Literature + Art & Tech

The Hacked World Order

Tuesday, April 19
8:00 PM
               
Historians consider 1947 the year that two clear sides in the Cold War emerged, and likewise we will look at 2012 as Year Zero in the battle over cyberspace. This was not the first occurrence of an important cyberattack or massive data breach; those had arguably happened several times before. This was the year, however, that presented a different kind of infringement. Nation-states around the world reasserted their control over the flow of data and information in search of power, wealth, and influence, finally laying to rest the already battered myth of cyberspace as a digital utopia, free of conventional geopolitics.
   The assault on this vision was comprehensive, global, and persistent. The conflict in cyberspace will only become more belligerent, the stakes more consequential. We will all be caught in the fallout as the great powers, and many of the lesser ones, attack, surveil, influence, steal from, and trade with each other. In this new world order, cybersecurity expert Adam Segal reveals, power has been well and truly hacked.
   Adam Segal is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China studies and director of the Program on Digital and Cyberspace Policy at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). His work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, among others. He joins us to share the reality of our current digital context. A Q&A follows the discussion.