Panel Discussion: Hacking Comes of Age
Time: March 18, 2010 - 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall)
The image of hacking as the work of the solitary teenager curiously testing the limits of a computer security system has been replaced with major institutions being targeted by sophisticated groups of cyber thieves, spies and warriors. Climategate, Ghostnet and acts of “infowar” have transformed the face of hacking in the 21st century.
This panel will explore the changing nature of computer hacking by highlighting some recent cases that have made headlines and raised dire questions about computer security as a new infrastructure problem. Some of these questions include:
• How was privacy compromised by the Climategate hackers so that the findings of climate change science that deals with global warming was itself placed in doubt?• What countries are using cyber tactics to spy upon one another and gather sensitive intelligence?
• How do corporations use computers to engage in theft of intellectual property thereby gaining a competitive advantage in the market and make hacking an act of industrial espionage?
• Which countries are engaging in acts of information warfare (iWar) and sabotage and potentially how damaging are cyber warfare tactics?
Panel Moderator: Peter Madsen, Distinguished Service Professor for Ethics and Social Responsibility, Office of the Vice Provost for Education and Heinz College
Invited Panelists:
Dawn Capelli, Senior Member of the Technical Staff in CERT, Software
Engineering Institute
Paul Fischbeck, Professor of Social and Decision Sciences and of
Engineering and Public Policy
Jason Hong, Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science, Human
Computer Interaction Institute
Richard Perthia, Director of the CERT Program, Software Engineering
Institute Fellow and CyLab Co-Director
Richard Power, Distinguished Fellow and the Director of Strategic
Communications, CyLab