• Even War Has Rules, So Why No Rules for Espionage?

    By Liz Mineo

    There are even rules for war, which is why it makes little sense that there are none for espionage during times of peace. Espionage is “the second oldest profession,” says one expert, but it is often overlooked at law schools.

  • AI Disinformation Is a Threat to Elections − Learning to Spot Russian, Chinese and Iranian Meddling in Other Countries Can Help the U.S. Prepare for 2024

    By Bruce Schneier

    Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence. Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016, when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. But there is a new element: generative AI and large language models. These have the ability to quickly and easily produce endless reams of text on any topic in any tone from any perspective, thus making generative AI and large language models a tool uniquely suited to internet-era propaganda. The sooner we know what to expect, the better we can deal with what comes.

  • U.S.-China “Tech War”: AI Sparks First Battle in Middle East

    By Cathrin Schaer

    The U.S. has restricted exports of some computer chips to the Middle East, to stop AI-enabling chips from getting to China. But there’s no information on which countries are affected, or how chips would get to China. What is becoming clear is that AI could well become a new source of friction between democratic and autocratic states.

  • Tech War: Is Huawei's New Chip a Threat?

    By Yuchen Li

    The US-China chip war is heating up after Huawei launched a new phone featuring technology that Washington was hoping to keep out of China’s reach: China’s largest chipmaker SMIC has surprised the West by creating a homegrown 7nm chip. Will the United States respond with more sanctions?

  • What Might We Learn from the Nijjar Affair and the Breakdown in Canada–India Relations?

    By Ian Hall

    Khalistani activism overseas—not just in Canada, but also in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia—is a major concern for New Delhi, not a marginal one, as some governments might think. And whatever has occurred in this particular case, India has long since shed its earlier adherence to “strategic restraint”: it is clear that India is willing to use force and take risks to defend its interests. Moreover, this muscularity is popular within India and segments of the Indian diaspora overseas.

  • Canada-India Tensions Over Killing of Sikh Separatist: What to Know

    By Manjari Chatterjee Miller

    Canada’s stunning allegations of an India-directed plot to kill Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar has stirred frictions between two major democracies and raised questions about India’s global actions to protect its interests.  

  • Increase in Chinese-Language Malware Could “Challenge” Russian Dominance of Cybercrime: Report

    By Masood Farivar

    For decades, Russian and eastern European hackers have dominated the cybercrime underworld. These days they may face a challenge from a new contender: China. Researchers have detected an increase in the spread of Chinese language malware through email campaigns since early 2023, signaling a surge in Chinese cybercrime activity and a new trend in the global threat landscape.

  • Walking the Artificial Intelligence and National Security Tightrope

    By Jack Goldsmith

    Artificial intelligence (AI) presents nations’ security as many challenges as it does opportunities. While it could create mass-produced malware, lethal autonomous weapons systems, or engineered pathogens, AI solutions could also prove the counter to these threats. Regulating AI to maximize national security capabilities and minimize the risks presented to them will require focus, caution and intent.

  • Deepfake Threats Advisory from NSA, U.S. Federal Agencies

    The National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. federal agency partners have issued new advice on a synthetic media threat known as deepfakes. This emerging threat could present a cybersecurity challenge for National Security Systems (NSS), the Department of Defense (DoD), and DIB organizations.

  • Apple and Google Are Introducing New Ways to Defeat Cell Site Simulators, But Is it Enough?

    By Cooper Quintin

    Cell-site simulators (CSS)—also known as IMSI Catchers and Stingrays—are a tool that law enforcement and governments use to track the location of phones, intercept or disrupt communications, spy on foreign governments, or even install malware.

  • Do Gulf States Investments in the West Pose a Threat?

    By Nik Martin

    From football clubs to phone companies, Gulf Arab states are on an investment binge in the West, thanks to high oil prices. Several analysts have warned that the pervasiveness of Chinese snooping technology in the Middle East will likely pose additional security concerns for the West.

  • The Scourge of Commercial Spyware—and How to Stop It

    Years of public revelations have spotlighted a shadowy set of spyware companies selling and servicing deeply intrusive surveillance technologies that are used against journalists, activists, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, and others. Democratic nations (thus far) lag behind the United States in executing spyware-related policy commitments.

  • Who Killed Yevgeny Prigozhin?

    By Stephen Sestanovich

    Numerous competing theories are likely to surface about the demise of the Russian paramilitary commander—all of which help explain Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

  • Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group Boss Joins Long List of Those Who Challenged Vladimir Putin and Paid the Price

    By Stefan Wolff

    It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure how, why and on whose orders Prigozhin might have been killed, but it is far less difficult to imagine that he finally paid the price for his march on Moscow at the head of a column of his Wagner Group troops at the end of June 2023. Though abrupt, his death is not unexpected. Under Putin, a former KGB operative himself, Russia has carried out several high-profile assassinations and assassination attempts to go after alleged traitors and Putin critics.

  • Putin’s Victims: A Long List Getting Longer

    Vladimir Putin’s intelligence operatives have killed many critics of the regime, both in Russia and abroad — among them opposition politicians, journalists, academics, artists, former spies, oligarchs, and businesspeople. Russian intelligence operatives, however, have also killed Russians who were not outspoken critics of the regime, leading Russia experts to speculate that Putin has adopted a milder version of Stalin’s tactics of random killings in order to instill a generalized sense of fear and insecurity among members of the Russian elite. The article offers a list of 175 dead Russians — 30 businesspeople; 23 politicians, diplomats, academics, and senior military officers; and 122 journalists —  who were killed, or who died under mysterious, often exceedingly implausible, circumstances, since Putin came to power.