>> next on booktv, thomas rid argues that while there are real security concerns related to the internet, the idea of a future cyberwar, which has been predicted since at least 1993, is wildly overblown. this is about one hour. >> thanks for that generous introduction. i will positively shortchange our guests tonight. thomas rid. he is the reader in war studies at king's college in london. and i must admit, there's a part of me that feels great risk to back, resisted the temptation to become department of peace and stability studies. as his fourth book, forth, isn't

it? [inaudible] spink is produced strengthen which incidentally you'll actually be able to buy their afterwards. which is a fascinating assault off a whole series of the current cyber debate. and the current temptation to fight cyber on the front of every single other now you can think of and present it in apocalyptic terms. so we'll be talking for half an hour and half-hour for questions answered. we can keep it lean and pointed. so let me start with one of my basic questions. why did you feel this book needs to be written? why did you feel the need to take on the whole cyber industry? >> when i was hired in the department of four studies, my head the department used to introduce me as --

[inaudible] he used to introduce me as mr. thomas rid, he as our cyberwar expert. i always cringed when he did this, because remember the colleagues literally next-door in the office would be working on say, the first world war ever really serious on questions like the seven days for. there's never been anybody killed or injured in a cyber attack. so obvious when you talk about cyberwar as so many people are doing we're talking about a metaphor is in the war on drugs. i'm not trying to talk this down at all. war, military operations executed with a computer code that have real strategic effects from a tactical sense. the book i is trying to proffer framework to do things we're

doing the real thing. >> okay. one of the obvious response is to that, simply by defining war in a particular way come in a particular way, a product of a century before. now just simply okay, so far no one has been killed, economic damage, political damage, isn't this will really what war is about? killing people is a way in which you assert your will. >> yes, indeed. absolutely, but i think we need to keep in mind whenever we use weapons and whenever we speak about the use of force, really the use of force in an international arena our domestic arena, i understand your interest in organized crime, and

law enforcement as well. using force only as a physical aspect to it. if we divorce the physical aspect, the violent aspect from the objective, then we are really doing something else. and i think we need to recognize that very basic fact. and if we didn't think about the special case of using computer attack, network, cyber offenses, then an interesting difference comes to mind. almost all weapons that we know, instruments that are used to apply for, political, almost all weapons carry their own kinetic energy. it's a real simple observation. think a missile, even of all, even a knife. of course, the exception is chemical weapons or biological weapons. but computer code if weaponize has to basically be a parasite

on a target system. as i'm sitting here, as you were sitting there, we are in a vulnerable to cyber attacks if you like. unless we possibly have a pacemaker with an ip address, which really doesn't exist at this point. so if you have a pacemaker don't be concerned. sometimes people are concerned after these talks. i feel it's important to say that. so in other words, weaponize code has to turn the target against itself, crash an airplane, explode a power plant, or centrifuges as has happened in iran. so that's something that's quite special in that consequence. >> which does make it sound like the parallel is precisely biological warfare. where again what happens often is precisely the germ or whatever will make your body do bad things to you rather than contact you directly.

i remember leon panetta saying things, they kept him up at night, an electronic pearl harbor. we go back to your title, a conscious rebuttal of the founding documents about this, that cyberwar is going to happen. why is there such a big industry? >> yes. for a number of different reasons, first of all i think it's important to acknowledge that when leon panetta when he was secretary of defense or even head of the cia, when he spoke about cyber attack on pearl harbor, or digital pearl harbor, he did this for political reasons more than anything else. usually when he said that he wanted to great some pressure on congress to pass legislation on cybersecurity. if the senators and congressmen are really, and representatives are really scared, then they

would make, legislate accordingly. it didn't play out this way. i think he understood he overstated the threat very consciously. and that points to the core problem. i think a lot of people have understood that overstating the threat may serve their interests, political interest or even commercial interest. because if you people scared, sometimes you get this album a product. and, of course, also those people who really believe it. >> i'm taking the opposite view. i think the result of talking about cyberwar and digital pearl harbor and the wholesale statements is that we lose nuance. we lose the ability to do things between different problems. the problem space here is very diverse, and my core assumption is that a diverse problem has a

diverse solution and not one wholesale agency that could solve it or a policy that could solve it all. >> now, obviously your book is not just amazing that everything is fine and we don't need to worry. essentially as you said it's trying to shift the argument into new areas. particularly you identified three areas where you see there is a genuine threat of subversion, sabotage and espionage. if we concentrate on sabotage and espionage, something for the sake of time if not anything else, let's start with espionage. because clearly it's in the steady tropes of tv and film is that every system gets broken into by the hackers. then we actually have cases, whether it's wikileaks issue or whether it's currently snowden, which came after your book was written. it was actually massive amounts of information gets disseminated

or passed the quote unquote the wrong hands. we can have a debate as to whether or not they are the wrong hands another time, another place. certainly unauthorized hands. the question i would start off is, how much does that really matter? i mean, if one of the key things that cyberattacks can do is precisely create a ground for espionage. in the modern world does that really matter in the age of google? >> for espionage, cyber espionage if you want to use that practice, does that really matter? yes, i think it does. in a way i think the snowden revelation offering the most detailed, more detailed illustration that many people would have, could have imagined. i think it's important to quickly signaled where we stand

on this matter. what i'm observing right now in the debate is a shouting match between those who think snowden was a traitor, nothing positive came out of his life. obviously, that's not the case. and those who think snowden was a hero, and we don't need any secrets in the first place. obviously, it's equally really laughable of a statement. so let's try to talk about the more normal space in the. let me just give you one example and really provoke from the audience with a contradiction. today, many intelligence agencies worldwide and other potential targets of intelligence operations, espionage if you like, use commercial off the shelf technology or their security,

for there to meet patients as well as for their communication security. i'm sure this applies to really most people here in the audience as well, use gmail, microsoft products, et cetera. that means that the very legitimate target of an intelligence operation, of an espionage operation, some militants -- some militant group in pakistan, say, we be using exactly the same technology that you are using when you check your gmail. the information it is coming to the exact same fiber optic cable. we want the nsa to be able to listen in to one conversation. we don't want the nsa to listen to another conversation. obviously if we use fiber optic cable, we have a contradiction. so we need a discussion on how to deal with that contradiction, and that's a really tough discussion. >> now, that's from the

perspective of state apparatus is going after the big, bad nonstate actors. let me turn that around. again, we have regular accounts of chinese intelligence activities through cyberspace. being launched at united states and other countries. whether a not it comes from a specific designated military you know, or whether it's a patriotic hacker or whatever. it brings me to questions. one is actually in the era of cyberwar, however you want to define it, is the state losing its monopoly over your view -- virtual force? the second one, when they come down to it, can we point to things where i've espionage has really made a difference? >> let's look at the problem

from the point of view of, shall we say, those who are trying to steal our commercially relevant information from companies? and mostly these are companies in the united states in europe, for the simple reason that there are still more companies in north america and europe that have information that at the companies would to have. so stealing is not exactly a one way street but there's an asymmetry of ip come if you like. now, even in the game of espionage and international espionage especially, we have serious threats. so that relates to the question you ask, is the state now competing with a number of other actors, criminal, militant, individuals, et cetera. the answer is certainly yes, and i'll give you one example.

oftentimes when we speak about china and chinese entities, infiltrating targets in the united states and axel trading information. the are a couple things that come to mind. first, they cannot -- they don't have to necessary send someone in to do that. that's an interesting historical issue. i also i think it is a fair assumption that in china we have both scenarios at the same time be hierarchical states engaged in intelligence operations, to know what i'm saying? and companies or individual actors taking an initiative, simply a market for stolen ip, intellectual property. so we have both at the same time. hierarchical and entrepreneurial actors. this is a very confusing

situation because, for instance, there's a lot of discussion in washington, d.c., right now about hacking back, not just sitting back and being, you know, being robbed of valuable property, intellectual property, but actually trying to go after the attackers. it makes a fundamental difference are you going after, whether you're going after some small individual actor or whether going after and organize hierarchical statement you. it's difficult to go into more detail in that debate because so much of it is, is not in the public domain, and i should add at this point that in the book, contrary to the title, "cyber war will not take place" i'm not talking about the future and i'm not trying to speculate too much about things that we just don't know. but what i'm trying to do is about to these historical

records, to the empirical evidence and to the technical environment we are looking at a look at the possibility and limitations. >> you mentioned the historical context. one of the things i was thinking, given we live in a world in which actually it's not always the state that has the power. it's not always that all the brightest people work for the state. it's not that you need state resources. you can be as smart or lucky, spotty 16 note in your bedroom on computer, and achieve something extraordinary. i mean, i wonder if in some ways the kind of parallel historically when pirates become a privateers, that you have a pirate, out there on the seas rating shipping, and then at certain points states found it useful to say, well, as long as you rated the other guys

shipping, we will give you a letter of mark. we were recognize you and basically we will treat you as an auxiliary. and likewise i think we see that now. we see it in china and we certainly see it in russia where a lot of the acts the we might think of it cyber espionage are indeed moving into sabotage are actually not being handled by state assets. but nor is the state entirely out of the equation. it's just subcontracting and encouraging a new sort of citizen. >> certainly that is happening in a major way in this arena that we are discussing here today. so let's ask the question, what are the limitations among state actors? what can they not the chief without having state actors? the are a couple things they cannot achieve. one is, usually if you're designing a high-caliber or high impact cyber attack breach, you

are likely to need two ingredients. i'm simplifying. unique two ingredients, skills and intelligence. so for instance, i'll give an example. only need a little bit of skill and practically no intelligence. often many people will have heard of denial of service attacks bring down a website by requesting information from a. for that you only need the website's address. but if you are on the other end of the spectrum, if you are trying to affect a highly specifically designed control system of, to a power plant or a water plant, you need to know what you are looking at. it's not just a web address. it's also more than just a software that was used thousands of times. it may be a specifically uniquely configured software, and if you want to have an

effect on it, you have to know specific frequencies of specific model that are turning. you have to kno no information t the technical details, possibly currency, currency converters and whatnot. it gets very technical very fast. intelligence about the target is very hard to come by. unique intelligence agencies for that. not always, live in the most radical cases and the most high profile cases i would think you would need some of that. it's an interesting debate to have, how that may be changing. it is perhaps changing very slowly, and there are new trends there, but nothing that is fundamentally shifting the ground i think. >> okay. so to have those kind of real major real-world impacts, it's not just enough to be a script off the shelf program. it's not enough even a bright

kid, you need to have a variety of skills that are not readily available. so let's move more into this realm of sabotage. what is then do you think the real threat, the real challenge we face in the future? >> i think it's important to give numbers in perspective. if we come -- if we count the number of serious computer sabotage attempts we see, sabotage attacks are not just defined -- it affects the behavior of the target. usually by degrading the deficiency of the target. in this sense we could count even the denial of service and really brings down an online banking website for an extended period of time. we could even count that as sabotage by, and what people understand under sabotage would be bringing down, creating a blackout in the city or a region. so an interesting fact, in the

united states we have never seen a single successful sabotage attack against critical infrastructure. that's exceeded, has never happened. this does not mean that it couldn't happen because some agencies, actors are in a position to probably in a position to do that. but it raises a question why it hasn't happened. some of the reasons we just mentioned, because it's more difficult than meets the eye, but it still is a real risk.

, or if money card fraud and other forms of online crime. and it's relatively easy to defend against those threats. i think we have to say that very clearly. sometimes you need book presentations, i asked the question to the audience how may people use a password manager lacks which is a software that helps you to remember really complicated passwords, as are combinations of letters and numbers. and usually about 130 people use a password manager. i would presume that everybody in the audience is interested in cybersecurity, otherwise they wouldn't be here watching us, yet they are not using password managers. so what i'm saying is, let's get

serious. is not just talk about cyberwar, but actually think about it. >> so from your point of view then, i'm sure dramatically simplified, you're obviously not saying there is no threat, just the threat is not necessarily the headline one. it's actually a much more monday that still serious, the same way as mugging is a greater threat than terrorism. but on the other hand, terrorism worries as much more. let's leave it back to work. isn't one of the challenges, not the cyber methods, men with guns, but they can actually enhance the impact of those people? >> yes, absolutely. this is exactly why i'm suggesting this terminology,

sabotage, espionage and subversion. because these activities that are usually happening either in the context of ongoing military operation, if we have a military confrontation, or even without military operations. sometimes clandestine without anybody trying, without people trying to identify who they are. indeed as you say, we have seen instances where computer attacks have been used in the context of ongoing military operations. one example that often is cited is the israeli air force successfully blinding this year in defense radar station in 2007. but the details of that particular operation are very murky. we don't exactly what happened. we have to speculate to a degree. >> so this also raises an interesting question about possible future confrontations.

sometimes people have syria on their mind when we talk about cybersecurity these days. there are two questions. one is what is syria able to get to, say, the united states through cyber attack in retaliation? and what is the u.s. government able to do in order to facilitate a military strike in terms of cyber operations? >> very quickly, two responses. so, let's assume for a moment that the nsa, the u.s. intelligence community has the ability to blind sure you. it's a difficult question to answer. if they should actually use that capability against syria, because they would probably set the precedent. they would give away tactical, technical information on how to do it which means it may make it

more difficult against a really more serious and powerful opponent -- opponent down the road. it's never been done in a major way. and, finally, what is syria able to do in retaliation lacks so far i think it's quite remarkable how ineffective the syrian electronic army has been. they were able to hack websites at "the new york times," parts of twitter come to mind, hack the ap twitter account, things like that. that's not really technically very hard to do. they haven't achieved any serious technically impressive successes against harder systems. maybe this is even a sign of how little a nonstate actor or even possibly state actors are here. >> brownie out this rather upbeat message, that basically their threats, they're not

basically going to be nightmare scenarios. one of the elements of your book was where you talk about this retreat from violence. that it actually, if anything, instead the picture that is often presented is that the diffuse nature of the potential cyber attacks fragment and create a high-risk environment. you are saying, let's look at the plus side. did you want to talk about this retreat for a minute? >> so when i wrote the book and this notion of war in the context, then when i look at all the cases, we see an industrial comparison, what really leapt at me is that state sabotage, one of the most drastic examples of computer sabotage was an attack against, and 20 over 30,000 other companies computers were essentially damaged by, not hardware damage but software,

was in a remarkable attack. it was near catastrophic for the company but it couldn't get work done in an office environment for an entire week. but the oil production was not affected. that was entirely nonviolent but very effective. we've seen other examples where entire nations were really scared it was a computer tech. estonia comes to mind. again, nonviolent. people were generally scared in the trust and their government was perhaps briefly called to question. that's interesting because we are having situations where somebody is using a nonviolent instrument to achieve an effective that previously probably would have required some use of physical violence. and especially trust i think is a highly aspect of this new development.

because computers may be able to undermine trust that we have in systems and really systems include also bureaucracies here in ways that we haven't properly understood yet. if you are willing to follow me on this argument that trust can be a target, and again, consider the famous attack on iran's nuclear enrichment program. the actual target was trust. that trust that the iranian engineers had been themselves, and the goal was an entirely clandestine operation never designed to be discovered. the goal was to make them believe that they just can't make this happen. and if you believe that you are the problem, that problem is rather hard to fix. if you realize someone is doing this to you, then it's easy to fix. so that was a psychological operation. trust is a really interesting aspect in this debate. i think, and once we understood

that trust is such a key feature, then education comes in a major way. because if we understand, for instance, that some attacks are only effective because we are scared and not because they are such a powerful impact, again think of the ap twitter hack by the financial markets were so confused about what was going on, because ap was suddenly tweeting there was an attack on the white house, falsely. there was confusion, a lack of trust for a couple of minutes there was actually damage and then it was gone. if we learned that such situations will happen, and arguably estonia today wouldn't be really that scared anymore, then rather bizarrely it doesn't simply apply. >> in that context, almost by we

go full circle in thinking of this cloud notion that war is the continuation of politics are the means, that everything comes down to the political, then precisely eight particularly effective twitter hack could be far more effective than an airstrike. i mean, maybe what we're actually seeing is just a whole nation of what war means being redefined. >> i think sort of as a philosophical mode of operation i would recommend always, you know, we are talking about new technologies here and naturally there's a tendency to think oh, my god how everything is changing now, i have the new iphone. in fact some things may not change. i always recommend to check your enthusiasm. a lot of people are concerned right now about computer controlled cars.

a self driving car and the self parking car and whatnot. theoretically, it hasn't happened as far as we know has never happened. theoretically, you could cause a car accident through a computer attack remotely. now, a lot of people would instantly think, oh, my god, car cyberwar is just around the corner. and i would say, okay, that is a real in risk, it could happen. but just imagine what the consequence would be. the consequence would be huge media outcry, two people killed in a car cyberattack. and the next result would be that nobody would buy that vehicle anymore. so the market, if you're talking large numbers year, then the market is able to react in the way that is not the case in this controlled system environment because the market is so small. >> we cannot get into that here. i could keep on talking, but the

clock ticks. we are on a tight timetable. so i would now like to open it up to questions from the floor. all i would say is, please wait until you get a microphone when you're called on before asking your question, and do try to keep question short and questions are not statements. so who would like to start? don't be shy. >> i'm interested in -- like from the law enforcement or the enforcement of international, internationally where, you know, recently i think "the new york times" among others was attacked by something called syrian -- what was --

>> electronic army. >> by this hacking group of people suspected supported by the syrian government. whose responsibility is it to try to thwart this? what sort of enforcement mechanism could be organized internationally to try to go after these criminal activities? so you know, how do we organize against this type of attack? >> so, in many cases, one of the big problems that stand in the way of reacting to an attack is the question, who attach in the first place. who did it? in the debate known as the attribution problem, executing agencies, and it's a real difficult problem.

let's mention the syrian chemical attack as a short example, something interesting. the evidence that the assad regime had used chemical weapons was quite strong. i think most people would agree this is the case. even in the situation of some of the country, in this case the united states with the help of allies, producing very strong evidence that the specific attack had taken place. political opponents or others were able to still deny that. russia called the evidence into question. of course, sure you did. now, that's an interesting thing because we can expect that even if we know in the case of cyberattack, even if somebody is able to produce technical evidence of very high quality, that some people will still be able to deny it.

and really, credibly deny sometimes because a lot of people will be skeptical in situations when an intelligence agencies coming for making a statement. some of you will remember the history of intelligence agencies is getting very information -- important information run. that's a tricky situation. in other words, it's possible to solve that in some cases and solitude agree, but it's a highly political debate that will follow if we actually reach a scenario as it did in syria. >> so who's job is it to deal with these situations? >> it all depends on what we mean by these issues. cyber as you said in your introduction remarks, is slapped in front of all sorts of other things. does that mean there should be one entity in charge of dealing with all those artificially

cyber things? certainly not. so in the case of "the new york times" attack, the syrian and electronic army, whatever that exactly is, a number of quite young syrian -- some hackers who, some of whom may not even be syrian. who is in charge or? really depends on where the attack comes from, which jurisdiction. so that relates to the attribution problem. you can trace, if you could trace the new york times attack say, to germany, sometimes it's possible to do something like that. then it's really easy to call up the german authority, present the evidence to them, they go knock at the door of that person and he had the judicial process that takes over. so that's one possibility. it really depends on the case. >> okay.

>> so part of the question, part of what you said was that cyberwar is not really cyberwar because it doesn't involve physical attacks. and you mentioned sitting in this room we are in vulnerable to it. my question is, i've thought of a couple senators were i think it could possibly cause physical harm. such as taking down air traffic controls, shutting down power for life support in specific buildings, radar or satellite guided missiles, things of that nature. how far, do you think that is presently possible, or perhaps possible in the near future where it actually will -- these are things i'm thinking could

actually cause physical harm through cyber attacks. that takes out the element we are impervious to either o on le support somewhere in the hospital and someone is able to cause a power failure, then the people -- same thing if they shut down air traffic station and the plane has an accident or something would cause loss of life. so you think that's a possibility either now or in the near future? >> yes, sure, it's a possibility. something like that could happen. i'm very clear about this. there are some trends that your giving rise to being worried and new possibilities. but let's again keep the discussion grounded. there are enough people speculating about what all sorts assistance in the future could possibly be hacked if ever. there are documents -- i sometimes use that example from the manual that some people may

be familiar with them people are discussing scenarios of some entity in another context hacking the pacemakers of an enemy commander and then letting the man suffer, reviving him again, not killing him, just hacking his pacemaker. there are no limits to imagination if we want to come up with these but there are limits of technical powers. today, no pacemaker is connected with an ip address to the internet. occasionally there are reports this could happen. it happened -- hasn't. it is something truly critical, and people will think about security serious as well. they may not always succeed and yes, you are right this could happen but let's shift the debate for a moment is something else. last week i heard a quote from somebody inside the intelligence community about the student week, this is our cyber 9/11. now, especially city where we are sitting so close to where it

happened, this is a very strong statement. but he said this is our cyber 9/11. we just imagine it differently. i think this is what i think the discussion is a bit far out, being led by our imagination, not by the problems we are solving. but let's think about this statement for just a very short moment. i think the more conversations i have about the snowden leagues, the more i think, i appreciate the magnitude of this event. this is the biggest intelligence leak in history, period. there's nothing that comes close to it. it's not even over. we haven't fully understood a consequence, political consequence as was the tactical consequences. out give you one thought to provoke the audience a bit.

in 1970, some of you may have seen the film about terrorism in germany in the 1970s, where a few militants on the far left leaning extremists really terrorized germany for a few years. ahead of the federal place for the time was a forward thinking man. he understood this is not just a few individuals, 20 or 40 extremist. this is an ideology that reaches deeper into german society. does that apply to the snowden situation as well? what i'm trying to say here is not to compare militarily but does it stand for something bigger than just some guy who wanted to leak information? the public outrage right now about what the nsa is doing, especially in the united states is massive. so there's a huge concern right now among people inside the intelligence community come in

government, who think, well, it's maybe not even just a problem of betting. it's not a problem of explaining what we do. we actually, i think, possibly there has to be some very series of change. because it's only a question of time until this ideology will recruit itself to the next snowden. it's actually quite easy to leak large volume of information. what is this ideology? is it cyberpunks? or those of you who are familiar with the 1990s history. or do we go back further to maybe the revolution. is this really freedom? you have really tough questions. civil liberties and civil libertarians are in a way the foundation of what happened, to a degree. we haven't discussed those questions. these are far more fundamental for the future than the scenario of hacking a car, i think.

>> that the very much speaks to the philosophical issue about how far the attacks that can take place through cyber means affect us and make us afraid, make us question very sphinx. as much as anything else, somebody takes a plane quite often. at the present moment, is it possible for example, to hack into air traffic control systems in such a way that could cause more than just inconvenience but that would have these sort of devastating effects that people speculate about? >> it hasn't happened in the past. is a possible? we have to be cautious. i would make a grand statement and say it's not possible. but if he tried to speak with people, for instance, in the electricity sector about the possibility of crashing the grid through a cyber attack, which also has never happened, nowhere on the planet has it ever

happened that the blackout was caused by a computer attack. and if you think for brazil at the wrong example just keep that in mind. it didn't happen that way. it's very hard to answer that question because obviously if you operate a grid, i had this conversation with people in charge for cybersecurity, for large electricity companies. the question, they don't tell me, they don't know anybody in the public domain what exactly their real vulnerabilities are. maybe that is a good thing. >> don't worry, the microphone is coming.

. >> to spill stewart across a significant area where the hotels and everything was rather ugly, i'm told. so that our insider attacks. is a huge problem. people know these are the kind of system. in a way, snowden, although i hesitate to use them in that list, snowden also was an atta attack. >> next. >> professor bane, while this global comment of cyberspace is only 20 years old, and although there are clearly issues with attributions with regard to

conflict in cyberspace, don't you feel that there's something the international community can be doing to better regulate cyberspace, if only to deal with questions of peace and conflict? should they be, should there be institutions built to better regulate this global problem? >> the global governments debate is an entirely separate, huge field, and not even touching on that debate in the book. but in response to your question, i think the situation that -- so there's -- first of all there are institutions that control and regulate what's going on in the internet. there's a degree of recollection required on protocol and naming conventions and ip, addressing conventions, et cetera. you are possibly fight with some of those institutions.

but are you talking about some larger international global government institutions of? [inaudible] >> yeah, establishing norms and possibly regulating about cyberspace is indeed a huge debate. but on a level i think there's a degree of -- there's a little bit of contradiction and bad in the debate. because i think what we are seeing, ma no matter what's being discussed at the international telecommunication union, or international -- the global governance and there's a couple of those coming up in the next month, the reality on the ground is that in many countries there's a technical infrastructure that's already determines internet experience in those places. so for instance, in some european countries, and the uk is one of those, you cannot watch "the daily show" online.

serious. in other places, in china and you will be watched -- your keywords will be watched on specific days you -- i mean, it's a censored environment basically. the comment about "the daily show" -- sorry, i didn't mean to accuse the uk of censorship. but in other countries, in other countries the local internet experience is very different from here. it raises a big question, what is the normal internet? is it the free internet that we are used to? in europe and north america? or is the normal internet expense today already a heavily restricted one that block specific sites, specific applications? for instance, facebook and twitter in china are blocked obviously. iran as well.

if we go by the numbers, then today in normal internet experience may one that is heavily control. the large numbers our users in this country. that's a really sobering question. in a way the stone revelation and the reaction, the american reaction to that, just what the nsa was doing and the way it was being interpreted now is making the problem worse. because it makes it easier for countries like china or russia to say, really, you are telling us not to spy? and twitter -- to which we respond, yes, really, we are telling you not to spy. there's a difference in kind. i think it needs to be repeated here public late, aggressively and very clearly. the nsa, you are not spying for commercial gain and they are not spying or doing intelligence

operations to suppress political decisions. other countries are doing that. so if those countries are now feeling emboldened to point the finger at intelligence agencies in western democracies, there are still different. it's an important difference. we shouldn't forget that. >> thank you. it's one of the key conflicts in the future is precisely how we define access to the internet and so forth. i know there are some of us would like to ask questions and it's a good of a stimulating topic. i'm afraid time has run out. what i would say is first of all, thank you very much for coming. secondly, please do stay and have some wine and some nibbles. obviously, buy a copy of the book. [laughter] i hope to see on the 30th of october, which is then the next speaker event on citizens versus organized crime.

otherwise it only remains to me to thank our guest to come to us and presenting to us. it was great. [applause] >> thank you. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar in the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also shoot anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking sure on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> every weekend since 1998 c-span2's booktv has shown over 40,000 hours of programming with top nonfiction authors including dede myers.

>> i thought wow, that's the answer. if there were more women in politics, that the more women in power, things would change. i called my editor and said i'm going to write a book and she basically said okay. >> all of us in the working-class are subjected to punitive taxes, being ignored by the elite media, not getting any kind of special interest help in washington like the fat cats get. we are all in the same boat no matter what color we are and that's the real problem. >> we are the only national television network devoted exclusively to nonfiction books throughout the fall we are marking 15 years of booktv on c-span2. >> with the government shutdown entering its third week, c-span is asking for your thoughts. ..

>> the bill was sent over to the senate by the house republicans, and the senate just tabled the, tabled the request to pay us to open up part of the veterans' department so that we could receive our compensation. how are we supposed to live? we served our country. we didn't ask any questions. we served our country, and now they -- the democrats in the house, i mean, in the