The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail, and TikTok Canada.

Greetings, you ever-curious Herle Burly-ites. I’m going to get right to it today, because we’ve got a topic that’s both pervasive and invasive, and I’ve wanted to explore it for a while... It’s Cybersecurity and Cyber Espionage Day on the podcast!

With me is a guest whose CV in the field is as long and tall as a grain silo in my hometown of Prelate, Saskatchewan. Ron Deibert is here.

He is a professor of political science the founder and director of the Citizen Lab – the world’s foremost digital watchdog – at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab focuses on research, development, as well as strategic policy and legal engagement at the intersection of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security.

Ron’s been a principal investigator and contributing author to more than 160 reports covering cyber espionage, commercial spyware, Internet censorship and human rights. Those reports have over 25 front page exclusives in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and other media outlets, and have been cited by policymakers and academics. And his brand-new book – “Chasing Shadows” – tells the story of Citizen Lab and the dozens of cyber espionage cases it’s exposed.

So, we’re going to find out more about Ron today, his backstory and what led him to the field. We’ll dive into some of the cases he’s been involved with. How governments and bad actors use these surveillance techniques, via our own computers and smartphones. And ask the question: how the hell can we be protected from all of this?

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