In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas shares part of his recent conversation with Bruce Schneier, a renowned American cryptographer, computer security professional, and privacy specialist, on the subject of cyber-attacks and mass surveillance. Bruce Schneier recently returned from testifying before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on The Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017. Demetri asks him about recent changes to the Vulnerabilities Equities Policy Process (VEP) proposed by Cybersecurity Coordinator Rob Joyce. The two discuss the preponderance of insecure devices (IoT), the escalation of cyber-attacks, and how regulation may help minimize the risk of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” Bruce Schneier believes that the dysfunction in Washington D.C. may be too great for any legislation to succeed without a cyber-attack that will result in loss-of-life first.

Also included is part of a new video interview with Leemon Baird, the inventor of Hashgraph, on bitcoin and the future of privacy and freedom. Leemon Baird shares his vision for the 21st century, and what a utopian society would look if Hashgraph or some other distributed ledger technology is used for the data layer. Distributing this storage, processing, and computation to the network would eliminate the market incentive for mass surveillance by corporations committed to selling our data to advertisers.

Demetri starts the show with a segment on Carpenter v. United States, the landmark privacy case currently before the supreme, and shares some thoughts from recent guest Jeffrey Rosen. This segment also includes some thoughts from Demetri Kofinas on the recent proposals to roll back regulations on net neutrality put forward by F.C.C. chairman, Ajit Pai.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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