CyberPulse Weekly #2: Cyber-Activism, Mass Censorship, and Web Crypto Wallets
Trying out a new format this week (less personal content, more links)!
The past week has been quite eventful, especially in terms of international affairs (I assume that the majority of my readers are based in the United States). Vladimir Putin, who is arguably the best example of an authoritarian state-maximalist ruler in modern politics, rebuffed his commitment to the war in Ukraine, a war that has not only claimed thousands of Ukranian lives, but has also served to destabilize and demoralize the Russian people, many of whom were opposed to the war in the first place.
Unsurprisingly, Putin has used mass censorship and internet surveillance to qualm any potential notions of resistance against his actions, as detailed in this report by OONI. In particular, censorship of websites focused on internet privacy and humanitarian rights has increased, giving credence to the notion that an attack on internet freedoms often comes with an attack on fundamental human rights.
Internet-based activism is therefore as if not more pertinent in the modern political arena, serving to fight surveillance from authoritarian states and facilitate anonymous financial aid. An example of a group working in this space is Internet Activism, a non-profit dedicated to using the internet to forward humanitarianism and aid. In the Middle East, where shockwaves from an earthquake that affected millions of Syrian and Turkish residents are still being felt, Internet Activism collaborated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force to create a web portal to enable displaced individuals to easily find temporary shelter.
Finally, in the world of crypto and Web3, another major exploit took place, this time to the tune of over 9 million dollars. Unlike most exploits in the space, this hack was not focused on exploiting some faulty logic within a smart contract to make it behave in an unexpected manner; instead, it targeted a popular web wallet within the Algorand Ecosystem, enabling them to steal funds from several high-profile accounts While the root cause of the exploit is still being explored, the key takeaway is clear: if you have a significant holding in cryptocurrency, you should really look into hosting your own node, using multisig functionality to secure your wallets, or using a hardware-based wallet. This exploit, along with a previous wallet-based exploit in the Solana Ecosystem, also gives further credence to the idea that current non-custodial wallet solutions (where you actually own the private keys that secure your assets) are not friendly enough for the average user.
I hope you learned something from reading this post! As always, please leave comments to discuss these topics in more detail. Also, please be sure to send me news or ideas that you want to see featured for next week! Until then….