TCSE: Ted Corpus Search Engine

Recorded at	November 18, 2020
Event	TED Salon Brightline Initiative
Duration (min:sec)	11:08
Video Type	TED Salon Talk (partner)
Words per minute	202.34 very fast
Readability (FK)	38.75 very difficult
Speaker	Sharon Weinberger
Country	United States of America
Occupation	journalist, writer
Description	American journalist


1	00:13	A few years ago,
2	00:14	an American defense consultant I know
3	00:16	told me about a trip he took to Uzbekistan.
4	00:18	His role there was to help sell technology
5	00:21	that the Uzbek government could use to spy on its own citizens.
6	00:25	He eventually shared with me the marketing material
7	00:27	he'd presented to the Uzbek government.
8	00:30	One glossy brochure featured technology that could not just intercept phone calls,
9	00:35	but identify the caller,
10	00:36	regardless of what phone number they were using,
11	00:39	based on their unique voiceprint,
12	00:41	and then identify their exact geographic location.
13	00:44	This is a guy who had been involved with the arms trade for years.
14	00:48	He wasn't some Hollywood-type gunrunner doing backroom deals.
15	00:51	He was just a guy that worked with legitimate Western companies
16	00:54	to help sell their weapons abroad.
17	00:56	But he wasn't bothered by marketing this sort of technology.
18	00:59	For him, it was just the next step in the arms trade.
19	01:02	And it was even easier than, say, selling weapons to Iraq,
20	01:05	because it didn't require an export license
21	01:07	from the US State Department,
22	01:08	the way most arms sales would.
23	01:11	It turns out that these tools of surveillance
24	01:13	are almost completely unregulated,
25	01:15	because as of today, they're not defined as weapons.
26	01:18	But they should be, and we need to regulate them that way.
27	01:21	I'm a journalist who has spent the last two decades
28	01:24	looking at how the military and intelligence world
29	01:26	spurs the development of new science and technology.
30	01:28	I've tracked the emergence of new weapons
31	01:31	and looked to see what happens
32	01:32	when companies start to market these weapons abroad.
33	01:35	But what is a weapon in the information age?
34	01:37	We know that armed drones are weapons,
35	01:39	missiles and bombs are weapons,
36	01:41	but the State Department actually classifies
37	01:43	broad categories of technologies as weapons.
38	01:46	So for example, a scientist going abroad on an oceanographic research vessel,
39	01:50	they want to take the latest night-vision goggles?
40	01:53	That, according to the State Department, is potentially a weapon.
41	01:56	Why?
42	01:57	Well, because though night-vision goggles are used today by scientists
43	02:01	and hunters around the world,
44	02:02	it was a capability first developed for the military.
45	02:05	And yet, tools of surveillance
46	02:06	that an authoritarian regime could use to spy on its own citizens,
47	02:10	on dissidents, on journalists,
48	02:12	that, according to the US government today, is not a weapon.
49	02:15	And yet, these tools of surveillance
50	02:17	are part of a growing secretive multi-billion-dollar industry.
51	02:21	The genesis of this spy bazaar goes back some 18 years,
52	02:24	to a Hilton hotel in northern Virginia,
53	02:26	just a few miles away from the US Central Intelligence Agency.
54	02:30	A few dozen people, mostly dark-suited men,
55	02:33	gathered there in the spring of 2002
56	02:35	for a conference with the unassuming name of ISS World.
57	02:38	You know, at first glance, this conference probably looked like dozens of events
58	02:42	that used to take place around the Washington, DC area.
59	02:45	But this event was unique.
60	02:46	ISS stands for Intelligence Support Systems,
61	02:49	and the people who were there
62	02:51	were from companies that built technologies to spy
63	02:53	on private communications.
64	02:55	In other words, these were sort of wire-tappers for hire.
65	02:58	And the reason they were there was that less than a year earlier,
66	03:01	the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington
67	03:04	had spurred the Congress to press through legislation
68	03:07	known as the Patriot Act.
69	03:09	This gave the government broad new authorities
70	03:11	to monitor communications.
71	03:13	Emails, internet activity, phone calls,
72	03:16	even financial transactions.
73	03:18	This created an instant demand for data.
74	03:21	And in the true American entrepreneurial spirit,
75	03:23	an industry rose up to help collect this data.
76	03:27	But back in 2002,
77	03:28	this was still a pretty modest affair.
78	03:30	Only about 10 percent of the world's population
79	03:32	was even online using the internet.
80	03:34	So most of what was being collected were simple emails and phone calls
81	03:38	over landlines and cell phones.
82	03:41	But over the next few years,
83	03:42	the way that we communicate began to change rapidly.
84	03:45	There was the introduction of Skype, Facebook
85	03:47	and then, crucially, the iPhone,
86	03:49	and within a few years,
87	03:51	billions of us were walking around with little computers in our pockets
88	03:54	that do everything from monitor our exercise habits
89	03:57	to help us find romantic partners.
90	04:00	And suddenly, you didn't necessarily need the advanced capability
91	04:03	of the National Security Agency or big telecoms
92	04:05	to monitor everyone's communication.
93	04:08	In some cases,
94	04:09	all you needed was access to that device in their pockets.
95	04:12	And that gave birth to an entirely new type of industry.
96	04:15	You know, not many companies can build missiles or aircraft,
97	04:19	but it doesn't take a lot of capital to create software
98	04:22	that can hack into someone's smartphone.
99	04:25	Computer hackers have been around for years,
100	04:27	but now their skills could be used to build technologies
101	04:30	that were in high demand by law enforcement
102	04:32	and intelligence agencies.
103	04:34	And soon, dozens and even hundreds of companies
104	04:37	were getting into this wire-tappers' market.
105	04:40	And that little conference in Virginia,
106	04:42	it grew and soon became known as the Wiretappers' Ball.
107	04:46	Well, not much was known about the Wiretappers' Ball
108	04:48	in those early years,
109	04:49	because the conferences were closed to everyone
110	04:52	except the companies and their government customers.
111	04:54	But journalists did begin to see and hear reports
112	04:57	of companies getting into this private spy market.
113	05:00	Spooky entrepreneurs going around the world,
114	05:03	doing deals,
115	05:04	often with authoritarian regimes.
116	05:06	And it was, from the start, a really loosely regulated market.
117	05:10	Some countries do require permission to sell these technologies abroad,
118	05:14	but rarely with the type of scrutiny that is given to traditional arms.
119	05:18	So for example, the Italian-based company Hacking Team
120	05:22	reportedly sold its technology to authoritarian regimes
121	05:24	in Egypt and Kazakhstan.
122	05:27	The Israeli-based company NSO Group has reportedly sold its technology
123	05:30	to the regime in Saudi Arabia,
124	05:32	which has been accused of harassing,
125	05:34	and even, in one case, killing one of its political opponents.
126	05:37	And we do think of weapons as things that kill people.
127	05:42	But in the information age,
128	05:43	some of the most powerful weapons are things that can track and identify us.
129	05:47	This is something that the Pentagon and CIA have recognized for years,
130	05:51	and they've tried to build technologies
131	05:52	that can track people, suspected terrorists, around the globe.
132	05:56	The Pentagon has invested in something called smart dust,
133	05:59	little microsensors the size of specs of dust
134	06:02	that you could scatter on people without them knowing it,
135	06:05	and then use it to track their location.
136	06:07	The Pentagon, through its venture capital firm,
137	06:10	has invested in a beauty products company once featured in "Oprah Magazine"
138	06:14	to build a device that could surreptitiously collect DNA
139	06:17	just by swiping across the skin.
140	06:20	But something remarkable has happened over the past decade.
141	06:23	In many cases, what the private marketplace has been able to do
142	06:26	has far outstripped what the Pentagon or CIA even thought was possible.
143	06:30	Back in 2008,
144	06:31	the Pentagon had a secretive database of DNA from terrorists.
145	06:36	It had about 80,000 samples.
146	06:38	Well, the private company AncestryDNA
147	06:41	today has samples from over 15 million people.
148	06:44	23andMe, the second-largest genealogical database,
149	06:48	has samples from over 10 million people.
150	06:50	So now, maybe you don't need these James Bond-worthy techniques
151	06:54	of collecting DNA
152	06:55	if we're willingly handing it over to private companies
153	06:58	and even paying for the honor of doing it.
154	07:01	Well, what could you do with a sample of someone's DNA?
155	07:05	In the United States and China,
156	07:06	researchers are working on using DNA samples
157	07:09	to build images of people's faces.
158	07:11	So if you pair DNA with facial recognition technology,
159	07:15	you have the basis of a really powerful surveillance system
160	07:18	that could be used to track individuals or entire ethnic groups.
161	07:22	And if you think that sounds a little bit paranoid,
162	07:24	keep in mind that the Pentagon last year sent out a memo
163	07:27	to all of its service members,
164	07:29	warning them precisely not to use those commercial DNA kits
165	07:32	over concerns that information could be used to track them
166	07:35	or their family members.
167	07:37	And yet, even with the Pentagon raising concerns about this technology,
168	07:41	almost nothing has been done to reign in this market.
169	07:44	One American company, Clearview AI,
170	07:47	has been collecting billions of images of people's faces
171	07:49	from across the internet,
172	07:51	like those pictures you post on Instagram of you and your friends and family,
173	07:55	and then selling its facial recognition services
174	07:57	to US government and law-enforcement agencies.
175	08:00	And even if you think
176	08:01	that's a perfectly acceptable application of this technology,
177	08:04	there's nothing to stop them from selling to private individuals,
178	08:08	corporations or even foreign governments.
179	08:11	And that's exactly what some companies are doing.
180	08:13	That Wiretappers' Ball that started in northern Virginia?
181	08:17	Today, it's held in multiple cities around the globe.
182	08:20	Thousands of people now attend the ISS trainings and conferences.
183	08:25	And more of the companies showing up are coming from the Middle East and China.
184	08:28	The spy bazaar has gone global.
185	08:31	And at arms shows now around the world,
186	08:33	you'll see companies displaying facial recognition technology
187	08:36	and phone hacking software,
188	08:38	displaying right next to traditional arms manufacturers
189	08:41	with tanks and missiles.
190	08:42	And walking around these arms shows,
191	08:44	it's pretty easy to go down dystopian rabbit holes,
192	08:47	thinking about future surveillance technology
193	08:49	that will track our every move.
194	08:51	And I remember one Pentagon adviser telling me
195	08:53	that what the military really needed were space-based satellites
196	08:56	that could track people anywhere on earth based just on their DNA.
197	09:00	It's enough to make you invest in tinfoil hats.
198	09:03	But the truth is,
199	09:04	we don't know what sort of technology the future will bring.
200	09:07	But we know that today, in the absence of regulation,
201	09:10	this marketplace is already exploding.
202	09:13	And in fact, one of those companies accused of selling surveillance technology
203	09:16	to authoritarian regimes,
204	09:18	today, it's offering to help track those infected with COVID-19.
205	09:23	And of course, technology does offer the tantalizing promise
206	09:26	of helping control a pandemic through contact tracing.
207	09:29	But it also opens up another door, to privatized mass surveillance.
208	09:33	So what do we do about this private spy bazaar?
209	09:37	We can hide, go offline,
210	09:38	get off social media, ditch our smartphones,
211	09:41	go live in a cave,
212	09:43	but the truth is, we're not trained to be professional spies,
213	09:46	we can't live under false identities or with no identities.
214	09:49	And even real spies are having a hard time staying below the radar, these days.
215	09:53	It doesn't matter how many passports Jason Bourne has
216	09:56	if his face or DNA is in someone's database.
217	09:59	But if even governments have lost control of the tools of spying,
218	10:02	is there anything we can do about it?
219	10:04	One argument I've heard
220	10:06	is that even if the US were to restrict companies
221	10:08	from selling this sort of technology abroad,
222	10:10	companies based in China might simply step in.
223	10:13	But we regulate the arms trade today,
224	10:15	even if we do it imperfectly.
225	10:18	And in fact, there was a multilateral proposal several years ago
226	10:21	to do just that,
227	10:22	to require export licenses for surveillance software.
228	10:26	The United States was among those countries
229	10:28	that agreed to these voluntary regulations,
230	10:30	but back in Washington, this proposal has simply languished.
231	10:33	We have an administration that would rather sell more weapons abroad
232	10:37	with fewer restrictions,
233	10:38	including to some of those countries
234	10:40	accused of abusing surveillance technology.
235	10:42	I think to move forward, we would need to revive that proposal,
236	10:45	but even go one step further.
237	10:47	We need to fundamentally change how we think of surveillance technology
238	10:51	and define these tools as weapons.
239	10:53	This would allow government
240	10:55	to regulate and control their sale and export
241	10:57	the way that they control traditional arms,
242	11:00	advanced aircraft and missiles.
243	11:03	But that means recognizing that technology that tracks who we are,
244	11:06	what we do, what we say,
245	11:08	and even in some cases, what we think,
246	11:10	is a form of advanced weaponry.
247	11:12	And these weapons are growing too powerful,
248	11:14	available to the highest bidder,
249	11:16	and according to the whims of the spy bazaar.
250	11:19	Thank you.

Sharon Weinberger: Inside the massive (and unregulated) world of surveillance tech