Recommended Reading
Tue, Feb 25, 2020
The evolution of the internet and geopolitics
The internet has been a pivotal force behind the growth of the global digital economy and altered the relationship among states, their citizens, and the private sector. These changes have disrupted the geopolitical balance of power and ushered in a new generation of globally-powerful multinational companies. However, new dynamics of conflict are threatening the internet as we know it.
New Atlanticist by Simon Handler, Trey Herr, Jeff Moss, Justin Sherman, Sara-Jayne Terp, Josephine Wolff,
Fri, Feb 21, 2020
Sherman in WIRED: Governments Are Clamping Down On Foreign Tech Investments
State inspection of foreign investments at home isn’t novel. Probing NGOs and mandating registration of foreign lobbyists are just two decades-old examples. What’s different today is that countries are accelerating and expanding these powers where they already exist, or freshly architecting them altogether. It’s a way for governments to address two things: perceived foreign influence over their domestic technology spheres, and perceived risks of foreign governments using investments and acquisitions to access sensitive data.
In the News
Mon, Jan 27, 2020
Warring for the soul of the internet: Ten years on
The new reality is one where democracies must play a more assertive role to protect an open, free, fair, and secure internet, utilizing a strategy that recognizes the changes the internet has undergone, the pernicious influence of authoritarian states, and the role companies have in both protecting and fragmenting it. The internet can’t be brought back in time but there is hope, perhaps, that its original core values can be preserved in a new form through determined effort by its users, some companies, and the democratic states where the open web was born.
New Atlanticist by Trey Herr,
All Content
Justin Sherman is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. He is also an op-ed contributor at WIRED and researches at the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law and at Lawfare’s Trustworthy Hardware and Software Working Group. His work at the Atlantic Council focuses on the geopolitics, governance, and security of the global internet.
Previously, he was a cybersecurity policy fellow at New America, the youngest in the think tank’s history, where he wrote reports and commentaries on global internet governance, 5G security, and US-China artificial intelligence relations and worked on New America’s Data & Great Power Competition project. He has also worked on cyber and national security issues at the National Security Agency’s Laboratory for Analytic Sciences; researched technology transfer and global data policy issues at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy; researched technical cybersecurity and data privacy issues at Duke’s Computer Science Department; and spent two years as a fellow at Duke Law School’s Center on Law & Technology. He co-founded Duke University’s nonpartisan initiative Ethical Tech, where he led research, events, and policy education programs on cybersecurity, privacy, and artificial intelligence.
He has written numerous articles, including in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Slate, The Diplomat, War on the Rocks, World Politics Review, and Journal of Cyber Policy, among other popular, policy, and scholarly outlets. He has authored multiple book chapters, spoken before a range of audiences, and provided expert commentary for television and radio including Showtime’s “VICE”, BBC World Service, National Public Radio, and Public Radio International.
He is currently earning his MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He earned his BS in Computer Science and his BA in Political Science from Duke University, where he co-wrote two technology policy classes and co-founded the student cyber program.