Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute (ISI) and an associate research professor in the Department of Computer Science, delivered a keynote talk during a pre-workshop event preceding the 35th USENIX Security Symposium. The event was held August 10–11 in Baltimore and focused on the topics of privacy and security.
Dahbura’s talk provided attendees with perspective on the privacy and security research happening at Johns Hopkins. The ISI was founded in 2001, but over the past 25 years, technology has changed significantly—namely with the rise of artificial intelligence.
“We can’t expect perfection with AI. We’re getting great, but not perfect, at understanding AI,” Dahbura says.
Yaxing Yao and Erik Rye, both assistant professors of computer science at Johns Hopkins, and Yinzhi Cao, the technical director of the ISI and an associate professor of computer science, planned the pre-workshop event.
More than 50 attendees from 19 universities and organizations joined for keynote talks and panel discussions on a range of topics. Panelists came from a variety of cybersecurity backgrounds, including academia, government, and industry.
“AI is changing the security and privacy landscape for the public and researchers alike,” Rye remarks.
“By gathering a group of top researchers in the intersection of AI, security, and privacy, we discussed some of the most critical, unresolved issues in this area, which can be helpful for the faculty and students who work in the broader AI, privacy, and security areas in the university’s Data Science and AI Institute,” adds Yao.
Participants also had the opportunity to join small group discussions about AI and related research themes. Many students attended the event, including several in the Master of Science in Security Informatics program.
Yao says he hopes the pre-workshop gave students the opportunity to learn about various career pathways in security and privacy, while also allowing them to present their work and receive mentoring from industry experts.