Rational Security: The “Reboot the Reboot” Edition
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2024
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Alan and Scott sat down with Lawfare Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds and Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri to talk through another week of big national security news, including:
- “Bye Biden.” President Biden made the historic decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race over the weekend. He swiftly endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, who now appears poised to become the Democratic candidate at the party’s convention next month. How might Harris be different from Biden, both as a candidate and as a president? And what will the change mean for the 2024 race?
- “The CrowdStrikes Back.” Countless businesses around the world found their Windows computers disabled this past week, due to a faulty update pushed out by the prominent cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The consequences continue to ripple out, including waves of canceled and rescheduled flights at numerous major airlines. What can this incident teach us about the security of our computer infrastructure? And are there ways to avoid similar incidents in the future?
- “Netanya-who?” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give his long-awaited speech to Congress later today. But the normally high-profile event has been overshadowed by recent news relating to the 2024 presidential race, potentially mitigating some of its intended effect. What should we expect from Bibi’s speech? And how will it impact progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza—and U.S.-Israeli relations more broadly?
For object lessons, Alan recommended Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel "The Marriage Plot." Scott sent a love letter to the New York Times’ odd coverage of world culture, including this week’s exposé on Japanese backpacks. Molly gave the people what they want, with a new public radio podcast recommendation: NPR’s "Embedded: Supermajority." And Eugenia carried on a longstanding tradition of bringing in video game recommendations, this time for the cozy agriculture sim Stardew Valley.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | You've stopped someone carrying a large amount of drugs. He's just a teenager. He's |
| 0:39.2 | exhausted, scared, not giving you his name, where he's from or where he's going. |
| 0:46.2 | He's broken the law, but maybe he really needs your help. |
| 0:50.9 | So how'd you get him talking? |
| 0:56.0 | If you think you could be a regular or volunteer police constable, such Met careers. |
| 0:58.0 | Change needs empathy. |
| 1:00.0 | Change needs you. |
| 1:17.0 | So Molly, I feel like we've established over the last couple of episodes that at least A Eugenia and I are video game nerds and Scott is an aspirational video game nerd though he sadly doesn't have time because of pesky children. Molly, what about you? I feel like you could be a video game nerd. |
| 1:21.0 | I have high potential for nerery, we know this, but I guess |
| 1:26.8 | this is like how my husband feels when he has to hang out with me and my Congress friends |
| 1:30.9 | and like we're just all in on like Congress nerd-dom like that. Congress |
| 1:34.1 | narddom like that's I get that like it's but that's your job that's different than being like |
| 1:39.6 | a hobby nerd a job and a passion. |
| 1:44.0 | Yeah, let's say it's clear here. |
| 1:48.0 | I feel like we just need to find a congressional video game like Sims Congress where you know you get |
| 1:54.8 | nothing happens you get to decorate your little your little office where you get moved |
| 1:58.7 | every two years raise funds you spent half of the time time calling to fake donors and then no legislation ever gets passed. |
| 2:07.0 | Best game ever. |
... |
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