2013 will be remembered as the year that the Internet lost its innocence for nearly everyone as light was shed on the widespread use of dragnet surveillance by the NSA and intelligence agencies globally. With the uprisings of the Arab Spring where people raided the offices of their regimes to bring evidence to light, we've seen a tremendous phenomenon: a large numbers of whistleblowers have taken action to inform the public about important details. The WikiLeaks SpyFiles series also shows us important details to corroborate these claims. There is ample evidence about the use and abuses of a multi-billion dollar industry that have now come to light. This evidence includes increasing use of targeted attacks to establish even more invasive control over corporate, government or other so-called legitimate targets.
2013 will be remembered as the year that the Internet lost its innocence for nearly everyone as light was shed on the widespread use of dragnet surveillance by the NSA and intelligence agencies globally. With the uprisings of the Arab Spring where people raided the offices of their regimes to bring evidence to light, we've seen a tremendous phenomenon: a large numbers of whistleblowers have taken action to inform the public about important details. The WikiLeaks SpyFiles series also shows us important details to corroborate these claims. There is ample evidence about the use and abuses of a multi-billion dollar industry that have now come to light. This evidence includes increasing use of targeted attacks to establish even more invasive control over corporate, government or other so-called legitimate targets.
Everything transiting our network connections is under surveillance to some degree. It's also common for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to use exploits and malware to infect and monitor computers, mobile devices and to spy on networks. They're able to bug our rooms with our own telephones, read encrypted emails, log keystrokes - they invade the most personal spaces in the very core of a person's life with minimal economic impact to their budget.
In this talk we'll discuss the nature of targeted and untargeted surveillance, exploitation and intelligence gathering. This active surveillance is produced and operated not only by governments but by corporations and mercenaries that provide their intrusion services to the highest bidders who often have the lowest respect for human rights.
We'll introduce you to the players in the business of active, passive, tactical and strategic surveillance and the products they provide. We'll also discuss examples of specific attacks on journalists and human rights activists worldwide in the last couple of years. Surprises won't be missing.