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A Discussion With Dr. Fiona Hill on the Role Social Media Plays in Russian Meddling in U.S. Democracy

Dr. Fiona Hill is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs. She was a lead witness in the November 2019 House hearings regarding the impeachment of President Trump. She currently serves as a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.

On October 6th, I and Taylor Fairless had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Fiona Hill. My angle of the interview focused on engaging her expertise to explore the role that social media plays in Russian meddling in the U.S. electoral process. My question centered on the challenge of how the United States can effectively thwart Russian disinformation on social media when many argue that they simply exploit vulnerabilities inherent to the platforms themselves. Dr. Hill agreed with this assessment, which makes it an issue she believes we will be grappling with for “some time to come.”

In a recent article where I questioned if social media can undermine democracy, I broadly noted that these vulnerabilities included their content curation algorithms, targeted digital advertising, and much of the toxic psychology that guides engagement on them. These varying facets enable foreign actors like Russia to engineer content that compounds polarization and saturates feeds with misleading or false information. Facebook estimates that Russian actors managed to generate 80,000 posts that reached nearly 126 million people over the span of two years in the United States.

Information has always been a blessing and curse

Dr. Hill noted that information, regardless of the way it is delivered, has always been susceptible to deception, falsehoods, and lies. She argues that these are issues that are part of human nature. “Humans have always had a propensity for spreading rumors.” In preliterate times, this occurred via word-of-mouth and town criers, then pamphlets, print news, and eventually the digital realm. To her, this dynamic is simply part of a larger information commons, making it unsurprising that the same phenomena that we have seen over the sweep of history are now playing out on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.

Dr. Hill believes the main difference is that social media platforms are “speeding up” the personal interactions that we have as human beings. Indeed, much of this information and interaction is distributed through highly sophisticated algorithms and is instantly engaged with by millions of people each day. Furthermore, no single person receives the same information experience. Each person is curated content that reflects what these platforms and actors believe an individual will be receptive to. This is what can make deception, falsehoods, and lies become so effective and formidable in the digital realm.

I stated before that the advent of targeted digital advertising enables actors, malicious or not, to engineer and formulate content that it believes their targeted audience would likely react and engage with. In 2018, the House Intelligence Committee released 3,500 Russian Facebook ads that were designed to target and polarize specific portions of the population. In some cases, Russian-owned pages created and promoted political rallies where they hoped people would violently clash. Russia’s sophisticated and broad utilization of data-centered advertising demonstrates the dystopian implication social media can have on the political process when users are reduced to data points for sale.

The Path Forward

Dr. Hill believes that self-regulation is the most practical way to thwart Russian disinformation on these platforms. She makes it clear to acknowledge the flip-side of social media, stating that the “leveling out and leveling up” of information has enabled more people than ever to have access to critical, informative information. Her reasoning for self-regulation is that a draconian, heavy-handed government approach to regulating these highly complicated platforms runs the risk of squashing free speech. “We thrive on free speech, free engagement, and freedom of assembly,” which increasingly takes place on the internet and these platforms within our societies.

Considering this, disinformation is something we will have to accept and grapple with for some time. “We will have to be creative in how we handle it for the foreseeable future because what is a strength is also often a vulnerability,” Dr. Hill says. She argues that this balancing act will largely rely on self-regulation and creating close working partnerships with the government, the private sector, and the entirety of society. “We ourselves as consumers and users of the platforms […] have to also be aware that part of the responsibility is ours to be more careful of the information that we propagate, verify, and cross-reference.” She concludes: “we have to be active consumers, not just passive recipients of information.”

October 8, 2020 1 comment

Society and Culture Technology United States

Can Social Media Undermine Democracy?

written by Zachary Durkee

Ten years ago, optimism surrounding the internet ran high. So much so that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted its decentralizing force as a potential catalyst for advancing democracy around the world. At the time, pundits even looked across the Middle East and described many of the Arab Spring uprisings as a “Facebook Revolution”.

This is because information is a valuable commodity, which is why autocrats around the world work so hard to repress, control, and manipulate it. Democracies rely on the free flow of it to thrive because individuals require access to it to be informed stakeholders in any political process. It is no surprise then that people held such rosy sentiments on what the future of the internet could hold.

Ten years onwards and the internet has been put into the hands of over half the world. 1 out of 7 people even have a Facebook account. Unfortunately, anyone can look out across the world today and see that optimism has largely dissipated. In fact, the reality people face today is what happens when that liberating stream of information becomes so ubiquitous and distorted that it becomes a detriment to democracy itself?

Grappling with this question requires a close look at social media, a product that has reshaped almost every industry and given rise to complete new ones. Today it is the place where hundreds of millions get their news, express their opinions, and create virtually anything.

Consequently, the firms who own these platforms have become some of the largest and richest on the planet. Scrutiny surrounding antitrust, privacy, the value of someone’s personal data, and the potential negative impact platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have on an individual’s mental health have become commonplace in 2020. These are issues tough to grapple with, largely because there is no clear precedent to draw upon.

With the introduction of these new realities comes a consequential question: can social media undermine democracy? The 2016 United States Presidential election provides the first historical lens to analyze this question under because of the sweeping utilization of it in the electoral process, as well as the fact that it was the first election in which these platforms had grown to such important relevance in the daily lives of people.

Although social media existed long before 2016, the proliferation and adoption of the smartphone had, by 2016, resembled levels we see today. At the beginning of 2012, only 39% of US adults owned a smartphone compared to 75% by election day in 2016. Between that same amount of time, digital campaign spending is estimated to have increased by 789%.

The facts surrounding 2016 are also clear: an American geopolitical adversary used disinformation, propelled by social media, to sow and compound division within the American political environment preceding a national election. Facebook estimates that Russian actors managed to create 80,000 posts that reached nearly 126 million people over the span of two years in the United States.

What Russia did was not unique or isolated but goes to the heart of how social media can ultimately serve the malicious purpose of undermining democracy. Their disinformation campaign simply exploited existing vulnerabilities inherent to platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. These include their algorithms, targeted advertising, and much of the toxic psychology that guides engagement on them.

The Echo Chamber

An unsavory consequence of social media becoming such a large forum for political discourse is that the core algorithms which keep users coming back tend to lock people into echo chambers. When that is applied to politics, it harms civil discourse and diminishes one’s appetite for compromise, both of which are central tenets of democracy. Eli Pariser, CEO of Upworthy and author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, told NPR in a 2016 interview that “what most algorithms are trying to do is to increase engagement, increase the amount of attention you’re spending on that platform,” which means that “increasingly you end up not seeing what people who think differently see and in fact not even knowing that it exists.”

In other words, it is a personal user experience built with precision accuracy. The algorithms are engineered to learn what you like, what you want, and what your comfort zone is to curate content that it predicts will keep you coming back. People are then exposed more to what they feel rather than diverse, objective information that educates, informs, and challenges their predispositions. It is a genius business model with negative consequences considering that it is now the place where many engage with politics the most.

Sensationalism

Social media also rewards sensationalism over truth and rationality at a time when information has become unfathomably decentralized and ubiquitous. As news and media have come to surround people at almost moment of their lives, information overload has triumphed and attention spans have taken a hit. To garner attention in this saturated environment, media outlets and influencers often resort to sensationalizing and even misconstruing the truth to attract user engagement. This dynamic is inextricably linked to algorithms, which then curate this type of content at higher and more sophisticated rates to keep users glued to the platform. This desire to retain engagement can lead to the construction and facilitation of a toxic reactionary environment.

Data, Data, Data

The advent of targeted digital advertising enables actors, malicious or not, to engineer and formulate content that it believes their target audience would likely react and engage with. In 2018, the House Intelligence Committee released 3,500 Russian Facebook ads that were designed to target and polarize specific portions of the population. In some cases, Russian-owned pages created and promoted political rallies where they hoped people would violently clash. Russia’s sophisticated and broad utilization of data-centered advertising demonstrates the dystopian implication social media can have on the political process when users are reduced to data points for sale.

The Mob

Ask anyone who scrolls through Twitter often and they are not likely to describe it is a bastion of civility. People are often facing off with complete strangers through the medium of a screen and the internet, which makes them less inclined to seek productive dialogue with others. Unfortunately, this faceless interaction emboldens many to partake in adversarial discourse simply because it is easier to get away with. In fact, the word “troll” was formally added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2017. Russian groups who specialize at stoking this inflammatory behavior are today known as “troll factories.”

Micha Cash, a student at Stanford University, described social media mob mentalities to the Wall Street Journal as “hordes of what are likely otherwise nice people—shielded by anonymity, informed by echo chambers, restricted by character counts, incentivized to provoke shock—give in to their feral impulses and vomit abusive nonsense onto the web for a world-wide audience.”

If the environment that social media cultivates undermines the ability of people to discern truth, erodes civility, and enables geopolitical rivals to launch overt disinformation campaigns in the middle of national elections, it becomes clear that social media does in fact have negative consequences for democracy.

Conclusion

The United States remains at one of the most polarized periods in its existence. The rise of social media has done little to mend these sharp divides. If anything, it has been a driving force behind decreasing public trust in information and has allowed primitive mob mentalities to shape political discourse across platforms. It even appears that conspiracy theories with no factual basis have been born, resuscitated, and are flourishing across the feeds of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

As with any consequential invention, product, or industry, people must decide its utility and how it will be used to ultimately better or harm humanity. Social media is here to stay. It is not inherently good or bad, but it has clear and demonstrable flaws that must be worked out. There must be sustained and serious discussion surrounding its application in any free society. Democracy requires certain norms and ethics to prevail to stand strong. Governments and platforms must formulate policy around that very reality. Allowing these flaws to continue to run amok will only continue to polarize populations that are in desperate need of unity.

In his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, world-renowned astronomer Carl Sagan provided a disturbing warning about the future, stating:

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

September 8, 2020 2 comments

Africa China Geopolitics Globalization International Trade Security Technology The International Economy

Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative: threat or opportunity?

written by Corrado Chirico

In the early fall of 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at fostering regional integration within the Asian continent and strengthening the economic cooperation with other regions of the world. Shortly after, this project was given the official denomination “One Belt, One Road”, which was then substituted by the formula “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2015. To most observers, the concept immediately sounded highly familiar. In fact, the initiative proposed by Xi was a clear reference to the ancient Silk Road, which had been the main connecting artery between Asia and Europe for centuries. Established during the western expansion of the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), it quickly became a crucial platform for economic and cultural exchange between East and West, until it gradually disappeared around the 13^th century.

As soon as the Chinese leadership started outlining the details of this majestic project, many analysts and politicians in the West began to express their concerns about the possibility of Beijing using the initiative as a tool to consolidate its hegemonic claims in Asia and expand its influence abroad. During an APEC-Summit in 2018 Vice President Mike Pence even labeled the BRI as a “constricting belt” and a “one-way road.” But apart from political biases and the anti-Chinese rhetoric that has marked the Trump administration’s approach toward Beijing, what are the possible threats emanating from the Initiative? And could the BRI have a positive impact on the participating countries?

Although many observers have linked the Initiative primarily to China’s expansionist ambitions, the main motivations behind Beijing’s project are strictly related to internal economic issues. In fact, after nearly three decades of unrelenting economic growth, the Chinese leadership now faces enormous challenges with regard to the future of the country’s economic development. Determined to avoid the so-called “middle income trap,” a scenario in which long periods of growth are followed by a phase of stagnation, Beijing is looking for new ways to stimulate the country’s economy. In this regard, the BRI represents an excellent tool to strengthen China’s economic condition.

Through this Initiative, the Chinese leadership intends to gain access to new markets, especially in Central and South East Asia. Additionally, Chinese leaders want an outlet to offshore some of the industrial overcapacity which Chinese companies have accumulated since the 2008 financial crisis. During that recession, the central government launched massive investments in the transport, infrastructure and real estate sectors in order to compensate the receding demand for manufacturing goods. Indeed, those companies are the real protagonists in the Initiative’s implementation, since most of the projects already underway in the various BRI-countries are being developed by Chinese firms, only seldom in cooperation with local partners.

It has been exactly this aspect, which has given many critics of the Initiative reason to believe that Beijing’s efforts are exclusively serving its own national interests. More specifically, skeptics have often pointed to the sometimes controversial methods of realization of the various BRI-projects. The most quoted example for China’s alleged utilitarian approach is the so-called “debt trap”. This formula describes those situations where Chinese banks lend exorbitant amounts of money in form of generous loans to the countries participating in the Initiative in order to secure the development of infrastructural projects crucial to strengthening connectivity in Eurasia. Nevertheless, critics have argued that these mechanisms are ultimately going to turn against the countries receiving the loans, given their already fragile economic conditions and inability to pay pre-existing debts. This has been the case in a number of BRI-partners, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka. While Islamabad owes China $6.7 Billion in commercial debt through 2022, but hasn’t yet suffered any significant coercions by Beijing, in 2015 Sri Lanka was forced to agree to a 99-year lease on its second biggest Port (Hambantota), given the unsustainability of its debt. By creating these conditions, China could in the long term generate unbalanced dependences and therefore exploit a country’s financial weaknesses to gain access to strategic facilities and control its internal affairs. Many observers have already recognized the phantom of Chinese imperialism looming over the less stable and most vulnerable BRI-countries.

Another questionable aspect related to the implementation of the BRI is the “strings attached”- mechanisms China has employed in its effort to bring the countries pivotal to the Initiative on board. This process has become known as “tied-lending.” Through this method, while Chinese banks have been lending large sums to target countries, Beijing has set constraining conditions for future cooperation. In Nigeria, for example, the China Development Bank granted a $200 million loan, yet the country’s government had to bindingly commit to buying digital infrastructure from Chinese tech giant Huawei. This rather unfair practice has also been deployed elsewhere and been considered by critics as proof of Beijing’s egoism and neo-colonialist ambitions.

Moreover, by closely monitoring the realization of several BRI-projects, the Initiative also appears to be of fundamental importance in China’s effort to secure energy supplies and find alternative routes, which could reduce its dependence on US-controlled chokepoints, above all the Strait of Malacca. In fact, despite its immense territory, the PRC heavily relies on oil and gas imports from other countries. Amongst China’s most prominent suppliers are the Gulf monarchies as well as Iraq, Libya and several other OPEC states. According to the International Energy Agency, Beijing imported 8.7 Billion barrels per day in 2017 and, given its enormous demand, will have to keep securing 6.6 Billion barrels daily through 2040. 90% of these supplies get to the Chinese mainland by sea, usually passing across the Indo-Pacific and thus depending on the US Navy’s presence in the region. Through the BRI, China has already built several gas and oil pipelines connecting Central Asia to its mainland as well as undertaken the construction of deep-water ports in Southeast Asia, which will allow Chinese vessels to avoid traditional sea lines presided over by American forces.

Given all the elements illustrated above, at first glance the BRI might seem a mere attempt to facilitate China’s westward economic and political expansion as well as a useful tool in finding new solutions to internal economic needs and challenges. Therefore, as realist scholars would argue, Beijing is doing nothing else than protecting its economy and weakening its neighbors in order to pave the way for the consolidation of its hegemonic claims. However, by following this interpretation of the project a fundamental aspect remains undiscussed: the positive effects on the participating countries. While many experts have discarded the Initiative as a “trap” or a “blunder,” some participating nations are expected to significantly benefit from it. In Central Asia for example, many infrastructure projects financed by Beijing, such as the Kashgar-Tashkent and the Samarkand-Mashhad railroads, will ultimately boost connectivity in the region and induce both economic and demographic growth in cities like Astana and Almaty in Kazakhstan and beyond. Furthermore, various South- and South East Asian countries are also going to draw great benefits from the BRI. According to a World Bank report, Pakistan will experience a 10.5% increase in its national real income value, whereas Thailand’s, Malaysia’s and Cambodia’s rates will go up to respectively 8.2%, 7.7% and 5.0%. Moreover, also based on predictions of the World Bank, the Initiative has the potential of globally lifting 7.6 Million people from extreme poverty; as a consequence, until 2030 poverty rates could drop from 9.5% (2015) to 3.9%.

Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that there already are tangible examples of how a BRI-partner can get major advantages by cooperating with China. In this regard, Greece’s experience constitutes a highly illustrative case. In 2009, right in the midst of the European financial crisis, COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Company) decided to invest, despite the country’s enormous debt and dramatic economic conditions, large sums in Athens’ Piraeus Port. In 2016 COSCO finally bought a 51% share of the Piraeus Port Authority, automatically acquiring far-reaching rights over the port’s administration and management. Despite initial criticism about Greece “selling out” key facilities and the possibility of a “debt-trap” scenario, the Chinese investments were able to create 10.000 new local jobs as well as help Piraeus jump from position 93 (2010) to 32 (2019) in the global ranking of ports with the largest container capacities. Yet Beijing’s ambitions with regard to Piraeus have not stopped. In fact, when Xi Jinping arrived in Athens on a state visit in late fall 2019 and inspected the Port along with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, COSCO announced that it would invest another $600 Million with the goal of turning Athens’ port into Europe’s largest. In addition to the enormous sums allocated by the Chinese company, that same year the European Investment Bank decided to get on board too by emitting a $140 Million loan with a duration of 20 years and secured by CEXIM (China Export-Import Bank).

Notwithstanding the dangerous potential of too-generous loans and unsustainable debt, these numbers show how the BRI can certainly have positive externalities on the countries receiving Chinese investment. Moreover, Greece’s case represents an example worth using as a benchmark for other countries with regard to their cooperation with China. As many analysts point out, Beijing’s increasing influence over crucial infrastructure in Europe and elsewhere could ultimately lead to political interference and sovereignty limitation. Yet if Chinese investments are complemented by the participation of “neutral” institutions, such as the EIB in Europe or development banks on a global scale, that might address concerns about the possibility of Beijing gradually penetrating into the countries’ internal affairs through economic coercion. This modus operandi could indeed prove of great utility both to China and lendee countries. By doing this, Beijing could boost its reputation in the eyes of the West, while the participating countries will have solid guarantees on their cooperation with the Red Dragon. Furthermore, over the past years, China has also demonstrated its financial flexibility toward BRI-countries. Following initial concerns about the elevated cost of a new railroad for example, in 2019 Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad managed to negotiate a $10 billion price reduction (1/3 of the original) on the project and was even able to get Beijing to agree to a joint venture between a Chinese firm and a local partner in the initiative’s realization.

Therefore, by considering both each country’s concerns as well as the BRI’s overall impact, it is certainly possible to say that under the right conditions, the cooperation with Beijing could turn out to be of enormous benefit to the participating states. Practically, this requires a dynamic but resolute approach by the West, which will both challenge Beijing when needed but at the same time seek, not dread, opportunities to cooperate with China in a joint effort to globally generate growth and foster development. In other words, from a Western perspective, the smartest policy to pursue toward the BRI would be to “multilateralize” the Initiative by increasing its share in it instead of merely condemning it. This strategy is absolutely feasible since the Chinese leadership has always been highlighting the “openness” of the projects and its multilateral features.

Indeed, several aspects of the Initiative have been characterized by such an approach, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a Beijing-based development bank founded in 2015 as a response to the ineffectiveness of other similar global institutions and a fundamental financing source for several BRI-projects. Although China holds the position of majority partner with 30.7% of the total subscriptions and 26.6% of the overall voting power, other countries, which are not necessarily an integral part of Beijing’s sphere of influence, have a significant say in the Institution as well. This is the case of India and Germany for example. Whereas New Delhi disposes of 7.6% of the votes and contributes with a capital of roughly $8 Million, Germany detains the largest non-Asian subscription with 4.6% of the shares and 4.1% of the voting rights. Noteworthy is also the membership of several other nations traditionally embedded in the US alliance system, such as the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Israel, which have not hesitated to join the AIIB, despite Washington’s repeated warnings about the risks of getting involved in a Chinese-led Institution. Striking was also the United Kingdom’s entry into the Bank in 2015 as the first European founding member. Even in the West, many experts have already recognized the great potential of the AIIB’s consolidation as a truly multilateral and balanced institution. In fact, some have argued that the Bank could not only avoid the mistakes and flaws of the World Bank, but also develop itself holding high the principles of fair representativeness and sustainability. As to Beijing’s status as majority partner and the accusations about the Bank being a tool in the hands of the Chinese state, a look at the structure of other existing development banks around the World would already suffice to become aware of a feature inherent to every such institution. The World Bank for example, without questioning the organization’s integrity, could theoretically be defined as a US-controlled Bank, since Washington detains 16.7% of the shares as well as 15.8% of the overall voting power. The same applies to the ADB (Asian Development Bank), where Japan holds the highest number of shares and votes. Moreover, the idea that Beijing could potentially use its power within the AIIB to individual ends isn’t a novelty either. It might be useful to reminisce how during the Cold War the United States systematically used its influence on multilateral Institutions to direct resources to controversial strongmen in developing countries, which functioned as anti-communist forces and were useful to U.S. foreign policy; one of the most blatant examples was Washington’s support for General Mobutu in the Congo, whom an American diplomat once called “a son of a bitch, but our son a bitch.”

Through this overview, several aspects, both positive and negative, have emerged with regard to the BRI’s implications. On the one hand, Beijing has shown that it certainly is willing to use its economic influence over specific countries to pursue political objectives and gain access to strategic regions and infrastructure. Having said that, there is also enough evidence to underscore the positive potential of the Initiative, especially in terms of connectivity and economic growth. As summed up above, various countries have already benefited from BRI-projects and others are expected to enjoy the positive impact of the Initiative in the future as well. Furthermore, since many Western nations and US allies have already joined either the Initiative or the AIIB, it would be particularly wise if the West would adjust its approach toward Beijing’s initiative. This would by no means imply a capitulation before China’s expansion and ambitions, but a more structured and determined cooperation with the PRC could break the current bottleneck in the relations between China and the West. In fact, by recurring to this strategy, Western countries could not only demonstrate more interest in working with China in matters of development and economic improvement, but also implement Beijing’s plea for broad participation within the BRI and therefore gain more leverage in the Initiative. At the same time, if there still should be underlying doubts about China’s real intentions, broader cooperation with Beijing could result of fundamental importance in assessing how far the PRC intends to go and if the Initiative is really designed to be a multilateral, comprehensive and peaceful project. In other words, the West could follow China’s plea for global cooperation and use this very tool to look into Beijing’s cards. A first step in this direction could be a more far-reaching collaboration within the AIIB, which already has several features that could facilitate such an endeavor, as well as a more active and collegial implementation of the projects tied to the BRI. A sign that this sort of framework has the chance to succeed is the already existing cooperation between the United Nations Development Program and Beijing, sealed through a joint action plan on the BRI signed in 2017.

In view of the various aspects concerning the BRI, it is finally possible to state that the Initiative represents both a threat and an opportunity. However, while the potential menaces of the Belt and Road Initiative could be contained by the greater involvement of Western countries, not considering the major economic benefits of Beijing’s projects would be wasting significant resources merely out of ideological prejudice.

July 6, 2020 1 comment

China Security Technology

A Briefing on Digital Authoritarianism – The Rise of Data-Driven Surveillance Technology

written by Zachary Durkee

Introduction

Following the momentous events of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010-2011, pundits have looked across the Middle East in search for explanations of how protests erupted and spread across the region in such a swift fashion.

One popular hypothesis commonly floated around has been centered around a perceived intersection between a formidably tech savvy youth and a technologically inept line of ageing dictators out of touch with the organizational power of social media. It was in this environment, so the idea goes, that protests were able to effectively materialize and evade preemptive suppression by domestic security forces.

Regardless of the validity or appropriateness of distilling the Arab Spring down as a “Facebook Revolution,” the decade ahead promises a sharp reversal in the technological power gap once held between the state and the individual with the rise of digital authoritarianism.

The current revolution in surveillance technology has one overarching implication for authoritarian rule: it will likely make it more formidable, pervasive, and effective.

The very technology that once enabled people to organize mass demonstrations and disseminate images of state-sanctioned brutality at a speed quicker than security forces could react is now being used to keep tabs on virtually every citizen. The intricacies of their daily lives, their beliefs, who they talk to, what they ate for lunch, and even which store they visited the night before may eventually be a click away for autocratic states currently investing in this budding technology. China, perhaps the poster child of digital authoritarianism, is a leading innovator, deployer, and exporter of technology that uses the power of high technology and the internet to surveil citizens to a degree unfathomable to many. Their trailblazing in this regard provides observers with a prophetic glimpse at what the future may hold as more authoritarian regimes get their hands on such tools.

Defining Digital Authoritarianism

In a broad respect, digital authoritarianism is “the use of digital information technology by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations.”

Steven Feldstein, the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs at Boise State University, and a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance program, notes that digital repression contains six broad techniques. These include “surveillance, censorship, social manipulation and harassment, cyber-attacks, internet shutdowns, and targeted persecution against online users.”

This piece focuses on data-driven mass surveillance. More specifically, advances in mass surveillance technologies and their link to internet suppression, censorship, and manipulation. As more people’s lives are bound-up in the digital realm, advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), new data analytic tools, and cutting-edge innovation in facial recognition are enabling autocratic regimes to unite the physical and digital domain in their repressive endeavors. Analyzing China’s current actions and vision in this regard paints a clearer image of this dystopian reality.

The China Model

China has shown itself to be a trailblazer in utilizing high technology to construct a formidable and pervasive domestic surveillance apparatus. This likely stems from China’s deep concern about maintaining domestic stability. Between 2007 and 2016, domestic security spending across all provinces and regions increased by 215%. In more sensitive provinces, such as that of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, there has been an increase of 411%.

Much of this widening investment has gone into rolling out a new generation of data-driven surveillance technology. This means outfitting China with high-tech surveillance cameras that utilize AI-driven facial recognition and advanced data analytics to effectively surveil citizens to unprecedented degrees. In 2018, the Chinese government had already deployed 170 million of these CCTV cameras. By 2021, the number is expected to reach 570 million (around 1 for every 2.3 people). This new data-driven surveillance technology is augmented by the fact that it is fused with data gathered by an individual’s digital activity. With this new power, the Chinese government aims to effectively surveil its nearly 1.4 billion people by weaving together the intricacies of their digital and physical lives into an easily accessible intelligence package.

AI’s strength in revolutionizing surveillance to this degree is that it can observe and analyze countless seemingly insignificant/unnoticeable actions and compile them into a concise piece of usable information. It is so effective at this that China’s ambition even includes the eventual nationwide introduction of citizen scores through “ranking people by ‘trustworthiness’ and their value to society.”

As developments in AI, 5G, and other facets of advanced technology continue to progress at such rapid speeds, the prospects of this dystopian scenario will only become more pronounced. In an August 2019 Brookings Institution policy briefing titled Exporting Digital Authoritarianism, fellows Alina Polyvakova and Chris Meserole state that “with 5G networks on the horizon,” illiberal and hybrid regimes will likely “build out the next generation of their domestic telecommunications and surveillance systems over the coming decade.”

Is this technology being adopted beyond China?

The adoption and proliferation of data-driven surveillance technology is spreading across the globe. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that 75 out of 176 countries are actively using AI technologies for surveillance. The research paper also noted that “governments in autocratic and semi-autocratic countries are more prone to abuse A.I. surveillance than governments in liberal democracies.” Oftentimes, the technology is adopted for a wide range of policy objectives. Three common ones include smart city/safe city platforms, facial recognition systems, and smart policing. For example, Brookings Institution fellows Alina Polyvakova and Chris Meserole note that the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has already begun deploying Chinese technology under its “Police without Policeman” program that seeks to replace conventional law enforcement with video surveillance and facial recognition technology. As data-driven surveillance technology becomes more refined, ubiquitous, and cheaper to adopt, it will likely spread on a quicker and broader scale. Saudi Arabia’s video surveillance industry market is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.7% between 2020 and 2026. Over the next five years, the global market for video surveillance alone is expected to expand by USD 31.1 billion.

What is China’s role in its global proliferation?

China’s tech firms and personal experience in constructing a robust data-driven surveillance network make it a leading adopter, innovator, and exporter of repressive technology. For example, Huawei Technologies supplies AI surveillance technology to nearly 50 countries worldwide. Beyond deploying repressive surveillance technology abroad, Huawei has even directly assisted governments in Uganda and Zambia by intercepting encrypted communications and cell data to spy on political opponents. The Chinese government’s indifference towards privacy, freedom, and human rights records abroad make it an attractive patron for prospective authoritarian clients. The government has even promoted its model of digital authoritarianism through explicit, large-scale training sessions for foreign officials.

What role does the West play and what can it do to curtail the global proliferation of data-driven surveillance technology?

The West has also played an important role in the global proliferation of advanced data-driven surveillance technology. For example, U.S. technology alone has been deployed in 32 countries.

Before simply casting blame on China, Western nations must assess domestic loopholes and construct sound, robust policies that limit the exportation of advanced surveillance technology. This entails working to attain that objective while not harming the free exchange of research and commercial programs vital to the development of emerging technologies. A good first step is the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA). Signed into law in 2018, the ERCA “requires the government to examine how it can restrict the export of emerging technologies essential to the national security of the United States.” In the first restriction enacted under this law, the Department of Commerce instituted a ban on the export of software for neural networks with graphical user interfaces, a “feature that makes programs easier for non-technical users to operate.”

The possible future challenge to confronting China abroad

On the international front, the United States and its allies should work from a multilateral angle to confront and hinder China’s exportation of repressive digital surveillance technology. By default, it seems logical to simply advise that Western governments utilize diplomacy, targeted sanctions, export controls, and the like to confront the issue at hand. But, as I have noted in a previous article, coordinated strategic action of this nature may become less effective if a “digital iron curtain” descends upon the globe. The term refers to the prospect of the formation of two distinct global digital ecosystems brought on by Chinese – U.S. contention in the technology sector. Societies around the world would be divided via the internet and devices they use rather than walls and barbed wire. In the near future, this could make Western and Chinese technology so divorced from one another that leveraging export controls would do little to hobble China’s ability to develop, adopt, and export data-driven surveillance technology. In this scenario, I have previously argued that two distinct digital orders may incorporate and draw themselves along ideological boundaries. Democracies sharing the United States’ values of a free and open internet promoting freedom of speech and expression will be more inclined to work with Western firms over Chinese ones. Authoritarian countries may find it more attractive to simply work with the latter to satiate, rather than challenge, their desire to consolidate political power.

Conclusion

A decade ago, then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that the development and spread of communications technology would facilitate the free flow of information and advance freedom and democracy around the globe. This optimistic assessment of the power of such technology has not aged well. Although modern communication technology has served as a force for greater freedom and democracy in some respects, it has also demonstrated a disturbing dark side with the advent of digital authoritarianism.

If the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring a decade ago were deemed a “Facebook Revolution” advanced by 21st-century technology, the world of today is witnessing the realization of a highly repressive technological counterrevolution that will likely make authoritarian rule more formidable, pervasive, and effective in the years ahead.

June 17, 2020 0 comment

Asia China Military North Korea Nuclear Deterrence Security and Conflict Technology

China, the US, and THAAD: A Case for the End of Ballistic Missile Defense

written by Abdus Najmi

Imagine this: A nuclear-arms race between the US and China. Collapse of the “No First Use” doctrine of deterrence. North Korean missiles actually being able to reach the US mainland.

As frightening as these phrases sound, all of them are very possible within the next decade. China or America could easily break their pledge to not use nuclear weapons first in warfare. This may seem like mere alarmist rhetoric, but the empirical track record of actions by states foreshadows this scenario as plausible. Just seven months ago, China launched its very own Starry Sky-2, a hypersonic aircraft that moves at “six times the speed of sound.” High tech aircraft isn’t the only new development in Chinese military technology, as hypersonic glide vehicles (or HGVs) and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) put Chinese modernization at light years ahead of the US. The DF-ZF hypersonic vehicle has been successfully tested 7 times, and MIRV technology would allow China to launch multiple warheads from a single missile at a given time.

It would be misleading to characterize China as an irrational actor who seeks modernization as a means to revisionism. After all, the universal law of cause and effect would deem China’s actions as stemming as an effect. So – what is the cause?

US ballistic missile defense systems have elicited a hard-line response from China, and justly so. These systems attempt to intercept missiles during their trajectory in air, and some scientists and policymakers are even attempting to accurately take down missiles during boost phase. THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, is exactly that system – a form of ballistic missile defense (BMD) that is being deployed in South Korea to counter the North Korean threat, or so the US claims.

Wait – if the US deploys THAAD in South Korea, why would China care? Are we not just deploying it to protect our ally against a potential threat from the North?

Many would point to the necessity of THAAD as a resource to counter the North Korean threat. This argument is misleading, as THAAD is only “designed to intercept missiles within a range of 200 kilometers.” The unit’s location in Seongju County falls out of the range of Seoul, South Korea’s capital and most populous city.

In addition, THAAD doesn’t prevent a North Korean conflict – it causes it. There are three key reasons for this. To start off, the empirical track record proves so. When the Reagan administration proposed “Star Wars,” the Soviet Union responded by upping its nuclear stockpile. This is basic IR theory 101 – states respond to military threats militarily. Second, there are geographic limitations for why THAAD cannot prevent a conflict. The geographic dimensions of the Korean peninsula make it extremely difficult to shoot missiles down, as the peninsula is “mountainous and lack[s] spatial depth.” While this technology seems promising, physics tends to err on the side of caution – BMD has a “dismal flight test record of nine successful intercepts in 17 attempts since 1999.” Lastly, the status quo proves the uniqueness of the situation. Currently, the US already has BMD elsewhere in Northeast Asia and North Korea is still testing new missiles. If ballistic missile defense was such a good deterrent, why hasn’t North Korea ended its testing? There clearly is no fear of US capabilities or practices in the region. If anything, THAAD is just another match that ignites the larger flames of the North Korean threat.

THAAD is much more political than it seems. This system is strategically positioned in Korea for other reasons – specifically to bolster a US presence in Asia. THAAD’s AN/TPY-2 radar has such a long range that it can peer into the Chinese mainland, strong enough to even detect Chinese missiles in centimeters through electromagnetic reflection. China’s concerns “come not from the interception component of THAAD, but rather the detection capability” which renders its military secrecy useless. This is why China has been developing MIRVs and HGVs. Both of these forms of tech provide ballistic credibility by rendering the radar system obsolete, in case of a necessary attack.

In the long run, it might be necessary for the US to end ballistic missile defense in South Korea. It is uncertain whether a Trump presidency (which tends to be hawkish) would support this type of policy. In the meantime, it might be worthwhile for the United States to develop transparency and confidence building measures with China over the deployment of THAAD. These could include agreements about data collection and forcing the US to not “conduct engagements beyond the range of their […] radar.” This might give the US the best of both worlds – maintaining THAAD but assuring China of its non-encroaching use. If neither of these worlds are met, the US might have to prepare for a hardline world of Chinese revisionism.

April 2, 2020 0 comment

China Technology United States Vladimir Putin

The Digital Iron Curtain

written by Zachary Durkee

Russian President Vladimir Putin once noted that “whoever leads in AI will rule the world [i]”. He may just be right. From the battlefield to the kitchen, there is close to no aspect of society that artificial intelligence (AI), and high technology for that matter, will not touch. To put this assertion into perspective, the 2018 World Economic Forum meeting noted that 5G’s global impact is expected to be on par with the invention of electricity and the automobile. The technology will enable billions of new digital connections, advance the utility of AI through denser data transfer and is expected to contribute $12 trillion to global GDP by 2035 [ii].

Though civilization sits on the horizon of a new world reminiscent of science fiction, shifting geopolitical dynamics and a brewing great power rivalry stand as forces capable of distorting, and ultimately setting the course of humanity on two starkly different paths.

The current erosion of U.S. – China relations stands as the catalyst for this prospective detour in a forthcoming technological revolution. From global economic uncertainty compounded by a battering trade war to the prospect of dangerous miscalculation in a region increasingly marred by power politics [iii], there is much at stake even this early on in what’s likely to be a century marked by stiff competition between the two superpowers.

One of the most far-reaching casualties of this rivalry can be felt in technology. The “digital iron curtain” is a term currently being coined to describe the prospect of the formation of two distinct global digital ecosystems brought on by Chinese – U.S. contention in the technology sector [iv]. Societies around the world would be divided via the internet and devices they use rather than walls and barbed wire.

New America Foundation Fellow Samm Sacks provided a compelling reason this is occuring at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Beijing this past November. Miss Sacks argues that the United States is pursuing a policy founded on paranoia and fear, in which all Chinese companies and researchers are seen as nefarious. In contrast, China is cultivating an environment of “techno nationalism” where the government views technology as a tool and appendage of the state [v]. These policy choices are fostering an environment incompatible with cooperation. Political ideology, economic nationalism, and increasing suspicion of the other is laying the foundation for a wall separating two of the world’s most technologically adept countries.

Indications of this divide are already unfolding. Following a May 2019 executive order that virtually bans the Chinese tech giant Huawei in the United States and limits U.S. companies from cooperating with it, Google stripped the firm from use of its Android operating system [vi]. Though this ban has been temporarily lifted, it has cemented volatility and mistrust in the trade relationship between the two. It has also compelled Huawei to develop its own native operating system in the event that the restriction is imposed. Huawei smartphone sales outside of China could dwindle if their access to widely used Google services are permanently cut off.

This individual case demonstrates that when the avenues enabling the interdependence between U.S. and Chinese tech firms close, it ultimately forces each side to ensure they become independent from the other.

The greatest implications of this divide will become more visible as the second half of the world comes online. The International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Measuring the Information Society Report (2018) estimates that around 3.9 billion people, or around 51% of the world’s population, now has access to the internet [vii]. This leaves a huge segment of the world without the kind of tech that China and the United States will compete vigorously to rollout within these developing markets. When the current polarization and competitive attitudes are taken into account, it’s no surprise that the world sits on the cusp of falling between a deeply divided American and Chinese led digital market.

These two distinct digital orders may incorporate and draw themselves along political boundaries. Democracies sharing the United States’ culture of a free and open internet promoting freedom of speech and expression will be more inclined to work with Western firms over Chinese ones. Authoritarian countries may find it more attractive to work with the latter to satiate, rather than challenge, their desire to consolidate political power. The prospective benefits that advanced technology brings to the future is ultimately being constrained by a vital relationship in disarray.

[i] Vincent, James. “Putin Says the Nation That Leads in AI ‘Will Be the Ruler of the World’.” The Verge, 4 Sept. 2017, www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-rule-the-world.

[ii] Rosenberg, Don. “How 5G Will Change the World.” World Economic Forum, 18 Jan. 2018, www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/the-world-is-about-to-become-even-more-interconnected-here-s-how/.

[iii] “Global Conflict Tracker l Council on Foreign Relations.” Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/interactive/global-conflict-tracker/?category=us.

[iv] Yuan, Li. “As Huawei Loses Google, the U.S.-China Tech Cold War Gets Its Iron Curtain.” The New York Times, 20 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/business/huawei-trump-china-trade.html.

[v] “’Digital Iron Curtain’ Will Have Grave Consequences for Humanity: Sacks.” YouTube, Bloomberg Live, 26 Nov. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsqdCfEBhco.

[vi] Weinstein, Natalie. “Google Cuts off Huawei Phones from Future Android Updates.” CNET, 20 May 2019, www.cnet.com/news/google-reportedly-cuts-off-huawei-phones-from-future-android-updates/.

[vii] “Measuring the Information Society Report 2018.” International Telecommunication Union , 2018, www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/misr2018.

February 8, 2020 0 comment

Featured Globalization Human Rights Military Security Technology

Borders, Bodies, and Biometrics

written by Katarina Kosmala-Dahlbeck

The camera does not flash as it scans your face. Instead, a green check appears on the screen as the turnstile opens smoothly to let you through. Boarding pass proven useless, you walk through the gate and board the plane hassle-free. “So quick [you] couldn’t believe it”, quips the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s website. It cites the use of facial recognition as a way to make air travel a seamless experience for both travelers and officers. It also attributes its decision to adopt this technology in part to the growing popularity of biometric identification in unlocking cellphones and other everyday devices.

Biometrics refer to digital data on any biological characteristics unique to an individual. This can include fingerprints, face, voice, retina, or iris recognition technology, as well as information on a person’s hand geometry, gait, body movements, and even DNA. The accuracy of comprehensive biometric data is unparalleled by other technology, far surpassing traditional methods of identification such as photo IDs. Recent advances have spurred massive growth of biometrics in public, private, and commercial sectors, with global market size expected to reach USD 59.31 billion by 2025. Biometrics have become most widely used to prove identity in citizenship, personal technology, and surveillance, and have proven to be the most infallible way to counter security threats both in the physical world and online.

At the same time, the development of biometrics has raised legal and ethical questions surrounding data privacy in a globalized world. Article 12 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights lists the right to privacy as fundamental, stating that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence”. This sentiment is echoed in Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and specifically in General Comment 16, which states that personal information held on “computers, data banks, and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals, must be regulated by law”. The European Union has espoused the most stringent regulations on privacy to date with the passing of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, which has since taken effect in all EU member states. Citing concerns about infringing on the “rights and freedoms of citizens”, GDPR has prohibited the use of biometrics for identification purposes, except in the case of extenuating circumstances and with an individual’s explicit consent.

No such regulations exist in the United States, with only three states adopting legislation ensuring privacy over biometric data. Illinois, Texas, and Washington have passed various versions of biometric privacy laws, noting pervasive data sharing by tech giants and the critical nature of biometric information. Large-scale legislation has yet to gain support in the U.S., as biometrics have proliferated technology markets and become a familiar part of security authentication in apps, banks, workplaces, and airports.

Even with the success of biometrics in the private sector, some of its most impactful applications are in intelligence and national security. Capital investments in biometrics skyrocketed after 9/11, as security launched to the forefront of American consciousness. The Patriot Act, passed in October 2001, gave the government a green light on surveillance of suspected terrorist activity and tightened border security measures. As the War on Terror dominated American foreign policy, biometrics began to expand the reach of American intelligence both at home and abroad. Today, the U.S. government spends over $700 million a year on biometric research, and any person who crosses an American border must provide biometric information to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services upon entry. This allows officers to conduct criminal background checks, as well as monitor immigration status depending on a person’s country of origin.

As a result, growing concern exists as to the implications of this for international norm and even policy. If biometrics are so widely used on a national level, what does a world filled with biometric information look like? Due to the reach of the digital economy today, individuals have little control over where their data goes should it be compromised. Cybersecurity presents a significant threat worldwide, and surveillance states such as China systematically deploy biometric technology to suppress minority populations. Chen Quanguo, Communist Party Secretary and the architect behind Muslim internment camps in China, rose to power through his implementation of a “grid management” surveillance system that uses facial recognition to police the movement of Uighur Muslims. Security checkpoints on roads and train stations, cellphone confiscation, and the withdrawal of passports prevent Uighurs from leaving these centers or traveling abroad. China claims that the purpose of detainment is to counter terrorism and religious radicalization, but the mass imprisonment of its Muslim minority has received international condemnation for human rights violations. Even though biometric technology has the potential to strengthen national security, it can also legitimize ethnic discrimination and racial profiling in many cases.

The use of biometrics in these contexts has redefined the role of biology in questions of political legitimacy. Rather than focusing on an individual’s record, biometrics place identity at the forefront of questions of national security. When a traveler, immigrant, or refugee is asked “who are you?” before they are asked “what have you done?”, their biological self begins to determine their geopolitical status. This creates an environment ripe for biases, explicit or implicit, to creep in and drive policy. For example, the U.S. has long treated people of Middle Eastern descent with suspicion because of risks associated with terrorism. However, the entrance of biometrics into the public sphere allows this discrimination to be systematized and legitimized under the law. President Trump’s Muslim travel ban itself cut the admission of Muslim refugees to the U.S. by 91 percent, and visa approvals for immigrants from majority Muslim countries have fallen 30 percent since 2016. 155,000 fewer tourists, students, and guest workers from the Muslim world entered the U.S. in 2017 than in 2016. The combination of Islamophobic policy with advances in biometrics have made the U.S. an unwelcome and even dangerous destination for applicants from many Muslim countries. The way that biometrics combine biological identity with political status creates a system that, by definition, makes some people more secure at the expense of others.

The concept of embodying citizenship has changed the face of international migration and surveillance. Instead of having to be a member of a biological tribe to belong, one now has to be a part of a state’s biometric tribe that determines acceptance based on the geopolitical status of identity alone. And because technology invariably develops faster than the law, the world is woefully unprepared to address the legal and ethical questions raised by these developments. The European Union’s GDPR is the most extensive data regulation law in the world, but even it has limits in its scope to manage the use of biometrics internationally. Most biometric research is conducted in the United States, and until national legislation is enacted to address it, this technology will continue to drive intelligence and border security initiatives, as well as flourish in the private sector. The lack of international legal precedent concerning biometric data also poses a serious obstacle to justice. Until these questions are addressed in an international court, biometric data proliferation in the public and private sector will continue to press against the fine line of the human right to privacy.

April 8, 2019 0 comment

Crisis Relied Featured Global Health Humanitarian Aid Internet Technology Uncategorized

Expediting Aid in Rural Nepal

written by Lillianne Thomas

On April 25th, 2015, an earthquake the size of Everest struck just outside Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. As the number of days grew since the catastrophe occurred, so did the count of victims killed or injured. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated almost a quarter of Nepal and the surrounding areas in China and India, and triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that would have made international headlines in itself.

As with any natural disaster of this caliber, international aid poured in. The handful of U.N. agencies dealing with these types of crises responded immediately, as did governmental organizations and NGOs from several countries. Yet somehow, victims in the rural parts of Nepal ⎯ an already small country relative to surrounding giants China and India ⎯ suffered from a lack of aid. Is it because the various responding agencies knew where these people are, but had trouble accessing them due to the difficulty of destroyed roads, collapsed infrastructure, and ruptured ground? Were they able to access these rural areas only to find that they came with too few provisions to meet the needs of the droves of victims? Or, is it simply because these agencies were experiencing trouble locating these people?

I contend that the responding agencies were challenged by a combination of all three possibilities. Although scientists had predicted this earthquake would occur for the past ten years and despite the Nepali Government’s earthquake preparation efforts, the poor state of the country’s infrastructure challenged response teams in reaching rural areas outlying Kathmandu. The capital served as an air base for helicopters transporting aid throughout the affected area. However, unlike the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 where a U.S. Naval ship carrying an immense supply of aid arrived directly offshore, Nepal is landlocked and requires land and air-based shipments of aid⎯both of which take much more time to match the supply of sea-based shipments.

As anyone might expect when a natural disaster strikes, the situation presents complications concerning gas and electricity, and few homes in the rural areas outside Kathmandu have access to clean water. What’s more, lack of clean water in rural areas could force victims to rely on polluted water⎯a situation that almost guarantees a cholera epidemic. In this case, trucks and helicopters were the only alternative lifeline the victims had. In order to speed up the distribution of aid in the rural areas, two things needed to change. First, responding teams needed to better plan their deployments with more accurate and timely information. Second, they needed to consider alternative means of transportation that can augment existing means.

In the immediate aftermath of an earthquake, the best way to visualize the physical impact is oftentimes not the most commonly consulted. High resolution, timely satellite imagery is our greatest asset for identifying exactly what was damaged, destroyed, where victims are located, and where responding teams can effectively deploy personnel and set up relief sites. Some of the biggest satellite earth observation commercial companies in the world (DigitalGlobe from the U.S., CNES from France, and Airbus Defense and Space from several European countries) harness the capabilities of their spaceborne satellites to capture imagery of affected areas immediately following a crisis. Subsequently, they share this imagery with that captured before the crisis (for purposes of comparison) to crowdsourced web-based mapping platforms, such as OpenStreetMap. The motivation behind this publicization of high-quality satellite data is to enlist as many people as possible in the effort to build a detailed picture of what was damaged and where the victims are. These efforts resulted in digitally demarcated satellite images that indicate damage as detailed as remote mountain roads. Below is a picture of the user interface for Tomnod, a service from DigitalGlobe that has engaged a global community of volunteer mappers to digitize damaged structures near Kathmandu.

In turn, crowdsourced mapping agencies distribute the imagery they receive from the commercial satellite providers to their networks of volunteer cartographers who may download and digitize the data on their wireless communication devices while on the ground in the affected area. Their input is immediately fed into the digital imagery which can be re-shared with countless humanitarian agencies, thus activating a rapid information sharing environment in the aftermath of the crisis. Although this had been done for Nepal, the service was not nearly as well-known as it should have been. These tools are revolutionary and need greater marketing on behalf of the humanitarian agencies that respond to crises such as the Nepal earthquake. If agencies are to use these tools, then they logically benefit from greater public awareness and participation in the associated services.

Although the Google Person Finder and Facebook Safety Check services received much publicity for their use in locating victims of the earthquake in Nepal, it is important to remember that these services require the victims to have access to smartphones in a devastated environment in which even clean water and food are out of reach. Although obviously well-intentioned, these services face a disjuncture in their actual utility in a situation such as post-earthquake Nepal, especially when it comes to the rural areas. Instead of relying on the victims in the affected region to respond to SMS text messages (as in the case of Facebook Safety Check) or reference images of lost loved ones on Google.com (Google Person Finder), efforts should be directed at encouraging responding agencies and the broader global community to use their access to technology to help assess the damage and identify where the victims are located.

Finally, responding agencies should consider alternative means of transporting aid to and from the remote areas. One method for bypassing the limited manpower needed to operate helicopters and drive trucks is adding unmanned aerial systems as a third means to transport aid to and from the remote areas, such as the outlying territories around Kathmandu. These UASs, more popularly referred to as “carrier drones” , would need to be flown in formation with helicopters whose pilots should follow flight paths informed by the crowdsourced satellite imagery. The pilot operating a helicopter would control the drones flown in formation. This is necessary to overcome the complications associated with air traffic control that come with autonomously flying unmanned aerial systems. Therefore, the drones would serve a complementary role to the helicopters, and when taken together, they could create a synthetic aircraft carrier. The drones and helicopters could be loaded with food, medicine, and clean water that would either be airdropped or unloaded upon landing. Effectively, the fleet of drones with the helicopters would rapidly speed up the transport of aid to remote areas.

Where will these drones come from? The Indian military launched Operation Maitri immediately following the earthquake, supplying soldiers, helicopters, and trucks to distribute aid throughout Kathmandu and the outlying areas. Yet with the shortage of helicopters, the Indian military realized that its existing means of transporting aid were not adequate to handle the demand. In addition to helicopters and ground vehicles, the Indian military operates a fleet of long-endurance medium size Searcher II and Heron drones that could have potentially assisted with humanitarian aid in Nepal. The Indian military should have used this resource if soldiers and other military infrastructure were being used.

Theoretically, the Nepal Earthquake could serve as a testing ground for a revolution in the way aid is delivered following natural disasters or humanitarian crises. New technologies should always be considered for improving response to these situations, especially when they encourage participation from the global community (e.g. Tomnod) and when they can be used to augment existing methods (e.g. carrier drones). There is no doubt that future events such as the Nepal earthquake would benefit from greater awareness of crowdsourced web-based services such as Tomnod and OpenStreetMap, and from the application of unmanned aerial systems for maximizing rapid delivery of aid. These proposed solutions may be more complicated to operationalize than they appear at face value, but at minimum, they can serve as a fundamental concept for improving the ways in which agencies respond to natural disasters and/or humanitarian crises.

October 24, 2015 5 comments

Environmental Change Featured Globalization Internet Security and Conflict Technology

Mapping Earth from the Roots Up

written by Lillianne Thomas

No more than a decade has passed since it became possible for anyone with a connection to the Internet to access and author real-time spatial information on demand and free of charge. Prior to the development and release of web-based mapping services such as OpenStreetMap, Wikimapia, Google Maps and Google Earth, geospatial information science (GIS) and its associated technologies primarily served the needs of governments, financially well-off corporations, and well-funded civic and scientific organizations. Public practice was handicapped by high barriers of entry, including expensive desktop software and sophisticated technical expertise necessary for making use of the software. To add to the effect, available data in geospatial format lacked for two reasons: astandardization of geospatial data format was still under development, and GIS tools were expensive and technically complex. Yet in the mid-2000s, GIS experienced a landmark evolution characterized by the democratization of tools and know-how, collectively enabled by the Internet. New services became available online that both exposed the public to high quality geospatial data and bid for the active volunteering of local spatial knowledge. Today, this trend has led to a new form of crowdsourced GIS, and the rapidly expanding volume of data produced by the public is popularly referred to as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). Beyond the impact that VGI has had on GIS, the phenomena is also playing an increasingly important role in everything from instantaneous news updates, weather forecasting, emergency/disaster response, and social media. From the local level to the global level, VGI is fostering spatial awareness within civil society to a greater extent than has ever been witnessed before.

Open source GIS services are distinguished by technical simplicity and a user-friendly interface, zero financial cost, and availability through the Internet. Furthermore, virtually all of these services allow users to contribute, edit, and update geospatial content (i.e. open source). The Google Maps Application Program Interface, in particular, evolves constantly as the original source code is integrated into innovative new applications. Location services have become crucial functions within countless computer-based and mobile applications such as social media behemoths Twitter and Instagram, and these open source web-based mapping services have become the underlying technology supporting a growing share of embedded location services.

At the basic level, volunteered geographic information is founded on the intersection of virtually ubiquitous navigation technology (most commonly synchronized with the Global Positioning System), local spatial knowledge translated into georeferenced attribute data, and observation imagery collected from spaceborne and airborne sensors. Users generate the content through their interactions with open source GIS services and the end-product is by and large published electronically through laptops and mobile technology. The content is tied to specified coordinates and as more information about that particular location is published, the associated geographic information becomes richer.

Globally, the digital divide is rapidly shrinking. The cost of mobile technology is falling and mobile broadband service has now reached complete global coverage. Smartphones are the fastest spreading information communication technology in many developing countries, and in general, smartphones are trending towards simpler, easier user-interfaces, which means they require less sophisticated technical know-how than in the past. Reductions in the cost of both mobile technology and mobile broadband service is democratizing access to GIS services, increasing the production of user-generated spatial content, and enabling more innovative developers to concoct brilliant applications using the source code provided by companies such as Google.

It seems hard to imagine using mobile technology without also using some type of GIS-enabled application. Geographic location is emerging as an organizing mechanism for the rapid digital accumulation of data, and GIS supplies the tools that make this happen. From social media posts to real-time news updates to weather forecasts, geographic information is generated by users through their engagement with embedded location services. Whether users are simply “geotagging” their location on an image while traveling or voluntarily georeferencing new roads or buildings on open source web-based mapping services such as OpenStreetMap, geographic information is being crowdsourced constantly. In many cases, VGI is more precise and/or timely than could be provided by any government agency or corporation. People in the immediate area of, say a natural disaster or crime scene, are likely equipped with mobile technology and can upload information accompanied by their geographic location instantly.

Traditionally, response to natural disasters and other crises have been considered the responsibility of nation-states, international organizations such as the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations such as The Nature Conservancy or Amnesty International. This perception, however, has changed in many ways recently, one of which results from the role that web-based open source mapping services play in encouraging crowdsourced responses to local events. In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, humanitarian crises and epidemiological outbreaks, timely information from observers in the affected area is crucial. Prior to the marriage of web-based mapping services and mobile technology, information of this nature was difficult to obtain. Volunteered geographic information has provided a solution to this challenge, and it is now considered a principal asset when assessing the rapidly changing conditions on the ground. For example, volunteered geographic information played a crucial role in the relief efforts following the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Aid workers used OpenStreetMap and other web-based mapping services to develop crowdsourced maps of remote areas inflicted by the earthquake where previously existing maps were significantly lacking in detail. Other examples include the use of geotagged twitter updates to map post-election protests in Iran in 2009, and widespread use of a cutting-edge open-source crowdmapping platform called CrisisNET designed by non-profit Ushahidi in a number of natural disasters in 2011, namely the tsunami in Japan that took 20,000 lives, and most recently to map violence via social media updates in Syria.

With the currently unfolding unrest in long-time conflict laden Yemen, thousands of displaced refugees are in need of humanitarian support. Crowdsourced mapping and volunteered geographic information can and should be considered a valuable resource for response efforts in Yemen. Applications such as CrisisNET would be exceptionally helpful for maximizing the appropriate content and distribution of aid coming from the U.N. and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourced mapping have worked to blur the distinction between professional cartographer and the rest of society. Individuals from across the globe are empowered to map their message, their information, and their opinion by increasingly affordable GPS-enabled wireless communication technology, mobile broadband Internet, open source web-based mapping applications, and a growing body of publicly-available high resolution earth observation imagery. Together, these ingredients are fueling the development of a digital earth with details beyond just land cover and topography, but also including social, political, and cultural information that changes in step with real world developments. As GIS expert Michael Goodchild of UC Santa Barbara frames it, volunteered geographic information “opens the possibilities of a dense network of individual, intelligent observers” (Goodchild, 2012, p. 585). Crowdsourcing is revolutionizing the way we collect and interpret geographic data. It brings the power of defining our planet to the people. More people participating in the process of mapping means more data, and when it comes to understanding our planet, more data is better data.

April 24, 2015 1 comment

Featured Geopolitics Internet Security Security and Conflict Technology

Disparate Geopolitics: Hackers of the world Unite?

written by James Walker

In the realm of academia we are often confronted with complex phenomena that we then attempt to corral into nicely defined cubicles. Systems of classification are employed ten a penny in order to establish, well, some form of order on a recalcitrant world. Economics, Sociology, Political Science, and all the other branches of the social sciences, look to establish some form of orthodoxy in order to forge a vision of solid ground – a kind of Archimedean point from which to move the world. This is the role of theory, in that it serves to underpin the validity of whatever new classification is currently in vogue.

How then to classify a phenomena that is, by definition, ethereal? I am speaking of the transient, cross-boundary nature of “Hacking” and the fact that as an activity it trespasses across physical barriers, political borders, sociological identities, and legal frameworks. A good hacker is, almost by default, someone who defies classification in the normal sense. However, everyone has to start from somewhere, and in this case we will employ the notion of geopolitics as the defining theoretical framework.

The history of geopolitics is complicated, encompassing notions of territoriality and geographic location that would at first glance seem incompatible with a review of hacking. However, geopol does have a few advantages – geography is a heterodox discipline, meaning it is willing to shamelessly steal from anywhere provided the theory makes sense. Also, modern geopolitics is distinctly critical in nature. As such, geopolitical students often pitch their sights at intangible objectives – such as this one. For the most part, critical geopolitics is seen in four distinct yet interoperable veins: Formal – where academics theorize about the nature of the world, Practical – where policy wonks and politicians try to enact visions onto the world, Popular – where narratives about the world are played out via media, film, video games, and other such mass engagements, and Banal – where the everyday nature of geopolitical narratives are embedded into the environment (think flags above the Post Office, or national symbology on bank notes). Wikipedia has a nice intro, for those with an interest…

In order to look at the issue of hacking, and in particular the identity of hackers, I am going to suggest a term for another sub-field of geopol – namely Disperate Geopolitics. I chose the name as hacking is by its very nature a disconnected practice in the geographic sense, albeit facilitated ironically enough through the process of global connectivity. In essence, both the activity itself, and the participants involved are quite distinct. As such, hackers are an odd bunch. It is very hard to create a template of what the average hacker is like, as there does not appear to be an average hacker. Of course, within the community, as oddly dispersed and discordant as it is, there is a lexicon and classification that differentiates newbs and “script-kiddies” from genuine hard-core techies and innovators.

Even the term “hacker” is contested (and my apologies to those who are passionate about this. I am simply using the term in the popular geopolitical sense). However, from an outside perspective it is very hard to define what makes someone an ideal hacker – and that is why they are so interesting. For example, when you read the term hacker, what do you think of? For many people, their first thoughts will probably turn to either criminal gangs who steal identities online, or alternatively some kid in their mom’s basement with a Guy Fawkes mask, a six pack of Mountain Dew, and a malicious grin. Both of these stereotypes hold some validity, but they obscure so much more in a geopolitical sense. In both instances the reach of the individual is not geographically bounded. Nor is it necessarily focused in the same way that a more earthbound process might be. A criminal gang may be constituted by individuals who have never met in real life, yet can still operate as a cohesive entity. Similarly, the “cyber hactivist” using a denial of service attack may have no direct contact or even personalized animosity towards the target group at all.

And then there are the distinctly nationalistic/ideologically driven cyber “warriors” who do have a clear, personal agenda. Groups such as the CyberCaliphate have taken to hacking government websites in support of the Islamic State. Others, such as TeaM MADLEETS fight low level propaganda campaigns in support of their chosen socio-political positions. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has been active in support of the Assad regime throughout the ongoing crisis in Syria, striking out at a variety of online targets seemingly at random. They even hacked the UCLA web page in 2011, although as the linked report states, they were “awfully polite about it.” The SEA is currently engaged in a form of retaliatory war with Anonymous – perhaps the most widely recognized hacktivist collective, who have taken it upon themselves to “swat at Syrian government websites in response to internet blackouts.”

Anonymous are in some ways the archetypal hacker collective, and the embodiment of the notion of Disparate Geopolitics. Anon has no base, no formal membership criteria, no allegiance, no geographic center, no real defining characteristics at all, aside from a general theme of net neutrality and unrestricted access to information. Before the adoption of the Fawkes mask (courtesy of V for Vendetta) even their logo was deliberately obtuse – a figure of a suit with no head imposed upon a globe, as if to mock the vision of world order associated with modern institutionalism and global governance – a kind of anti-UN, or perhaps just a more honest vision of how the world works – after all, where there should be a person, for Anonymous there is just a question mark. The logo raises two dialectic questions, namely who are we, and who actually controls the world? Who, in essence, is scripting the geopolitical narrative?

At the other end of the scale are what might be considered the more “uniform” visions of hacking, orchestrated by the state, and focused through an old school geopolitical framework. It will come as no surprise that all the major world players have dedicated cyber-warriors of their own, from China’s “PLA Unit 61398” to the U. S. National Security Agency’s “Tailored Access Operations” program. However, while these types of hacking might appear to be simple technological extensions of interstate relations and/or trust issues, they are also indicative of a feature that runs through hacking in general – a distinctly disparate feature that posits a shift in who gets to sit at the geopolitical table.Everyone, regardless of size, military, economic, or political power, wants in on this new geopolitical frontier, from states such as North Korea, Israel, and Iran, to free form hactivist collectives scattered across the globe.

There is so much more to explore within hacking from a disparate geopolitical perspective. We have not even touched upon the notions of “Black Hat” vs “White Hat” operatives, the revolving door between legal and illegal operations, or the recruitment of brilliant young minds into either government service or the criminal underworld (and sometimes both – you are as likely to find new talent in a Federal penitentiary as you are at MIT). At the end of the day, what I hope you take away from this brief exploration is the notion that hacking, and by extension the net, affords alternative avenues for exploring the nature of geopolitics. Our world has changed, and we need to theorize in new ways to understand it. On the internet, new rules apply, and new paradigms emerge. To quote from a couple of mainstream popular geopolitical texts, while new geopolitical players are all aware that “Big Brother is watching you”, the powers that be must also recognize that in the cyber realm “our name is legion, for we are many.”

April 1, 2015 0 comment

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