Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire gave a plenary talk at the State Surveillance And Human Rights Camp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 13.
Against an increasingly security-aware online community, the traditional tools of blocking, filtering, and wiretapping have become less effective. Nervous regimes turn to the largely unregulated $5 billion a year industry in Internet surveillance tools. Once the realm of the black market and intelligence agencies, the latest computer spyware is now sold at trade shows for dictator pocket change. The talk detailed the cat and mouse game between authoritarian regimes and dissidents, as well as ongoing efforts to map out the relationship between surveillance software companies and governments.
Marquis-Boire also co-facilitated a workshop that reviewed the different tactics government and non-government actors have employed to stop authoritarian regimes from making use of surveillance technology built in the United States and Europe to spy on their citizens.
During the workshop, Marquis-Boire discussed corporate responsibility, export controls, as well as the role of security research and user education campaigns.
For more information on the camp, see here.