Invited Technical Speaker Susan Landau: Bits and Bites: Explaining Communications Security (and Insecurity) in Washington and Brussels

From Anita Borg Institute Wiki

Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems

Communications security is hard enough to explain for computer scientists: Why is it easy to wiretap cell phone calls and hard to wiretap VoIP? What is location difficult to determine in an IP network —- after all, packets get to where they’re going, don’t they? If the military can manage secure communications, why can’t the public? Providing answers to these questions becomes significantly harder if the audience is non technical — but no less important. In a world of both terrorism and natural disasters, understanding the what begets communications security — and communications insecurity — is critical for people making public policy decisions. In this talk I will discuss the technical concerns behind communications surveillance and communications security, as well as what its is like to bring these issues to people in Washington, Brussels, and points in between.

Valerie Bubb Fenwick wrote the blog for this session.