March 13 , 2012 - Carl Landwehr

Title: Cybersecurity: How did we get here and how do we get out of here?

Abstract:

The great successes of the Internet and modern computing devices in making business, travel, communication, and much of life better in many ways are moderated by the increasing evidence that the foundations of the technology are vulnerable to many kinds of attacks. The entire concept of privacy is in a state of flux. While the precise meaning of "cyberwar" is debated, the military prepares for attack and defense in the medium of cyberspace. What we now call cybersecurity research has its roots in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This talk will survey the state of things, consider why the results of past research seem to have had so little uptake in modern products, and suggest a few directions for future research and policy that
could lead us to a less dangerous place.

Bio:

Following a 23-year career conducting cybersecurity research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Carl Landwehr spent the past twelve years funding, managing, and guiding cybersecurity research programs for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and its predecessor organizations, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dr. Landwehr recently completed a four year term as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine. He has received awards for research achievement and community service from ACM SIGSAC, from the IEEE Computer Society, from the IEEE-CS TC on Security and Privacy, and from IFIP. Dr. Landwehr's research interests include all areas of trustworthy computing. His degrees are from Yale and the University of Michigan, and he has taught classes at Purdue, the University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Virginia Tech. Since November, 2011,
he has worked as an independent consultant.