Gregory Falco

Assistant professor in Cornell Engineering

Gregory Falco, assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University, is a cybersecurity expert. 

Falco says:

“Developments in the extent of exposure due to Salt Typhoon is absolutely worrying. If this attack happened years ago it would be less problematic because it would have been unlikely for Chinese intelligence analysts to trawl through an amazingly rich dataset. However, the AI developments in China rival and in many capacities exceed our own, which can be used to effortlessly sort through the data collected. 

“Chinese President Xi Jinping has promoted the development of application-specific AI which contrasts with the approach that American companies are taking focusing on AGI. This means that they are likely developing novel capabilities explicitly for this data set. 

“While not every American is the target of surveillance campaigns by the Chinese, perhaps the most sensitive data will be tracking information. Our networks reveal every place we have ever taken our phone. One can imagine that this is useful for China if they are seeking to uncover sensitive information. Let's hope everyone in the country was aggressively using airplane mode for the past several years.”