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New Light on the Dark Continent: Internet, Mobile Telephony, and Security in Africa

New Light on the Dark Continent: Internet, Mobile Telephony, and Security in Africa. Sy Goodman The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and The College of Computing Georgia Tech for the Marconi Society Columbia University April 16, 2009. Africa.

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New Light on the Dark Continent: Internet, Mobile Telephony, and Security in Africa

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  1. New Light on the Dark Continent: Internet, Mobile Telephony, and Security in Africa Sy Goodman The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and The College of Computing Georgia Tech for the Marconi Society Columbia University April 16, 2009

  2. Africa • Second largest continent both demographically and geographically • Difficulties extend beyond those of any other continent: cross border strife, civil strife, disease, poverty, human trafficking, little to no modern infrastructure, kleptocracy and other abuses of governance • A sampling tour of problems: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Libya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe • Some countries that you rarely hear about: Botswana, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Namibia, Senegal, Tanzania, Tunisia

  3. ICT in Africa • The remarkable story of a glass half full • WSIS aspirations • The penetration of landlines, internets, and mobile phones • Mobile phone penetration enablers: affordable devices, less fixed infrastructure, usable interfaces, small increments for pre-paid options, CPP, asymmetric charging for mobile to and from fixed, low power requirements • Mobile phones: lots of need and value at affordable prices. Simple social/economic innovations in use, e.g., fractional demand. • How to get more penetration into rural areas?

  4. Security and ICT in Africa • A spectrum of security concerns and applications. Illustrations from Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania, and Liberia • What doesn’t seem to appear on anybody’s security radar screen? • The coming Tsunami of information insecurity?

  5. Big Worldwide Trends • Mobile phones are becoming very inexpensive and powerful and ubiquitous computing and telecommunications platforms • Voice over IP is going to be in a lot of people’s future • New and expanded professional and personal applications are moving to mobile phones, e.g., digital wallets, m-banking • Mobile phones will become the primary personal and professional computing vehicle for a large majority of the entire world’s population

  6. But… • Digital mobile devices and networks will be vulnerable in every way networked desktops and laptops are, e.g., to interception, botnets, and malware, and in new or exacerbated ways • The devices and networks will be less defensively capable than desktops and laptops, e.g., battery and power limitations • Billions of users, a.k.a. current and potential victims and trouble makers, and lots of value (information, money, communications channels)…

  7. Much worse is yet to come… • Likely to have much more conflict, grief, and consternation in this expanding “cyberspace” than what we are already seeing in the world of desktop and laptop platforms • Once again: Will the bad guys prove to be better at innovation and especially at effective implementation than the good guys? • Admittedly these are asymmetric challenges, but the good guys invented all this stuff in the first place and we have the great majority of the PhDs on our side…

  8. But this time… • We have warning • We have lots of experience and mistakes with the Internet • This time, will we get ahead of the problem and make the world of mobile cyberspace safer and more secure before the Tsunami forms, builds momentum, and hits us? • Who believes that will happen?

  9. And Back to Africa • From an information security standpoint, many users may be protected by their relative disadvantages, e.g., small increments of pre-paid minutes, CPP, phones often off to preserve battery power, less capable phones • But this will change, as they develop more extensive economic applications • And as their risks increase, ours may as well • Main risks now are probably lost or stolen phones, and much enabled government surveillance • Design needs: alarm, “911” autodial with GPS…, other physical security features

  10. Africa and Information Security More Generally • Most of the countries on the continent are essentially defenseless • Institutionally – laws and organizations – there is almost nothing in most countries that helps protect the great majority of Internet users • Only one operational national CERT/CSIRT (in Tunisia). Others in various embryonic stages

  11. Some of the Difficulties for Computing Academics Trying to Work on Africa (especially with regard to security issues) • Purposes: (1) To study what is happening there, or (2) to work with them to help improve things. • Problems of sustaining an effort. They have problems, we have problems, and together the problems are exceptionally difficult to overcome in most countries. • Finding capable people who will stick with it. Americans who will put the time in-country to help them until they can sustain on their own. African countries lack depth in capable people who can work infosec technically and managerially. • Dealing with African governments to a sustainable closure, sensitivities with regard to anything involving “security,” physical risks, funding.

  12. Selected References • On Africa: John Reader, Africa: A Biography of a Continent, NY: Vintage Books, 1999 • For Statistics, Announcements and News Stories: African Telecommunication/ICT Indicators 2008: At a Crossroads, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, 2008 www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics www.allAfrica.com

  13. More Selected References • On the Spread of Mobile Telephony: Kas Kalba, The Global Adoption and Diffusion of Mobile Phones, Cambridge: Center for Information Policy Research, Harvard University, December 2008 Kas Kalba, “The Adoption of Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets: Global Diffusion and the Rural Challenge,” International Journal of Communication 2 (2008), 631-661 (www.kalbainternational.com)

  14. Yet More Selected References • On Liberia: Michael L. Best, et al., “Post-Conflict Communications: The Case of Liberia,” Comm. of the ACM, Vol. 50, No. 10, October 2007, 33-39 Michael L. Best, et al., “Uses of Mobile Phones in Post-Conflict Liberia.” Paper presented at the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD09), Doha, April 18-19, 2009 • On Emerging Cyber Security Threats: Georgia Tech Information Security Center, “Emerging Cyber Threats for 2009,” www.gtisc.gatech.edu

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