Jared Cohen - The New Digital Age

Bluetooth-enabled phones to call and text complete strangers within range: “Beware: Dangers of Bluetooth in Saudi …,” Emirates 24 / 7 , December 1, 2010, http://www.emirates247.com/news/region/beware-dangers-of-bluetooth-in-saudi-2010-12-01-1.323699; Associated Press (AP), “In Saudi Arabia, a High-Tech Way to Flirt,” MSNBC, August 11, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8916890/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/saudi-arabia-high-tech-way-flirt/#.UJBU0sVG-8A.

Etisalat sent nearly 150,000 of its BlackBerry users: Margaret Coker and Stuart Weinberg, “RIM Warns Update Has Spyware,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124827172417172239.html; John Timmer, “UAE Cellular Carrier Rolls Out Spyware as a 3G ‘Update,’ ” Ars Technica, July 23, 2009, http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/07/mobile-carrier-rolls-out-spyware-as-a-3g-update/.

required update for “service enhancements”: “UAE Spyware Blackberry Update,” Digital Trends, July 22, 2009, http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/uae-spyware-blackberry-update/.

RIM, distanced itself: George Bevir, “Etisalat Accused in Surveillance Patch Fiasco,” Arabian Business, July 21, 2009, http://www.arabianbusiness.com/etisalat-accused-in-surveillance-patch-fiasco-15698.html; see also, Adam Schreck, Associated Press (AP), “United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia to Block BlackBerry over Security Fears,” Huffington Post, August 1, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/01/uae-saudi-arabia-blackberry-ban_n_666581.html.

the U.A.E. and its neighbor Saudi Arabia both called for bans: Margaret Coker, Tim Falconer, Phred Dvorak, “U.A.E. Puts the Squeeze on BlackBerry,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704702304575402493300698912.html; Kayla Webley, “UAE, Saudi Arabia Ban the Blackberry,” Time, August 5, 2010, http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2008434_2008436_2008440,00.html; “Saudi Arabia Begins Blackberry Ban, Users Say,” BBC, August 6, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10888954.

India chimed in: Bappa Majumdar and Devidutta Tripathy, “Setback for BlackBerry in India; Saudi Deal Seen,” Reuters, August 11, 2010, India edition, http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/08/11/idINIndia-50769520100811.

resulted in five deaths: Laura Davis, “The Debate: Could the Behaviour Seen at the Riots Ever Be Justified?,” Notebook (blog), Independent (London), August 8, 2012, http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/08/the-debate-could-the-behaviour-seen-at-the-riots-ever-be-justified/.

estimated £300 million ($475 million) in property damage: John Benyon, “England’s Urban Disorder: The 2011 Riots,” Political Insight, March 28, 2012, http://www.politicalinsightmagazine.com/?p=911; “A Little Bit of History Repeating,” Inside Housing, July 27, 2012, http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/a-little-bit-of-history-repeating/6522947.article.

called on BlackBerry to suspend its messaging service: Sky News Newsdesk, Twitter post, August 9, 2011, 5:32 a.m., https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/100907315603054592; Bill Ray, “Tottenham MP Calls for BlackBerry Messenging Suspension,” Register, August 9, 2011, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/09/bbm_suspension/.

“when we know [people] are plotting violence”: “PM Statement on Disorder in England,” Number 10 (official website of the British Prime Minister’s Office), August 11, 2011, http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england/.

“give the police the technology”: Rich Trenholm, “Cameron Considers Blocking Twitter, Facebook, BBM after Riots,” CNET, August 11, 2011, http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/cameron-considers-blocking-twitter-facebook-bbm-after-riots-50004693/; Olivia Solon, “Cameron Suggests Blocking Potential Criminals from Social Media,” Wired UK, August 11, 2011, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/11/david-cameron-social-media.

industry cooperation with law enforcement was sufficient: “Social Media Talks About Rioting ‘Constructive,’ ” BBC, August 25, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14657456.

Bitcoins: Bitcoin is the most successful experiment in digital currency today; it uses a mix of peer-to-peer networking and cryptographic signatures to process online payments. The value of the currency has fluctuated wildly since its inception; the first publicly traded Bitcoins went for 3 cents, and a little more than a year later they were valued at $29.57 apiece. Bitcoins are held in digital “wallets,” and are used to pay for a wide range of virtual and physical goods. At the illicit online market called the Silk Road, where people can use encrypted channels to buy illegal drugs, Bitcoins are the sole currency and generate approximately $22 million in annual sales, according to a recent study. See Andy Greenberg, “Black Market Drug Site ‘Silk Road’ Booming: $22 Million in Annual Sales,” Forbes, August 6, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/08/06/black-market-drug-site-silk-road-booming-22-million-in-annual-mostly-illegal-sales/; Nicolas Christin, “Traveling the Silk Road: A Measurement Analysis of a Large Anonymous Online Marketplace” (working paper, INI/CyLab, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA, August 1, 2012), http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.7139v1.pdf.

“there is no clear mechanism”: Bruno Ferrari in discussion with the authors, November 2011.

not democratic or democratic in name only: Arch Puddington, Freedom in the World 2012 : The Arab Uprisings and Their Global Repercussions, Freedom House, accessed October 15, 2012, http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FIW%202012%20Booklet_0.pdf.

among the least connected societies in the world: See low percentages of mobile phone and/or Internet users of countries considered to be among the world’s most repressive societies, such as Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea and North Korea, in Worst of the Worst 2012 : The World’s Most Repressive Societies, Freedom House, accessed October 15 2012, http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Worst%20of%20the%20Worst%202012%20final%20report.pdf, “Mobile-Cellular Telephone Subscriptions Per 100 Inhabitants” and “Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), accessed October 15, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/.

“Today’s dictators and authoritarians are far more sophisticated”: William J. Dobson, The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 4.

Dobson identifies numerous avenues: Ibid.

“conscious, man-made projects”: Ibid., 8.

the world’s autocracies will go: See low Internet penetration rates of countries considered to be among the world’s most repressive societies, such as Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea and North Korea, in Worst of the Worst 2012 : The World’s Most Repressive Societies, Freedom House, accessed October 15, 2012, http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Worst%20of%20the%20Worst%202012%20final%20report.pdf, and “Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), accessed October 15, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/.

A team at Carnegie Mellon demonstrated in a 2011 study: Alessandro Acquisti, Ralph Gross, Fred Stutzman, “Faces of Facebook: Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality,” Heinz College and CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University (presented at the 2011 Black Hat security conference, Las Vegas, NV, August 3–4, 2011), http://media.blackhat.com/bh-us-11/Acquisti/BH_US_11_Acquisti_Faces_of_Facebook_Slides.pdf.; Declan McCullagh, “Face-Matching with Facebook Profiles: How It Was Done,” CNET, August 4, 2011, http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20088456-281/face-matching-with-facebook-profiles-how-it-was-done/.