Technology and Mass Atrocity Prevention: Overview on Current Efforts - We Need Moar H4x0rs?!

Presented at 32C3 (2015), Dec. 29, 2015, 11:30 p.m. (30 minutes).

This lecture will give an overview on how technology can help and is helping to prevent or mitigate mass atrocity crimes. It focuses on the work and research of the Digital Mass Atrocity Prevention Lab (DMAP Lab) but will discuss other major projects as well. The goal is to inform the audience about ongoing efforts and spark their interest to help work at the intersection of technology and human rights.

The lecture will span a wide arc over current efforts made in how to use technology in peacekeeping, mass atrocity prevention and mass atrocity documentation. It also will give a brief introduction on why this work is important using current (e.g. South Sudan, Syria) and past (e.g. Rwanda) cases. The projects described in the talk can be found in the link section but will have to be fleshed out in more detail until the CCC event. In short: it will be a "tour de force" through various human rights/technology projects to give the audience a wide perspective with which they can (hopefully!) find ways for future collaboration. The talk will also touch briefly on challenges and risks using technology in mass atrocity prevention - because we all know: technology has no morality and can be used for both good and evil.

Presenters:

• Nicolai Pogadl
  I'm a German/Swiss citizen who lives in Canada and works at the intersection of human rights and technology at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Concordia University. Professionally I focus on 1) how to use existing and emerging technologies to prevent or mitigate mass atrocity crimes and 2) on developing tools and procedures for activists and human rights groups to counter surveillance and suppression. ​​I'm a German/Swiss citizen who lives in Canada and works at the intersection of human rights and technology at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), Concordia University. Professionally I focus on 1) how to use existing and emerging technologies to prevent or mitigate mass atrocity crimes and 2) on developing tools and procedures for activists and human rights groups to counter surveillance and suppression. My academic background is in political science, economics, and international affairs (B.A. University of St. Gallen) but I am involved with "internet stuff" since about 2002 when I bought my first PC at the age of 14. Since graduating from university I re intensely on the topics described above and try hard every day to learn more (especially the nitty gritty technical basics of CS, coding and encryption). Since I started at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) I helped my supervisors Kyle Matthews and Marie Lamensch to grow the newly instated Digital Mass Atrocity Prevention Lab (DMAP Lab) of which a brief overview (and on my work there) can be found in the link section. Oh, and I am a member of CCC since April 2015 o_O.

Links:

• https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/events/7400.html

Similar Presentations:

• HOPE Number Nine (2012) / Technology to Change Society: What Not to Do
• 30C3 (2013) / Human Rights and Technology: "A New Hope" or "The Empire Strikes Back"?
• Still Hacking Anyway (SHA2017) / Mass Surveillance abusing Computational Linguistics and Human Language Technology: Mind-sets, state-of-the-art methods and practices according to official documents including leaks