For well over a decade, the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab has lifted the lid on dozens of covert cyber espionage operations targeting innocent citizens everywhere. Drawing from his newly published book, Chasing Shadows, director Ron Deibert recounts how his small team of investigators disarmed cyber mercenaries and helped to improve the digital security of billions of people worldwide through their evidence-based investigations. Chasing Shadows provides a front-row seat to a dark underworld of digital espionage, disinformation and subversion. There, autocrats and dictators peer into their targets’ lives with the mere press of a button, spreading their tentacles of authoritarianism through a digital ecosystem that is insecure, poorly regulated, and prone to abuse.
This event is co-hosted by the Weinberg College Center for International & Area Studies' Program of International Studies and the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University.
About the speaker
Ron Deibert (PhD, University of British Columbia) is a Professor in Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is a multifaceted laboratory that emphasizes information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security research, featuring over 160 groundbreaking reports on cyber espionage, spyware, and internet censorship. Deibert also co-founded OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor, which are projects that investigate internet censorship and surveillance. He was also one of the founders and (former) VP of global policy and outreach of Psiphon, a tool that helps users bypass internet censorship.
