terrorism | The Provocateur

Billions of people use the Internet every day for all sorts of activities, from shopping to gambling to dating to academic research. For the vast majority of users, a browser is the primary interface between them and the world wide web. Yet the very fact that browser features are so ubiquitous makes them extremely vulnerable to privacy and security compromises. Not only browser history, but all sorts of data such as browser size, location and time of day could become extremely invaluable to third parties, whether they are Internet giants like Google, Facebook and Apple or more nefarious users. Companies such as Microsoft and Mozilla have tried to combat consumers’ privacy concerns by introducing private browsing modes, but it seems that even these may not be entirely foolproof ways of surfing the Internet anonymously.

This week on The Provocateur I talk to Chris Kanich, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, to discuss the privacy and security issues raised by the modern web. We start by exploring the history of browser features since the mid-’90s, from hypermedia to JavaScript to the fully integrated browsers of today. Then we move onto the privacy and security vulnerabilities created by ubiquitous code such as that found on Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Finally we investigate a range of legal and ethical implications, from the EU’s directive on the ‘right to be forgotten’ to monitoring terrorism online and even the security complications of cloud computing.

You can listen to the podcast here:

Further Reading:

Eckersley, P. (2010) ‘How Unique is Your Web Browser?’ in Atallah, M. J. and N. Hopper (eds.) Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Proceedings of the 10th International PETS Symposium. Cham: Springer.

Snyder, P. et al. (2016) ‘Browser Feature Usage on the Modern Web’, Proceedings of the 2016 Internet Measurement Conference.

In the Shakespeare episode of The Provocateur about a week and a half ago, we touched on the Holocaust as a canonical but nevertheless extreme example of the way in which the victims of atrocities and their victimisers are often both dehumanised. The Holocaust is also considered to be a classical instance of a genocide: the systematic destruction of a group of human beings. Genocide is widely thought to be a type of international crime, but it is often taken for granted that this is so. Indeed the concepts of genocide and international crimes are arguably very recent entries into the vocabulary of world politics, as their origins can be traced to the post-1945 political climate.

This week on The Provocateur, I talk to Suwita Hani Randhawa, who is currently a teaching fellow at University College London and is completing her doctorate at the University of Oxford, about the idea of genocide as an international crime. We briefly discuss the definitions of genocide and international crime, before going on to explore the history of genocide as a concept, how and why genocide came to be classed as an international crime and the contemporary political significance of designating genocide with the status of an international crime. A recurring theme throughout is the concept of cultural genocide, which was not included in the original legal definition of the term, and whether it should be considered a distinct form of genocide. Towards the end of the programme, we also touch on the possibility of other international crimes coming into existence in the future, such as terrorism or environmental damage.

You can listen to the podcast here:

The Provocateur

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Tag Archives: terrorism

Chris Kanich: Privacy on the Modern Web

Suwita Hani Randhawa: The Idea of Genocide as an International Crime