Rafal Rohozinski

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Person.png Rafal Rohozinski   Powerbase TwitterRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(spook)
Rafal Rohozinski.png
BornJanuary 26, 1965
NationalityCanadian
Founder ofInternational Institute for Strategic Studies
Interests“terrorism”
Canadian expert and practitioner active in the fields of counterinsurgency, cyber warfare, and the globalization of armed violence.

Rafal Rohozinski is a Canadian expert and practitioner active in the fields of counterinsurgency, cyber warfare, and the globalization of armed violence. He is the co-founder of SecDev Group and Secdev Foundation, the founder of Zeropoint Security, and currently a senior fellow [1] at Canada's Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Career

Rohozinski has worked in an operational, advisory and “troubleshooting” capacity on issues of security, governance, development, negotiations, strategic national programmes, communications and IT, with a specialization in cultural intelligence, deep field research, and the “telegeography” of ”ungoverned spaces” (social and networks, information infrastructures and flows, geo-spatial mapping and analysis of information and network “effects”). [2]

He has over two decades experience working in over 37 countries with the United Nations, World Bank, and other international organizations. Between 2007 and 2011 he served on the board of the Estonian E-government Academy. He was a two term Board member of the Canadian Association for Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), and, sits on the board of the Canadian International Council (CIC).[3] He was also a senior fellow for cyber security and future conflict at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.[4]

In late 2006, Rafal completed an assignment as an embedded Chief Technical Advisor to the Palestinian Authority.[2] His publications afterward include a study of “Information Effects” in counterinsurgency. As a senior visiting fellow at the International Development Research Centre (Canada), he developed conceptual approaches to the studying the telegeography of conflict zones, including case study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[5]

He is a principal investigator and co-author of the 2009 Ghostnet study examining Chinese cyber-espionage.[6][7][8]

Business

He is also a founder and principal investigator of two cyber research initiatives: the Infowar Monitor, a joint project between The SecDev Group and the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, which examined and documented emerging trends in cyber warfare; and, the OpenNet Initiative,[9][10] a collaboration with the Citizen Lab, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge University (now the SecDev Group) and the Oxford Internet Institute, which documents patterns of Internet censorship worldwide.

Rohozinski is a serial entrepreneur having co-founded several companies in the fields of cybersecurity, digital risk and analytics. He is the Principal of the SecDev Group,[11] a Canadian digital risk agency that among other things developed the concept of armed violence for OECD;[12] and, CEO Zeropoint Security[13] a cybersecurity[14] start-up.

Rohozinski is also the co-founder and former CEO of Psiphon inc which specializes in Internet circumvention.[15] Rohozinski was formerly the director of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge (2000-2008),[16] a Ford Foundation Research Scholar of Information and Communication Technologies (2002-2004),

Works

Rohozinski is the author of numerous studies and published articles on topics relating to the security and development dimensions of the information revolution including two studies for the Centre for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College: Shifting Fire[17] examining "information effects" in counterinsurgency and stability operations, and New Media and the Warfighter (the latter based on a case study of the 2006 Hizbullah-Israeli conflict). Rohozinski is the co-editor and contributors three volumes with MIT press: Access Denied: the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering[18]; Access Controlled examining the emergence of complex information controls in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe countries, including an analysis of strategic cyber-war dimensions of the Russian-Georgian conflict;[19] and Access Contested Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace[20], that examined how civil society was responding to censorship and surveillance in Asia. He has also published on Stuxnet and its implications for warfare in cyberspace,[21] and, together with Robert Muggah, defined the concept of open empowerment as a driver of economic, social, and criminological change in Latin America.[22]


 

Events Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
Halifax International Security Forum/201020 November 201022 November 2010Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada in November 2010
Halifax International Security Forum/201118 November 201120 November 2011Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada in November 2010
Halifax International Security Forum/201221 November 201223 November 2012Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada discussing the "New Normal" and Western nations' "special burden".
Halifax International Security Forum/2013Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
Halifax International Security Forum/201618 November 201621 November 2016Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
Halifax International Security Forum/201717 November 201719 November 2017Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
Halifax International Security Forum/2018Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
Halifax International Security Forum/2019Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
Halifax International Security Forum/202020 November 202022 November 2020Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Annual spooky conference in November, this year held online instead of in Canada due to Covid lockdowns.
Halifax International Security Forum/2021Canada
Halifax
Nova Scotia
Spooky conference in Canada
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References