Citizen Lab Director Warns Cyber Industry About US Authoritarian Descent (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0178596670
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/228248/citizen-lab-director-warns-cyber-industry-about-us-authoritarian-descent
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/citizen-lab-director-warns-cyber-industry-about-us-authoritarian-descent/
> Ron Deibert, the director of Citizen Lab, one of the most prominent organizations investigating government spyware abuses, is sounding the alarm to the cybersecurity community and asking them to step up and join the fight against authoritarianism. On Wednesday, Deibert will [1]deliver a keynote at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, one of the largest gatherings of information security professionals of the year. Ahead of his talk, Deibert told TechCrunch that he plans to speak about what he [2]describes as a "descent into a kind of fusion of tech and fascism ," and the role that the Big Tech platforms are playing, and "propelling forward a really frightening type of collective insecurity that isn't typically addressed by this crowd, this community, as a cybersecurity problem."
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> Deibert described the recent political events in the United States as a "dramatic descent into authoritarianism," but one that the cybersecurity community can help defend against. "I think alarm bells need to be rung for this community that, at the very least, they should be aware of what's going on and hopefully they can not contribute to it, if not help reverse it," Deibert told TechCrunch. [...] "I think that there comes a point at which you have to recognize that the landscape is changing around you, and the security problems you set out for yourselves are maybe trivial in light of the broader context and the insecurities that are being propelled forward in the absence of proper checks and balances and oversight, which are deteriorating," said Deibert.
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> Deibert is also concerned that big companies like Meta, Google, and Apple could take a step back in their efforts to fight against government spyware -- sometimes referred to as "commercial" or "mercenary" spyware -- by gutting their threat intelligence teams. [...] Deibert believes there is a "huge market failure when it comes to cybersecurity for global civil society," a part of the population that generally cannot afford to get help from big security companies that typically serve governments and corporate clients. "This market failure is going to get more acute as supporting institutions evaporate and attacks on civil society amplify," he said. "Whatever they can do to contribute to offset this market failure (e.g., pro bono work) will be essential to the future of liberal democracy worldwide," he said. Deibert is concerned that these threat intelligence teams could be cut or at least reduced, given that the same companies have cut their moderation and safety teams. He told TechCrunch that threat intelligence teams, like the ones at Meta, are doing "amazing work," in part by staying siloed and separate from the commercial arms of their wider organizations. "But the question is how long will that last?" said Deibert.
[1] https://www.blackhat.com/us-25/briefings/schedule/#keynote-chasing-shadows-chronicles-of-counter-intelligence-from-the-citizen-lab-48196
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/citizen-lab-director-warns-cyber-industry-about-us-authoritarian-descent/
What, no comments??? (Score:2)
That can't happen
What's happening is pretty unfortunate (Score:3)
I'm a political independent who has friends who are Republicans. I try to stay in the middle. But regardless of what you think, the idea that masked men without badges and uniforms can smash car windows and drag people out should really disturb anyone. I am really surprised it hasn't gotten violent.
Now you have someone fired for reporting labor statistics that the President of the USA doesn't like. The President is trying to take control over large segements of our democracy, universities, sports organizations, television networks, newspapers, courts, etc. This should concern everyone. Of course don't forget DOGE and how Trump has already stolen all our personal data from multiple federal agencies.
Of course the techbros are all like LOLZ, we're making so much money. I have a pretty large holding in Meta and am considering dumping it. My partner is salivating about Palantir. I can't believe he doesn't understand how dangerous that company is.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
They'd rather flush the greatest democracy ever down the toilet than let gays have equal rights or women get abortions or whatever the hell is woke this week. .
Re: (Score:3)
It really seems to be rationalized by "whatever excuse comes to hand." Right now as a result of a carjacking in DC that happened to be against a DOGE staffer,
> Trump posted Tuesday that if D.C. does not quickly "get its act together ... we will have no choice" but to federalize the city, after the incident involving the man whom multiple outlets have identified as Edward Coristine, famously nicknamed "Big Balls."
Will DC be federalized? Not wholly, I doubt. The whole idea is very non-legal and non-constitu
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Non-constitutional has no meaning to him. He already stated that he doesn't know if he has to abide by the constitution
6 members of SCOTUS have already made him king. I wouldn't be surprised if they manage to void the 22nd amendment in one of their rulings.
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> Will DC be federalized? Not wholly, I doubt. The whole idea is very non-legal and non-constitutional, which makes it either very unlikely, or especially dangerous, depending on how you look at it.
With the incorporation of the DC city government the authority of the federal government over the area was not surrendered. This process was to serve two purposes, give the people residing in DC some means to directly elect those that governed them, and to remove some of the smaller details of governing a city from Congress and put that into a semi-independent government body.
Governing DC was not much of an issue for the federal government when it was mostly sheep farmers, government offices, a village or
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> They'd rather flush the greatest democracy ever down the toilet than let gays have equal rights...
Since when did gays not have equal rights?
I recall some complaints on the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson as something of an insult to gays. While Harvey Milk did serve in the US Navy as an officer, diver, then later a diving instructor, he was also caught having sex with someone he was not married to. This person was another man but his actions still left him getting discharged (or forced to retire, my sources aren't clear on that) with an "other than honorable" record. As
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> he was also caught having sex with someone he was not married to. This person was another man but
Even if it was a woman, that's still against the UCMJ and wouldn't be the first time that an officer has received a dismissal over it. And yes, officers are held to a higher standard than enlisted. I can't say I've ever heard of anybody getting anything (whether it's a building, a ship, a post, etc) named after they did anything like that. Most commonly, those are named after people who died in combat.
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Plenty of couples cannot have children, and are allowed to marry. Unless you want to ban infertile heterosexual couples from marrying, this is a bizarre point.
The twisted logic bigots have to apply.
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> is seen as something to be considered not quite the same as the "rights" afforded to opposite sex couples then we could make adjustments to the laws, and expectations of behavior within those laws, to even things out as much as we can.
True if we make laws to make things different then we can in fact make things different.
Make me the case though, it's been 10 years since Obergefell, it seems to work just fine, the sky is not falling, the administrative burden seems minimal, taxes are filed, marriages are recognized.
Before then it was the positive claim side that had to make the sell for change. Now it's flipped, you're the one wanting to change things, the "progressive" if one might put a word to it. Why?
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"I have this imagined world where marines and liberals are two distinct circles on a venn diagram"
tell us all about how your military experience comes from watching a screen while sitting on a couch