Scott Shapiro, Yale Law School, New York City, November 28, 2023
The Institute of Law, Technology & Innovation hosted a book launch event for Yale Law School’s Scott Shapiro on November 28, 2023, to celebrate the publication of “Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks.”
In conversation with Richard Harper, the AI practice group leader of Baker Botts who teaches AI and the FSU Law, Shapiro discussed two hacks retold in the book – the Morris worm, a science experiment gone wrong that crashed the internet in 1988, and the hacking of Paris Hilton’s phone in 2005, which not only broke the internet at the time but also showed the vulnerabilities of cloud computing.
Shapiro hopes that his book will equip future lawyers and policymakers with the technical knowledge required to understand and regulate our new digital world. While he does not minimize the harm done by hacking, Shapiro finds widespread alarmism to be unfounded. In the Q&A session, Shapiro explained why he thinks the fear of cyberwarfare is inflated and that the threat of generative AI to humanity’s survival is hyperbolic – a welcome post-Thanksgiving message to the audience consisting of businesspeople, lawyers, academics, and diplomats.
The invite-only event began with welcoming remarks by Executive Director Dr. Aaron Voloj Dessauer and took place at Steinway Tower in New York City.
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Scott J. Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd professor of law and professor of philosophy at Yale Law School. He also serves as founding director of the Yale CyberSecurity Lab. Shapiro’s areas of interest include jurisprudence, international law, constitutional law, criminal law, and cybersecurity. He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Shapiro was co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (Oxford University Press, 2002) and serves as an editor of Legal Theory and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In addition to 'Fancy Bear Goes Phishing and The Internationalists', he is the author of 'Legality' (Harvard University Press, 2011).