innovation

Council on Foreign Relations: There’s A Cop In My Pocket: Policymakers Need to Stop Advocating Surveillance by Default.

August 28, 2023

Encryption is like a baby: It comes with problems, but you wouldn’t solve them with blunt force. There is no safe form of “end-to-half” encryption, no backdoor that serves government authorities without also serving criminals. Yet under the banner of foreign relations, lawmakers continue to advance policies that normalize surveillance by default. These measures turn personal devices into monitoring tools, weakening security for everyone while claiming to strengthen it. Once encryption is compromised, hackers and hostile states gain the same access as police. The result is a quiet dismantling of privacy, civil liberties, and the open internet itself.

Korean pension fund backs corporate royals again

March 9, 2020

Huge pension body continues to protect troubled corporate dynasties, undermining reform efforts

By Geoffrey Cain
Asia Times

Mar 23, 2019

Why Samsung’s recall of Galaxy smartphones threatens its universe

January 1, 2018

As exploding batteries force recall of flagship phone, can a rising star rethink company’s business model to prevent an even bigger bang?

By Geoffrey Cain
South China Morning Post

September 26, 2016

Apple vs. Samsung: Tech’s best frenemies

November 24, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — Since 2011, two titans of the electronics industry — Samsung Electronics and Apple — have been locked in legal warfare over their smart phones and tablets, slinging more than 50 lawsuits at each other on four continents.

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Nov 24, 2013

Can Vietnam breed innovators?

March 1, 2011

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam —Vo Van Toi’s high-tech laboratory clashes against its impoverished surroundings. Outside, cattle roam swampy fields and squatters sell sugarcane from wooden huts. Inside, he shows off his near-infrared spectroscopy machine, which measures oxygen content in blood, and a CT scanner.

By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World

Mar 1, 2011

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Geoffrey Cain In The Media

How China Perfected the Surveillance State

March 25, 2025

Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.

Articles

Thanks to AI, Apple’s China problem is only getting worse

February 21, 2025

For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.