RSVP is required for this free event.

Join Mozilla and Stanford Center for Internet and Society for the third installment in a series of conversations about government hacking. Information from our first two events is available online: discussing the vulnerabilities disclosure process and recent changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41.

The growing availability of default-on encryption tools means that governments cannot make sense of data they would otherwise be able to lawfully access in a criminal or intelligence investigation. Instead, governments are finding work-arounds, such as hacking into the computers that store data investigators need to access and remotely searching, monitoring user activity on, or even interfering with the operation of those machines. Technologists have played a critical role identifying the security risks that would be created by various proposals to mandate government access to encrypted data. In contrast, comparatively little discussion has occurred about the security risks inherent in government hacking.

Our third discussion, to be held on February 2, 2017, will bring together leading technologists to examine that risk in more detail, focusing on the computer security implications of government hacking. When the government operates as an attacker on the network, how does that impact network security for Internet users overall? What security risks does this create for those other than the immediate targets? How do those risks materialize and what is the magnitude of that risk for the overall Internet ecosystem? How, if at all, can it be mitigated? And how should these security risks inform the government’s overall policy regarding hacking?

Presented by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and Mozilla, the event series is dedicated to convening experts in cybersecurity, government surveillance technologies, and public policy to examine the legal, technical, and policy challenges associated with government hacking.

Confirmed speakers:

Professor Dan Boneh, Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at Stanford University, Moderator

Dr. Sandy Clark, University of Pennsylvania

Richard Barnes, Firefox Security Lead at Mozilla

Oren J. Falkowitz is a co-founder and the CEO of Area 1 Security. Previously Mr. Falkowitz held senior positions at United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) and at the National Security Agency (NSA) where he focused on Computer Network Operations and Big Data.

Stephan Somogyi, Security and Privacy Product Manager at Google

Logan Brown, President and CEO of Exodus Intelligence