Date of Award

Winter 2-1-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Advisor(s)

William Akoto

Second Advisor

Kate Wilson, Ph.D.

Abstract

Over the last decade, technological advancements in the realm of cybersecurity has led to the growth of a multi-billion dollar commercial spyware industry, which puts highly privacy-invasive surveillance tools in the hands of both autocratic and democratic nations. This paper seeks to better understand why, and how democratic countries have been able to access these tools, and why they are willing to risk the reputational costs associated with illegal use of spyware. A field of scholarship is developing which seeks to find possible ways of eliminating or reducing the misuse of spyware on an international scale, under the presumption that finding ways to diminish the capacity of spyware firms to sell their products to governments who have a track of human rights abuse will translate into a meaningful reduction of privacy crimes aided by spyware. However, focused examination on the underlying factors or forces that presumably motivate, or incentivize a ‘democratic’ country to use spyware in the first place, and why other ‘democratic’ countries do not take a stronger stance against such misuse, is lacking. This paper will try to conduct such an analysis in a case study focusing on Hungary’s use of Pegasus spyware to surveil four journalists. The analysis will use Lessig’s “four modalities of regulation” – laws, markets, norms, and architecture (as expounded in his book Code 2.0 (2006)) as an analytical framework, to conceptually organize and understand the forces that hindered or motivated Hungary’s decision to use Pegasus on journalists, and how Hungary’s case may provide insight into the viability of proposals for future regulations.

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