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Blog
Gene's blog posts are hosted at:
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/author/spaf/
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/author/spaf/
June 28 2009
Tonight (June 27) was the annual ACM Awards Banquet. This event is where various awards and recognitions are made, although most are announced well in advance. Among other things, this is when the Turing Award is officially given (this year, to Professor Barbara Liskov), and when the new class of… read moreOn Cyber Czars and 60-day Reports
May 30 2009
Today, and Before On July 17, 2008, (then) Senator Barack Obama held a town hall meeting on national security at Purdue University. He and his panel covered issues of nuclear, biological and cyber security. (I blogged about the event here and here.) As part of his remarks at the event, Senator… read moreMay 20 2009
In lieu of a new posting here, let me direct you to the June 2009 issue of Communications of the ACM, pages 22-24. That is an essay I wrote that echoes some of the themes of things I have posted here. I would be interested in your comments. read moreCyber security challenges and windmills
March 30 2009
[Note: the following is primarily about U.S. Government policies, but I believe several points can be generalized to other countries.] I was editing a section of my website, when I ran across a link to a paper I had forgotten that I wrote. I'm unsure how many people actually saw it… read moreMarch 21 2009
On March 19, I had an opportunity to testify before the Senate Committee on on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The hearing was entitled Cybersecurity – Assessing Our Vulnerabilities and Developing An Effective Defense. I was asked to include information on research problems, educational initiatives, and issues regarding the current state of… read moreFebruary 16 2009
Short answer: " Almost certainly, no." Longer answer: The blogosphere is abuzz with comments on John Markoff's Saturday NT Times piece, Do We Need a New Internet? John got some comments from me about the topic a few weeks back. Unfortunately, I don't think a new Internet will solve the problems we… read moreUnsecured Economies, and Overly-secured Reports
January 31 2009
The Report Over the last few months, CERIAS faculty members Jackie Rees and Karthik Kannan have been busy analyzing data collected from IT executives around the world, and have been interviewing a variety of experts in cybercrime and corporate strategy. The results of their labors were published yesterday by the McAfee… read moreJanuary 30 2009
Yesterday and today I was reading repeated news stories about the pending bailout—much of it intended to prop up companies with failed business models and incompetent management. Also distressing are the stories of extravagant bonuses for financial managers who are likely responsible for creating some of the same economic mess… read moreJanuary 11 2009
As our technology becomes more complex, it is often shipped with flaws and missing features. The evolution of the Internet coupled with a “must ship” attitude has led to a number of interesting business practices. One in particular, remote updates/patching, presents some interesting reliability issues. One of the best known versions… read moreE-voting rears its head. Again.
January 02 2009
Over the last few years, I have been involved in issues related to the use of computerization in voting. This has come about because of my concerns about computer security, privacy and reliability, and from my role as chair of the ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM). USACM has taken… read moreDecember 31 2008
Yesterday, I posted a long entry on the recent news about how some researchers obtained a “rogue” certificate from one of the Internet Certificate Authorities. There are some points I missed in the original post that should be noted. The authors of the exploit have a very readable, interesting description… read moreA Serious Threat to Online Trust
December 30 2008
There are several news stories now appearing (e.g., Security News) about a serious flaw in how certificates used in online authentication are validated. Ed Felten gives a nice summary of how this affects online WWW site authentication in his Freedom to Tinker blog posting. Brian Krebs also has his usual… read moreWord documents being used in new attacks
December 18 2008
I have repeatedly pointed out (e.g., this post) to people that sending Word files as attachments is a bad idea. This has been used many, many times to circulate viruses, worms, and more. People continue to push back because (basically) it is convenient for them. How often have we heard… read moreRethinking computing insanity, practice and research
December 16 2008
[tags]security, history, cyber security, CSIS, insanity, firewalls, IDS, viruses, research[/tags] [A portion of this essay appeared in the October 2008 issue of Information Security magazine. My thanks to Dave Farber for a conversation that spurred me to post this expanded version.] I’d like to repeat (portions of) a theme I have been… read moreNovember 16 2008
[This is dervied from a posting of mine to Dave Farber’s Interesting People list.] There is an article in the October Businessweek that describes the problem of counterfeit electronic components being purchased and used in critical Defense-related products. This is not a new threat. But first let’s reflect on the past. Historically, the… read more
