And welcome to today's virtual launch of International Ideas discussion paper, Democracy and Challenges of Climate Change. It is a great pleasure for International Idea and for me personally to finally be able to present this important paper, which in many ways lays the foundation for International Ideas continued work on democracy and climate change. This is a priority area for our institute. I'm also very glad that we can launch this report today in the presence of its main author, Dr. Daniel Lindvall. Daniel is a sociologist and senior researcher at Uppsala University's Climate Change Leadership Institute and was the lead researcher of the Swedish government's 2014 Democracy Inquiry, among many other associations and appointments that he's had. He embodies the rare combination of someone who is an expert on both topics, democracy and climate change, as well as the nexus between them. Thank you, Daniel, both for your excellent work on this paper and for attending today's launch in person. Joining us online, we have an equally eminent panel composed of Ambassador Jan Wallberg, Ambassador for Climate Change and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Ms. Elizabeth Watuhi, founder of the Green Generation Initiative and Sustainability Analyst at Sustainable Square in Kenya, and Dr. Julia Leininger, chair of Programme Transformation of Political Disorder, Institutions, Values and Peace at the German Development Institute and member of International Ideas Board of Advisors. Now, you may ask yourselves why would an institute dedicated to supporting and advancing democracies such as International Idea make climate change a priority for its work? And I'll give you the simple answer, because we must. Climate change is an existential threat, not just for life on the planet, but also for democracy. For one, one over half emissions of greenhouse gases come from democracies. So democracies need to increase the pace of their transitions towards net zero society. But just as importantly, if democracies fail to act in the face of an existential crisis, their own futures are at risk. What use is a political system that is unable to protect the survival of humankind and retain the planet's life-supporting ecosystems? The ability to respond effectively to the climate crisis is a test case for democracies worth as a political system. If democracies fail in this, the case for the virtues of authoritarian systems to deal efficaciously with major crisis will be immensely advanced. And until now, despite the fact that democracies are not performing nearly as well as they should when it comes to climate change, the picture is rather clear. Nine out of the 10 top performers in the 2021 climate change performance index are democracies. Sweden tops the list of 57 countries. China is in a modest 30th place. The reasons for this are not hard to explain. Democracies allow for the free flow of information that enables policymakers to debate and find solutions and for civil society to mobilize. It is no coincidence that Greta Thumbre helps spark a global movement from a long street demonstration in Sweden, not far from here. It is not random that the global push for climate change litigation, often brought forth by young people, is happening in all cases where independent judges can hold governments and powerful private actors to account, as we have seen recently in Germany and the Netherlands. Democracies are simply more effective against climate change for the same reasons that they don't experience families, as the Indian economist Nobel laureate Amartya Sen suggested long, long ago. Because in allowing freedom of expression of vibrant civil society, regular elections and the workings of checks and balances, they increase the likelihood that crisis will be met and destructive policies corrected. Leveraging the assets of democracy to fight climate change is a way to improve the prospects of democracies future, today under a cloud of doubt. But it's also a way, plainly, of helping to protect life on the planet and our own future as a species. For us at International IDEA, this means that we put climate change front and center in all of our work and integrated as a cross-cutting issue in everything we do. From our support to efficient parliaments, to inclusive electoral and constitution building processes, and in the analysis of our global state of democracy reports. Through this work, we aim to develop knowledge and identify tangible solutions to equip democracies to successfully tackle the climate crisis. And let me just give you a few examples of what I mean. At our global conference on parliaments and climate change organized by our EU-supported project Intervares last May, we shared a wide range of examples of how parliaments around the world are working to deal with the climate emergency, particularly by enhancing intergenerational justice, embracing environmentally conscious budgeting policies, and holding governments to account for delivering on climate change agendas. Our constitution building program has also gathered a lot of expertise on the role that constitutions play in ensuring effective environmental protection and enshrining incentives towards sustainable policies and intergenerational justice. And this is only the beginning. The report we're launching today aims to further connect the dots between democracy and climate change, two critical issues for our future, whose discussion has been kept largely apart. Which to tell you the truth, I find a little baffling. The timing of this effort couldn't be more right. Next week, the world's leaders will gather in Glasgow for COP26 for what many are describing as the world's best, last chance to get runaway climate change under control. Based on the most recent action plans submitted by 191 countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on track to warm by more than 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, far above what world leaders have said is the acceptable upper limit of global warming. These facts underline the urgency with which we will need to approach the discussions on the role of how democracies can effectively pursue climate action. How do the questions we're asking today connect to the COP26 program? The COP26 program speaks clearly about the need for countries to focus on youth and public empowerment to succeed. It also underlines the need to make progress on gender equality and the full and meaningful participation of women and girls in climate action. To me, both these urgent tasks are best achieved by and within democracies, by strengthening the democratic processes and institutions. Moreover, our panel discussion today will highlight two other highly relevant aspects ahead of the COP. The need for democratic innovation and democratic leverage. This means posting and trying to answer two questions. First, how can democracies best leverage the advantages that characterize their democratic decision making? Such as representative parliaments, civic participation, independent media and free flow of information. And second, what innovation policies and actions are available to democracies to successfully implement more ambitious climate action require to meet their commitments in the Paris Agreement. We will thus zoom in on how such reforms can help overcome the perceived challenges of democracies in tackling climate change, such as short-term bias in decision making and the tendency towards policy capture. And here, let me say something that I feel strongly about. This is the time to be bold to reform democracy. The current plight of democracy is showing that institutional designs that in key respects have not changed much in over 100 years are not meeting the expectations of citizens. This is as good a time as any to imagine new forms of participation and deliberation more attuned to the faster pace, the interconnectedness, the volatility, the dearth of trust, the need to confront obscene inequalities and the radical urgency imposed by our climate ticking bomb. Those are the traits that define today's world. The status quo is not an option, neither with regards to climate change nor with regards to the future of democracy. I am looking forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists about their first-hand experience and reflections in response to these important questions. The discussions today will be a valuable reference point to set the direction for international ideas effort on climate change going forward. Our Institute looks forward to partnering with member states, democracy organizations, academia, and other like-minded partners because it is only through concerted actions, global partnerships, exchange of best practices and innovative methods that we can take this crucial discussion forward. Once again, thank you very much for being here with us on this very proud day for International Idea. I will now ask Dr. Daniel Lindvall to introduce the key conclusions and policy recommendations emanating from this discussion paper. Daniel, you have the floor. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you very much, and thank you, Idea. He has reported that the global freedom has been in a negative trend for 13 consecutive years.  NASA, NASA, the American Space Agency has reported that last decade was the warmest ever. It is not something that will happen in the future, it is happening right now. We can experience a series of climate-related emergency events or natural disasters occurring right now. The question is how are these two crises connected? The report that I am going to discuss right now and present in my main findings are basically looking at the nexus of these two crises. What extent is the climate crisis, what kind of impact will it have on democracy in the future, and can democracy deal with this crisis? Let me start to show you a picture just very generally showing the climate effects that will happen in the years to come, according to climate science. We are talking about more extreme weather events like heat waves, storms, floodings, bushfires. These events will result in social effects like increased likelihood of food insecurity, financial instability, conflicts and migration. All together putting a stress on democratic governance. In the short term, I would say it's quite difficult to say that climate change is all going to result in negative effects for democracy. Some of the effects could be kind of short-earning effects that could bring people together, weight them up to the reality we are facing. And even in some countries, possibly results in regime change, which could be positive for democratic development. Unfortunately, several of the effects of climate change will be long-lasting results in the need for people to move from one area to another when the sea level is rising. It will possibly bring increasing economic inequality due to food insecurity. These are all things which we know that it's going to put stress on democratic governance. However, let me just first say that we're going through, we're ending in unshartered territory. It's very difficult to say what's going to happen, how are humans going to react to these situations. It's very positive that we are going to wake up in a situation where people are actually going to take responsibility over the planet, collaborate with each other. Unfortunately, the experience so far has not given us an experience in that positive direction. I will now just focus on one of the climate effects, which I think is most detrimental for democracy, food insecurity. As you can see on the left trend here is the food prices development over the 20th century. And we can see that food prices have actually decreased from the 70s to 2011. And this possibly, it's difficult to say, but it could possibly have contributed to a positive democratic trend because it's happened together with the third democratic wave. Unfortunately, something happened in 2008 to 2010, which shifted this trend. It seems to be that in 2010 there was climate related events in Russia, which caused the yields of wheat to decrease with wealth, one third in Russia. This had effects on food prices, which globally, so the prices of wheat basically doubled. Globally, which had a tremendous effect for North Africa, the region where it's difficult to go enough food to feed the population. Egyptians are spending about 38% in average of the income on food. This increase of food prices had tremendous effects on the population, of course. Together with corruption, police brutality, poverty and employment, this factor put such stress on the population that it had a crucial effect on the uprising that we call the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring could obviously have been a starting point for wave of democracy. However, unfortunately, the Egypt society seemed to have difficulties in bringing these events towards a positive development. And according to the IPPC, we could expect food prices to rise up to about 23% by 2050 if we go on on a business of usual scenario. I would say that this is one of the major challenges of democracy, because food is something which relates to the basic needs of people. It's therefore extremely connected to the access of freedom for people. And obviously, food is something which manifests the inequality of the world, because the people who are most affected by food insecurity are the people around the world that are least accountable for the climate change as such. But this is not only something that will affect the poor parts of the world. I think this is something that's going to affect also industrialized societies, since food is something that generates inequality. And if food rising food prices would add to a series of other social problems such as unemployment due to automatization and so on, this will of course be a factor that would change the social structure of industrialized societies. So now the question is, can democracy deal with this issue? Well, if we look at this picture here, we have had quite well established signs about climate crisis for at least three decades. If you look at the graph on the left side, this is basically the scientific significance of the correlation between human emissions and global heating, which has been increasing at the same time as the public awareness of climate crisis has been increasing. During this time, from the establishment of the IPPC, the emissions around the world has increased more than what it had before the establishment of IPPC. So we emitted more greenhouse gases over the last 30 years than we did from the time of industrialization. Obviously, a lot of these emissions happen in authoritarian states. However, it's quite clear that democratic governments have not been able to lower their emission during this time. There's a few positive examples, but unfortunately right now we don't have any democracy worldwide that's actually on track with the Paris Accord. I think the question is now, so why is this such a difficult issue for democracies? Well, obviously energy and freedom are two factors that are correlated to a certain extent. Honestly, modern democracy is of course having its birth in the time of industrialization when we managed to understand how to generate energy from fossil fuels. And this is of course a paradox and toxic relation because if fossil fuel, the burning of fossil fuel was a realizer of human wealth and development, it also resulted in the realizer of human freedom. These curves are very simultaneous as you can see. At the same time, the uses of fossil fuel will be the main threat to democracy. So if democracy is going to survive in the long run, we need to sort out the problem of how we generate energy, of course. And it's obvious that's one of the reasons why democracy is so difficult to deal with this problem is that energy that we are so dependent on fossil fuels. However, the climate change is not just any issue. It relates basically to any sphere of society since energy, the generation of energy is such a fundamental aspect of modern society. But to some extent it's also a matter of how democracy is designed and the institutional democracy. I mean democracy is still trapped within the national framework. This is a global issue. It's difficult for democracy don't have the institutional incentives to deal with global issues. The elected leaders are still responsible to voters on the national level. It is an issue of great complexity. I mean we do right now have some solutions to it with the development of renewable energy. But still it's a complex, it's massive complexity in the sense that this is an issue that's affecting basically all aspects of society. And as Kevin mentioned before, the institutional democracy are designed to deal with issues which are short term. Governments are elected and accountable for a mandate which is reaching about four years. While this is an issue which is it's going to affect future generations. The institution of democracy haven't developed a mechanism to deal to safeguard the rights of freedoms for future generations. And most importantly, democracies have difficulties to fend off to deal with interest groups that are such as the fossil fuel industry. It's indeniable that some democracies, especially the United States, have been under huge influence of the fossil fuel industry. Which has basically captured the policy, the climate policy of the United States, which is the greatest economy on Earth. Which is of course one of the main reason why democracies haven't been able to deliver on this. If you look at this picture, it's generally a picture of where the green, this is the picture of where the greenhouse gases emissions come from from every sector. If you look at this picture, you can make two conclusions. On the one hand, you can see that the sources of emissions are coming from a wide variety of sources. On the other hand, you can also look at it very simplistically straightforward and say energy is the main source, energy is the main problem. So if we just can move from fossil fuels to renewable, we could solve a lot of the problem with the climate crisis. Having that in mind, you could make the arguments that an authoritarian state would be more efficient in implementing and building renewable energy generations all around like wind and solar. And there are of course some proofs. If you look at this very general picture on wind power installation, you can see that China is leading this game. Almost about a third of all global renewable energy is installed in China right now. In this sense, it seems like if you can have an authoritarian state that don't need to pay attention to interests groups that can scale up this massive investment exercise that we are approaching. They could do it faster, more rapidly on wider scale, while democracies are quite slow on this. And the problem is, of course, if you look at it on the other perspective, this is an issue which is where you need to have an understanding, a full understanding of how society is affected by various investments. Since it's a complex problem, the policies need to be designed with an understanding of the various side effects for each investment you are undertaking. If you look at this issue of wind energy, I think it's a very illustrating example. Even though China invested about 139% more renewables in 2017 than the United States, the investment only rendered in about 38% more energy. Why is this? Well, it's because the investment, the policies were undertaken in a very inefficient way. Wind was constructed in places where there was no major energy demand, and the wind power plants were built before they were connected to the energy system. It's basically a picture of the government not being equipped with an information system where you have civil servants or civil society organizations who can identify various problems and inform the policymakers by criticizing them in the media or holding them accountable in the democratic elections. Because democracy is a system for analyzing and reassessing the effects of policies and readjusting policies that are going in the wrong direction. Also, democracy is a system for creating a social consensus about policy. If you can create a social consensus, legitimacy, you will have the full society moving in the right in the same direction, which is not the case in an authoritarian system. Where some of these investments were inefficient because the regional governments investing or undertaking them were not acting in accordance with the policies were designed on the central level. If you look in general, it's an interesting assessment of various countries, the climate policies of various countries, the climate change policy index. Basically, looking at all different states on the efficiency of the climate policy, if you look at this index, you can see that the most of the highest-born countries are democracies. And there are several studies showing that democracy is a government's reform that's producing better and more efficient climate policy. However, when you look at this whole series of countries, you can see that there are few exceptions. Exceptions are countries with a high level of corruption and countries with a fossil fuel dependency or higher fossil fuel dependency than other countries with a fossil fuel industry. Showing that these two issues, the functionality of the government, governmental institutions and the risk of policy captures are the two things that undermines democracy in the context of climate policy. To end this, I will just round up with the policy recommendations of this report. And I would say that one of the most important things for democracies to do if they want to unleash the potential of democracy and climate change, they're going to unleash the potential of the climate movement because climate movement, as Kevin said, can only mobilize and grow effective in the democracy where freedom of speech and freedom of association is fully respected. However, we need to find ways to strengthen the state capacity and counteract lobbies and policy capture. Although the lobbying from the fossil fuel industry is not as intensive as it was for a few years ago, it's still there. And I think we're just entering into the last battle of fossil fuel right now with the growing renewable energy industry on the other side. We need to develop knowledge-based decision-making and counteracting disinformation. And I think by adopting climate laws and climate counsel and advisory boards that could help out in this respect, I think that would be very helpful for all countries. We definitely need to act on climate injustice and ensure just transition because if the transition is not just, I think we're going to see countering reactions in groups of the population that are either hard hits by climate change or losing the employment in the course of the climate transformation. And this will, of course, impede the speed of the transformation. At the same time, I think we need to ensure citizen participation in this whole process in order to have a legitimate and a social consensus behind it. And also to understand that this is not an issue just for experts. We can say listen to the science, of course, but science will not be able to understand the full complexity of society. Therefore, we need citizen participation. Finally, we need to overcome short terms by climate laws, emission reduction targets and pricing mechanisms for emissions. Because I think this is one of the tools that could help society to move in the right direction with the predictability of how the institution should function to reduce emissions. And especially, as Kevin said, with climate laws, we'll open up for climate litigation. We'll open up for development where the democracies will be equipped with institutions that also protects the interests of future generations, which is, of course, essential for democracy to be long lasting. And for us to tackle this crisis. I'll end there. And I hope we can come back and discuss the reports all together. Thanks, Daniel. That's been really interesting. My name is Alice Discussion. I'm the head of communications at International Idea and I'll be moderating the next half an hour of discussions with our distinguished panelists. And thanks, it's been a really interesting presentation. Always great to end on policies and ways forward with these kind of discussions. And that's the really important thing to talk about. I'm going to just moderate then a discussion. Please put any questions in the chat function of Webex. We'll try and answer as many as possible within the short time we have. I'm just going to go through first our panelists and just ask them to give a few minutes thoughts about Daniel's presentation and their general thoughts on where democracy is going in relation to climate change. And then we'll just have some follow up questions and open it up to a Q&A. Let's kick off with Dr Julia Leininger. Please welcome your thoughts. Yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot. Can you hear me? Yes, loud and clear. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, thank you so much for this inspiring paper that I was happy to read before this launch and also the presentation. I think it's a very, not only timely but also very relevant issue. What I'd like to do is I'd like to start with the policy advice based on some evidence because I think all I can see in terms of policy implications is correct and right. But I think we do need to go one step further and I start with the big pictures and then talk about the implications for governance and democracy. I think so the big picture what we see in future scenarios that we aim at remodeling or model together with colleagues from the IPCC is that I mean in these scenarios you have to imagine we look at the status quo and the pathway that leads to a more sustainable world right which means less climate change and these pathways in these models don't include neither democracy nor institutions nor conflict. So first indications and analysis show that if we if we add institutions and conflict. And I say add I mean projections if we go from now and if things would just develop out there developing at the moment. Climate change might get worse 20 to 40% in comparison to the models we know by now to the situation would be worse if we do business as usual. I think that's a very important message. So with regard to state capacity I do agree that state capacity is very important I think the numbers and data you showed me that very clear. At the same time I think we need more institutions need to be able to transform societies in a peaceful way so institutions need to be adaptive and flexible and why is that the case that is the case because we are facing fundamental change that will change power in societies and between society. People have to change their habits and not they don't have to change habits across generations we don't have time for generations it's in the next phase people have to change their habits and attitudes and that that was called conflict. And I do think in all this sustainability research etc it we have this rather technical approaches pricing you take a price and then things change and but behind that are a lot of conflict and systems political systems need to be prepared to tackle these conflicts. And we know that democracies are more stable and are able to transform societies in a more peaceful way and democracy for definition is a system. That transformed social conflict in a more peaceful way than others I mean there are conflicts on a low level of violence. But I do think this is a big advantage of established democracies but at the same time. Since we are facing a world with a lot of auto gratification trends demographic decline and only in a few countries democratization we also have to acknowledge have the knowledge that there's a lot of transition and transformation going on and that as such is a challenge for climate change because it's it's one part of the overall transformation so that makes things more complicated I think my second policy point is with regard to to the STT because what you presented of course I mean it was a climate change but it became evident that climate change and tackling climate change is interlinked with many other policy goals there might be trade off with regard to other policy goals. And this is something that is tackled in the agenda 2030 and in the STT and I have the Paris agreement we have the agenda 2030 and I think states have and also societies made a lot of efforts to put these different agenda together and I do think that is that is very important and governing interlinkages between goals policy goals but also be managing trade off between these goals is also another capacity that flexible institutions and democracies needs needs and research and need to improve here so governing interlinkages and there is some work out there in the context of the STT on that my last point and that's based on an analysis we did on on the STT on the guy that nations provides to implement the STT which is closely interlinked with the climate development plans as well as societies is that that we observe. There are a lot of institutions involved but one thing is missing and that is accountability. We looked at parliaments we looked at audits. Yeah, at audits and at human rights institutions and what we see is that that these agenda that that has to be implemented by government. The STT, the Paris agreement. These are agenda without teeth, because accountability is not foreseen in these national governance systems I do think accountability and this is something provided by democracies as well as really an important additional feature for implementing these agenda and tackling climate change. Thanks and I'm looking forward to the discussion. I just want to follow up a question from that. I mean you talked about the importance of, you know, changing attitudes and behavior. The evidence so far as democracies haven't really, or they've definitely had a lot of conflict in trying to change that and you just have to look at the issues of gas prices in the UK, yellow vest in France. What gives you the idea that the democracies will be will have that added advantage of changing behavior of allowing behavior to change. I mean that wasn't exactly my argument my argument was that the democracies are better equipped to make this change happen in a peaceful way. I mean there will be social conflict but for third democracies will be able to contribute to a more peaceful than formation. But it's, it's a tough task and I'm not sure we can make it in time. Even not in democracy. Thanks. Let's move on to John Wohlberg to hear your reaction to Daniels and any thoughts moving forward in terms of democracy and climate change. Good afternoon, John. Good afternoon. I'm glad to be here. There are really thrilling reports and discussions. I think that the two topics we struggle today, like Kevin said, it's an existential threat to also the democracy. So as a climate ambassador, I think I cannot be touched by what Daniel said. Also, I have to mention I was my last posting abroad was in Shanghai in China. It's an interesting comparisons when you make in a way that the big topic that that why CEO to mention reduction is so difficult for democracies. It's because we have been dependent on fossils and including United States. So so the whole narrative of climate change and democracy. I think it's extremely interesting for me. It was actually our Danish colleagues, I think who kicked it off and then that the Americans on board and then most of European climate ambassadors we call it just transition from fossilized renewables. And that's kind of a, I think something we need to work together as a global community. In Glasgow, there will be probably a quite big package for South Africa. They have one electricity company, Escom that produces 42% of the emissions, just one company, one country. And it's because they are using coal industry. So coal power. So what we need there is a package for South Africa. So we can safeguard the 80,000 working places of the people who directly are employed. And the quarter of a billion people who are indirectly involved in in in kind of the Escom ecosystem. So I think that one big task for for like climate ambassadors and also assess climate communities is how do we sustain trust transition from fossils to renewables. There's also a project in China. I think it's led by Denmark. We are trying to look for a province where we could cooperate and do that together. So just kind of flag that you also mentioned, at least in the report, and I think you said it also, yes, that kind of problem that climate change is global, but democracy is kind of based on nation states. And I think that's the big challenge of climate diplomacy and what we're going to achieve in Glasgow. There are some countries proposing already we should have like-minded countries, climate clubs that would go beyond Glasgow. I think at the leaders level, we'll have something they call Glasgow breakthroughs. The idea being kind of that we would have certain sectors like hydrogen and steel where we could have kind of yearly cycles where we cooperate and discuss about it. So I think this needs to be overcome this problem of kind of democracy not being global because I think, like you said, climate is global and democracy needs to become global. And I want us to be brief. I want to say something on your recommendations, but one reflection of being a kind of Nordicist climate ambassador. I was this morning in a Finnish panel with parliamentarians and NGOs. It's called Human Rights Council. And we were discussing about kind of gender equality and human rights and how only societies where you have equality, they can beat climate change. It's a very much related topic to democracy. So in my mind, this is kind of a gender equality, human rights democracy. I think it's one package where I feel that the Nordic countries, we can have a role to kind of the Nordic welfare state 2.1 would put it to the global threats and then climate change discussions. So I think I would discuss with my authorities, but my president, he has an idea of 2025 having a conference. He calls it the Helsinki spirit 50 years after OSCE based on West kind of Cold War division. I think if there is a meeting in 2025 with Helsinki spirit, the core has to be climate change. And also in Stockholm, the Stockholm 50 process. I think you are having preparations for a meeting in May, I believe so. So clearly I think climate change is there very high on the agenda. Just on your recommendations, please subscribe. I think it's very important things on kind of climate laws. We have a new fit for 55 overcome polarization, at least in Finland is a very difficult topic climate change. We have, we use Pete unlike Swedish here it's it's a, and it's a big, big topic because it's only like 2000 people who have their income compete and it's very good for climate and how do you make the trust transition. So, so trying to avoid the national and international polarization discussions. I mentioned, we need to act on climate injustice. I mentioned the trust transition and example of South Africa. I think that's clearly something we need to do. You also mentioned we need more knowledge based decision making and increasing state capacity. I think they're, again, kind of, how do we protect human rights and how it's embedded in our constitution. So how we can kind of bring this this message forward as as Nordic countries. I could talk a lot longer, but I think it's good to leave time for discussion. So I will stop here. My initial remarks and comments. Any thoughts about when you talked about the problem of polarization on this debate. Do you think there's signs that that polarization is lessening or increasing from your perspective in the Finnish side of things. That's a very good question. I think there are like movements in both direction. And I think it's the Finnish discussion. We have a difficult thing because the two government parties that are in government. And the central party has a very agrarian background and then you have the Green Party and then it gets ideological. And I think there has been good influence in going beyond that. And I think that's kind of a, if we succeed that on a national scale, then we can build kind of a Nordic dialogue and then global dialogue. It can be done because it's an existential threat that should kind of not polarize us in party politics because it's nonsense. Thanks. Thanks. Let's just move on to Elizabeth. Let's hear from you and you have a lot of experience on grassroots initiatives and among youth movement. So it'd be great to hear your perspective on Daniels paper and as well as your own thoughts about climate change and democracy. Hi Elizabeth. Thank you so much. My name is Elizabeth. I'm an environmentalist and a climate activist. And also the founder of the Green International Initiative and heading companies at Wangari Mazi Foundation. I'd just like to reflect by first mentioning that right now our world seems to be following a kind of a pattern where the more we learn and see about the rate at which climate change is impacting people, the more there is so much to actually worry about. And the climate crisis is definitely impacting democratic governance with so many effects on issues that you've already mentioned like food security, water prices, migration, and sometimes the financial implications of aspects of loss and damage. And the reason why this is happening is because nations promised but failed to deliver and are still failing to deliver. And the implication is that as a result of this inaction, then the most vulnerable people continue to be the most impacted. And what really I always wish for everyone to understand in this space is the aspect of that we are in the same storm. Yes. But we are not in the same boat. And the same storm in this case is the climate crisis. Different boat is whereby we have nations that have the least capacity to adapt and the least amount of resources to adapt, despite having contributed the list to the crisis. And what is happening is that the impacts of this crisis now continue to escalate and it is the people that have least contributed, those who even have no historical emissions that continue to suffer from this crisis. So, I think it's important for governments to deliver solutions and make sure that their people also are able to recognize and accept injustices and inequalities that exist when it comes to tackling the climate crisis. This is about delivering fairness, solidarity and prosperity, also to nations that continue to suffer the most but have least contributed. And I'll give a clear picture of where I'm coming from. When I was a baby, my country experienced droughts maybe just once every five or six years. And it was so hard to get a poor rainy season. And even so communities were able to recover on time. But then by the time I was five, the rains were failing once every two or three years. And I still remember as children, there was so much in the storehouses enough to store, eat and even sell. But now in my early adulthood, the droughts have become relentless. And in the past year, both of our seasons have completely failed.  And scientists say that we have to brace ourselves for at least another 12 months before the rain's return again. This is going to mean four failed rainy seasons in two years or back to back. And this is a picture that tells you also that our rivers are running dry, the harvest are failing in the storehouses are standing empty and the people and animals are also dying. So this heartbreak and the injustices definitely had to bear. And even so there's still a huge extent that is limiting the extent to which people who have even least contributed to the crisis are able to respond to it. The policies in place are also very insufficient, even in terms of protecting future generations and allowing them to be involved in the whole decision making process. So democracies on the other hand comprise over half of the emissions globally and the quality of their response is definitely going to be key. I personally believe in the power of the people, the power of grassroots communities changing the face of what's happening right now. I have worked a lot with communities with children capacity building them training them how to love nature to bring their schools and training them on what solutions they can take up to be able to tackle the climate and the ecological crisis. Because putting people into action with the environment gives them confidence to take control over the other areas in their lives, including democracy. So we just need to ask ourselves several questions. How do we get food to people who do not have food? How do we get clean drinking water? How do we get energy? Some of our human activities right now have continued to undermine our capacity to survive on this planet. And the biggest injustice is that there is still that big population that have contributed the most to this problem. But still, we do not see that sense of responsibility, ownership and doing what is needed to be done and doing the right things based on the capacity of the problem and the contribution to that problem. So I think we need, we definitely do need good governance to face climate emergency. And good governance to me is about sustainability, is about responsibility, is about accountability for the people in our planet. And that's the same I would look at even as a technical point six. Where is the responsibility? Why is accountability? And how are we being, you know, how are we making sure that there's sustainability, whatever we are doing? Where is the urgency at the end of it all to ensure that we are responding to the crisis and cognizing the inequalities, the injustices, and the already ongoing loss and damage, even as we continue to discuss about what needs to be done, even when we already know what needs to be done. And the quality of democratic governance will also be the determinant of whether or not our systems are going to work. So if we do not have good governance, then our plan is then to lose out and we will also lose out in the end. And I do know that everything requires a democratic space and I think we'll agree with you on this. And I would just like to slightly end on a different note that you cannot protect the environment if you are in a system that does not allow its citizens to also participate in decision making. And sometimes all of these issues become complicated either way our systems are run and the way we continue to pull people responsible for what they have done to contribute to the crisis and what they are doing right now to be able to kind of to be able to really respond and cover up and be accountable and held accountable for what they have contributed to. And I just end with something from the late professor. She talked a lot about the link between governance and everything else that is surrounding us today. And she gave an example. And she was a leader that I always really drew so much inspiration from that I wish every other leader would talk up such traits from a courageous leadership. She gave an example of the Africans too that have three legs and then the three legs would hold the base in where you sit on. And each of the ledges presented to us and what the first one was peace. The second leg was governance and development of good management of our resources. So we can never separate three things. These three things that we are to make a difference or an impact when it comes to tackling that. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much. Thanks very much. It's great to hear it from your perspective that we only have a short time. So I'd like to bring in some questions that we've had from from the audience to each of the panelists. And one one question which I think addresses what was being talked about in panel is one question is do global challenges such as climate change require more effective and accountable global governance. Do we need steps towards global democracy perhaps focused on climate initially like an advisory parliamentary assembly at the UN. Julia what are your thoughts about that. Sorry I was distracted because I tried to read the read the question so I didn't didn't pay attention to the wording of the question you posted you please repeat it. No, it was essentially a question about do we need to take steps towards global democracy focused on climate change like an advisory parliamentary assembly at the United Nations. Yeah, but it was the first question that I was looking at as well. Yeah. I mean, I think what becomes evident here in this whole discussion is that, that we do need as SDG 16 processes as well as well, inclusive governance, or let it be democracy from a global to a to a local level. There were in 2005 the last, I would say real attempt to reform the UN there were these discussions on a global parliament. And here I would say the same if there's a parliament that has just an advisory function and no teeth and can hold nobody accountability, nobody accountable. The law won't be implemented and that would be more argument, or like an answer to young and, and also one of the recommendations. I mean we have a lot of laws, but then we have an implementation gap as well. And we do need strong civil societies and institutions that hold governments accountable for that but what I do think where one should strengthen a global governance and event system is really with regard to human rights. I mean the last resolution now on making the right to a protected environment, a human rights, the resolution from the Human Rights Council, I think that is something that has to be taken serious and that has a close link to democracy on a global level. So thinking about integrating the idea of democracy and and the human rights and human rights closer also in the UN system that's really important also on a national and regional level because these are two communities we have a human rights community a governance and a democracy and conflict community but they don't speak to each other and I think that type of integration would be really important. Thank you, John, what are your thoughts on this question of global governance and Julius thoughts. Pretty much on the same lines. I think we have all seen like like the intent of of a reforming in UN system. It's difficult. One important step is that Julia mentioned already the right to to to because in finished healthy environment, but what they've just decided that it's going out to the General Assembly and I think we need to be very careful. Do we get like legally binding or not legally binding is there so there are processes within the UN. I mentioned in my first intervention this idea to big European country who proposed a climate club and I think in a way when I look at the kind of climate ambition. When we talk about how do we keep 1.5 within degrees and how countries have to put their national to determine contributions. This weekend with Saudi Arabia promising they will become hybrid neutral 2016. I think it's becoming kind of a global movement that we are realizing that that in order to fulfill science tells us and keep 1.5 within reach. We need to make compromises and also politics promises. So I think there might be a way of kind of having a coalition of the willing that becomes larger and larger and think democracies are quite easy to attract to that. And then I think once you get the critical mass it might become more and more global movement.  There is a, I think you can ask Denmark and run out of this in English, but those are the two countries who are thinking, how do we do this trip off of keeping 1.5 alive. So let's see if the Danes and the granadines that they come up with some ideas. Thanks. Elizabeth, how do you see all that idea of kind of global change fitting in with the need of democracy to connect with the youth movement. Do you think enough is being done with that. And do you see moving forward from what you're hearing and with COP26 etc that democracies are listening to the youth to kind of implement these kind of changes. I would say to begin with, still not gotten to a point where I would recognize that exists and that injustices that we need is the global form of responses right now. And what needs to happen right now is the fact that even if you look at the representation of the people that are the most impacted by the crisis, it's still not at its supposed to be right now. Countries like those that are in Africa are not only, you know, fighting for accountability, but it's also about representation having their voices had having them in the room, which means that we have still not recognized those inequalities because unless we reach the government inequalities fast and even that global government is not going to work because it needs for people to understand that. We all have different challenges right now when the COVID-19 pandemic hit countries, for example, in Brazil, Africa had to deal with both the climate crisis impacts and also the COVID-19 pandemic. And we saw the vaccine inequalities happening all around the world. It's still happening in the country in Africa that still have just about 3% of people vaccinated. There are those that are still going to struggle to go to corporate entities because they are not vaccinated and all of those issues. So it's about the recognition of those inequalities if the aspect of global governance is going to work. But until the inequalities are addressed and the root causes of climate change as well are addressed then it is going to be impossible to really move forward with this. But I think that would be the first point of reference to recognize the inequalities and then reach the gaps because it's beyond the aspect of there is even beyond the aspect of global climate finance. It's beyond the aspect of saying that we need to finance, for example, the nation and mitigation for countries that are the most affected doing even recognize that some of these commitments that we set ourselves to do not recognize. History permissions, for example, the next zero commitments, there is no history permissions, for example. So if all of these aspects recognize the injustices and the inequalities that have gone into the climate crisis, then it's going to be possible to to recognize and then bring in all this global solution. And that's the same reason why we see some of these things not changing. Right now, their nation's trying to get themselves out of commitments they made before why because they are trying to address their local problems for example to what they term as local solutions that still continue to impact people that are the most impacted by the climate crisis. So I think there's supposed to be a huge balance and recognition of the inequalities and then once the inequalities gaps and injustice is addressed and it's going to be very easy for the world to adapt to that kind of global. We are actually moving towards the end time flies. And I would like to actually, before Kevin gives his closing remarks, and I just like Daniel to give perhaps your final thoughts. I just like to add one thing because your paper talks a lot about this issue of a wicked problem, the climate change is a wicked problem in the sense is what you mean by that I presume is that it's just so complex in terms of this mixture of natural and human systems that no one really knows how to deal with that. What is your thoughts and finally about both what the panelists have been saying and this issue is whether you can deal with wicked problems. Thanks. Well, I just as a closing remark on the question about like a global democracy if that is needed, I don't think I don't think that's needed. I think we need to understand it's very we need to focus on climate change as a global issue we need to have we need to to hopefully there will be things happening on in Glasgow that could that we keep alive the the the the aims of one point one and a half degree of increase of of temperature, however, and then we'll also need to focus on on the green fund, but however, I think what's happening with with with the with the climate, the issue of climate change right now that is, it's to some extent this changing the logic of climate change is not. I mean, if we are going to solve this we need to solve it from from underneath with cooperation of willing democracy as you as yarn was talking about the club of a climate club, because I think I think one important factor of this is the development of renewable energy, which is extremely important in the sense because it changes the the logic in the sense that we forward we've always seen that if if some of China is emitting a lot of green gas gases there's no need for us to do anything that's basically been like mantra, or people, you know, opposing climate action, but with renewable we could see that actually this this, we have all reasons to to to do climate transfer here because it's it's it's beneficial in so many other ways it's not only about climate effects it's also beneficial for our economy to beneficial for our living standards for for the for for air standards and so on so basically we've, I think climate change is changing from just being an issue which is a global complex issue it's the driving forces for transformation can be can happen on the local level, and this is changing the context of climate change to some extent. And this relates also to the matter of wickedness because I think yes climate change is a wicked problem in the sense that it's that it's it's it's complex because it's a problem that is connected with all spheres of society if we're trying to let's say we're going to change the the the transportation sector from from electrifying cars we will and we end up problems with we're searching for for rare minerals and so on so we create other environmental problems this is this is one aspects to it and that's one of the reason why we need democracy and I think this is this is what a wicked problem is, but we can also talk about a wicked possibility, because everything we try to do with with climate mitigation will have it will have side effects that are negative but a lot of those side effects are also positive. They're positive in the sense that, as I said, energy independence is very positive for for government for for country like Sweden not being reliant on on energy which is supplied by a democratic non democratic states renewable energy can even like make can also be helpful for democracy because it's, it's, it's strengthens the powers of local communities, if they can control the energy and generation. So basically, a wicked problem has to two sides of it. It's a wicked possibility and it's a wicked problem. So, I mean, if we if we get on with this, I think the transformation, we could also see a lot of positive effects of of this transformation we could be very fruitful democracy, but in that case we need to start act right now and not hoping for a global democracy to happen but working within the offices and together with democracies, climate clubs or something like that, European Union with with carbon with carbon trade and some kind of border adjustment policy as well. So that's that's that's would be my positive take on it. Thanks very much, Daniel. And thanks for your paper we in now. And thanks very much. And now we'll have closing remarks from Kevin. Thank you, Alistair. And thank you, Daniel. And thank you to our three wonderful panelists. Well, I don't know if for you, but for me, this has been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot. And let me just add, I can't resist the temptation of adding a few, a few thoughts to this very thick stew. And I would like to to start those thoughts with a with the policy recommendations, because this is the the angle through which ideas is trying to approach this issue. I mean, we help countries enhance and improve their institutions or that's what we claim we do. So this is what we are trying to do in getting headfirst into this discussion. Because ultimately, this is this is actually very concrete when we talk about the policy recommendations that can step from this discussion. I mean, if we if we talk about the need to overcome a short termism that is endemic in democracy, we're thinking, for instance, and we need to talk about the role of constitutions in enshrining incentives. For us incorporating the long term into policymaking. If we think about overcoming short terms and we're thinking about a decisions like whether to lower the voting age. So as to give a greater voice to young people into the policy process, which is something that countries like Austria and Malta have done in the recent past. If we think about enhancing citizens participation in this in this discussion, then we need to discuss. We need to have a discussion about the role of randomly selected citizens assemblies in crafting environmental policy, which is something that Ireland has done among other countries. If we talk about confronting the tendency of democracies towards a falling into policy capture, then we're thinking about and we need to talk about regulating the role of money in politics, including the deleterious role that loving activities play in this kind of discussion. If we think about having more science based policies, then we need to talk about whether it's a good idea or not to establish advisory boards and councils that inform with science the policymaking decisions that a government makes, which is something that a country like Finland has done. So this is very concrete. I mean, this is not abstract. I mean, we're talking about very concrete policy options, institutional options that stem from this discussion and that's what that's the kind of discussion that we want to stimulate a from a vantage point of idea. But let me let me add a final, a final point, which is connected to something that Julia mentioned and then in some ways came up in the course of the of the discussion a different times, which is the question of the need. If we're going to be successful in the carbonizing societies, we need to talk about changing habits. And including at the local level, which is something that Elizabeth spoke about at some length. And, and here is where the question of how you need to build consensus. In order to change habits becomes fundamental. I mean, I, we have the tendency to think that the carbonization is something that governments do by decree. Well, no, the carbonization is something that societies do out of conviction. Otherwise it won't happen. And that's where democracy is much better. I mean, this kind of changes in habits and attitudes of deeply seated attitudes and habits is much better done in a democratic setting than in authoritarian setting I mean think for instance and here I'm going to to give a an example from an entirely different feel but that I think is relevant to this discussion. I mean think about the process. I mean think about the case of the process of rapid authoritarian westernization undergone by Iranian society in the 1970s. That was something that was done in a very efficacious way, but that ultimately failed. Because in an authoritarian setting, there are, there's always a counter reaction to this kind of rapid change in of attitudes imposed from above. Think even of the case of Turkey, I mean the process of westernization done in Turkey by a tattoo back in the day. It took decades, but the deeper currents of society ended up rearing their heads in what we're seeing currently in Turkey. So, my point is that changes in attitudes and habits imposed from above by force ultimately fail. This is something that democracies are much better at. On the other, on the other side of the changes in the attitudes towards sexual identity or towards women's rights that has been achieved in western society. This is not something that has been done by force, but it's proving much more sustainable in the long run. So this, this is, I think, one of the key attributes of democracy. And by the way, if we talk about consensus, we need to talk about one of the issues that was raised by Jen, which I think by Jen and by others in the course of this discussion.   Is a distributional issue across generations and is a distributional issues. Between industries. So the question is, which system is better equipped to build consensus to deal with such authority. Multi-prong distributional issues. I have no doubt that whatever the shortcomings, democracies are better equipped to deal with that sort of challenge. The question of course, and it's a question that pervades this whole discussion is whether a, we will get there on time. The question of the speed is, is, is the really tricky part in this discussion in terms of the merits of the case. I have no doubt that the case for democracy to be able to deal with this issues is much stronger than than the alternative. But the question is whether we will get there on time. And with that, I want to finish by saying that all these issues require a lot more research and a lot more thinking and a lot more debate. And this is exactly what we intend to do from international idea. And I must thank Daniel in a very warm way for launching us forward into this into this process. It is a process that I think is going to be fascinating and that I'm extremely excited to be a part of. And I hope you will be too, and that you will join us in this very interesting adventure that we're launching today. Thank you all for joining us today. And I hope to see more of you in the future events and the future activities that we organize at International Idea.


All right, so our next speech presentation is extension LAN exploits and rootkits in your browser extensions by Barack Sternberg He is your father I'm super excited. This is my first talk at Defcon ever so with this in mind whoop so We are going to get started. So extension LAN exploits and rootkits in your browser extensions So first a little bit about me. So I'm a security researcher My name is Brock Sternberg, and I'm a founder also at white pointer. I was previously not always sent in one labs I did this talk about hacking small devices for fun and profit last year and the amazing IOT village and I did my masters on algorithms and I love vulnerability research from IOT to embedded devices Linux web apps and much much more So we've got to conclude I'm also a DJ and party lover So check out also my mix cloud for more mixes and stuff like that and with this in mind Let's start so our motivations for extension is well first We have more than 2 million Extensions in the web stores out there. So we have so many extensions many are malicious. We all know about malicious extensions, right? And why they are so commonly used for malware. So first they have so much permissions You can easily you excess you can easily run JavaScript or inside any region targeted with Chrome extension in mind They can let you control the entire browser and much more more. They are still in a sense and they are cross platform so they can run on any desktop OS like I know Mac windows, whatever and They are really easy to develop like Just malware is much easier to develop than similar, right? And why did I focus on research in extension? Well First of all, I love this idea. It's like just a of Cool things inside of them cool APIs interesting areas to explore and the main key points is that These attack surfaces inside of them have new Interesting well not new but interesting and unique API's and they lie in different contexts and they have these Super browser powers. So let's now Talk about these super browser power powers, but before that I'm going to give a brief talk about my a brief speech about my talk So we are going to start with introduction over Chrome over Chrome extensions We're going to start with the anatomy of Chrome extensions in general Extensions communication after that we're going to exploit two different extensions in cool new context So the first one is the Zotero extension and the second one is the Vimium extension on the first We will jump from one Chrome up to another Chrome extension Elevating our privilege like a PE kind of style the second one is the Vimium We use it to get your excess and finally we will kind of bypass the signatures of the extension check inside the Chrome browser and To do that We will modify kind of a technique that will help us To change previously installed good extension converting known installed extension into bad ones So with this in mind, let's get started So extension anatomy the basics first like extension or develop of two main components If we generally speak about that so content scripts and background Context the content sweep is like the front end So it's temporarily loaded and it's temporarily loaded kind of inside every matching sites So for example, you have a site that is matched For specific extension and the extension declares This is a site that is matched to then the content strip gets loaded JavaScript We get loaded and they are accessible to the sites DOM and many many more things and There is also the background context So the background context is actually kind of the back end of the extensions themselves. They're running specific process specified the dedicated process and Different contests and they are also persistent. They run once persistently in the background and to conclude extension directory is well I focused on Windows, but it's truly applicable to more operating system running Chrome With extensions feature on desktop and the extensions directory lays inside This folder you can see the local app data here They are kind of unpacked all the JavaScript and stuff is in there They have the extension manifest if you know like the manifest inside the I know Android the XML file So it's the same it defines permissions and more things and they have also signature So it's runtime and also while installing this signature gets verified and all the time kind of checked cool So manifest anatomy. So this is the manifest it composed like a free Main fins that Jason file you have the background. So the background consist of the Scripts that used to run in this context. So the first You can see the background Scripts that should be run there if it's persistent or maybe triggered by something else to be run in the background Content scripts are the scripts that well run temporarily as the front end in the matching sites So the interesting thing is you can see the JavaScript here You can see the JS file gets loaded and in which sites they should be loaded so you can see it here and The last point is the web accessible resources and the permissions so permissions As you might think is actually the permissions for the extension themselves It can consist of cookies Storage history tabs and much much more also sites that are accessible also I can give an hint also file origin URLs and stuff like that and Web accessible resources are actually cool kind of resources that the extension exposed to other websites So for example, you can add in your site in an iFrame or open your window. We've Accessing this Chrome extension URL very cool. Okay communication in extension. So let's say we serve to Google and Now the extension all the extension that configured to run in the Google context site gets loaded so you can see here two different parts the parts, which is the web context it consisted of the Dome area, which is like all the elements of the HTML and stuff like that of the Google.com site and also the page scripts that run inside Google that Refer to it and do some changes in there But the main interesting thing is that on the right side You can see that there are the content strip of the extensions that get loaded in the context of Google.com but in its separated origin the extension origin and you can see also that the content strip Can communicate between the background context and why is that because the background context have much more Kind of access to more permissions can do more things it run persistently it can update more stuff So we have communication between content strip and background Contacts we have communication between the content strips and the sites themselves and also I will show more communication ways so Communication between websites and the extensions content strip so considering that we have a couple of ways to do so The first is maybe well cross-origin messages. We can just do you know JavaScript post-messages in between content strips and the site themselves you can do post-messages in between them define message listener and just communicate easily also dome changes sometimes Dome mutations events and even the elements and the classes themselves are inspected Fully by the extensions content script and it's really interesting attack surface to explore So for example if it gets some data from there and try to do a couple of things because of that It might be a really good surface right so this is the dome mutation and last is the thing I talked to you about is that accessible URLs So the accessible URLs are the URLs you can add to your sites that are Internally inside the extension so we can use them and add them for example as an iFrame You can open a new window with them and much much more Cool, so this was content strip versus websites now websites versus Beacon context so first there is like cool things inside the beacon context for example who can Proxy and proxy request between The site that is being now shown to the user and the background context itself So for example the beacon context can hook some Request being fetched. I don't know resources when being when they being fetched and then do some operation considering that Also the background context Have access to all kind of information sometimes depends on the permission of course Tubs cookies storage and much more and inspect them so it can be a very very cool way to gain more things to do in the attack surface Scenario cool and the last bullet is a thing that can be also specified in the manifest These are externally connectable pages and by externally connectable pages I mean well, it's not the accessible URLs It's pages that can actually do message passing to the background context and bypass in the sand in a sense the content strip So you can define in the manifest sites that are accessible to the background context and can send many messages back to eat Cool, so it's exposed with the send message API and the manifest state which sites are accessible to this context and Last the extension versus extensions So many extensions can communicate with other extensions as well and the way they can do it is first all the ways I told you about websites between Extensions are actually kind of exposed to these extensions as well. The second thing is the externally connectable sites So the cool thing. Well, I'm now Skipping over to the last bullet You can actually kind of do cross extensions message in section and The way you can do it is because well if for example one extension define One site as externally connectable. You can inject in your first extension to this site new script that triggers Messaging passing to the other extension and that way you can send message directly to the background context of Of the other extension from the first extension So this is a cool way to Communicate between first extension and the background context of another extension Of course only if defined and the manifest and last the TCP and UDP connections many of them use open TCP connection communicate and connect to other things and stuff. So that's really cool thing and attack surface to explore Cool, let's now start with exploiting Zooter extension. So Zooter extension is actually kind of an academic extension It helped you get identifiers For specific papers and let you easily Manage all your citations in one place actually really easy to do when I did my master It was amazing like use these citations fully embedded and shareable anywhere and It works also with companion Zooter desktop Which is a software and communicate between them, but it's not a mandatory. So extension like it's Sometimes and actually usually works independently on its own and it communicate for TCP port so one of the cool feature inside the Zooter extension was Actually, it's translators. He had it has translators But not like translator from French to English but more of like Extractions to identifiers inside the web. So you have this translator that is a JavaScript that is loaded inside the content script of the current site and try to extract Identifiers that are related to citations. So you can use this translator to extract extract more identifiers and help you Citate more papers and such but the cool thing about this term. So is well, it's an open source thing. There are more than 500 JavaScript translators in Github and they are open source and whenever you update one of them It actually run it can run over in any site when Zooter extension is installed So one attack surface. I'm not going to talk about fully here is the supply chaining of these kind of things And it's really suspect because it's open source and we can change the JavaScript and slaters in there But leaving the supply chain attacks. Let's go to another cool thing inside. So the Zooter and slaters also have this cool system in which they can update their The Newton slater so you can call get translators and you call it like for TCP to the localist and why he does that it does Localist communication because he thinks that the Zooter or desktop version might be installed there So we price to communicate between between himself and the Zooter or desktop version and he reach out to localist at this High port and it looks for new translator. So if there is a new translator, it just downloads it and Run it over. Oh, that's amazing, right? So yeah exploiting it. So we're starting with a Chrome app a Chrome app that listen over TCP socket and We just wait for Zooter to act up When he act up it looks for new translator Download our new translator because we made him to believe that we have newer translator to download and it then just Downloads it up and run it. But wait, we actually have inside there Sandbox execution you can see here that they actually written here Sandbox manager kind of and they try to do eval which is might be not that bad in the sandbox manager kind of thing But it's actually doesn't do nothing. It just removes some JavaScript Variables and just execute your JavaScript in the context. So that way we jump from the Chrome app From the Chrome app in to yeah into that Chrome extension Zooter. So Now keep in mind we are side the content strip of the Zooter. We are lying side the content strip But we are not that persistent, right? We want like to have more permission. We want to run in the background context So I was in this point. I was like, okay, let's see what what is the attack surface inside the content strips So inside the content strips We have now much more attack surface and why is that because now we can send message to the background context We can also access to some shared extensions URL because now we are running in the Chrome extension origin So maybe so kind of interesting thing we can bypass. I don't know and also there is a storage and configuration thing And I started from the end and just try to look for eval Inside the background context and just find out like I don't know Google Docs integration system probably like Run code integration system. I don't know and they just like doing evil in the background context And I try to figure it out like why they do it. So Google Docs Have like a specific integration system inside Zooter. So Zooter tries to integrate it in other manner For its own JavaScript files and it actually can update these JavaScript files Yes, again from some repo, but in this case this JavaScript file gets downloaded from configured URL so we can just listen to some port and do what we did. Yes, like the other day We need like to find new mechanism to exploit it. So you can see here It downloads the it finds out like the new code repo URL in the background context and Download and inject the script here Very cool, but how can we change this configuration? How can we make this configuration well? Exposed to us. So actually we don't need to do so much work The configuration is already available for us and the cool thing is that this is a new kind of attack surface in respect of Chrome you can inject configuration from one context and it will appear in the background context as well So this is exactly what I did they injected new configuration value in the content script to say to him Yeah, I got new repo URL. Yeah, that's cool update my JavaScript from there. Yeah, why not and it just updated it So to conclude this jump from content script to the background context What I did was well inject new configuration for this Google Docs integration URL and Zotero back one gets loaded Restarted whatever and he just fetch my repo my new kind of malicious repo JavaScript and Executed freely in the background context. So this is like the full chain from one Chrome app to the background context of Zotero extension and the amazing thing is that it's also persistent Because the background context in Zotero gets loaded every time this Google Docs integration And it's also gets loaded anytime Chrome starts. So we can just sit freely and easily in the background of Zotero that way Cool. So now I will show you demo video of how it looks like. So the scenario is that the user installed a Chrome app we jump from one Chrome app to another Zotero Chrome extension and we open this TCP localhost we inject the That the JavaScript to the translators and then we inject the configuration we bypass from We bypass the the things to get from the content strip to the background and Then we run the background contents and I will show you how it looks like. So here you can see Yeah, this is map it to my app Really really good app. No permissions like it's only a permission to see TCP. You can see it have no access to any site whatsoever Yeah, and I'll go to the Zotero extension Zotero connector And you can see it can have access to all sites with your old browsing history and stuff and now I show what happens After like we've injected our code inside Zotero extension And now it looks like to naive user. You can also see that nothing is shown here and Now things have already run. So you can see here that my CNC gets like new data From the site whenever this site is gets loaded and run away. There is no evidence in the DevTools Nowhere because I actually open new different context and send all the data from different VM JavaScript context So you can see nothing in the DevTools and that's if you like you can surf and You can just see everything back in the background You can see DevTools is nothing and then I show that it sends my data back to to my CNC server Okay Yeah, and this is my CNC server back cool. Okay, so This was the first exploit Zotero extension Now let's move on to another extension the Vimium extension So the Vimium extension make your browser a Vim like kind of thing So you can edit jump and search for new kind of things inside The browser so for example if I click some button while I'm having this Vimium extension I can just go and navigate easily with my keyboard without mouse and without anything and it's really cool thing because It make my browser Vim like That's really cool So now our goal is to exploit it and our attack scenario is slightly different Because I want to show like interesting new kind of vulnerability that depend of the communication Inside this extension. So the attack scenario is user enter your site execute my JavaScript And my goal is to exploit the Vimium extension Well to bypass up to actually do kind of you excess So let's consider the widgets that this is like the gurus inside of Vimium You have the vomnibar widget you have the helper widget your visual mode. I don't care about them I care only about the first one. This is the JavaScript run code widget and this is the vomnibar widget So let's see what is the vomnibar the vomnibar is actually kind of a bar You can open up when you click all and it open up this bar You can see it on the left you can search and jump to sites and do many many things So that when you click all the Vimium content scripts, you remember on the background Catch the keyboard you pressed and then just add the vomnibar iframe, which is an accessible URL so it adds this iframe and After it does that it just authorized to this iframe. It sends to him. Okay. I have this Vimium secret Which was which was pre? pre From in the background contest was already initialized While Chrome was running the first time and it authorized it and then just send Commands to the vomnibar. It just send commands to trigger search query to do things To search for web Request whatever whatever you want where resources and it's really like cool attack surface. So I was saying like Wait like why not exploiting it and try to communicate and increase our attack surface to communicate freely Into the Vimium vomnibar and that's exactly what I did So the exploit idea was let's insert our own vomnibar iframe because it's an accessible URL inside our page Now let's try to connect to it with the post message and try to send maybe a fake secret or something to bypass Authentication and now we can send commands this vomnibar thing cool so Unfortunately or fortunately the Vimium secret Is generated really really in a state-of-the-art random number generator you can see that math dot random is being used JavaScript math dot random and Man, this one is like kind of easily breakable if you are in the same process like soul shift algorithm It's like really cool thing to exploit But unfortunately it's runs in different contexts and initialize once in the background context of the Vimium So I couldn't easily like break it like using like Known breakers because it's not in my process the seed and of the random itself is in a run another process So I can't easily break it, but like it's only two billion kind of numbers options So yeah, you guessed it right. Let's just brute force it So this is the brute force code for like exploiting the term and finding the secret and if success I get this channel open if not no response and You might ask yourself like wait Barack come on it would take so lots of time, but the thing is that well first Not so much numbers and the second is that we can use web walkers To increase the way we do this brute force and now why we do that. So remember if we run like JavaScript It can sometimes like Stop from running because we waste too many Memory consumption CPU consumption stuff, but with web workers We can just easily trigger over and over this brute force from the back end of the web workers Which supposed to run all the time. So I only need the browser to stay up I don't even need the screen to be open and I don't even even need my tab to be open So just keep the browser open our brute force it and and and that's it Amazing so We've managed now to brute force and break the premium secret we can communicate freely to the vomly bar I frame but what commands this I frame supports, right? It might have a lot of attack surface to explore and it might be very cool to explore this attack surface So first it can trigger a search for new URL completion. It can activate search and jump to new URLs and search for ints to auto completion and stuff Yeah, and Well also run JavaScript code. This is this is what we are about here, right? so how we can do that just search for the JavaScript scheme and Voila, so you can see that it actually triggers JavaScript execution, but In my site. Well, I don't want to run JavaScript in my site what it gives to me, right? So I'm in my page. I'm running this vomly bar I frame I communicate with him and I trigger alert in my site No, I don't bother it But let's now see what happens behind the scenes with this communication. So when we trigger when we trigger this Search for new URLs. What's happened is that the vomly bar I frame tries to find auto completion for this scheme So the content script of the Vimium sends message to the background scripts to find relevant auto completions Now the background script sends message back to the content scripts inside this tab to the sender in sense But then all the content scripts inside this tab Get the message execute this JavaScript inside this frame So you can see the problem here Well, the main problem is that if there are more than one content script of Vimium We can actually trigger another Contest trip to execute our JavaScript form another what we will do is trigger auto completion for JavaScript from one content script and the background context will send Message to another content strip and the the reason it happens is that send message doesn't have like they don't have any Validation to any things inside there. They don't validate their region They don't buy that the sender in sense or it gets sent to any of the common content strips inside this Vimium area so exploit. We just insert our targeted origin as an iframe inside our page We trigger the vomly bar bypass authentication and we then activate the search The search for JavaScript scheme with our own JavaScript code to be run inside of it And then it just trigger JavaScript execution inside Another another page Cool. Let's see it's in a high-level kind of picture. So the Vimium content strip gets trigger the content strip Sends a message from one iframe the top iframe to the background context Now the background script sends message back to the tab which he which appears here and You can see that the iframe which is a sub iframe here gets the message also and also the parent iframe get the message as well So what we do is actually trigger it to make messages to another iframe and we manage to execute that way JavaScript in another target origin Cool. So concluding needs the full exploit to bypass SOAP using Vimium is first you break the Vimium secret You insert a vomly bar iframe inside a few communicated with freely because it may break the secret Now you trigger the auto completion for JavaScript scheme And when the response gets back the targeted origin get it and execute our JavaScript Very cool. Now, let's see a demo of that. Okay, you can see this is Vimium Which actually got updated and fixed Okay, this is the my site and here we can see that code was run inside Facebook.com and you cannot see here and any signs of Facebook.com because it's an id and iframe inside of me and You can see we can cover it But you can see the vomly bar with the JavaScript scheme and the code I wanted to run inside of it so we can actually cover it and make it like seem really really good and Really easy to exploit Cool. So we exploit the Vimium Now let's move on to the last step. What I want to show you now is kind of a new trick to bypass signature and replace and modify extensions previously installed extensions in your browser and Well, the scenario here is a post-exploitation. So we managed to run code on the user's device We already installed a persistent rootkit sorry, we want to install the persistent rootkit and Our goal is to well, of course use extensions to install a persistent rootkit inside the browser and One of the things I'm going to show also that well We can install Persistent JavaScript rootkit which can be accessible also to the file system read access Cookies tabs passwords much much more and it's still because it's running the Chrome context So, yeah, again keep in mind extension of science. So when you once you install them They are continuously get verified. So even if I change them in runtime, Chrome will just say, okay Signature is not is not good and it doesn't run the new JavaScript but extensions in unpacked mode well a Apparently there is like a cool mode for developers in which they can develop their Extensions and this unpacked mode gives them the opportunity to not sign their Extensions and just develop them easily. So If extension gets loaded as an unpacked mode, which is an easy argument to add to your Chrome And a good way to do rating or pen testing I guess you can actually Replace or add new extension that is easily modified and not signed But the even more cooler thing is that you don't need to add new extension to do so So exploiting Let's speak an already installed extension. For example, you have ad blocker Google Docs any other extension and What we will do now is actually Try to reload it in a sense While making Chrome thinks that it is Unpacked mode. So we will load this extension You can see the argument minus minus load extension and it points out to the original extension folder To the original extension deal so we don't even need to add our own files or anything and Why we do that and run up Chrome again? It just doesn't verify the signature for the previously installed extension and This extension I will show it seems exactly the same Chrome thinks that the good extension is installed and seems like it's all good Cool, so let's see now a demo for that This might fall and you can see my ad blocker is the target installed Chrome thinks is installed correctly all good No problems Yeah, the original site in the web store and you can see here that It's also like seemingly almost exactly the same besides a small tiny icon in there But it's only in the extension area and Chrome doesn't give any warning about that when you open Chrome or anything like that It seems exactly the same and you can see here below. I moved on to the background context This is what you see here and you can see that my JavaScript was executed in this terminal console You can see it below there. So I'm injected My JavaScript code inside that ad blocker. It seems Exactly the same you won't even notice like if you investigate it statically and see what extensions are installed you will see this This one and all good. No signature verified And yes, we can also enhance our permissions. We can also this technique change all the manifest file So this leads me to well my final thing here I developed also a tool you can enter and use it. It's a POC kind of thing and It's called my tensions and it's a cool tool to generate your own malicious extensions For the browser you can use them either as a JavaScript You can add over to the background context of some already installed extension with the unpacked mode or you can either use it as New extension you're trying to install And its feature consisted of well, you can inject and run JavaScript in Eden context There are several techniques there in the modules directory And you can have five system access with fire origin your eyes because I can increase my permissions with this post-acletation Method access to sites tab user storage data and much much more contains also simple simple CNC communication So Conclusions well first. Yes Extensions are a kid are and can be exposed much more to PE's PE's for extensions are possible in a sense You can elevate privilege from one extension to another you can gain more privileges if you like develop seemingly harmless extension and moving it from one extension to another the second thing is well unfortunately or fortunately and Depending on which side of the map you are the tech detections will get much harder So detecting this kind of fiends is other because you see chrome fiends the original one is installed as an all-good and Also, so many you remember the 500 translators in JavaScript that run to on over Three million users so they're all exposed and I don't know what is inside all of these 500 translators And so detections will get harder The amount Third there are much more attack surfaces to explore So we have so much more attack surfaces communication and much much more and last Well malicious extensions are here to stay It's about time we investigate and research much more inside of them and try to find out how we can protect and Defend more regarding conceivable them not just from non-malicious installed extension, but more even about their communication and Dynamic and much more things they do inside of them Okay, so we've got in mind. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. It was my first time speaking at that one I'm so excited I'm here if you have any more questions So my name is Brock Stanma you can look me up in Twitter live in beef and Well, that's it


In this video, we'll work through the development of the nth degree Taylor polynomial for a function f about x equals zero. Then we'll generalize this. We'll begin with the general form of our polynomial of interest. T sub n of x, meaning that nth degree Taylor polynomial, equals a sub zero plus a sub one x plus a sub two x squared plus a sub three x cubed plus all the way up to our nth degree term, a sub n x to the n, where a sub k are real numbers for any k greater than or equal to zero. Now, we remember that linear approximations of functions near a point were generated by matching both the function value and the slope at a certain point with the line we're generating. These lines gave us approximations of the function of interest, but the approximations were only good very close to the point of interest, as we can see in this following graph. Suppose we take a look at some function f, and I generate my linear approximation off of x sub zero. This linear approximation is good in some neighborhood around x sub zero, but we wouldn't want to use it to predict values or approximate the function far away from x sub zero. What if we could enhance the accuracy of this approximation? How would we do this? Well, what if we, in addition to matching the function value and slope at a certain point with the approximating polynomial, we match the concavity of the function as well? This would mean that we want the second derivative of the polynomial to match that of the function at the specified point. Expanding on this idea, we match the first n derivatives of our function with that of the polynomial we're generating. We find the following. We would match f of zero to that of the nth degree Taylor polynomial at zero, which is a sub zero. We've matched the first derivative of f at zero with the first derivative of the Taylor polynomial at zero, which we see is a sub one. Matching the second derivative of f at zero and that of the nth degree Taylor polynomial at zero, we obtain two a sub two. Now, I've written that also as two factorial a sub two, which will be explained in a moment. Matching the third derivative of f at zero with the third derivative of the nth degree Taylor polynomial at zero, which we find is three times two a sub three and I've written that also as three factorial a sub three. We find that we have some form of a pattern in these terms. The nth derivative of f at zero matched with the nth derivative of the nth degree Taylor polynomial at zero turns out to be n factorial a sub n. We can then solve for the coefficients of t sub n of x and we find that a sub zero is equal to f of zero. A sub one is equal to first derivative of f at zero. A sub two is second derivative of f at zero divided by two factorial. A sub three is the third derivative of f at zero divided by three factorial and so on. And our general term is the nth derivative of f at zero divided by n factorial. So the nth degree Taylor polynomial centered at x equals zero is as follows. And in general form, we see that the sum from zero to n of the kth derivative of f at zero divided by k factorial x to the k is our nth degree Taylor polynomial about x equals zero. To generalize further, we can think about the Taylor polynomial for a function about any point x equals x naught. Using the same process as we did here, we would find that this polynomial would be t sub n of x equals f of x sub zero plus f prime of x sub zero times x minus x naught. And note this would be our linear approximation. Expanding on that, our quadratic term is second derivative of f at x naught divided by two factorial times x minus x naught squared and so on all the way up to the nth term. And we can write this in summation form as the sum from k equals zero to an n of the kth derivative of f at x naught divided by k factorial times x minus x naught to the k.