Shaun Carland

Over the last decade, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have acted as the pillars of application development. They provide mechanisms which allow applications to communicate with each other. Developers can integrate various APIs into their code to create entirely new applications.

Unfortunately, users of an API are held hostage to the licensing of its creator. If an API is not free software compliant, then none of its users can build free software off of it. Using the Google Maps API as a case study, we will examine the ethical and technological implications of providing open, but not free, access to an API.

In the summer of 2017, software powering the critical infrastructure of Ukraine came to a grinding halt after the country was hit with a surgically precise targeted cyber attack. A malware virus called NotPetya irreversibly encrypted the files of hundreds of thousands of computers. The impact was devastating: the Chernobyl radiation moderating system was shut down, governmental institutions lost access to critical data, and the total damage was estimated to cost over $100 million. This example, among others, points to an increasing weaponization of vulnerabilities in proprietary software to accomplish these attacks.

This session explores the ways in which proprietary software acts as a catalyst for the spread of cyber attacks, and will explore the use of free software and how it can be used to build resilient, virus-resistant digital infrastructure.