Compiled by Sarah Willrich.
Articles
Reviving Article 109: A Legal Path Out of Security Council Paralysis
ShahrYar M. Sharei explained that contradictions dating back to its founding continue to plague the United Nations (UN) Security Council, rendering it ineffective. Sharei argued that now, on the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, is the time to reform the UN Charter, and he highlighted a historical episode when meaningful progress on charter reform was made despite the objections of the Security Council’s permanent members.
The more urgent question, 81 years later, is what that founding paradox has become. The UN Security Council was created in that same coercive, unequal moment—five states granted a permanent veto as the price of their participation—and is now the visible symptom of a charter that has not been meaningfully revisited since 1945. The dysfunction is no longer theoretical. With hundreds of wars and tens of millions dead or injured since the UN’s founding, that dysfunction is now the defining feature of the council’s record—and the clearest measure of its growing irrelevance.
A Political History of the Internet
Mailyn Fidler reviewed Fiona M. Alexander, Laura DeNardis, Nanette S. Levinson, and Francesca Musiani’s book, “Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core.” Fidler praised the authors’ detailed case studies of how the internet protocol, the technical rules that allow the internet to operate across the globe, was shaped by political forces. However, Fidler critiqued the book’s lack of a strong theoretical frame and sometimes limiting focus on digital infrastructure.
The book is strongest as a record of the geopolitical decisions that states have made about the internet protocol and its associated functions. The book clearly and concisely explains the dynamics of the debate over which fundamental protocol would structure internet communications, the American-born TCP/IP or the European-born OSI, and this portion of the book would be useful for a classroom assignment. The book’s histories of the internet governance institutions that emerged, from the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 to the Domain Name System (DNS) tensions generated by the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 2022, is impeccable. It will enrich the understanding even of those with considerable prior expertise.
Data Theft Extortion Is Booming! Hooray!
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed a rise in data theft extortion, why it might be time to reinvigorate the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Secure by Design initiative, and more.
The cybercrime ecosystem really does seem to be migrating from encrypting ransomware to data theft extortion. Exact numbers vary, but a number of cybersecurity and risk firms have found data theft extortion rates are up while encrypting ransomware rates are down.
This is good news, and there are a number of potential reasons for this shift.
Victim organizations have gotten better at recovering from backups, for a start. And for cyber criminals, stealing data is less work than building and supporting encrypting malware. The threat of publishing stolen data is a very powerful motivator in certain verticals, too, and that threat can’t be mitigated by maintaining good backups.
Podcasts
Scaling Laws: AI Consciousness with Anil Seth: Anil Seth joined Kevin Frazier to examine whether artificial intelligence (AI) could ever be conscious. Drawing on Seth’s recent essay, they attempted to define consciousness, develop arguments for and against machine consciousness, assess what the current evidence can and cannot tell us, and what it all means for policymakers and users.
Scaling Laws: Founders & Founders: Matthew Schwartz of Virgo: Frazier spoke with Matthew Schwartz about how AI is beginning to reshape gastroenterology and how Schwartz’s company is opening new possibilities for earlier diagnosis, personalized treatment of diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, and faster clinical research.
Videos and Webinars
Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, August 14: Benjamin Wittes sat down with Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, and Roger Parloff to discuss a fired Justice Department prosecutor challenging his firing, a nationwide preliminary injunction against President Trump’s mail-in ballot executive order, the new birthright citizenship order, and more.
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