
Wordfest presents Ronald J. Deibert
Hosted by Shelley Youngblut
Hosted by Wordfest's Shelley Youngblut, this in-depth discussion about Ronald J. Deibert's new book—Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy—will explore our relationship to technology at a time when there are fewer guardrails than ever protecting our privacy, safety, and the health of our democracy. Deibert challenged us in his 2020 CBC Massey Lecture to take stock of the consequences of living in a hyper-connected world where accountability is weak and exploitation is endemic. And this legend in tech and security circles knows what he's talking about as the director of the Citizen Lab, the world’s foremost digital watch dog. Deibert's exclusive Calgary event includes an audience Q & A and book signing. You can pre-order your copy of Chasing Shadows here, in addition to his equally vital backlist.
We are grateful to Simon & Schuster Canada for making it possible to connect you with Ronald J. Deibert.
About Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy
"A thrilling, terrifying, and, above all, true story of the shadowy industry that makes billions by exploiting defects in our most intimate devices, abetted by powerful autocrats and so-called democracies around the whole. Don't let this give you nightmares: rather, let it inspire you to demand action!" –Cory Doctorow
In this real-life spy thriller, cyber security expert Ronald Deibert details the unseemly marketplace for high-tech surveillance, professional disinformation, and computerized malfeasance. He reveals how his team of digital sleuths at the Citizen Lab have lifted the lid on dozens of covert operations targeting innocent citizens everywhere.
Chasing Shadows provides a front-row seat to a dark underworld of digital espionage, disinformation, and subversion. There, autocrats and dictators peer into their targets’ lives with the mere press of a button, spreading their tentacles of authoritarianism through a digital ecosystem that is insecure, poorly regulated, and prone to abuse. The activists, opposition figures, and journalists who dare to advocate for basic political rights and freedoms are hounded, arrested, tortured, and sometimes murdered.
From the gritty streets of Guatemala City to the corridors of power in the White House, this compelling narrative traces the journey of the Citizen Lab as it evolved into a globally renowned source of counterintelligence for civil society. As this small team of investigators disarmed cyber mercenaries and helped to improve the digital security of billions of people worldwide, their success brought them, too, into the same sinister crosshairs that plagued the victims they worked to protect.
Deibert recounts how the Lab exposed the world’s pre-eminent cyber-mercenary firm, Israel-based NSO Group—the creators of the phone-hacking marvel Pegasus—in a series of human rights abuses, from domestic spying scandals in Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Greece to its implication in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
About Ronald J. Deibert
Ronald J. Deibert is the founder and director of the Citizen Lab, a world-renowned digital security research center at the University of Toronto. The bestselling author of Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society and Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet, he has also written many landmark articles and reports on espionage operations that infiltrated government and NGO computer networks. His team’s exposés of the spyware that attacks journalists and anti-corruption advocates around the world have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, and other media. Deibert has received multiple honors for his cutting-edge work, and in 2022 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada—the country’s second-highest honor of merit.
Website: Deibert.citizenlab.ca
Bluesky: @rondeibert.bsky.social
About Host Shelley Youngblut
Shelley Youngblut is the CEO & Creative Ringleader of Wordfest. She was the recipient of the 2020 Calgary Award for Community Achievement in the Arts and the 2018 Rozsa Award for Arts Leadership. She also won the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Western Magazine Awards. Youngblut was the founding editor of Calgary’s award-winning Swerve magazine and has created magazines for ESPN, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Nickelodeon, Western Living, and The Globe and Mail. She was also a former pop-culture correspondent for ABC World News Now and Canada AM.
Facebook: @ShelleyYoungblut
Instagram/Threads: @youngblutshelley
Bluesky: @youngblut.bsky.social
Be Curiouser
- Listen: 2020 Massey Lectures: Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. –CBC Ideas
- Listen: Pegasus: The spy in your pocket. –Boundaries of Expression Podcast
- Read: Inside Citizen Lab, the Hacker Hothouse Protecting You from Big Brother. –Arstechnica
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