Weaponizing Information Conference to Be Held January 24
The Center for Global Legal Challenges and the Information Society Project will co-host a conference on “Weaponizing Information: Propaganda to Cyber Conflict,” on January 24, 2017 at Yale Law School.
This conference was organized in response to a growing threat of information warfare — the use of information to delegitimize rivals and adversaries or to push a state’s agenda. The conference will bring together legal, policy, journalism, military, and philosophy experts to discuss the history and future trajectory of information warfare in the internet age. While foreign digital interference raises concerns about the security of our democracy, attempts to use information to delegitimize rivals and adversaries, or to push a state’s agenda are not new — rather, they are modern iterations of long-standing information warfare tactics and strategies, conference organizers said. The conference will seek to understand the roots of these practices and ask how today’s technology adds new dimensions. In what ways does cyber conflict change – or reassert – existing information warfare norms? What are the military, legal and policy implications of this evolution? What existing precedents should inform new scholarship and policy orienting principles? And most importantly – how should we address the use of information technology to target core democratic values and processes? These are some of the questions that the panels will explore.
The first panel, “Manipulation and Misinformation: Propaganda and False News,” will focus on how different online platforms, such as news websites and social media, are used for propaganda, as well as the dissemination of fake news. Professor Michael Reisman LLM ’64 JSD ’65 will moderate the panel. Panelists will include Professor Ellen Goodman (Rutgers Law), Professor Jason Stanley (Yale University Department of Philosophy), and Patrick Tucker of Defense One, a news site dedicated to U.S. National Security.
The second panel, “Information Warfare in the Cyber Era,” will discuss how information becomes a valuable weapon, which allows foreign actors to intrude and disrupt information systems, as well as exfiltrate sensitive data. This was exemplified by the DNC Hack, which leaked thousands of e-mails belonging to the Democratic National Committee officials, allegedly by Russia, and many have speculated may have swayed the U.S. election. This panel will be moderated by Professor Oona Hathaway ’97; Professor Catherine Latrine (Georgetown University), Jacquelyn Schneider (Naval War College), and Aaron Brantly (United States Military Academy) will be panelists.
“What we are witnessing recently, especially in the aftermath of the DNC Hack, is the weaponization of digital tools and platforms” said Ido Kilovaty, Cyber Fellow at the Center for Global Legal Challenges, who is organizing the conference along with Torey McMurdo from the Department of Political Science at Yale University. “Information becomes increasingly valuable to foreign and domestic political actors, and at the same time, becomes immensely damaging if used against them. We invited experts from a variety of disciplines to encourage an informed discussion which surveys different disciplinary approaches to tackle these burdensome phenomena.”
The conference is open to the Yale community only and will be held in Rooms 121 and 128 at Yale Law School. To follow along with conference updates, follow the Center Twitter feeds @YaleLawGLC @YaleISP.
The conference was made possible with the support of Yale Law School’s Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund. For more information, visit the conference events page.
