Wiretapping the Pope

Episode 300 of the Cyberlaw Podcast

In breaking news from 1995, the Washington Post takes advantage of a leaked CIA history paper to retell the remarkable tale (first published in the mid-90s) of Crypto AG, a purveyor of encryption products to dozens of governments – and allegedly a wholly controlled subsidiary of US and German intelligence. Nick Weaver, Paul Rosenzweig, and I are astonished at the derring-do and unapologetic enthusiasm for intelligence collection that the story displays. I mean, really: The Pope?

This week's interview is with Jonathan Reiber, a writer and strategist in Oakland, California, and former Chief Strategy Officer for Cyber Policy and Speechwriter at the Department of Defense, currently senior advisor at Technology for Global Security and visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. His recent report offers a candid view of strained relations between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. The interview explores the reasons for that strain, the importance of bridging the gap, and how that can best be done.

Nick reports that four PLA members have been indicted over the Equifax breach. He speculates that the US government is sending a message by disclosing a photo of one soldier that appears to have been taken by his own webcam. Paul and I note that the purpose of the hack was very likely the assembly of records on Americans not dissimilar to the records we know the Chinese keep on Uighurs – which are extraordinarily detailed and surprisingly artisanal.

The arrest of a Bitcoin mixer allows Nick to explain how Bitcoin mixing works and why it's (sometimes) illegal.

Paul lays out the potentially serious impact of Amazon's lawsuit to stop a $10 billion Microsoft-DOD cloud contract. We note that Amazon wants to take testimony from President Trump about political interference in the award. Thanks to his Twitter habit, we conclude, that's not out of the question.

I preview my remarks at a February 19 Justice Department workshops on Section 230. I will reprise my article in Lawfare and the encryption debate with Nick Weaver that inspired it. And I hope to dig as well into the question whether Section 230 provides too much protection for Silicon Valley's censors. Speaking of which, Jeff Bezos's company has joined the censors but won't tell us which books it's suppressing.

Nick and I give a favorable review to CISA's new #Protect2020 election strategy. We search for deeper meaning in IANA's failure to complete its DNSSEC root key signing ceremony because of… a physical safe. And we all take a moment to mock and abuse the latest vote-by-phone snake-oil app seller, Voatz. If nothing else, we conclude, it will greatly reduce friction in the market for selling votes in future elections.

Download the 300th Episode (mp3).

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