2019 - Matt Mitchell - Cybersecurity vs the world

### Overview In this keynote address, Matt Mitchell—director of digital safety and privacy at Tactical Tech and founder of Crypto Harlem—explores the historical evolution of the cybersecurity industry and examines how the term "cybersecurity" is increasingly co-opted around the world to justify censorship, state surveillance, and the oppression of marginalized communities. He challenges cybersecurity professionals and hackers to interrogate how their field's terminology is used by authoritarian governments and tech giants, urging the community to scrutinize legislation, support vulnerable populations, and leverage open-source tools to protect civil liberties.

### Key Topics - **Origins of "Cyber":** Tracing the history of terminology from Norbert Wiener’s 1940s concept of cybernetics (from the Greek *kubernetes*, meaning governance or steering) through 1960s cyborg research by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, the Creeper virus by Bob Thomas, early artistic appearances of "cyberspace" in 1968, William Gibson’s sci-fi work (*Burning Chrome*, *Neuromancer*), and the late-1980s emergence of "cybersecurity" and "cyber war." - **State Exploitation of Cybersecurity Laws:** Authoritarian regimes drafting vague "cybersecurity" or "data protection" legislation—often copied across borders—to enforce censorship, mandate domestic data localization, and force platform cooperation. - **Tech Platforms and Censorship:** How social media companies like Facebook comply with government censorship requests, introduce features that inadvertently endanger activists (such as unauthorized admin additions), or fail to curb state-driven propaganda and violence until public scrutiny escalates. - **Targeting Marginalized Groups and Journalists:** Real-world examples of how surveillance, data collection, and platform manipulation affect journalists, human rights defenders, and marginalized groups globally.

### Technical & Geopolitical Details Mitchell provides concrete geographic examples illustrating the misuse of cybersecurity mechanisms: - **Vietnam:** A cybersecurity law enacted on January 1, 2019, required tech companies handling Vietnamese citizens' data to establish local offices and gave the government power to censor posts deemed contrary to state safety. Activists faced arrests, geo-restricted content notices from Facebook citing local laws, and honeypots where dissidents were made administrators of groups without consent to fabricate culpability. - **India:** Despite being the world's largest democracy, India led the world in internet shutdowns. Mitchell recounts mandatory Aadhaar ID requirements simply to purchase a SIM card. He critiques India's draft data protection bill modeled loosely on GDPR, noting dangerous loopholes including data localization mandates and broad government exceptions allowing warrantless data processing under vague "public safety" pretexts. - **Myanmar:** Platforms were weaponized during the Rohingya genocide, with the military spreading propaganda and incitement via Facebook, including accounts run by government PR entities posing as military personnel. Journalists investigating state abuse were targeted, surveilled, and jailed before international pressure secured their release.

### Takeaways & Resources Mitchell advocates for proactive community engagement to reclaim the hacker ethos and push back against digital authoritarianism: - **Scrutinize Legislation:** Look beyond the initial innocuous points of cybersecurity and data privacy bills to identify surveillance and data localization clauses. - **Support Open Source & Civil Society:** Contribute expertise or seek grants through groups like the Open Technology Fund, EFF, Tactical Tech, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. - **Leverage Tactical Tech Resources:** - *Personal Data: Political Persuasion*: A research report outlining the hundreds of political profiling and influence companies operating similarly to Cambridge Analytica. - *Data Detox Kit*: An 8-day practical guide aimed at non-technical individuals to reduce their digital footprint. - *The Kit*: An open-source intelligence (OSINT) gathering resource providing low-cost and vetted investigative techniques for researching domains, infrastructure, and web changes.