Mallory Knodel's guest appearances

Mallory Knodel

CDT Tech Talks

Lock and Code

FOSS and Crafts

Tiffany Shlain

Shannon Watts

Mark Zuckerberg

Ashley Merryman

Doug Casey

DeRay Mckesson

Phillip Picardi

Laura Murphy

Perry Chen

Ajit Pai

Susan Crawford

Carlos Maza

Michael Daugherty

Nuala O'Connor

Laura Norén

OwlTail

Government threats to end-to-end encryption—the technology that secures your messages and shared photos and videos—have been around for decades, but the most recent threats to this technology are unique in how they intersect with a broader, sometimes-global effort to control information on the Internet.Take two efforts in the European Union and the United Kingdom. New proposals there would require companies to scan any content that their users share with one another for Child Sexual Abuse Material, or CSAM. If a company offers end-to-end encryption to its users, effectively locking the company itself out of being able to access the content that its users share, then it's tough luck for those companies. They will still be required to find a way to essentially do the impossible—build a system that keeps everyone else out, while letting themselves and the government in. While these government proposals may sound similar to previous global efforts to weaken end-to-end encryption in the past, like the United States' prolonged attempt to tarnish end-to-end encryption by linking it to terrorist plots, they differ because of how easily they could become tools for censorship. Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Mallory Knodel, chief technology officer for Center for Democracy and Technology, about new threats to encryption, old and bad repeated proposals, who encryption benefits (everyone), and how building a tool to detect one legitimate harm could, in turn, create a tool to detect all sorts of legal content that other governments simply do not like. "In many places of the world where there's not such a strong feeling about individual and personal privacy, sometimes that is replaced by an inability to access mainstream media, news, accurate information, and so on, because there's a heavy censorship regime in place," Knodel said.  "And I think that drawing that line between 'You're going to censor child sexual abuse material, which is illegal and disgusting and we want it to go away,' but it's so very easy to slide that knob over into 'Now you're also gonna block disinformation,' and you might at some point, take it a step further and block other kinds of content, too, and you just continue down that path."Knodel continued:"Then you do have a pretty easy way of mass-censoring certain kinds of content from the Internet that probably shouldn't be censored."Tune in today. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, plus whatever preferred podcast platform you use.Show notes and credits:Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)

Government threats to end-to-end encryption—the technology that secures your messages and shared photos and videos—have been around for decades, but the most recent threats to this technology are unique in how they intersect with a broader, sometimes-global effort to control information on the Internet.Take two efforts in the European Union and the United Kingdom. New proposals there would require companies to scan any content that their users share with one another for Child Sexual Abuse Material, or CSAM. If a company offers end-to-end encryption to its users, effectively locking the company itself out of being able to access the content that its users share, then it's tough luck for those companies. They will still be required to find a way to essentially do the impossible—build a system that keeps everyone else out, while letting themselves and the government in. While these government proposals may sound similar to previous global efforts to weaken end-to-end encryption in the past, like the United States' prolonged attempt to tarnish end-to-end encryption by linking it to terrorist plots, they differ because of how easily they could become tools for censorship. Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Mallory Knodel, chief technology officer for Center for Democracy and Technology, about new threats to encryption, old and bad repeated proposals, who encryption benefits (everyone), and how building a tool to detect one legitimate harm could, in turn, create a tool to detect all sorts of legal content that other governments simply do not like. "In many places of the world where there's not such a strong feeling about individual and personal privacy, sometimes that is replaced by an inability to access mainstream media, news, accurate information, and so on, because there's a heavy censorship regime in place," Knodel said.  "And I think that drawing that line between 'You're going to censor child sexual abuse material, which is illegal and disgusting and we want it to go away,' but it's so very easy to slide that knob over into 'Now you're also gonna block disinformation,' and you might at some point, take it a step further and block other kinds of content, too, and you just continue down that path."Knodel continued:"Then you do have a pretty easy way of mass-censoring certain kinds of content from the Internet that probably shouldn't be censored."Tune in today. You can also find us on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lock-and-code/id1500049667" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3VB1MCXNk76TSddNNZcDuo?si=b454MPzCTYWvvS5bOPdxcA" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2xvY2thbmRjb2RlL2ZlZWQueG1s" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Google Podcasts</a>, plus whatever preferred podcast platform you use.Show notes and credits:Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (<a href="http://incompetech.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">incompetech.com</a>)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a>Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (<a href="http://unminus.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">unminus.com</a>)

Fighting censorship online, or, encryption’s latest surprise use-case, with Mallory Knodel

Greg Nojeim

We have another exciting show for you this week!Apple announced that it is planning to make several changes to its messaging and photo services in the United States aimed to prevent the abuse of children. Unfortunately, although well intentioned, these changes may threaten the security and privacy of its users and ultimately imperil secure messaging around the world.Here to explain what these changes are and why they are so concerning are CDT’s own Mallory Knodel, Chief Technology Officer, and Greg Nojeim, Co-Director of CDT’s Security and Surveillance project.More on our host, Jamal https://bit.ly/cdtjamalAttribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.

We have another exciting show for you this week! Apple announced that it is planning to make several changes to its messaging and photo services in the United States aimed to prevent the abuse of children. Unfortunately, although well intentioned, these changes may threaten the security and privacy of its users and ultimately imperil secure messaging around the world. Here to explain what these changes are and why they are so concerning are CDT’s own Mallory Knodel, Chief Technology Officer, and Greg Nojeim, Co-Director of CDT’s Security and Surveillance project. More on our host, Jamal <a href="https://bit.ly/cdtjamal" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/cdtjamal</a> Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of <a href="http://freesound.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">freesound.org</a>.

Tech Talk: Apple Announcement — Talking Tech W/ Greg Nojeim and Mallory Knodel

With computing technology becoming integrated with every aspect of ourlives, many issues are simultaneously human rights issues andtechnical issues.Thus, how are organizations concerned with human rights and socialjustice engaging with technological authorship and policy-making?Mallory Knodel, presentlyChief Technology Officerfor the Center for Democracy and Technology,explains her work as a Public Interest Technologist.Mallory is also heavily engaged in a wide number of technicalstandards-making organizations, and explains not only how technicalstandards are of interest to human rights organizations, but howthe origin in work to define human rights overlaps with the emergenceof standards-making efforts. Links: Center for Democracy and TechnologyThe Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group (of which Mallory is co-chair)A whole bunch of mentioned standards-making organizations:W3C, IETF,IRTF, IEEE,ITU, ICANN,ISOEngineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880[http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/](Rebalancing How the Web is Built) by Manu SpornyThe slew of Google-related stuff, both good and bad:Google's attempt to control which browsers are permitted to use their servicesControvercy around Google's AMP technologyGoogle Is Testing End-to-End Encryption in Android Messages3d party tracking cookiesGovernmental battles over root DNS splitRussia blocking TLS 1.3IETF RFC 8890: The Internet is for End Users

With computing technology becoming integrated with every aspect of our lives, many issues are simultaneously human rights issues and technical issues. Thus, how are organizations concerned with human rights and social justice engaging with technological authorship and policy-making? <a href="https://twitter.com/MalloryKnodel" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mallory Knodel</a>, presently <a href="https://cdt.org/staff/mallory-knodel/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chief Technology Officer</a> for the <a href="https://cdt.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Center for Democracy and Technology</a>, explains her work as a Public Interest Technologist. Mallory is also heavily engaged in a wide number of technical standards-making organizations, and explains not only how technical standards are of interest to human rights organizations, but how the origin in work to define human rights overlaps with the emergence of standards-making efforts. Links: <ul><li><a href="https://cdt.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Center for Democracy and Technology</a></li><li>The <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/rg/hrpc/about/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group</a> (of which Mallory is co-chair)</li><li>A whole bunch of mentioned standards-making organizations: <a href="https://www.w3.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">W3C</a>, <a href="https://ietf.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IETF</a>, <a href="https://irtf.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IRTF</a>, <a href="https://www.ieee.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IEEE</a>, <a href="https://www.itu.int" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ITU</a>, <a href="https://www.icann.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ICANN</a>, <a href="ISO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ISO</a></li><li><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/engineering-rules" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880</a></li><li>[<a href="http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/</a>](Rebalancing How the Web is Built) by Manu Sporny</li><li>The slew of Google-related stuff, both good and bad:<ul><li><a href="https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/guidance-for-our-effort-to-block-less-secure-browser-and-apps.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google's attempt to control which browsers are permitted to use their services</a></li><li><a href="https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/11/19/as-antitrust-pressure-mounts-google-to-pull-back-benefit-to-news-sites-that-adopted-its-preferred-mobile-technology" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Controvercy around Google's AMP technology</a></li><li><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-is-testing-end-to-end-encryption-in-android-messages/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Is Testing End-to-End Encryption in Android Messages</a></li><li><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-23/google-should-be-u-k-antitrust-priority-online-marketers-warn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3d party tracking cookies</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/01/russia_own_internet/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Governmental battles over root DNS split</a></li><li><a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-wants-to-ban-the-use-of-secure-protocols-such-as-tls-1-3-doh-dot-esni/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Russia blocking TLS 1.3</a></li><li><a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8890" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IETF RFC 8890: The Internet is for End Users</a></li></ul>

19: Mallory Knodel on bits and bytes and human rights