An Interview with Rob Knake

Our guest for Episode 73 is Rob Knake, currently the Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Cyber Policy and formerly with DHS, the White House, and the Richard Clarke finishing school for cybersecurity policymakers. Rob and I are quickly embroiled in disagreement; as usual, I mock the cyberspace “norms” that Rob supports and disagree with his surprisingly common view that the US shouldn’t react strongly to Chinese hacking of the OPM database. But we come together to condemn the gobsmackingly limp US response to China’s attack on Github.

In the news roundup, Alan Cohn and Jason Weinstein explain attribution problems in the Cardinals-Astros hacking case. Somehow the Broncos also figure in the discussion.

Want to know why President Obama was foolish to promise he wouldn’t spy on the French President’s communications? The answer is supplied by WikiLeaks, which discloses that the last French President was caught trying to end run the United States on Palestinean issues. WikiLeaks of course thinks that shows American perfidy.

Google, meanwhile, fought the good fight to overcome a gag order and disclose an investigation of WikiLeaks soulmate Jake Applebaum. Most interesting item in the 300 pages of documents released by the Justice Department?

The Department’s hint that those who Twitter-bully tech companies over their transparency records may be engaged in witness intimidation.

And in a recurring feature, This Week in Prurient Cyberlaw, we unpack the surprisingly complex problem of how Google identifies and delinks revenge porn.

 

As always, send your questions and suggestions for interview candidates to [e-mail].  If you’d like to leave a message by phone, contact us at [phone].