Jonathan Mayer is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Stanford University, where he received his J.D. in 2013. He was named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2014, for his work on technology security and privacy. Jonathan's research and commentary frequently appears in national publications, and he has contributed to federal and state law enforcement actions.
Jonathan is a Cybersecurity Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, a Junior Affiliate Scholar at the Center for Internet and Society, and a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow. He earned his A.B. at Princeton University in 2009, concentrating in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Jonathan has consulted for both federal and state law enforcement agencies, and his research on consumer privacy has contributed to multiple regulatory interventions. A proud Chicago native, Jonathan is undaunted by freezing weather and enjoys celery salt on a hot dog.
He is teaching Surveillance Law in Autumn 2014 through Coursera and as a Tor hidden service.
Raw Data- Episode 1: Uploaded
September 24, 2015
In this first episode, Mike and I explore how your simplest digital footprints – fragments of Google searches, Facebook likes, and innocuous tweets – can expose deeply intimate facts about you. Like whether your parents are divorced and whether you own a gun. In fact, these vanilla datasets that we all generate every time we use the Internet reveal surprising clues about our personalities and behavior. So how can that information be used, and who is collecting it? We talk to Michal Kosinski of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and Jonathan Mayer, a computer scientist and lawyer. Read more » about Raw Data- Episode 1: Uploaded
New Snowden Documents Reveal Government Collection Of Online Data
June 4, 2015
"WELNA: It could indeed. Hackers, by definition, are trying to break into other people's computer accounts and steal their information, so monitoring their activity means watching them poach on other people's Internet usage and private data. I talked with Jonathan Mayer, a computer security fellow at Stanford who's reviewed these latest Snowden documents. He says because of the way the surveillance law is written, the NSA can actually hang on to that hacked information. Read more » about New Snowden Documents Reveal Government Collection Of Online Data
Jonathan Mayer - Hearsay Culture Show #231 - KZSU-FM
March 4, 2015
CIS Affiliate Scholar David Levine interviews Jonathan Mayer, Stanford Ph.D. candidate in computer science, author of Terms of Abuse: An Empirical Assessment of the Federal Hacking Law, and How to Fix It. Read more » about Jonathan Mayer - Hearsay Culture Show #231 - KZSU-FM
The battle over which company has your number
September 29, 2014
Listen to the full piece at Marketplace.org.
"Now Neustar might lose the contract to Ericsson, which is based in Sweden. Neustar says this would be bad for national security, said Jonathan Mayer, a fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation.
“It certainly is a legitimate concern that the company that routes calls is in position to know a fair amount about law enforcement and intelligence investigations,” Mayer said." Read more » about The battle over which company has your number
Just how much personal information does phone metadata reveal?
May 29, 2014
View the CBS News Broadcast here.
"Stanford University Ph.D. student Jonathan Mayer and his research partner created an Android app called MetaPhone that asked users to volunteer their phone records in an effort to learn what could be uncovered from metadata. More than 500 people signed up. Read more » about Just how much personal information does phone metadata reveal?