CDT Tech Talks

We hosted, in conjunction with the Delegation of the European Union to the United States and the R Street Institute, a series of tech and internet policy happy hours, in the hopes of galvanizing a non-partisan discussion between of tech companies, the government, and civil society organizations. Host Brian Wesolowski is joined here to recap the series of events by R Street's Sasha Moss & the EU Delegation to the United States' Jesse Spector.

Transatlantic Tech Trends (Polling) from the Tech Summer Series Kickoff: http://bit.ly/2wNPceC

Democracy in the Digital Age video + recap: http://bit.ly/2NpGfTu

More on Sasha: https://twitter.com/ilusasha

More on Jesse: https://twitter.com/jspeckle

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with CDT Senior Technologist Maurice Turner, who gives a report from DEF CON’s Voting Village. Not surprisingly, hackers yet again exposed some glaring vulnerabilities in America’s voting infrastructure. 

And then Brian talks to Tiana Epps-Johnson, the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Technology and Civic Life about how her organization is working to make the internet improve the democratic process - and yes, that includes elections.

More on our election security work: http://bit.ly/CDTelectsec

More from CTCL: https://www.techandciviclife.org/

More on Maurice: https://twitter.com/TypeMRT

More on Tiana: https://twitter.com/tianaej

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

In this episode of CDT's Tech Talk, host Brian Wesolowski addresses this question: when tech is designed to draw us in, is it possible to disengage and just live life?

Brian sits down with Nick Fitz, recently a senior researcher at Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight. Then he brings in Kevin Holesh the designer of Moment, an app that allows you to track just how much time you and your family members spend on their phones.

More on Moment: https://inthemoment.io/

More on Nick: https://twitter.com/fitznich

More on Kevin: https://twitter.com/kevinholesh

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

With the recent indictments in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the importance of election security is even more front-and-center. Russian military intelligence officers, or the GRU, successfully hacked the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee, bringing to light vulnerabilities in election infrastructure at the campaign level.

Joining host Brian Wesolowski to talk about the key takeaways from the Mueller indictment and share why cybersecurity practices must be a key priority for campaigns and election officials is CDT’s Senior Technologist Maurice Turner.

More on our election security work: http://bit.ly/2JO7YqZ

More on Maurice: https://twitter.com/TypeMRT

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

If you want to silence an advocacy group or media outlet, a fairly easy way to do so it to take down its website. Two organizations, Cloudflare and Google are doing great work to help nonprofits and journalists, as well as elections officials, protect themselves against cyber attacks. In this episode we talk to Alissa Starzak from Cloudflare and George Conard from Google about their efforts. We also share how you can take advantage of their free services (Cloudflare's Project Galileo and Google Jigsaw's Project Shield). 

After that we talk to Laura Noren, a data scientist who was recently with NYU teaching a class on data ethics. What do data scientists need to know create technology that is better for society as whole?

More on Cloudflare's Project Galileo: http://bit.ly/2LDeYbJ

More on Google Jigsaw's Project Shield: http://bit.ly/2O3KZLG

Course syllabus from Lauren's class: http://bit.ly/dataethicsnyu

NYU Data Science Community newsletter: https://cds.nyu.edu/newsletter/

More on Alissa: http://bit.ly/2LoWRcS

More on George: http://bit.ly/2LwjMCW

More on Laura: https://twitter.com/digitalFlaneuse

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

ATTN: This week we have a guest host - CDT’s Director of Surveillance & Security, Greg Nojeim. Greg sits down with Dr. Thorsten Wetzling, the head of research for the German think tank, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV).

Greg and Thorsten have a fascinating conversation about government surveillance practices in the US and in countries across Europe, with Thorsten currently researching the democratization and professionalization of intelligence governance in Germany and Europe.

More on SNV: https://www.stiftung-nv.de/

More on Dr. Thorsten Wetzling: https://twitter.com/twetzling

More on Greg Nojeim: https://cdt.org/about/staff/greg-nojeim/

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with author and journalist Cyrus Farivar about his new book, "Habeas Data." It takes a close look at the legal cases and policies that are shaping American surveillance practices, and shows, how not surprisingly, they have not kept up with new technologies.

Then Brian welcomes Aaron Joshua Pinto, a delegate to the G7 Youth Summit who shares his insights on the future of work and highlights how young leaders from the G7 countries see technology impacting their future.

Habeas Data book: http://habeasdatabook.com

More on Cyrus: https://cyrusfarivar.com/

More on Aaron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronjoshuapinto/

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with CDT's Joseph Jerome as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is finally here. They talk about what it means for businesses both in Europe and the US, and what it means for your personal data.

Brian then brings in Vanderbilt professor, historian, and author Sarah Igo to discuss how the meaning of privacy has evolved over time in the United States – and how that changing notion of privacy has impacted policy and society.

Sarah's new book, "The Known Citizen:" http://bit.ly/2J0c9nf

More on Joe: https://twitter.com/joejerome

More on Sarah: http://bit.ly/2klBSbU

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Ashley Merryman is the best-selling author of Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing, and Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, and she recently wrote about how our President’s incivility can infect society like the flu (https://wapo.st/2HOT5IO).

She joins Brian to discuss what social contagion is, whether or not the internet and social media's making this worse, and what, if anything, social media companies should be doing to combat this?

More about Ashley: https://www.ashleymerryman.com/

More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

Motivated by a desire to help fellow artists and creators bring their work to life, Perry Chen founded Kickstarter — the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. CDT honored Chen with its Digital Visionary Award at its 2018 Annual Dinner, Tech Prom, on March 29, recognizing his work as an artist, innovator, and leader in leveraging tech for good.

CDT's President & CEO Nuala O'Connor discussed being "Online for Good", highlighting the important issues facing the internet today, and CDT's advocacy efforts to push us forward – including election cybersecurity, algorithmic transparency and accountability, and privacy, in addition to countless other projects.

Why we chose Perry & Kickstarter: http://bit.ly/2vx9Y4P

More on Nuala: https://twitter.com/privacymama

More on Perry: https://twitter.com/perrychen

More on Michael: http://michaelkratsios.com/

More info on Tech Prom: https://cdt.org/annual-dinner/

More info on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian

Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.