical resources for quantum education, The National Science Foundation, March, 2020
  15. Key Concepts for Future QIS Learners, Quantum Information Science Workshop output published online May 13, 2020
  16. Science & Tech Spotlight: Quantum Technologies, US General Accountability Office (GAO), May 28, 2020
  17. The U.S. Is Defenseless Against a Drone Terror Attack: The Hamas attack in Israel showed the power and danger of drones, but federal law makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to respond to potential threats. by Richard Whittle, The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2023.

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• Unconventional Weapons: GPS, Microwave, Strobe Lights

  1. See The EMP Threat
  2. Van Eck Phreaking
     Also known as Van Eck Radiation, it is a form of eavesdropping in which electromagnetic radiation from CRT and LCD monitors and even keyboards is collected and analyzed to spy on the electronic device. It is a type of electronic warfare.
  3. Spoofing in the Black Sea: What really happened?, by Michael Jones, GPS World, October 11, 2017
  4. Microwave Weapons Are Prime Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers, by William J. Broad, The New York Times, September 1, 2018
     Doctors and scientists say microwave strikes may have caused sonic delusions and very real brain damage among embassy staff and family members.
  5. The Microwave Auditory Effect, Wikipedia
     Also known as the "Frey effect [it] consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device. The effect was first reported by persons working in the vicinity of radar transponders during World War II."
  6. The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome by Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, November 9, 2018
     Unexplained brain injuries afflicted dozens of American diplomats and spies. What happened?
  7. Russian Navy has new weapon that makes targets hallucinate, vomit: report, by Michael Burke, February 4, 2019
  8. Russia Is Tricking GPS to Protect Putin by Elias Groll, April 3, 2019
  9. A Vulnerable U.S. Really Does Need a Space Force by Jim Sciutto, The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2019
     "The loss of U.S. satellites would have sweeping effects. ... As the cyberwarfare expert Peter Singer and others have written, America would screech to a halt."
     "China and Russia are developing new weapons that can attack crucial American satellites, and the U.S. has been slow to respond to the danger."
  10. An Interview with David Brin on Resiliency: Many risks of catastrophic failures of critical infrastructures can be significantly reduced by relatively simple measures to increase resiliency. by Peter J. Denning, CACM, June 2019
      Brin explains that (a) a simple P2P ad hoc network can be created with cell phones when cell tower services are not available, (b) local electrical service can be provided when the electrical grid is down, (c) electronics can be protected against the EMP threat, (d) smartphones can be converted to smart environmental sensors and generally improve national resiliency, and (e) how citizens can be protected from excessive surveillance via transparency.
  11. Ghost ships, crop circles, and soft gold: A GPS mystery in Shanghai by Mark Harris, MIT Technology Review, November 15, 2019
      A sophisticated new electronic warfare system is being used at the world's busiest port. But is it sand thieves or the Chinese state behind it?
  12. Russia is winning the electronic warfare fight against Ukraine — and the United States by Sébastien Roblin, NBC News, November 26, 2019
      U.S. ground forces have become incredibly dependent on electronic communications without taking adequate steps to protect them from sabotage.
  13. China's version of GPS is almost complete by P.W. Singer and Taylor A. Lee, Popular Science, March 31, 2020
      It's called BeiDou, and it's key for the military, tech industry, and more.
  14. Are U.S. Officials Under Silent Attack?, by Adam Entous, The New Yorker, May 24, 2021.
      The Havana Syndrome first affected spies and diplomats in Cuba. Now it has spread to the White House.
  15. How the U.S. Is Racing to Build a Drone Fleet to Compete With China, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2023.
      The U.S. is racing to assemble a fleet of next-generation drones to stay competitive with China, as concerns rise about a potential conflict over Taiwan. WSJ explores whether the U.S. can work fast enough to deter its adversary in the South China Sea.
  16. The U.S. Is Defenseless Against a Drone Terror Attack: The Hamas attack in Israel showed the power and danger of drones, but federal law makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to respond to potential threats. by Richard Whittle, The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2023.
  17. (Opinion) Is This a Sputnik Moment? by Kari A. Bingen and Heather W. Williams, The New York Times, February 17, 2024.
      A Russian nuclear weapon [in a satellite] capable of targeting [other] satellites would be alarming for a list of reasons. For a start, it's illegal. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Russia is a party, prohibits the placement of "nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction."
  18. The US is still falling behind on electronic warfare, special operators warn: New space and low-power solutions are needed to operate against modern jamming by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, May 13, 2024.
  19. U.S. Fears Undersea Cables Are Vulnerable to Espionage From Chinese Repair Ships: Google, Meta Platforms and others partially own many cables, but they rely on maintenance specialists, including some with foreign ownership by By Dustin Volz, Drew FitzGerald, Peter Champelli and Emma Brown, The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2024.
  20. Meet the Air Force's secretive long-range drone that flies for days: The robot surveillance aircraft can fly for 80 hours without refueling by Audrey Decker, Defense One, July 2, 2024
  21. (Opinion) Is This a Sputnik Moment? by Kari A. Bingen and Heather W. Williams, The New York Times, February 17, 2024.
      A Russian nuclear weapon [in a satellite] capable of targeting [other] satellites would be alarming for a list of reasons. For a start, it's illegal. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Russia is a party, prohibits the placement of "nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.
  22. The US Wants to Integrate the Commercial Space Industry With Its Military to Prevent Cyber Attacks by Sharon Lemac-Vincere, WIRED, June 29, 2024
  23. New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit — Citing rapid advances by China and Russia, the United States is building an extensive capacity to fight battles in space by Eric Lipton, The New York Times, May 17, 2024.
  24. (Opinion) The Future of Warfare Is Electronic: An audacious Ukrainian incursion into Russia shows why. Is the Pentagon paying enough attention? by Porter Smith and Nathan Mintz, The Wall Stret Journal, September 4, 2024

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• 5G Wireless Communications

  1. 5G Reading List, Curated by the Center for New American Security (CNAS) What are the challenges in 5G technology? by Rajiv Baby, RF Page, August 29, 2018
  2. (Opinion) Why 5G will disappoint everyone: Wireless connections that are 20 times faster? What could be disappointing about that? by Mike Elgan, COMPUTERWORLD, September 29, 2018
     "[I]t will probably be more than 15 years before 5G replaces 4G for most users most of the time."
  3. Could Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei Put U.S. Cyber-Security At Risk?, Interview of David Sanger by Terry Gross, NPR, January 31, 2019
     David Sanger explains the 5G threat and assesses the challenges that would arise were nations to negotiate cyber arms control treaties.
  4. The Internet, Divided Between the U.S. and China, Has Become a Battleground: As China and the West race for 5G dominance, two digital powers with very different approaches to technology are staking out their corners by Josh Chin, The Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2019
  5. Security, complexity and Huawei; protecting the UK's telecoms networks by Ian Levy, NCSC, February 20, 2019
     This blog-post provides a high-level overview of telecom operations, discusses risk management when using various 5G vendors, and describes the steps that the UK has taken to continuously monitor the Huawei equipment installed in their telecommunication systems through their Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSC).
  6. US Lawyers Don't Buy Huawei's Argument on Chinese Hacking by Tom Simonite, WIRED, March 4, 2019
  7. Global 5G wireless networks threaten weather forecasts: Next-generation mobile technology could interfere with crucial satellite-based Earth observations by Alexandra Witze, Nature, April 26, 2019
  8. (Opinion) The Yeoman Work Behind 5G Wizardry by Mene Ukueberuwa, The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2019
     The article provides insight into the standards development process that is used by the wireless communications industry primarily through 3GPP.
  9. When to use 5G, when to use Wi-Fi 6 by Lee Doyle, NetworkWorld, Jun 12, 2019
  10. We Tested 5G Across America. It's Crazy Fast — and a Hot Mess: In tests, the 5G often switched off due to summer heat, leaving our columnist to cool the devices with ice packs or air conditioners by Jonna Stern, The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2019
  11. Overview of Risks Introduced by 5G Adoption in the United States, CISA, NIST, July 31, 2019 ( 5G Infographic)
      5G Infographic

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• Cryptocurrencies
  

  1. An extended compilation of citations on blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies by John Savage
  2. SPECIAL REPORT: BLOCKCHAIN WORLD, IEEE Spectrum, September 28, 2017
     This is a collection of 11 articles on blockchain technology.
  3. Microsoft wants to make blockchain networks enterprise-ready with its new Coco Framework by Frederic Lardinois, TechCrunch, August 10, 2017
  4. Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree by Arvind Narayanan and Jeremy Clark, Communications of the ACM, December 2017
  5. Want to really understand how bitcoin works? Here's a gentle primer by Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, December 15, 2017
  6. Five myths about bitcoin by Joseph Bonneau and Steven Goldfeder, The Washington Post, December 15, 2017
  7. The Hard Math Behind Bitcoin's Global Warming Problem by Adams Rogers, Wired, December 15, 2017
  8. Blockchain by Margaret Rouse, TechTarget, SearchCIO.com, July 26, 2017
  9. Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces by Hemang Subramanian, Communications of the ACM, January 2018 (A video providing an overview of blockchains is available here.)
  10. Merrill Lynch Bars Trading of Bitcoin Fund, Futures: Firm has already denied clients access to the bitcoin futures markets by Lisa Beilfuss, The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2018
  11. Russia and Venezuela's Plan to Sidestep Sanctions: Virtual Currencies by Nathaniel Popper, Oleg Matsnev and Ana Vanessa Herrero, The New York Times, January 3, 2018
  12. SEC warns cryptocurrency investors of rampant illegal trading by Sylvan Lane, The Hill, January 4, 2018
  13. Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree by Arvind Narayanan, Jeremy Clark, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 60 No. 12, Pages 36-45, December 2017
  14. Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements for Cryptocurrencies by Yossi Gilad, Rotem Hemo, Silvio Micali, Georgios Vlachos, and Nickolai Zeldovich, SOSP 2017
      Algorand provides a new way to create distributed ledgers that avoids important problems that arise with traditional blockchains.
      A 39:46 minute video of a talk given at Berkeley by Silvio Micali explains the basic concepts is available here. A longer and more complete 1:12:46 video produced by the ACM is available here.
  15. State regulators unveil nationwide crackdown on suspicious cryptocurrency investment schemes by Brian Fung, The Washington Post, May21, 2018
  16. Bitcoin Diamond/Super Bitcoin/BitCore: What You Need To Know by Jimmy Song, Medium, January 3, 2018
  17. Cryptocurrencies Are Top of Mind for G20 Finance Ministers: Anonymity and borderless transactions create a perfect climate for money laundering by Samantha St. Amand, Centre for International Governance Innovation, February 20, 2018
  18. Buyer Beware: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud: A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,450 cryptocurrency offerings reveals rampant plagiarism, identity theft and promises of improbable returns by Shane Shifflett and Coulter Jones, The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2018
  19. The History of Money & the Future of Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Economy by Kenny Li, Hackernoon, March 30, 2018
      This article is an examination into the historical and current use of money and how Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies can fit into the the future of money. This is not a price-prediction piece, nor are the arguments implied as a guarantee of the future of cryptocurrency.
  20. Skepticism of Digital Currency Needs to Be Taken Seriously by Peter Coy, The New York Times, December 11, 2023

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• Blockchains
  

  1. Compilation of citations on blockchain technologies by John Savage

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Social Dimensions

• Social Impacts of Technology
• Political Issues
• Big Data
• Social Media Issues
• Manipulating Social Media
• Information Warfare
• Russian Election Interference
• Chinese Disinformation Campaigns
• Responding to Disinformation Campaigns
• Legal and Legislative Issues
• US Domestic Laws
• Smart Cities
  Back to Top

• Social Impacts of Technology
  

  1. Bots now 'account for 61% of web traffic' by Leo Kelion, BBC Technology, December 12, 2013
  2. Facebook to expand artificial intelligence to help prevent suicide by David Ingram, Reuters, November 27, 2017
  3. How YouTube Drives People to the Internet's Darkest Corners by Jack Nicas, The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2108
  4. How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist by Tristan Harris, ThriveGlobal, May 18, 2016
  5. Apple is sharing your face with apps. That's a new privacy worry. by Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post, November 30, 2017
  6. Caliphate: A new audio series following Rukmini Callimachi as she reports on the Islamic State and the fall of Mosul., The New York Times, April 19, 2018
     An interview with New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi.
  7. Censorship could be just as common in an open internet as a closed one by An Xiao Mina, Quartz, September 25, 2018
     "At the international level, we are seeing a steady fracturing of the once-imagined global village into global factions, each with their own idea of what speech on the internet should look like."
  8. What Does a Fair Algorithm Actually Look Like? by Louise Matsakis, Wired, October 11, 2018
  9. (Opinion) The Internet Will Be the Death of Us: It casts rogue grievances as legitimate obsessions and gives prejudices the shimmer of ideals. by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, October 30, 2018
  10. Is Fake News Here to Stay? by Joseph Nye, Project Syndicate, December 5, 2018

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• Political Issues
  

  1. How IT Threatens Democracy by Kofi Annan, Project Syndicate, February 16, 2018
  2. How One Journalist Uses Social Media to Get Inside the Minds of ISIS by Caitlin Roper, WIRED, August 3, 2016
     The author interviewed New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi. Callimachi describes "how she get her insights into the world's most hostile and secretive organizations", namely, jihadists. This article requires a subscription.
  3. Can Democracy Survive in the Information Age? by Eric Rosenbach and Katherine Mansted, The Belfer Center, October 2018
  4. The Weaknesses in Liberal Democracy That May Be Pulling It Apart by Max Fisher, The New York Times, November 1, 2018
  5. The Global Crisis of Democracy: As China and Russia attack free governments and push strongman rule, the U.S. has gone silent — and a new tide of authoritarianism is gathering. by Larry Diamond, The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2019

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• Big Data
  

  1. Big data, Google and Disease Detection, May 1, 2017
  2. Classification of Twitter Accounts into Automated Agents and Human Users by Zafar Gilani, Ekaterina Kochmar, Jon Crowcroft, ASONAM, 2017
  3. Scholars Have Data on Millions of Facebook Users. Who's Guarding It? by Sheena Frenkel, The New York Times, May 6, 2018

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• Social Media Issues
  

  1. A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes, Mark Twain.
  2. Facebook: New Tools to Prevent Harassment by Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety, Facebook, December 19, 2017
  3. Year in Review: Tech Companies Grapple with Disinformation: 2017 was the year that tech companies faced a difficult reckoning over their role in spreading online disinformation by Lorand Laskai, The Council on Foreign Relations blog, January 2, 2018
  4. How to Curb Silicon Valley Power — Even With Weak Antitrust Laws by Nitasha Tiku, Wired, January 5, 2018
  5. Senate report challenges quality of Facebook, Twitter investigations of Russia's Brexit influence by Ali Breland, The Hill, January 11, 2018
  6. In Some Countries, Facebook's Fiddling Has Magnified Fake News by Sheera Frenkel, Nicholas Casey and Paul Mozur, The New York Times, January 14, 2018
  7. Google can still use Bluetooth to track your Android phone when Bluetooth is turned off by David Yanofsky, Quartz, January 24, 2018
  8. Facebook Battles New Criticism After U.S. Indictment Against Russians by Georgia Wells and Robert McMillan, The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2018
  9. Twitter cracks down on automated tweets by Harper Neidig, The Hill, February 21, 2018
  10. Dem pushes FTC for tougher rules on Facebook sharing data by Ali Breland, The Hill, April 20, 2018
  11. (Opinion) What 7 Creepy Patents Reveal About Facebook, By Sahil Chinoy, Illustrations by André Wee, The New York Times, June 24, 2018
  12. The Impossible Job: Inside Facebook's Struggle to Moderate Two Billion People by Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox, Motherboard, August 23 2018
  13. New Media, AI and How It Affects Our Lives: Three Uncomfortable Truths about Social Media by Ron Diebert, Zurich Film Festival, October 6, 2018
      • [T]he business model upon which social media is built is a personal data surveillance economy.
      • [W]e have consented to it, but not entirely wittingly.
      • The last and most frightening uncomfortable truth is that the social media propels authoritarian practices.
  14. (Opinion) Be Afraid of Economic 'Bigness.' Be Very Afraid. — In the 1930s it contributed to the rise of fascism. Alarmingly, we are experimenting again with a monopolized economy. by Tim Wu, The New York Times, November 10, 2018
  15. Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook's Leaders Fought Through the Crisis by Sheera Frenkel, Nicholas Confessore, Cecilia Kang, Matthew Rosenberg and Jack Nicas, The New York Times, November 14, 2018
  16. Facebook's Data Sharing and Privacy Rules: 5 Takeaways From Our Investigation by Nicholas Confessore, Michael LaForgia and Gabriel J.X. Dance, The New York Times, December 18, 2018
  17. The Technology 202: Facebook decides that politicians don't need to play by the rules by Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post, September 25, 2019
  18. Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive: The social-media giant internally studied how it polarizes users, then largely shelved the research by Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2020
  19. An Audit Slams Facebook as a Home for Misinformation and Hate: In a meeting and an unusual report, activist groups that instigated an ad boycott of the social media company say it has not responded adequately to criticism. by Sidney Fussel, WIRED, July 8, 2020
  20. How Facebook Got Addicted to Spreading Misinformation by Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review, March 11, 2021
  21. From Pretraining Data to Language Models to Downstream Tasks: Tracking the Trails of Political Biases Leading to Unfair NLP Models by Shangbin Feng, Chan Young Park, Yuhan Liu, Yulia Tsvetkov, Procs. 61st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Volume 1: Long Papers, pages 11737-11762.
      Language models (LMs) are pretrained on diverse data sources, including news, discussion forums, books, and online encyclopedias. A significant portion of this data includes opinions and perspectives which, on one hand, celebrate democracy and diversity of ideas, and on the other hand are inherently socially biased.

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• Manipulating Social Media
  

  1. The Follower Factory by Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel J.X. Dance, Richard Harris and Mark Hansen, The New York Times, January 27, 2018
     The authors report that individuals and organizations can purchaes "followers" thereby enhancing their reputations.
  2. How Twitter Bots and Trump Fans Made #ReleaseTheMemo Go Viral: Russian bots and their American allies gamed social media to put a flawed intelligence document atop the political agenda. That should alarm us. by Molly McKew, Politico, February 4, 2018
  3. Top Senate Intel Dem warns of YouTube manipulation by foreign intelligence groups by Ali Breland, The Hill, February 5, 2018
  4. Senator warns YouTube algorithm may be open to manipulation by 'bad actors' by Paul Lewis, The Guardian, February 5, 2018
  5. The Big Loophole That Helped Russia Exploit Facebook: Doctored Photos by Georgia Wells, Shelby Holliday and Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2018
  6. How Everyday Social Media Users Become Real-World Extremists by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, The New York Times, April 25, 2018
  7. And for His Next Act, Ev Williams Will Fix the Internet by Kevin Roose, The New York Times, May 9, 2018
     "[T]echnology doesn't just accelerate and amplify human behavior, it creates feedback loops that can fundamentally change the nature of how people interact and societies move (in ways that probably none of us predicted)."
  8. HOW THE MEDIA HELPED LEGITIMIZE EXTREMISM by Miranda Katz, Wired, May 25, 2018
  9. Alex Jones and Infowars Content Is Removed From Apple, Facebook and YouTube by Jack Nicas, The New York Times, August 6, 2018
  10. As Germans Seek News, YouTube Delivers Far-Right Tirades by Max Fisher and Katrin Bennhold, The New York Times, September 7, 2018
  11. On Instagram, 11,696 Examples of How Hate Thrives on Social Media by Sheera Frenkel, Mike Isaac and Kate Conger, The New York Times, October 29, 2018
  12. (Opinion) I Thought the Web Would Stop Hate, Not Spread It: This is what the internet has come to: thugs like Mohammed bin Salman funding tech companies to host the vitriol of thugs like Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers. by Kara Swisher, The New York Times, October 30, 2018
  13. You Can Hack This Headline for $200: Cybercriminals claim to be selling the ability to manipulate media outlets' articles. by Elias Groll, Foreign Policy, February 1, 2019
  14. Fake news threatens our businesses, not just our politics: How trolls and profiteers use disinformation to affect the market. by Matthew F. Ferraro and Jason C. Chipman, Washington Post, February 8, 2019
  15. The Untold History of Facebook's Most Controversial Growth Tool by Steve Levy, Marker, February 25, 2020
      'People You May Know' (PYMK) helped the social media giant grow exponentially. One man made it happen.
  16. A Harvard professor predicted COVID disinformation on the web. Here's what may be coming next by Pranshu Verma, The Boston Globe, August 23, 2021
  17. X Algorithm Feeds Users Political Content — Whether They Want It or Not: A WSJ experiment finds that accounts supporting Trump and Harris dominate feeds of new X users who wanted cooking and crafts by Jack Gillum, Alexa Corse and Adrienne Tong, The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2024.

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• Information Warfare
  

  1. Information Warfare in an Information Age by William R. Gery, SeYoung Lee, and Jacob Ninas, Joint Forces Quarterly 85, April 1, 2017
     'The goals of an offensive information-warfare campaign are to deny, corrupt, degrade, or destroy the enemy's sources of information on the battlefield. Doing so successfully, while maintaining the operational security of your own information sources, is the key to ... the ability to see the battlefield while your opponent cannot. ... This [was said] best by Sun Tzhu ... 'To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.' ... [T]he Russian operations in Crimea provide a modern case study where the outcome of operations was directly attributed to IW principles and capability.
  2. Data, Power, And War: We've built a power structure that leaves the public good begging at the door. This must change. by John Battelle, Shift, NewCo, December 7, 2017
     "And while it feels odd to write this, no serious scholar of modern geopolitics disputes that we are now at war — a new kind of information-based war, but war, nevertheless — with Russia in particular, but in all honesty, with a multitude of nation states and stateless actors bent on destroying western democratic capitalism. They are using our most sophisticated and complex technology platforms to wage this war — and so far, we're losing. Badly."
  3. Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare by Lt Col Jarred Prier, USAF, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2017
  4. 'Russia Is Our Adversary' by Will Hurd, DefenseOne, February 11, 2018
     "To address continued Russian disinformation campaigns, we need to develop a national counter-disinformation strategy."
  5. Hotspot Analysis: Cyber and Information warfare in the Ukrainian conflict by Center for Cyber Security, ETH, Zurich, October 2018
  6. Inside the Massive Cyber War Between Russia and Ukraine by David Gilbert, Vice News, March 29, 2019
  7. Welcome to Social Cyber Warfare by Lydia Snider, The CyberEdge, April 1, 2019
  8. Loose Lips Sink Democracies? by Elizabeth Braw, Foreign Policy, November 19, 2019
     Russia has started using the West's own reporting against it. Here's how to respond.
  9. Russian disinformation network is said to have helped spread smear of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, by Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Washington Post, December 17, 2019
     The web analysis firm Graphika has linked posts to a known Russian operation.
  10. On the Integration of Psychological Operations with Cyber Operations by Herb Lin, Lawfare, January 9, 2020

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• Russian Election Interference
  

  1. Russian Meddling in the 2016 US Elections, a compilation of articles and reports by John Savage
  2. The surprising new strategy of pro-Russia bots, BBC Trending, September 12, 2017
  3. Update: Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, & Misinformation, Twitter Public Policy, September 28, 2017
  4. Countering Russian Information Operations in the Age of Social Media by the Council on Foreign Relations, November 21, 2017
  5. Facebook Sees Little Evidence of Russian Meddling in 'Brexit' Vote by David D. Kirkpatrick, December 13, 2017
  6. Year in Review: Tech Companies Grapple with Disinformation: 2017 was the year that tech companies faced a difficult reckoning over their role in spreading online disinformation by Lorand Laskai, The Council on Foreign Relations blog, January 2, 2018
  7. Senate report challenges quality of Facebook, Twitter investigations of Russia's Brexit influence by Ali Breland, The Hill, January 11, 2018
  8. Update on Results of Retrospective Review of Russian-Related Election Activity, a report by Twitter to United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, January 19, 2018
  9. Facebook and Google are doomed, George Soros says by Hamza Shaban, The Washington Post, January 26, 2018
  10. Fake news threatens our businesses, not just our politics: How trolls and profiteers use disinformation to affect the market. by Matthew F. Ferraro and Jason C. Chipman, Washington Post, February 8, 2019
  11. Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media, The US House of Representatives, March 1, 2018
  12. Exposing Russia's Effort to Sow Discord Online: The Internet Research Agency and Advertisements, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the US House of Representatives, 2018
      Social media advertisements collected by the US House of Representative, Permanent Selct Committee on Intelligence in conjunction with their investigation of Russian meddling in the US 2016 elections.
  13. Tackling online disinformation: Commission proposes an EU-wide Code of Practice, Brussels, April 26, 2018
  14. We Need a NATO for Infowar by Elisabeth Braw, DefenseOne, May 2, 2018
  15. Meet the Press, May 6, 2018
      In this transcript of Meet the Press, former Ambassador Michael McFaul describes disinformation attacks launched against him and the U.S. government during his term in Moscow.
  16. What Europe Can Teach America About Russian Disinformation by Jed Willard, Defense One, June 10, 2018
  17. A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling by Michael Riley, Lauren Etter, and Bibhutta Pradhan, Bloomberg News, July 19, 2018
  18. Facebook says it has uncovered a coordinated disinformation operation ahead of the 2018 midterm elections by Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tony Romm, The Washington Post, July 31, 2018
  19. (Opinion Video) OPERATION INFEKTION: Russian Disinformation from Cold War to Kanye by Adam B. Ellick and Adam Wetbrook, The New York Times, November 12, 2018
      These three short videos describe active measures, techniques employed by the Soviets, and now the Russian Federation, to undermine the Western alliance.

      Active measures involve the following seven steps:

      1. Find cracks in public issues and use them to exploit divisions
      2. Create the Big Lie
      3. Wrap the big lie around a truth
      4. Conceal your hand
      5. Find a useful idiot who will promote the Big Lie
      6. Deny, deny, deny
      7. Play the long game
      
      

  20. (Opinion) Mueller Hints at a National-Security Nightmare: The missing piece of the report is a counterintelligence investigation that should set off alarm bells about our democracy and security. by Joshua A. Geltzer and Ryan Goodman, The New York Times, April 19, 2019
  21. Twitterbots: Anatomy of a Propaganda Campaign by Gillian Cleary, Symantec, June 5, 2019
      "Internet Research Agency archive reveals a vast, coordinated campaign that was incredibly successful at pushing out and amplifying its messages."

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• Chinese Disinformation Campaigns

  1. China specialists who long supported engagement are now warning of Beijing's efforts to influence American society by Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, November 28, 2018
  2. Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance, edited by Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, November 29, 2018
  3. Tackling Domestic Disinformation: What the Social Media Companies Need to Do by Paul M. Barrett, NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, March 2019
  4. Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion by Insikt Group, Recorded Future, CTA-2019-0306, 2019.
     "Recorded Future analyzed data from several Western social media platforms from October 1, 2018 through February 22, 2019 to determine how the Chinese state exploits social media to influence the American public. This report details those techniques and campaigns using data acquired from Recorded Future® Platform, social media sites, and other OSINT techniques. This report will be of most value to government departments, geopolitical scholars and researchers, and all users of social media."
  5. Beijing's Computational Propaganda Goes Global: The Significance of China's Debut as a Disinformation Actor by Nick Monaco, Medium, September 12, 2019
  6. China Sows Disinformation About Hawaii Fires Using New Techniques: Beijing's influence campaign using artificial intelligence is a rapid change in tactics, researchers from Microsoft and other organizations say. by David E. Sanger and Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times, September 11, 2023

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• Responding to Disinformation Campaigns
  

  1. Developing Responses to Cyber-Enabled Information Warfare and Influence Operations by Herb Lin, Lawfare, September 6,2018
  2. The Fragmentation of Truth by Dana Boyd, Data Society, February 23, 2019
     This is the written version of a talk Dana gave at Knight Media Forum on February 23, 2019 in which she explores the unintended consequences of new social media including the impact it is having on society, notably the circulation and acceptance of misinformation as truth. She appeals to the technical innovators and leaders of society. Quotes from her talk follow.

     Misinformation is not a new problem. Nor is the exploitation of the media ecosystem. Whenever a new medium gains power, there are people who will exploit it for personal or organizational gain, whether for profit, ideology, or politics. ... I would love for us to get better at building the structures and processes to proactively think about how things might go wrong ... in order to make them better.

     [T]he differences between how people build knowledge about the world are fracturing the very social fabric of our country. ... The thing about tech is that it fundamentally focuses on abstraction. ... When you think in terms of abstraction, you lose all the local value, all of the structure there. ... The more everything becomes abstracted and generalized, the more fragmented society will get[.]

     Many of us who built social media imagined that we would do it just by creating the networks. We were wrong. This won't be done by social media. Or by better information. It will only be done when communities focus on building programs and projects that bring people together.

  3. Russia's Neighbor Finland Mounts Defenses Against Election Meddling by Kati Pohjanpalo, Bloomberg, March 28, 2019
  4. Estonia is winning the cyber war against election meddling by Liisa Past and Keith Brown, Quartz, March 28, 2019
  5. Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it's learned may be crucial to Western democracy by Eliza Mackintosh and video by Edward Kiernan CNN, May 2019
  6. SECURING AMERICAN ELECTIONS: Prescriptions for Enhancing the Integrity and Independence of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and Beyond edited by Michael McFaul, Cyber Policy Center, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford, June 6, 2019
  7. The volunteers fighting hate on Facebook: A team of online defenders from across the globe are strategically combating trolls who spread hate speech on Facebook. Who are they,and how does it work?, BBC Trending, June 8, 2019 (Audio - 23 minutes)
  8. 8 Ways to Stay Ahead of Influence Operations by Bruce Schneier, Foreign Policy, August 12, 2019
     With election meddling inevitable in 2020, the United States needs a powerful kill chain.
  9. The War on Pineapple: Understanding Foreign Interference in 5 Steps, CISA, DHS, June 2019
     This infographic is an ILLUSTRATION of how information operations have been carried out in the past to exploit divisions in the United States.

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• Legal and Legislative Issues
  

  1. Former employee says lawmakers should crack down on Facebook by Harper Neidig, The Hill, November 20, 2017
  2. (Opinion) I mentored Mark Zuckerberg. Here is my road map for fixing Facebook. by Roger McNamee, The Washington Post, January 14, 2018
  3. How to tame the tech titans: The dominance of Google, Facebook and Amazon is bad for consumers and competition, The Economist, January 18, 2018
  4. Cyber Diplomacy Act of 2017, U.S. House of Representative, H.R. 3776, January 18, 2018
  5. Twitter to tell 677,000 users they were had by the Russians. Some signs show the problem continues. by Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post, January 10, 2018
  6. Twitter has notified at least 1.4 million users that they saw Russian propaganda during the election by Tony Romm, recode, January 31, 2018
  7. Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries Into Fake Accounts by Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel J.X. Dance and Rich Harris, The New York Times, January 31, 2018
  8. How Twitter Bots and Trump Fans Made #ReleaseTheMemo Go Viral: Russian bots and their American allies gamed social media to put a flawed intelligence document atop the political agenda. That should alarm us. by Molly McKew, Politico, February 4, 2018
  9. The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, signed into law in March 2018, is explained in this article by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
  10. Amazon's Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea: With a single scholarly article, Lina Khan, 29, has reframed decades of monopoly law. by David Streitfeld, The New York Times, September 7, 2018
  11. 2019 Is a Sensitive Year for China. Xi Is Nervous. by Chris Buckley, The New York Times, February 25, 2019
  12. Partnership on AI: Algorithms Aren't Ready to Automate Pretrial Bail Hearings by Khari Johnson, AI Partnership, April 26, 2019
      "The Partnership on AI (PAI) has released a report declaring the algorithms now in use to automate the pre-trial bail process unfit to do so, as they suffer from data sampling bias and bias in statistical predictions, as well as human-computer interface issues and unclear definitions of high risk and low risk."

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• US Domestic Laws
  

  1. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Wikipedia
     Passed in 1974, this act "governs the access to educational information and records by public entities such as potential employers, publicly funded educational institutions, and foreign governments."
  2. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), Wikipedia.
     It was enacted in 1984 as an amendment to 18 U.S. Code § 1030. Fraud and related activity in connection with computers, courtesy of the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University
  3. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), Wikipedia
     It was enacted in 1986.
     
  4. Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), Wikipedia
     It was enacted in 1994 to enhance the ability of US law enforcement agencies to selectively wiretap telephone and internet traffic.
  5. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
     Passed in 1996 this act requires "the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop regulations protecting the privacy and security of certain health information."
  6. Communications Decency Act of 1996, Wikipedia
     Section 230 of the Act has been interpreted to say that operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers (and thus not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services).
  7. Patriot Act
     It was enacted in 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks.
  8. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, Wikipedia
     It was enacted in 2018
     
  9. Computer Crime Statutes, National Conference on State Legislatures
     This is a compilation of US State Computer Crime Laws.

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• Smart Cities
  

  1. It's pretty easy to hack a smart city, cybersecurity researchers find by Benjamin Reed, StateScoop, August 9, 2018
  2. Smart and Safe: Risk Reduction in Tomorrow's Cities, EastWest Institute, February 14, 2019

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International Issues

• International Law
• Standards Bodies
• Sovereignty and Transborder Issues
• Globalization
• The New Cold War
• Geopolitics
• IR Education
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• International Law
  

  1. International Human Rights Law, The United Nations, December 10, 1948
  2. IHL and human rights law, International Committee of the Red Cross, November 29, 2010. (More information is available here.)
     "International humanitarian law and international human rights law are two distinct but complementary bodies of law. They are both concerned with the protection of the life, health and dignity of individuals. IHL applies in armed conflict while human rights law applies at all times, in peace and in war."
  3. Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, Michael N. Schmitt, General Editor, Cambridge University Press, 2013
  4. The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC): 4 Basic Principles, LOACBlog.com
  5. Law of Armed Conflict Deskbook, The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School, US Army, Charlotsville, VA, June 15, 2015
  6. Law of War Manual, Department of Defense, June 2015 (Updated December 2016)
  7. Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations, Michael N. Schmitt, General Editor, Cambridge University Press, February, 2017
  8. Peacetime Cyber Responses and Wartime Cyber Operations Under International Law: An Analytical Vade Mecum by Michael N. Schmitt, Harvard National Security Journal, Volume 8, 2017
  9. The Defense Department's Measured Take on International Law in Cyberspace by Michael Schmitt,
  10. War in Space: How International Humanitarian Law Might Apply: The Woomera Manual — Part 3 by Michael Schmitt and Kieran Tinkler, Just Security, March 9, 2020
  11. The Defense Department's Measured Take on International Law in Cyberspace by Michael Schmitt, Just Security, March 11, 2020
  12. Viewpoint: Geneva Conventions for Cyber Warriors Long Overdue by Steve Waugh, National Defense, March 18, 2020
  13. Elaborating International Law for Cyberspace: Regional organizayions can improve transparency on states' views of international cyber law. Here are some lessons from Latin America. by Duncan B. Hollis, Directions: Cyber Digital Europe, July 29, 2020.
  14. (Opinion) There Is a Part of Modern Life That Is So Essential Armies Should Never Attack It Again by Peter Fairley, The New York Times, April 15, 2024.

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• Standards Bodies
  

  1. American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
     The Institute ]oversees the creation, promulgation and use of thousands of norms and guidelines that directly impact businesses in nearly every sector: from acoustical devices to construction equipment, from dairy and livestock production to energy distribution, and many more.
  2. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
     "The Internet Engineering Task Force is the premier Internet standards body, developing open standards through open processes."
  3. The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
     "The World Wide Web Consortium is an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web."
  4. The Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) Standards Organizations
     "IEEE is a leading developer of industry standards in a broad range of technologies that drive the functionality, capabilities, and interoperability of products and services, transforming how people live, work, and communicate."
  5. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
     "[The ITU] allocate[s] [the] global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develop[s] the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strive[s] to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide."
  6. 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
     "[3GPP] unites [Seven] telecommunications standard development organizations (ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TSDSI, TTA, TTC) ... and provides their members with a stable environment to produce the Reports and Specifications that define 3GPP technologies."

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• Sovereignty and Transborder Issues
  

  1. National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China [Revised], June 27, 2017
     Article 7 imposes an obligation on Chinese organizations and citizens to "assist in and cooperate in national intelligence work". See this LAWFARE blog for more information.
  2. Translation: Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (Effective June 1, 2017) by Rogier Creemers, Paul Triolo, and Graham Webster, New America,, June 29, 2018
  3. Why Microsoft Is Fighting U.S. Over Emails in Ireland by Dina Bass, Bloomberg, February 26, 2018
  4. Microsoft's Supreme Court Case Has Big Implications For Data by Louise Matakis, Wired, February 27, 2018
  5. Legal Cases: Microsoft's Search Warrant Case, Brad Smith, Microsoft, April 3, 2018
  6. Microsoft Corp. v. United States, Wikipedia
  7. Cross-Border Data Sharing Under the CLOUD Act by Stephen P. Mulligan, Congressional Research Service, April 23, 2018
  8. Huawei Frightens Europe's Data Protectors. America Does, Too by Helene Fouquet and Marie Mawad, Bloomberg, February 24, 2019
  9. The global internet is disintegrating. What comes next? by Sally Adee, BBC Future Now, May 15, 2019

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• Globalization
  

  1. (Opinion) The Evolution of Globalization, review of books by Erik Berglöf, Project Synicate, September 21, 2018
  2. (Opinion) This is what sleepwalking into war looks like by Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, October 5, 2018
  3. Gray Zones in a Blue Arctic: Grappling With China's Growing Influence by Rebecca Pincus and Walter A. Berbrick, War on the Rocks, October 24, 2018
  4. Isolating the RuNet and banning online anonymity. What did Putin's Internet adviser achieve in 2.5 years on the job?, Meduza, June 13, 2018
  5. What Europe Can Teach America About Russian Disinformation by Jed Willard, Defense One, June 10, 2018
  6. Who Was German Klimenko and What Does His Dismissal Mean for the Russian Internet? by Lincoln Pigman, The Council on Foreign Relations, June 25, 2018
  7. Former Google chief predicts the Internet will split by 2028: A Chinese Web and an American one by Hamza Shaban, The Washington Post, September 21, 2018

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• The New Cold War
  

  1. China is Losing the New Cold War by Minxin Pei, Project-Syndicate, September 5, 2018
  2. (Opinion) The New Cold War: The forces of division and the forces of connection. by David Brooks, The New York Times, October 29, 2018
  3. The War Game That Could Have Ended the World by Richard Hollingham, BBC Future, November 9, 2018
  4. In Race for Global Power, U.S. and China Push Nations to Pick a Side by Edward Wong and Alan Rappeport, The New York Times, November 21, 2018

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• Geopolitics
  

  1. (Opinion) The strongmen strike back: Authoritarianism has reemerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world — a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. And we have no idea how to confront it. by Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, March 14, 2019
     In the course of arguing his thesis, Robert Kagan cites the power of modern social media in providing surveillance powers to authoritarian governments as well as serving as vehicles for social control. Excerpts from this long paper can be found here.
  2. Margaret McMillan, The BBC Reith Lectures, 2018
     Historian Margaret MacMillan explores the tangled history of war and society.
  3. A Sino-Russian Alliance? Don't Bet On It by Thomas Sherlock and John Gregory, The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2019
  4. The West Can't Even Agree on Itself, Much Less China by Kevin Baron, DefenseOne, February 21, 2020
     Students in Beijing and Moscow want to keep their neighbor at arm's length. They also admire the U.S.
  5. Invations Don't Pay Off Anymore: There's a reason that full-scale interstate war, of the sort that Russia is inching toward, has become a rarity, by Mark Geoletti, Foreign Policy, February 22, 2022.

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• IR Education
  

  1. America's IR Schools Are Broken by Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, February 20, 2018

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China Related Issues

• China's Ambitions
• Understanding China
• Chinese Leadership
• China's Social Control System
• China's Economy
• China's Technology Policy
• Huawei Software Security
• Chinese Cyber Law
• Chinese Theft of Intellectual Property
• Chinese Cyber Espionage
• China's Cyber Diplomacy
• China's International Competition
• China's Preparation for Conflict
• Chinese Disinformation Campaigns
  Back to Top

• China's Ambitions
  

  1. As tensions ease, China keeps building on disputed islands by Matthew Pennington, The Associated Press, December 15, 2017
  2. Understanding China's Rise Under Xi Jinping by Kevin Rudd, Speech to U.S. Military Academy at West Point, March 5, 2018
  3. The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied American Expectations by Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner, Foreign Policy, March/April 2018
  4. Xi Jinping's Vision for Global Governance by Kevin Rudd, Project Syndicate, July 11, 2018
  5. Is There Really a 'China Model'?: A closer look at Chinese claims that its blueprint for growth can be exported. by Bonnie Girard, The Diplomat, July 13, 2018
  6. (Opinion) Unease rattles China's invincible facade by John Pomfret, The Washington Post, August 2, 2018
  7. (Opinion) The U.S. is overly paranoid about China's tech rise by Fred Hu, The Washington Post, August 22, 2018
  8. 'The Key Problem of Our Time': A Conversation with Henry Kissinger on Sino-U.S. Relations, Wilson Center, September 13, 2018
     "When I became National Security Advisor, I became conscious, of course, of our war plans, and I realized that the consequences of a war were monumental. And, therefore, in a way, we were driven to discuss these implications. Now we are many steps ahead of that. The danger is much greater. The complexity of the weapons is not even fully understood. So that discussion always has to take place, so that we don't drift by miscommunication or accident.

     But I want to leave you all with the conviction that I think this is solvable, and I do not think it is inevitable, and I think it should be achieved without war. Those are the basic principles."

  9. (Opinion) To Understand China, Look to America's History: In Challenging Britain's hegemony a century ago, U.S. tactics look similar to Beijing's today by Katherine C. Epstein, The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2019
     The author suggests that China may be seeking to emulate the US vis-a-vis Britain and use Huawei's strategic advantage in 5G to challenge US hegemony.
  10. Diplomatic Outbursts Mar Xi's Plan to Raise China on the World Stage, Bloomberg News, March 6, 2019
      "We seem to be watching China's diplomats matching the mood of the moment in Beijing. Beijing rewards diplomats that are aggressive advocates of Chinab bys views and scorns those that it perceives as overly timid.", said "Brian Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution ... That may be damaging to Xi Jinping's efforts to win friends abroad and capitalize on Donald Trump's international unpopularity."
  11. BEHOLD, EMPEROR XI: For China's leader to rule indefinitely breaks Communist tradition — but returns to an imperial one, by Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, October 13,2022.
      Xi is seeking to rebuild these ties of influence, and he's adopting the tools of the emperors to achieve his aim. Even in antiquity, the emperors claimed that their writ embraced "all under heaven." For centuries, the Chinese dynasties formed the political, economic, and cultural center of East Asia. Their influence extended to the far horizons through trade.
  12. The World According to Xi Jinping: What China's Ideologue in Chief Really Believes by Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2022.
      Immediately after Xi was installed as CCP general secretary in 2012, he led the newly appointed Politburo Standing Committee on a tour of an exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing titled 'The Road to Rejnuvenation,' which chronicled the perfidy of the Western imperial powers and Japan and the party's heroic response to China's '100 years of national humiliation.'
  13. Challenging the U.S. Is a Historic Mistake by Robert Kagan, The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2023.
      Like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, today's China is a rising power determined to dominate its region and convinced that American strength is waning. It runs the risk of experiencing a similar fate if it attacks Taiwan.
  14. China's Leader, With Rare Bluntness, Blames U.S. Containment for Troubles: Xi Jinping criticized what he called a U.S.-led campaign of "encirclement and suppression." His new foreign minister said it was impossible for China not to fight back, by Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, March 7, 2023.
  15. China's foreign minister predicts impending clash with United States by Christian Shepherd, The Washington Post, March 7, 2023
  16. Will China overtake the U.S. on AI? Probably not. Here's why. by Meaghan Tobin, The Washington Post, July 9, 2023

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• Understanding China
  

  1. The Sino-American Split and its Consequences by Chas W. Freeman, Jr., The Foreign Policy Association's Centennial Lecture Series, New York, NY, July 13, 2019
  2. (Opinion) Are Chinese And Western Perspectives Incompatible In Our Post-Truth Times? by Noah Lachs, supchina, September 24, 2019
     We make much ado of 'building bridges' and 'deepening understanding' between China and the West. But this is easier said than done. Increasingly, we are being reminded that it's not different values that clash, but different realities.
  3. The New China Scare: Why American Shouldn't Panic About Its Latest Challenger by Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2020
  4. How China Sees the World by H. R. McMaster, The Atlantic, May 2020
     [O]n balance, the Chinese Communist Party's goals run counter to American ideals and American interests.
  5. Don't Believe the China Hype by Michael Shulman, The Atlantic, June 16, 2020
  6. Xi Wants Chinese Students Back in the Countryside: New labor education policies echo Maoist obsessions by Don Giolzerri, Foreign Policy, July 22, 2020
  7. Short of War: How to Keep U.S.-Chinese Confrontation From Ending in Calamity by Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021.
     No matter what strategies the two sides pursue or what events unfold, the tension between the United States and China will grow, and competition will intensify; it is inevitable. War, however, is not.
  8. China's strengths shouldn't blind us to its weaknesses by Harlan Ullman, New Atlanticist, Atlantic Council, April 6, 2021
  9. China's One-Way Diplomacy by Chris Patten, Project Syndicate, June 1, 2021
     A good relationship between free societies and China is not something that the CPC bestows. It is something that China must earn by respecting the rules and norms of international behavior and recognizing other countries' sovereignty instead of just asserting its own.
  10. The Robber Barons of Beijing: Can China Survive Its Gilded Age? by Yuen Yuen Ang, Foreign Policy, July/August 2021
      Xi, ... in his bid to end crony capitalism, ... is reviving the command system, the very approach that failed miserably under Mao.
  11. Xi the Survivor: How Washington Overestimates Chinese Weakness By Christopher Johnson, Foreign Affairs, February 22, 2023
  12. Global Strategy 2023: Winning the tech race with China by Peter Engelke and Emily Weinstein, Atlantic Council, June 27, 2023
      Until recently, the United States was the undisputed leader in the development of breakthrough technologies, and in the innovation and commercial scaling of emerging and existing technologies, while China was a laggard in both categories. That script has changed dramatically. China is now the greatest single challenger to US preeminence in this space.
  13. China's Road to Ruin: The Real Toll of China's Belt and Road by Michael Bennon and Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2023
  14. The China Model is Dead by Michael Shulman, The Atlantic, September 7, 2023.

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• Chinese Leadership 
  

  1. Leninism Upgraded: Xi Jinping's Authoritarian Innovations by Sebastian Heillmann, China Economic Quaterly, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2016
  2. China's New Revolution: The Reign of Xi Jinping by Elizabeth C. Economy, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2018
  3. China's Cyberspace Authorities Set to Gain Clout in Reorganization: Leading Group' for Cybersecurity and Informatization Upgraded to Commission' by Rogier Creemers, Paul Triolo, Samm Sacks, Xiaomeng Lu and Graham Webster, New America, March 26, 2018
  4. 2019 Is a Sensitive Year for China. Xi Is Nervous. by Chris Buckley, The New York Times, February 25, 2019
  5. Xi Jinping Works to Stifle Dissent Amid Concerns About China's Economy: The president issues new demands of loyalty ahead of annual party congress by Chun Han Wong, The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2019
  6. Xi's Unsteady Steps Revive Worries Over Lack of Succession Plan in China: Speculation on Chinese leader's health fuels concern about one-man rule by Chun Han Wong, The Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2019
  7. (Opinion) Xi Jinping Wanted Global Dominance. He Overshot. by Yi-Zheng Lian, The New York Times, May 7, 2019
     "China wasn't ready for the trade war with the United States."
  8. Paramount and paranoid: China's Xi faces a crisis of confidence by Anna Fifield, The Washington Post, August 2, 2019
     [T]he party's increasingly repressive actions inside China, such as the crackdown in the Xinjiang region and the growing use of surveillance technology, 'reflect heightened fear and insecurity, not a self-confident China aspiring to enhanced leadership in global and regional affairs,' Jonathan D. Pollack and Jeffrey A. Bader of the Brookings Institution wrote in a recent paper. ... As the trade negotiations rumble on, more people in China are subscribing to the view that the dispute is about geopolitics rather than economics, scholars say. That it's all about keeping China down.
  9. The Party leads on everything: China's changing governance in Xi Jinping's new era, China Monitor, Mercator Institute for China Studies, September 24, 2019
     Some high-level findings:
     • President Xi is returning the party to the fore by rebuilding a centralized, hierarchical system around himself as core leader.
       President Xi relies on leading small groups (LSGs) and commissions for this purpose.
     • [T]he party leads on everything. ... [T]he core leadership's policy programs ... guide priorities throughout the entire system.
     • Law-based governance is now a key term in China's political discourse, where it is seen as an important source of legitimacy, along with more efficient governance.
  10. As China's Troubles Simmer, Xi Reinforces His Political Firewall by Chris Buckley, The New York Times, October 28, 2019
      With China mired in a trade war, economic slowdown and Hong Kong unrest, Xi Jinping will use an elite meeting to focus more on increasing his control over the Communist Party.
  11. Xi Jinping Knows Who His Enemies Are by Tanner Green, Foreign Policy, November 21, 2019.
      A new book lays out the Chinese leader's stark worldview.
  12. Xi's Gamble: The Race to Consolidate Power and Stave Off Disaster By Jude Blanchette, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021.
      Xi is impatient with the status quo, possesses a high tolerance for risk, and seems to feel a pronounced sense of urgency in challenging the international order. ... Why is he in such a rush? ... Xi has consolidated so much power and upset the status quo with such force because he sees a narrow window of ten to 15 years during which Beijing can take advantage of a set of important technological and geopolitical transformations, which will also help it overcome significant internal challenges.
  13. Xi's Dictatorship Threatens the Chinese State: In his quest for personal power, he's rejected Deng Xiaoping's economic reform path and turned the Communist Party into an assemblage of yes-men.
      Xi Jinping, the ruler of China, suffers from several internal inconsistencies which greatly reduce the cohesion and effectiveness of his leadership.
  14. What if Xi Jinping just isn't that competent? by Noah Smith, November 6, 2021
  15. Banana Peels for Xi Jinping by Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, November 20, 2022

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• China's Social Control System
  

  1. China's Chilling 'Social Credit' Blacklist: A lawyer is barred from buying a plane ticket because a court found his apology 'insincere' by Maya Wang, The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2017
  2. Inside China's Vast New Experiment In Social Ranking by Mara Hvistendahl, Wired, December 14, 2017
  3. China to block SD-WAN and VPN traffic by Jan. 11: If you have facilities in China, you're going to need to address this VPN registration issue, if it hasn't been addressed already by Steve Garson, NETWORKWORLD, January 5, 2018
  4. China's VPN Crackdown May Aid Government Surveillance by Liza Lin and Yoko Kubota, The Washington Post, January 17, 2018
  5. (Opinion) What It's Like to Live in a Surveillance State by James A. Millward, The New York Times, February 3, 2018
  6. China, EU seize control of the world's cyber agenda: The U.S. guided global internet policy for decades. Now, the EU and China are taking the lead, by Eric Geller, POLITICO, July 22, 2018
  7. Electric Grid Cybersecurity, Congressional Research Service, September 4, 2018
  8. Inside China's Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras by Paul Mozur, The New York Times, July 8, 2018
  9. (Opinion) 'Never again?' It's already happening by Anne Applebaum, The Washington Post, February 15, 2019
  10. China Uses DNA to Track Its People, With the Help of American Expertise: The Chinese authorities turned to a Massachusetts company and a prominent Yale researcher as they built an enormous system of surveillance and control by Sui-Lee Wee, The New York Times, February 21, 2019
  11. In China, an App About Xi Is Impossible to Ignore — Even if You Try by Javier C. Hernández, The New York Times, April 7, 2019
  12. China's Hard Edge: The Leader of Beijing's Muslim Crackdown Gains Influence: Chen Quanguo's social–control methods in Xinjiang are spreading to other parts of China by Chun Han Wong, The New York Times, April 7, 2019
  13. China Has Been Running Global Influence Campaigns for Years by Bethany Allen-Ebrahiniam and Zach Dorfman, Defense One, May 20, 2019
  14. How China Uses High‐Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities by Chris Buckley and Paul Mozur, The New York Times, May 22, 2019
  15. How The West Got China's Social Credit System Wrong by Louise Matsakis, WIRED, July 28, 2019
      "Western media reports ... paint China's Social Credit System as a dystopian nightmare[.] But there is no single, all-powerful score assigned to every individual in China, at least not yet. ... But Western concerns about what could happen with China's Social Credit System have in some ways outstripped discussions about what's already really occurring. ... [T]he science fiction myths about China's social credit score continue to endure in the West. ... Chinese legal researchers are worried about one of these databases in particular: The Supreme People's Court maintains a blacklist of people who the government alleges did not comply with court judgments, for example by not paying fines, but also things like failing to formally apologize to someone they are found to have wronged. Being on the blacklist now comes with harsh punishments. You might be unable to purchase high-speed train tickets, fly on an airplane, or send your kids to a private school."
  16. How Dissidents Are Using Shortwave Radio to Broadcast News Into China by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, August 5, 2019
  17. Professors, Beware. In China, Student Spies Might Be Watching. by Javier C. Hernandez, The New York Times, November 1, 2019
  18. China: New Rules Criminalize 'Negative' Talk by UCAN, eurasiareview, March 9, 2020
  19. Made-in-China Censorship for Sale by Shan Li, The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2020
      Chinese AI tools from tech giants like Alibaba make it easier to scrub online content — and anyone can buy them.
  20. China harvests masses of data on Western targets, documents show, by Cate Cadell, The Washington Post, December 31, 2021
  21. A Digital Manhunt: How Chinese Police Track Critics on Twitter and Facebook by Muyi Xiao and Paul Mazur, The New York Times, December 31, 2021

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• China's Economy
  

  1. How Trump Could Stumble From a Trade War Into a Real War with China by Graham Allison, Belfer Center, April 20, 2018
  2. (Opinion) China's debt traps around the world are a trademark of its imperialist ambitions by John Pomfret, The Washington Post, August 27, 2018
  3. Chinese tech faces an innovation reality check as the economy cools and start-ups stumble: Even after a banner year for venture capital funding, some investors predict that as many as 90 per cent of Chinese tech start-ups are doomed to fail by Jodi Xu Klein, South China Morning Post, April 1, 2019
  4. Does China Have Feet of Clay? by Joseph Nye, Project Syndicate, April 4, 2019
     "[T]he country is facing several challenges that are far more serious than many observers seem to think."
  5. China Is Closing the Innovation Gap: Report by Brandi Vincent, Defense One, April 9, 2019
     This article is a brief summary of the report Is China Catching Up to the United States in Innovation? by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), April 2019
  6. The U.S. Is Losing a Major Front to China in the New Cold War by Lulu Yilun Chen and Yoolim Lee, Bloomberg, April 14, 2019
     "A swathe of the world is adopting China's vision for a tightly controlled internet over the unfettered American approach, a stunning ideological coup for Beijing that would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago."
  7. What's Next for China's Political Economy by Kevin Rudd, Project Syndicate, August 2, 2019
     Slowing growth and the ongoing trade and technology war with the United States have forced China's leaders to address a fundamental dilemma at the core of the Chinese political economy. Can the Communist Party of China both deliver on the 'Chinese Dream' and maintain absolute control over the country?
  8. Old Age Will Put China to Rest: Retirees will be a fifth of its population by 2040, and productivity will quickly fade out. by Andy Kessler, The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2019

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• China's Technology Policy
  

  1. Internet Giants Told: Accept Cyber Curbs to Be Welcome in China, VOA, December 18, 2017
  2. Command and control: China's Communist Party extends reach into foreign companies by Simon Denyer, The Washington Post, January 28, 2018
  3. Chinese Facial Recognition Recognizes Wanted Man in Crowd of 60,000
  4. What's inside made-in-China electronics should worry federal customers, study says by David J. Lynch, The Washington Post, April 19, 2018
  5. China's Xi Says Internet Control Key to Stability by Reuters, April 21, 2018
  6. Tech Giants Feel the Squeeze as Xi Jinping Tightens His Grip: The government in China, long suspicious of internet companies, now sees ambitious titans like Tencent and Alibaba as useful partners. by Raymond Zhong and Paul Mozur, The New York Times, May 2, 2018
  7. What is 'Made in China 2025' — and why is it a threat to Trump's trade goals by Kristen Hopewell, The Washington Post, May 3, 2018
  8. Scoping Critical Information Infrastructure in China: CII is a major policy challenge in implementing Xi Jinping's cybersecurity strategy. by Xiaomeng Lu, The Diplomat, May 22, 2018
  9. (Opinion) The 'Mortal Danger' of China's Push Into AI by Tim Simonite, WIRED, January 24, 2019
     This is a summary of a talk that George Soros gave at the 2019 World Economic Forum in which he expresses his alarm about the threat that is presented by AI in the hands of autocrats.
  10. Fear of false negatives: AI and China's nuclear posture By Lora Saalman, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 24, 2018
      In the US, military analysts are often concerned "that alarms or early warning systems ... could produce false positives. ... [However,] Chinese analysts ... are much more concerned with false negatives," that is, "failures by China's early warning systems to detect a real attack". As a consequence, "Beijing's integration of AI and autonomy into its military systems is likely to increase. ... Officials in Beijing and Moscow have responded strongly and negatively to the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review."
  11. China Snares Tourist's Phones in Surveillance Dragnet by Adding Secret App by Raymond Zhong, The New York Times, July 2, 2019
      "Border authorities routinely install the app on the phones of people entering the Xinjiang region by land from Central Asia, gathering personal data and scanning for material considered objectionable."
  12. Seizing Core Technologies: China Responds to U.S. Technology Competition by Adam Segal, Chinese Leadership Monitor, June 1, 2019
      "Chinese analysts and policy makers have interpreted U.S. efforts to prevent the flow critical technologies ... as part of a strategy of containment designed to slow China's rise as a science and technology power. In response, a newly emerging strategy consists of: a doubling down on indigenous innovation and developing 'core technologies'; protection of supply chains; diversification of access to foreign technology; diplomatic efforts that stress the shared benefits of Chinese technology development; and continued cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property."
  13. China's Cybersecurity Regulations Rattle U.S. Businesses: New draft rules and standards flesh out an existing law that the U.S. and many foreign businesses already consider draconian by Yuko Kubota, The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2019
  14. China's upgraded cybersecurity law could take a toll by Joe Uchill, Axios, October 16, 2019
      'It's going to be incredibly invasive,' said Adam Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
  15. Decoding China's Cryptography Law: A look at the security and commercial implications of the new law. by Zi Yang, The Diplomat, October 30, 2019
  16. Network Sovereignty: Theory and Practice, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Wuhan University, October 21, 2019, published at the 2019 World Internet Conference, Wuzhen, China
  17. China tells government offices to remove all foreign computer equipment by Kate Lyons, The Guardian, December 8, 2019
  18. (Opinion) Responding Effectively to the Chinese Economic Espionage Threat, by Christopher Wray, Department of Justice China Initiative Conference, Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D.C. February 6, 2020
  19. Minds At War: China's Pursuit Of Military Advantage Through Cognitive Science And Biotechnology — Analysis by Elsa B. Kania, Eurasia Review, February 23, 2020
      PLA thinkers are concerned about the intense cognitive challenges that future commanders will encounter, particularly considering the importance of optimizing human-machine coordination and fusion or integration ... the 'human brain will become a new combat space'.
      Biological interdisciplinary technology will make future combat platforms move toward human-computer integration and intelligentization. In the future, human-like brain information processing systems will achieve revolutionary breakthroughs, such as high-performance low-power computing, highly intelligent autonomous decision-making, active learning, and continuous increases in intelligentization, promoting the emergence of highly intelligentized and autonomous combat forces.
  20. Is China Beating the U.S. to AI Supremacy? by Graham Allison and Eric Schmidt, Belfer Center, Harvard, August 2020.
  21. FBI Director Wray says scale of Chinese spying in the U.S. 'blew me away,' by Pete Williams, NBC News, February 1, 2022.
  22. Pentagon Sees Giant Cargo Cranes as Possible Chinese Spying Tools by Aruna Viswanatha, Gordon Lubold and Kate O'Keeffe, The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2023
  23. China's Hidden Tech Revolution: How Beijing Threatens U.S. Dominance by Dan Wang, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023
  24. Will China overtake the U.S. on AI? Probably not. Here's why. by Meaghan Tobin, The Washington Post, July 9, 2023
  25. How China Pulled So Far Ahead on Industrial Policy: The United States and Europe are trying to catch up to a rival skilled in using all the levers of government and banking to dominate global manufacturing by Patricia Cohen, Keith Bradsher and Jim Tankersley, The New York Times, May 27, 2024.

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• China Technology Exports
  

  1. Made-in-China Censorship for Sale: Chinese AI tools from tech giants like Alibaba make it easier to scrub online contenbtand anyone can buy them. by Shan Li, The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2020
     China's ... content-moderation tools are becoming a big business ... to filter political content ... [such as] mentions of President Xi Jinping or other Chinese leaders, and to manage debate on sensitive topics such as recent Hong Kong protests or the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square.

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• Huawei Software Security
  

  1. Could Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei Put U.S. Cyber-Security At Risk?, Interview of David Sanger by Terry Gross, NPR, January 31, 2019
     David Sanger explains the 5G threat and assesses the challenges that would arise were nations to negotiate cyber arms control treaties.
  2. What Do the Huawei Indictments Mean for the Future of Global Tech?, A ChinaFile Conversation by Adam Segal, Samm Sacks, Cobus van Staden, Elsa Kania, Elliott Zaagman, and Anna Holzmann, February 2, 2019
  3. Security, complexity and Huawei; protecting the UK's telecoms networks by Ian Levy, NCSC, February 20, 2019
     This blog-post provides a high-level overview of telecom operations, discusses risk management when using various 5G vendors, and describes the steps that the UK has taken to continuously monitor the Huawei equipment installed in their telecommunication systems through their Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSC).
  4. Huawei Frightens Europe's Data Protectors. America Does, Too by Helene Fouquet and Marie Mawad, Bloomberg, February 24, 2019
     "Some people are drawing parallels between the legislation [the CLOUD Act] and the National Intelligence Law that China put in place in 2017 requiring all its organizations and citizens to assist authorities with access to information."
  5. US Lawyers Don't Buy Huawei's Argument on Chinese Hacking by Tom Simonite, WIRED, March 4, 2019
  6. British spy agency delivers scathing assessment of security risks posed by Huawei to U.K. telecom networks by Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, March 28, 2019
     "This is the second consecutive year ... GCHQ ... has identified serious problems."
  7. Huawei's 'shoddy' work prompts talk of a Westminster ban by Leo Kelion, BBC News, April 7, 2019
  8. The 5G Ecosystem: Risks & Opportunities for Dod Defense Innovation Board, April 2019
  9. U.S. charges China's Huawei with racketeering and conspiracy to steal U.S. trade secrets in new indictment by Jeanne Whalen, The Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2020 The new charges accuse Huawei and its subsidiaries of a decades-long effort to steal intellectual property from six U.S. tech companies, including by offering Huawei employees bonuses for obtaining confidential information.

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• Chinese Cyber Law
  

  1. Chinese Counter-Espionage Law, 2014
  2. State Security Law, 2015
  3. Counter-terrorism Law, 2015
  4. Foreign Non-Governmental Organization Management Law, 2016
  5. Cyber Security Law, 2016
     The above five laws were identified in Germany's Self-Delusion About a 'No-Spying' Pact with China, by Peter Mattis, War on the Rocks, March 12, 2019 and translated by Google.
  6. National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China [Revised], June 27, 2017
     Article 7 imposes an obligation on Chinese organizations and citizens to "assist in and cooperate in national intelligence work". See this LAWFARE blog for more information.
  7. Translation: Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (Effective June 1, 2017) by Rogier Creemers, Paul Triolo, and Graham Webster, New America,, June 29, 2018
  8. China Adopts Malicious "Cybersecurity" Rules by Gordon G. Chang, Gatstone Institute, November 30, 2019
     On January 1, [2020] China's Cryptography Law becomes effective. ... [B]usinesses will be required to turn over encryption keys. ... Chinese officials will be permitted ... to share seized information with state enterprises.

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• Chinese Theft of Intellectual Property
  

  1. Intellectual Property and China: Is China Stealing American IP? by Paul Goldstein Q&A with Sharon Driscoll, Stanford Law School blog, April 10, 2018
  2. How China acquires the 'crown jewels' of U.S. technology by Cory Bennett and Bryan Bender, Politico, May 22, 2018
  3. Rude, red awakening: China's theft of U.S. tech is hard to stop by Erica Pandey, Axios, May 25, 2018
  4. U.S. Should Chill Out About High-Tech China Threat, Pettis Says, Bloomberg News, June 6, 2018
  5. China backed off from hacking U.S. companies. Now it is at it again. by Tim Johnson, McClatchy, June 7, 2018
  6. Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power by Paul Mozur, The New York Times, June 22, 2018
  7. How the US Forced China to Quit Stealing — Using a Chinese Spy by Garrett M. Graff, Wired, October 11, 2018
  8. A New Old Threat: Countering the Return of Chinese Industrial Cyber Espionage by Lorand Laskai and Adam Segal, The Council on Foreign Relations, December 6, 2018
     "China is once again conducting cyber-enabled theft of U.S. intellectual property to advance its technological capabilities. To combat the problem, the United States should build a multinational coalition, sanction Chinese companies, and strengthen cyber defenses."
  9. U. S. charges Chinese hackers in alleged theft of vast trove of confidential data in 12 countries by Ellen Nakashima and David J. Lynch, The Washington Post, December 21, 2018
  10. UK academia's links to Chinese defence firms 'harmful for national security' by Hannah Devlin and Ian Sample, The Guardian, November 25, 2019
  11. Linwei Ding was a Google software engineer. He was also a prolific thief of trade secrets, say prosecutors: U.S. officials say some of America's most prominent tech firms have had their virtual pockets picked by Chinese corporate spies and intelligence agencies, by Ken Dilanian and Anna Schecter, NBC News, April 6, 2024

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• Chinese Cyber Espionage
  

  1. China, Russia, Iran pose grave cyber espionage threat: government report by Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, July 26, 2018
  2. Is China's cyberespionage a military game-changer?: There's no magical shortcut to catch up on the latest weapons tech by Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli, The Washington Post, March 14, 2019
     Our new article in International Security, 'Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet,' provides evidence that stealing foreign information isn't nearly as valuable as it's made out to be
  3. China Doesn't and Won't Instruct Companies to Spy, Premier Vows by Chun Han Wong, The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2019
  4. Cracking Down on Chinese Investment Might Lead to an Uptick in Cyber Espionage by Lucas Ashbaugh, Council on Foreign Relations, March 27, 2018
  5. Technology: From Copycats to Innovators by Richard Vague, Democracy, Spring 2019, No. 52
  6. How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.'s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks by Nicole Perlroth, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, The New York Times, May 6, 2019
  7. Survey of Chinese-linked Espionage in the United States Since 2000, The Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2019
  8. How China's Elite Hackers Stole the World's Most Valuable Secrets by Brian Barrett, WIRED, December 20, 2019
     A new DOJ indictment outlines how Chinese hackers allegedly compromised data from companies in a dozen countries in a single intrusion.
  9. Accused Chinese hackers abandon techniques after U.S. indictments by Jeff Stone, cyberscoop, February 26, 2020
     U.S. indictments against individual Chinese soldiers accused of hacking various American targets have deterred those military personnel from conducting the same kinds of hacks again, according to [Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike.]
  10. China's WeChat Monitors Foreign Users to Refine Censorship at Home by Eva Xiao, The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2020
      While they aren't censored, images and documents they send through the app are analyzed for taboo content.
  11. Chinese Balloon Used American Tech to Spy on Americans: Preliminary U.S. findings show the craft collected photos and videos but didn't appear to transmit them, officials say by Nancy A. Youssef, The Wall Street Jounral, June 29, 2023.
  12. China Is Stealing AI Secrets to Turbocharge Spying, U.S. Says: U.S. officials are worried about hacking and insider theft of AI secrets, which China has denied by Robert McMillan, Dustin Volz,and Aruna Viswanatha, The Wall Street Journal, December 25, 2023.
  13. NSA and Partners Spotlight People's Republic of China Targeting of U.S. Critical Infrastructure
      PRC-sponsored cyber actor, Volt Typhoon, [is] targeting IT networks of communications, energy, transportation, water, and wastewater organizations in the U.S. and its territories.

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• China's Cyber Diplomacy
  

  1. FACT SHEET: President Xi Jinping's State Visit to the United States, The White House, September 25, 2015
     This site describes the agreements between US and China. To find the cybersecurity agreements, search for Cybersecurity- .
  2. China's International Strategy of Cooperation on Cyberspace published by XinhuaNet, March 3, 2017
  3. Cyberspace Cooperation the New Driver of China-US Relations by Li Zheng, China-US Focus, October 23, 2017
     A report on the first China-US Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue was held on October 4, 2017 in Washington DC.
  4. Chinese Cyber Diplomacy in a New Era of Uncertainty by Adam Segal, Lawfare, July 30, 2017
  5. China broke hacking pact before new tariff fight by Joe Uchill, Axios, April 10, 2018

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• China's International Competition
  

  1. Belt and Road Tracker by Benn Steil and Benjamin Della Rocca, The Council on Foreign Relations, May 8, 2019
     "This tracker shows how the Belt and Road Initiative has changed countries' bilateral economic relationships with China over time"
  2. China vs. America: Managing the Next Clash of Civilizations by Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2017 Issue
  3. Civil-Military Fusion: The Missing Link Between China's Technological and Military Rise by Lorand Laskai, Council on Foreign Relations, January 29, 2018
  4. China's Challenge to Democracy: The democratic cause is on the defensive today, and China's pragmatic authoritarianism now offers a serious rival model, based on economic progress and national dignity by David Runciman, The Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2018
  5. Why Democracies Are Turning Against Belt and Road: Corruption, Debt, and Backlash by Christophe Balding, Foreign Affairs, October 24, 2018
     "Since late 2013, Beijing has poured nearly $700 billion worth of Chinese money into more than sixty countries ... much of it in the form of large-scale infrastructure projects and loans to governments that would otherwise struggle to pay for them. ... Today, however, China faces a backlash to BRI at home and abroad."
  6. Italy Should Learn a Thing or Two From Pakistan: Rome just signed on to become part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. It should learn from Islamabad's experience by Dan Grant, Foreign Policy, April 1, 2019
  7. China's Belt-and-Road Initiative Puts a Squeeze on Pakistan: Huge building program was supposed to fuel an economic boom for key ally, but economic crisis stalls projects, prompts Islamabad to ask for aid ahead of Beijing forum on infrastructure policy by Saeed Shah, The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2019
  8. China's Fishing Militia Swarms Philippine Island, Seeking Edge in Sea Dispute: The boats' presence is illegal and violates Manila's sovereignty, the Philippines foreign ministry says by Niharika Mandhana, The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2019
  9. Why the South China Sea Fuels U.S.-China Tensions by David Tweed, Bloomberg, February 13, 2019
  10. China Retools Vast Global Building Push Criticized as Bloated and Predatory by Jane Perlez, The New York Times, April 25, 2019
  11. China Gets a British Bedfellow: Left vulnerable by Brexit, the U.K. looks eager to sign onto Beijing's Belt and Road Program by Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy, April 26, 2019
  12. Fears of 'digital iron curtain' spread as US and China dig in: Pressure from Trump unites Chinese tech industry in self-sufficiency push by Yasu Ota, Nikkei Asian Review, June 19, 2019
      This article describes the threat confronting both the US and Chinese economies as economic warfare between these two highly dependent economies escalates. It also provides detailed data on their interdependence.
  13. (Opinion) Stop the Bully in the South China Sea: Beijing must pay a price for allowing its coast guard and proxies to impede freedom of the seas. by Gregory B. Poling and Murray Hiebert, The Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2019
  14. China's Alternative Cyber Governance Regime, Prepared statement by Adam Segal, Ira A. Lipman Chair, Council on Foreign Relations, Marcbh 13, 2020
      This report provides a comprehensive description of China's approach to governance of cyberspace, both domestic and international.
  15. Beware the Guns of August—in Asia: How to Keep U.S.–Chinese Tensions From Sparking a War by Kevin Rudd, Foreign Affairs, August 3, 2020
      The South China Sea has ... become a tense, volatile, and potentially explosive theater at a time when accumulated grievances have driven the underlying bilateral political relationship to its lowest point in half a century. ... The question for both U.S. and Chinese leaders is, what happens now in the event of a significant collision? ... In a real-world scenario, beyond the clinical environment of a desktop exercise, the prevailing domestic political circumstances in Beijing and Washington could all too easily drive both sides to escalate.
  16. China's Global Mega-Projects Are Falling Apart by Ryan Dube and Gabriele Steinhauser, The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2023 Many of China's Belt and Road infrastructure projects are plagued with construction flaws, including a giant hydropower plant in Ecuador, adding more costs to a program criticized for leading countries deeper into debt.
  17. China's Hidden Tech Revolution: How Beijing Threatens U.S. Dominance by Dan Wang, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023
  18. Will China overtake the U.S. on AI? Probably not. Here's why. by Meaghan Tobin, The Washington Post, July 9, 2023

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• China's Preparation for Conflict
  

  1. How China is preparing for cyberwar: The US and China have made progress on curbing commercial cyberespionage. Now, the global powers need to set limits when it comes to digital warfare. by Adam Segal, The Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2017
  2. How Trump Could Stumble From a Trade War Into a Real War with China by Graham Allison, Belfer Center, April 20, 2018
  3. China's Cyber Defenses: How Good? by Greg Austin, EastWest Blob, July 9, 2018
  4. CIA: China is waging a 'quiet kind of cold war' against US by Deb Reichmann, The Associated Press, July 21, 2018
  5. (Opinion) This is how Trump can win the cold war with China by Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post, October 11, 2018
  6. Beijing Tells South China Sea Command: Prepare for War by Annabelle Timsit, Defense One, October 29, 2018
  7. Avoid War Between America and China: The Lessons of Past Crises by Sulmaan Khan, Foreign Affairs, December 3, 2018
  8. A New Cold War Has Begun: The United States and China will be locked in a contest for decades. But Washington can win if it stays more patient than Beijing. by Robert D. Kaplan, Foreign Affairs, January 7, 2019
  9. The New Beijing-Moscow Axis: A shared rivalry with the U.S. has reunited the two powers, as in the early days of the Cold War. But this time, China is the senior partner. by Yaroslav Trofimov, The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2019
  10. China's Scare Tactics Prompt U.S. Fears of a Clash Over Taiwan: American military officials in the Pacific worry that U.S. and Chinese interests could collide in the island democracy. by Lara Seligman, Foreign Policy, March 25, 2109
  11. Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China, US Department of Defense, 2021
  12. Taiwan, Thucydides, and U.S.-China War by Graham Allison, The National Interest, August 5, 2022
  13. China's New Conscription Rules Reveal Concerns: New sections on wartime drafts, punishment, and physical fitness offer a glimpse into PLA leader's minds by Thomas Corbett and Peter W. Singer, Defense One, June 8, 2023
  14. How the U.S. Is Racing to Build a Drone Fleet to Compete With China, The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2023.
      The U.S. is racing to assemble a fleet of next-generation drones to stay competitive with China, as concerns rise about a potential conflict over Taiwan. WSJ explores whether the U.S. can work fast enough to deter its adversary in the South China Sea.
  15. China's cyber army is invading critical U.S. services: A utility in Hawaii, a West Coast port and a pipeline are among the victims in the past year, officials say by Ellen Nakashima and Joseph Menn, The Washington Post, December 11, 2023
      Hackers affiliated with China's People's Liberation Army [Volt Typhoon] have burrowed into the computer systems of about two dozen critical [sector] entities over the past year, these experts said. The intrusions are part of a broader effort to develop ways to sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific, they said. Among the victims are a water utility in Hawaii, a major West Coast port and at least one oil and gas pipeline, people familiar with the incidents told The Washington Post. The hackers also attempted to break into the operator of Texas's power grid.
  16. The Threat to Our Nation's Critical Infrastructure Posed by Cyberattacks from the People's Republic of China, Testimony by Rob Joyce Before the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, May 15, 2024.
      Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and discuss what I consider the most significant cybersecurity issue faced by the United States.
  17. China Admitted to Volt Typhoon Cyberattacks on US Critical Infrastructure: Report by Eduard Kovacs, Security Week, April 11, 2025.
      In a secret meeting between Chinese and US officials, the former confirmed conducting cyberattacks on US infrastructure.

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Russian Federation Related Issues

• Russian Leadership
• Russian Influence Campaigns
• Russians in US Critical Infrastructure
• Russian Preparation for Conflict
• Russian Aggression
• Russian Domestic Internet
• Russian International Relations
  Back to Top

• Russian Leadership 
  

  1. The Sources of Soviet Conduct by "X" (George F. Kennan), Foreign Affairs, July 1947
  2. Putin the Great: Russia's Imperial Impostor by Susan Glasser, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019
     There are many reasons why the West misunderestimated Putin, as Bush might have put it, but one stands out with the clarity of hindsight: Westerners simply had no framework for a world in which autocracy, not democracy, would be on the rise, for a post–Cold War geopolotics in which revisionist powers such as Russia and China would compete on more equal terms again with the United States.
  3. Russia's Road to Autocracy by Michael McFaul, Journal of Democracy, Volume 32, Issue 4, October 2021.
  4. Judge Putin's intent by the poison flowing from his pen, Comment by Ben Wallace, UK Defence Secretary that appeared in The Times, January 17, 2022.
     Wallace debunks the Kremlin's claim to be under threat from NATO.
  5. Putin Loves to the Roll the Dice. Ukraine is His Biggest Gamble Yet by Yaroslav Trofimov, Ann M. Simmons and Michael R. Gordon, The Wall Street Journal, January 20,2022
  6. The Putin Doctrine: Move on Ukraine Has Always Been Part of the Plan by Angela Stent, Foreign Affairs, January 27, 2022
  7. Putin Is Caught in a Trap of His Own Making by Yulia Latynia, The New York Times, January 28, 2022
  8. (Opinion) Putin warned the West 15 years ago. Now, in Ukraine, he's poised to wag war, David Ignatius, The Washington Post, February 20, 2022.
  9. 'Yes, He Would': Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes by Maura Reynolds, Politico, February 28, 2022
     Putin is trying to take down the entire world order, the veteran Russia watcher said in an interview. But there are ways even ordinary Americans can fight back.
  10. The Terrible Truth So Many Experts Missed About Russia: Vladimir Putin didn't always rule his country alone. Now he does, and the dictator appears to care little about the consequences of his actions. by Ben Judah, Slate, February 28, 2022
      Both the head of German intelligence and the former head of MI6, the British intelligence agency, were caught off guard by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
      It has become clear that what exists inside the Kremlin is no longer a regime—a system of government where multiple figures can affect and feed into decision-making, from security chiefs to billionaires—as many believed. Instead, it has transformed into what political scientists call a personalist dictatorship, where the whims of one man, and one man only, determine policy, a fact that has terrifying implications for Russia and the world.
  11. Opinion: A month into war, Putin's mind-set is complex — and dangerous, by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, March 22, 2022
  12. Generation Gulag
      Today the Russian government is rewriting some of the darkest chapters of its Soviet past.
      The eyewitnesses of Soviet authoritarianism have a different story for us and a message for our era.
      Watch now
  13. The Making of Vladimir Putin: Tracing Putin's 22-year slide from statesman to tyrant. by Roger Cohen, The New York Times, March 26, 2022
  14. What Is Putin Thinking?: The national identity the Russian President has helped promulgate — illiberal, imperial, resentful of the West — has played an essential role in his brutal invasion of Ukraine by David Remnick, The New Yorker, March 27, 2022
  15. The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War by Jane Burbank, The New York Times, March 22, 2022
      [T]o understand the war in Ukraine, we must go beyond the political projects of Western leaders and Mr. Putin's pysche.
  16. Vladimir Putin does not think like we do by Michael McFaul, The Washington Post, January 26, 2022,
  17. Putin's Doomsday Threat by Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, April 5, 2022.
  18. "It's a different kind of world we're living in now" — Interview with political scientist Francis Fukuyama by Dan Drollette, Jr., Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 9, 2022
  19. Opinion: The West deserves much of the blame for Putin's rise to unchecked power by Vladimir Kara—Murza, Washington Post, June 21, 2023
  20. Putin appeared paralyzed and unable to act in first hours of rebellion by Catherine Belton, Shane Harris and Greg Miller, The New York Times, July 25, 2023
  21. The Godfather in the Kremlin: The very public death of Putin henchman Yevgeny Prigozhin highlights the evolution of Russia into a mafia state held together by violence and incapable of global leadership by Michael Kimmage, The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2023

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• Russian Influence Campaigns
  

  1. Anatomy of Russia's information warfare in the Baltic states by Agnia Grigas, EN.DELFI, December 29, 2014
  2. A Guide to Russia's High Tech Tool Box for Subverting US Democracy by Garret M. Graff, WIRED Magazine, August 13, 2017
     This article and several others below refer to active measures (see above).
  3. Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 6, 2017
  4. Understanding Russian Hybrid Warfare: And What Can Be Done About It by Christopher S. Chivvis, RAND, March 22, 2017
  5. How (and why) Russia hacked the US election by Laura Galante, TED Talk 2017, April 2017
  6. A Sundance filmmaker has made a movie about the Russian propaganda machine, and it is terrifying by Steven Zeitchik, The Washington Post, January 20, 2018
  7. Russia Sees Midterm Elections as Chance to Sow Fresh Discord, Intelligence Chiefs Warn by Matthew Rosenberg, Charlie Savage and Michael Wines, The New York Times, February 13, 2018
  8. Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting by Erin Griffith, Wired, February 15, 2018
  9. Russia used mainstream media to manipulate American voters by Craig Timberg, The Washington Post, February 15, 2018
  10. Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media, The US House of Representatives, March 1, 2018
  11. Understanding Cyberwarfare: Lessons From the Russia-Georgia War by Sarah P. White, Modern War Institute, West Point, March 20, 2018
      The author explores the novel dimensions of cyberwar that are illustrated by the 2008 conflict between the Russian Federation and the state of Georgia.
  12. What Europe Can Teach America About Russian Disinformation by Jed Willard, Defense One, June 10, 2018
  13. We Regret to Inform You That Russia Is (Probably) At It Again by Evelyn N. Farkas and James M. Ludes, Defense One, August 16, 2018
  14. Russia's Interference in the US Judiciary by Anders Åslund, Atlantic Council, July 2018
      A news article concerning this report can be found here
  15. Russia is gearing up to misinform the U.S. public about Syria. Here's our cheat sheet to identify Twitter trolls. by Jack Nassetta and Ethan Fecht, The Washington Post, September 17, 2018
  16. Psy-Ops, Meet Cyber-Ops: U.S. Takes on Russian Trolls by Ben Nimmo, Just Security, October 29, 2018
  17. How Do You Say 'Fake News' in Russian? by Amy McKinnon, Foreign Policy, November 1, 201
  18. Mattis: Russia tried to interfere in 2018 midterms, The Hill, December 1, 2018
  19. Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth by Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski, The Washington Post, December 10, 2018
      "[A]nalysts see a potential for [great] harm in the kind of heavily coordinated propaganda barrage Russia launched after the [Skripal] assassination attempt failed."
  20. A computerized YouTube fact-checking tool goes very wrong: In flaming Notre Dame, it somehow sees 9/11 tragedy by Craig Timberg and Tony Romm, The Washington Post, April 15, 2018
  21. Russian Propaganda Unit Appears to Be Behind Spread of False Tim Walz Sexual Abuse Claims: The Russian-aligned network Storm-1516 has a long history of posting fake whistleblower videos — including deepfakes — to push Kremlin talking points.

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• Russians in US Critical Information Infrastructure
  

  1. U.S. Officials Push New Penalties for Hackers of Electrical Grid: Red line set for cyberattacks on infrastructure after Russian agents penetrated utility control rooms by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2018
  2. Russian DNC Hackers Launch Fresh Wave of Cyberattacks on U.S. by Kevin Poulsen, Daily Beast, January 31. 2019
  3. Exclusive: Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system, escalating the spy game on U.S. soil by Zach Dorfman, Jenna McLaughlin and Sean D. Naylor, Yahoo!, September 16, 2019
  4. (Opinion) The U.S. Government Is Fueling Cyberwars: Reporter Andy Greenberg on one of the world's most powerful hacking groups and his new book, 'Sandworm by Hope Reese, One Zero, November 4, 2019

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• Russian Preparation for Conflict
  

  1. Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook, Asymmetric Warfare Group, Version 1, December 2016
     A handbook for U.S. Army formations to increase awareness of Russian tactics, near-peer capabilities, and current U.S. non-material solutions to mitigate the threat posed by Russian proxies.
  2. Web of Control: the Future of the Russian Internet by Ilya Klishin, Carnegie Moscow Center, February 5, 2016
  3. Russian PM Medvedev says new cold war is on, BBC, February 13, 2016.
     Prime Minister Medvedev made this declaration in his speech at the February 2016 Munich Security Conference.
  4. The 'Gerasimov Doctrine' and Russian Non-Linear War, blogpost by Mark Galeotti, In Moscow's Shadow, March 9, 2017
     This article opens with a description of the Russian Grand Strategy based on active measures (see above) as described in General Gerasimov's characterization of hybrid war which harks back to the Tsarist era.
  5. Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great-Power Aspirations, 2017, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
  6. Russia's Approach to Cyber Warfare by Michael Connell and Sarah Volger, CNA, March 2017
  7. Russia's radical new strategy for information warfare by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, January 18, 2017
     (In) February (2016), a top Russian cyber official [Andrey Krutskikh] told a security conference in Moscow that Russia was working on new strategies for the 'information arena' that would be equivalent to testing a nuclear bomb and would 'allow us to talk to the Americans as equals'. These remarks were made at Infoforum, the Russian annual conference, February 4, 5, 2016.
  8. Russian Jet Fighter Buzzes U.S. Surveillance Plane Over Black Sea: U.S. calls maneuvers by Russian aircraft 'irresponsible' by Gordon Lubold, The Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2018
  9. The Next Cyber Battleground: Defending the U.S. Power Grid From Russian Hackers by Rob Knake, Foreign Affairs, July 19, 2018
  10. Russian Hackers Reach U.S. Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say: Blackouts could have been caused after the networks of trusted vendors were easily penetrated by Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2018
  11. China, Russia, Iran pose grave cyber espionage threat: government report by Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, July 26, 2018
  12. Moscow Pushes Own Approaches to Cyber Security on Rest of CSTO by Sergey Sukhankin, Jamestown Foundation, September 26, 2018
  13. Putin and the Apocalypse by Dina Khapaeva, Project Syndicate, January 24, 2019
      Quotes from the article:
      • "[T]he head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, ... repeated his belief that doomsday is near."
      • "Putin's rhetoric became even more dramatic.'Russia would be the victim,' and 'the aggressor should know that revenge is inevitable.' While nuclear war would be a 'world catastrophe,' he said, at least Russians would 'go to heaven,' as 'martyrs,' whereas, lacking 'any time to repent,' the aggressors 'would just croak.'"
  14. Russian General Pitches 'Information' Operations as a Form of War by Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times, March 2, 2019
      "The chief of Russia's armed forces (Gerasimov) endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war."
  15. One Year Since the Skripals Were Poisoned, Russia Has Not Given Up its Confrontational Policy Toward the West by Ashish Kumar Sen, Atlantic Council, March 4, 2019
  16. Russia Is Perfecting the Art of Crushing Uprisings Against Authoritarian Regimes by Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, July 12, 2019
      "A Russian military leader revealed the blueprint for using mercenaries, militias, and special operations forces to backup dictators from Venezuela to Africa."
  17. Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, June 8, 2020.
  18. Marius Kristiansen and Njaal Hoem, Russian Cyber Strategy, Small Wars Journal, February 14, 2021
  19. Thomas Wright, Putin Is Taking a Huge Gamble, Brookings, December 10, 2021.
  20. Hackers, Hoodies, and Helmets: Technology and the changing face of Russian private military contractors by Emma Schroeder, Gavin Wilde, Justin Sherman, and Trey Herr, Issue Brief, Atlantic Council, July 25, 1022
  21. Russian military behind hack of satellite communication devices in Ukraine at war's outset, U.S. officials say by Ellen Nakashima, March 2022.

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Russian Aggression


1. Questions and Answers about the East StratCom Task Force, European Union, May 12, 2018
   "The Task Force was set up [by the EU] to address Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns." Also, see East StratCom Team, Wikipedia
2. U.S. Disrupts Russian Botnet of 500,000 Hacked Routers, SecurityWeek, May 24, 2018
3. How Microsoft Tackles Russian Hackers — and Why It's Never Enough by Lily Hay Newman, WIRED, August 21, 2018
4. Implausible Deniability: Russia's Private Military Companies by Paul Stronski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2, 2020
   Operating as public-private partnerships, the firms offer Russia a cheap, low-risk front to carry out its activist foreign policy.
5. False–Flag Invasions Are a Russian Specialty: Ukraine wouldn't be the first place that Russia's military started a war by faking an attack, by Calder Walton, Belfer Center, Harvard, February 4, 2022
6. The Intellectual Catastrophe of Vladimir Putin by Paul Berman, Foreign Policy, March 13, 2022
   Why, finally, has Putin invaded Ukraine? ... [He] has invaded because of the Maidan Revolution of 2014. ... [It] was ... dynamic, passionate, capable of arousing the sympathies of vast numbers of people. ... It was a moderate revolution in favor of a moderate Ukraine — a revolution that offered a viable future for Ukraine and, in doing so, offered new possibilities to Ukraine's neighbors too. ... So Putin was terrified. He responded by annexing Crimea and stirring up his wars in the breakaway provinces of eastern Ukraine, in the hope that he could inflict a few dents on the revolutionary success. ... He saw the popularity in Russia of Boris Nemtsov, his own opponent. He found it terrifying. Nemtsov was duly assassinated in 2015 on a bridge in Moscow. Putin saw Alexei Navalny step forward to offer still more opposition. He saw that Navalny, too, turned out to be popular, quite as if there was no end to these reforming zealots and their popular appeal. Putin poisoned Navalny and imprisoned him. ... And Putin was terrified by the emergence of Zelensky. ... He concluded that Maidan's revolution was destined to spread to Moscow and St. Petersburg, if not this year, then next year. ... So he consulted with the ghosts of Brezhnev, Khrushchev, and Stalin, who referred him to the master thinker, who is Nicholas I. And Nicholas I told Putin that if he failed to invade Ukraine, the Russian state would collapse. It was life or death. ... The calamity that has taken place has been, then, ... is a monstrous failure of the Russian imagination. And the monstrous failure has brought about the very collapse into barbarism and the danger to the ever-fragile Russian state that Putin thought he was trying to avoid.
7. Putin Should Have Known His Invasion Would Fail: Russian intelligence ignored facts in favor of wish-casting by David V. Gioe and Marina Miron, Foreign Policy, February 24, 2023.
   If Putin set out to reorient Kyiv's westward drift by force, then the world is instead witnessing the political birth of a clearly recognizable Ukrainian nation state, its founding myth strengthened by the shared trauma of conflict and common hardships.
8. Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions: More than 5,000 pages of documents from a Moscow-based contractor offer unusual glimpses into planning and training for security services, including the notorious hacking group Sandworm, by Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, Hannes Munzinger and Hakan Tanriverdi, March 30, 2023
9. What would happen if Russia detonated a nuclear bomb in space? by William Neff, Frank Hulley-Jones and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post, July 6, 2024
   This animated news report opens by saying In February 2022, Russia launched a satellite known as Cosmos 2553, its purpose the subject of anxious speculation amid a period of intensifying global tension. Just weeks after it settled into orbit, Russian troops invaded Ukraineb blasting Kyiv and other cities with missiles and bombs. As NATO rushed to back the overmatched Ukrainians, the world worried that the conflict could spiral into nuclear war. In February of this year, a cryptic statement by an American congressman about a "serious national security threat" ignited a media firestorm. U.S. officials pointed to Cosmos 2553, revealing their concern that the satellite is conducting tests that could lead to a nuclear weapon orbiting in space. To be clear, officials said no such weapon has been deployed   but it's not science fiction anymore. And no one, besides Moscow, knows what Cosmos 2553 is up to.

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• Russian Domestic Internet
  

  1. Russia Wants a Deal with the United States on Cyber Issues. Why Does Washington Keep Saying No? by Alex Grigsby, Council on Foreign Relations, August 27, 2018
  2. Russian Intel Chief: Internet Should be Controlled By 'Proper Authorities' by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, October 22, 2018
  3. Isolating the RuNet and banning online anonymity. What did Putin"s Internet adviser achieve in 2.5 years on the job?, Meduza, June 13, 2018
  4. The New Beijing-Moscow Axis: A shared rivalry with the U.S. has reunited the two powers, as in the early days of the Cold War. But this time, China is the senior partner. by Yaroslav Trofimov, The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2019
  5. Russia Wants to Outlaw Fake News by Tamara Evdokimova, New America, February 6, 2019
     The legislation is intended to protect the Russian public from misinformation, according to its authors. Yet many worry that it will simply be used as a pretext to further limit freedom of expression online.
  6. Great Firewall fears as Russia plans to cut itself off from internet by Alex Hern and Marc Bennetts, The Guardian, February 12, 2019
  7. Is the Russian Internet a Lost Cause? by Robert Morgus and Justin Sherman, New America, March 28, 2019
  8. Russia"s Would-Be Windows Replacement Gets a Security Upgrade by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, May 28, 2019
  9. Russia internet: Law introducing new controls comes into force by Sarah Rainsford, BBC, November 1, 2019

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• Russian International Relations
  

  1. A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow About NATO Expansion by Mary Elise Sarotte, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014
  2. 'Only a matter of time': nuclear catastrophe is inevitable unless US and Russia cooperate by Ciaran Mcgrath, Express, July 27, 2018
  3. Putin Makes a Move for Peace Through Force by Krishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic, August 24, 2018
  4. China and Russia, Aligned More Closely, Seen as Chief Security Threat to U.S.: The two nations are pouring resources into a 'race for technological and military superiority,' annual intelligence report says by Dustin Volz and Warren P. Strobel, The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2019
  5. Putin's Game Plan in Ukraine: How Moscow Aims to Force Concessions Out of Kiev by Konstantin Skorkin, Foreign Affairs, February 7, 2019
  6. Moscow shouldn't misjudge the Mueller moment by David Ignatius, The Washington Post, March 27, 2019
  7. Statement by Special representative of the President of the Russian Federation on international cooperation on information security, Ambassador-at-large A.V.Krutskikh at the Second Session of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security, Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, September 9, 2019
  8. Russia Steps Up Efforts to Shield Its Hackers From Extradition to U.S. by Dustin Volz and Felicia Schwartz, The Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2019
     Kremlin resorts to prisoner swaps and coercion to keep potential cyber operatives out of U.S. hands, experts say.
  9. Don't Believe the Hype. Russia Is Losing in the Middle East — and Around the World. by Rajan Menon, Foreign Policy, November 18, 2019
     Putin's apparent victories in spreading Russian influence are mirages, some of which have come at a great cost.
  10. Dealing with Russia"s brazenness in cyber space by Giorgio Comai, OBC Transeuropa, April 22, 2020

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Iran Related Issues

• The Iranian Threat
• Responding to the Iranian Threat
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• The Iranian Threat 
  

  1. Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence, Community by Daniel R. Coats, Director of National Intelligence, January 29, 2019.
  2. Here's how Iran disrupted U.S. businesses the last time it launched major cyberattacks by Joseph Marks, The Washington Post, June 25, 2019
  3. What's Next for Iran's Cyber Actors? by Patrick Tucker, Defense One, January 3, 2020.
     Expect more network-enabled spying and possibly destructive cyber attacks in the wake of the killing of one of Iran's most important military commanders, experts said.
  4. Iran's Cyber Attack on Billionaire Adelson Provides Lesson on Strategy by Alyza Sebenius, Kartikay Mehrotra and William Turton, Bloomberg News, January 5, 2020
  5. Iran's Military Response May Be 'Concluded,' but Cyberwarfare Threat Grows by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, January 8, 2020
     'Iran has the capability and the tendency to launch destructive attacks,' said Christopher C. Krebs, the director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the Department of Homeland Security's computer security arm
  6. Its Missiles Did Little Damage, but Iran Has More Potent Weapons: Drones, militants and hackers: Iran has an array of stealthier and more effective options if hostilities escalate. by David D. Kirkpatrick and Ronen Bergman, The New York Times, January 8, 2020

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• Responding to the Iranian Threat 
  

  1. U.S. Had Cyberattack Plan if Iran Nuclear Dispute Led to Conflict by David E. Sanger and Mark Mazzetti, The New York Times, February 16, 2016
     In the early years of the Obama administration, the United States developed an elaborate plan for a cyberattack on Iran in case the diplomatic effort to limit its nuclear program failed and led to a military conflict ... code-named Nitro Zeus ... [that was] devised to disable Iran's air defenses, communications systems and crucial parts of its power grid[.]

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• Emergency Preparedness Issues 
  

  1. Nordic Countries, Eyeing Russia, Dust Off Their Crisis Advice: Sweden, Finland and Norway have recently updated their advice for citizens preparing to survive war and other crises, wary of Ukraine's grinding fight against Russian by Christina Anderson, Johanna Lemola, Henrik Pryser Libell and Amelia Nierenberg, The New York Times, November 19, 2024.

     The article cites the preparedness advice given by the four governments of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, to their citizens on how to better prepare people for a world rife with security threats, disinformation, cyberattacks and climate disasters. The security threat is the Russian Federation.

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