Next week sees the major security conference CSI 2009 kick off. I’ll be speaking at the event Monday afternoon and covering the topic “Cyber Protesting Innovation“.
It’s a topic I’ve been researching for quite some time now, and the presentation will review how the changing face of the Internet has effected how people use it to communicate with government and big business, and how the art of protesting online has morphed in recent years. Most importantly though I’ll be looking more towards the future of cyber protesting and how this differs from hacktivism – in particular the growth of opt-in botnets and how (as a corporate entity) businesses will need to handle large-scale attacks instigated by current or former customers. Believe me, the topic will make you think long and hard about the future before us.
The abstract? see below…
It used to be that the disgruntled and disaffected could grab a banner and picket for their cause outside of the local government or global conglomerate headquarters and get their message noticed by all to see. You can still do that, but governments and conglomerates have embraced the Internet with their work-from-home policies and technologies so that the only people inconvenienced by these physical protests are the protesters themselves.
Just as their business operations have moved online, the future of protesting will move online if it is to me impactful and get noticed. We’ve already seen some of the tools and baby-steps in to taking protesting online, but what will it look like when things get really start to get serious? What happens when you embrace Social Networking sites to further your cause and harness hundreds-of-thousands of compatriots, arm them with new-generation cyber-warfare tools, and launch coordinated attacks? How will online protesting jump from classic Web denial of service or mail flooding, and embrace other channels such as blogosphere disinformation and telephony services?
If you’re in Washington DC on Monday, you probably won’t want to miss this talk.