CDT Tech Talks

In this episode, host Brian Wesolowski sits down with Mana Azarmi to explain the civil liberties concerns that come with a proposed "smart wall" on the southern border of the US. Then, Emma Llansó shares with Brian the latest on legal challenges to FOSTA, the bill aimed at addressing online trafficking –– but that is having serious unintended impacts on free speech. More on the smart wall from Man...

Welcome to CDT’s Tech Talk, where we dish on tech and internet policy, while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I’m Tim Hoagland –– CDT’s Lead Designer, Digital Strategist, and resident Podcast Engineer, and I sat in for Brian this episode –– and it’s time to talk tech. This episode brings us Susan Crawford – author, and a professor at Harvard Law School. She digs into he...

Tim Hoagland –– CDT’s lead designer, digital strategist, and resident podcast engineer –– steps up to the microphone and joins Tech Talk as host this week. CDT has been running full speed, and one key area of focus is getting the spotlight today – our Privacy & Data team's draft privacy legislation. Director Michelle Richardson joins Natasha Duarte and Joe Jerome to dig into the nitty gritty. More...

On December 7, 2018, the Center for Democracy & Technology, in partnership with the Freedom Forum Institute, Charles Koch Institute and WAMU's 1A, convened a one-day symposium on the future of speech online, the (second annual) "Freedom of Speech Online 2018." Video of the event: bit.ly/2EDG1Ed More on Jewell Jones: https://twitter.com/jewelljonesmi More on Nickecia "Nick" Alder: https://www.insta...

On December 7, 2018, the Center for Democracy & Technology, in partnership with the Freedom Forum Institute, Charles Koch Institute and WAMU's 1A, convened a one-day symposium on the future of speech online, the (second annual) "Freedom of Speech Online 2018." Video of the event: http://bit.ly/2EDG1Ed More on Nicole Wong: https://twitter.com/nicolewong More on Jeffrey Rosen: https://twitter.com/Ro...

SLIDES HERE: http://bit.ly/2LoSjAN Ethan Zuckerman, of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, gave a keynote address entitled "We Make the Media," at the #FOSO18 #futureofspeech annual event. He is introduced by CDT's Emma Llansó, our Director of the Free Expression Project. On December 7, 2018, the Center for Democracy & Technology, in partnership with the Freedom Forum Institute, Charles Koch Instit...

Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with Call for Action's Executive Director Ed Bartholme to discuss CFA's guide for all online shoppers this holiday season. The guide has a vast array of tips on what we should be doing to keep our data safe and secure when thinking about purchases for our friends and loved ones. Ed covers Call for Action's practical advice on passwords, cookies, private browsing, an...

Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with Charles Duan, the Director of Technology and Innovation Policy at the R Street Institute, to help understand how standards and patents can impact competition and consumers. Then Brian brings in CDT's own Stan Adams to talk about a new "tech 101" series from CDT, Techsplanations. The series offers accessible explainers on how core technologies and internet syste...

Host Brian Wesolowski brings in Lata Nott of the Freedom Forum Institute to discuss Newstrition, an interactive tool (created jointly with the Newseum and Our. News) that makes it easy for the public to make informed decisions about what is real and what is “junk” news. Then, Brian sits down with Teddy Hartman from the Howard County Public Schools. He shares a local perspective on how school distr...

CDT has launched a new initiative aimed at helping internet users better assess the trustworthiness of VPNs, and a number of VPN providers were active partners in this process. Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with Joseph Jerome to discuss the work he's spearheading, and why it's so essential. More info on the Signals of Trustworthy VPNs initiative: cdt.org/vpns More on Joe: https://twitter.com/joe...

The Center for Democracy and Technology is ramping up its student privacy work – and here's your introduction to our new team: Elizabeth Laird, Student Privacy Senior Fellow Hannah Quay-de la Vallee, Senior Technologist Adarsh Mahesh, Research & Communications Associate More on our student privacy work: http://bit.ly/cdtstupriv More on Elizabeth: https://cdt.org/about/staff/elizabeth-laird/ More o...

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 De...

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...

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...

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 cam...

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 al...

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 democra...

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 futur...

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 –...

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, s...

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...

This week, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be testifying before both the House and Senate about how the data of Facebook’s users was used by Cambridge Analytica to target swing voters. The questioning will undoubtedly go beyond just this issue, especially with the recent admission by Facebook that all of its users likely had their information scraped from the site. To preview the hearings and...

When Susan Landau talks about cybersecurity, everyone should listen. In this episode of Tech Talk we hear from the esteemed cybersecurity expert about issues she addresses in her latest book, "Listening In: Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age." Landau talks about how the ultimate goal should be for everyone to have access to easy-to-use encryption to make society as a whole more secure. She pushes ba...

Host Brian Wesolowski invites one of the most notable tech skeptics (or in his words, realist) of our time onto the podcast. In his latest book, How to Fix the Future, he addresses the ways we can tackle the biggest problems in the digital world, with a goal of saving humanity. We cover a lot of ground in our conversation, including the role tech is playing in societal unrest, the potential for re...

Almost everything is connected to the internet today, from household devices to traffic lights. What happens when these Internet of Things devices cause real harm, whether it’s damage to your home or the disruption of a critical service at a hospital? CDT's Ben Dean previews his latest paper. And we’ll also tackle the many questions around how the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE...