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I'm going to be researching an ethically ambiguous aspect of infosec to research and present a paper on. Does anyone have any cool, morally grey topics they'd like to suggest? I'll happily report my findings back here in a couple months when the project is complete. It can be literally anything as long as there's ethical ambiguity as to the best stance/approach to the topic or issue.

The obvious doings of the CIA NSA FBI hacking cases would be a something that could be a start! Also you could do, the good the bad the ugly of transparency orgs like wikileaks

>>2759 For example encrypted communication. It can be used by dissidents in opressive governments, but also by terrorists.

>dissidents in opressive governments >terrorists Aren't these groups basically the same?

>>2764 No.

well, currently I am farming all national phone numbers from my countries online phone book Different extensions, different providers, everything... Made the bot, now just making the proxy chain (because captcha keeps popping up every 15th try) No need for hundreds of thousands of proxies tho cuz they made a captcha cooldown (after 30 mins, so I made a cycle of 100 proxies or so, just enough time for first IP to cooldown) I am trying to have everyone in my country doxed, but it's public information, so you know, it's ambiguous in that sense? I dunno, I just see this as a fun coding challenge to be honest

>>2766 btw, now I made a program that goes through text files filled with free proxies which I downloaded , 99% of which don't work Something like 1600 proxies it checked and only got 2 online But I will get to my 100 free proxies soon enough wish me luck ;)

>>2764 >terrorism: the systematic use of terror (fear through violence) especially as a means of coercion (usually political) >dissident: disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief

>>2768 >>2764 Here's a clear example of distinction between the two: Dissidents in North Korea are looking at smuggled TV shows like NCIS or Friends (Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/opinion/can-smuggled-tv-shows-change-north-korea.html)

>>2760 >>2763 OP here, I think both of these are good ideas. I'm leaning towards doing some in depth research on, as >>2670 put it, "the good, the bad, and the ugly of transparency orgs". I remember reading about a lot of sketchy stuff they've done, including something about insurance file's hashes not being as expected. I think Wikileaks could be a great case study on the weakness and the benefits of such organizations. >>2766 This is really cool and also a valid idea. There's a lot of information out there that's public information, but people aren't necessarily properly informed of that fact. I wish you luck in your endeavors :D

This zero-day market is something that ties in with what >>2760 said. On the one hand spy agencies use them to protect our country's interests abroad. On the other hand they can be used to pancake our infrastructure and personal systems. >>2764 >Aren't these groups basically the same? From one perspective yeah, they are both just catchall terms for an enemy of the state.

>>2772 How could I have forgotten about the 0-day market? That's a great thing to talk about!

its been covered at a few CONs, but you could discuss the legality of search/seizure by customs when it comes to IT and digital media