Chronicles of Counter-Intelligence from the Citizen Lab (Keynote)
Black Hat USA 2025 · Day 1 · Briefings
Ron Deibert, founder of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, delivered a sweeping account of 25 years investigating mercenary spyware, state surveillance, and the growing intersection of tech platforms with authoritarian politics. His core argument: a self-reinforcing vicious cycle — surveillance-enabling technology, weakened democratic norms, and the retreat of regulatory oversight — is accelerating in ways that threaten civil society research itself, and the security community must step in to defend public-interest work. ---
AI review
Deibert built the Citizen Lab from nothing and the Pegasus-to-Khashoggi timeline is genuinely chilling. But this is a keynote address, not a technical briefing, and the Black Hat audience already knows the surveillance industry exists. The call-to-action lands but doesn't give practitioners anything to do Monday morning.