Tag Archives: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cybersecurity

At an MIT book launch in Zurich, David Shrier and Alex Pentland advertized a new book co-edited by them, “New Solutions for Cybersecurity.” Some takeaways from the event:

  • The really dangerous cyber attacks are yet to come.
  • All major governments are directly or indirectly involved.
  • A promising strategy of minimizing risks relies on (i) continuous encryption; (ii) no central storage of data but case by case requests for data; and (iii) log queries to manage/monitor access.
  • The European General Data Protection Regulation is helpful.
  • Cybersecurity is big business.

To Best Serve the Nation and the World

L. Rafael Reif, President of MIT, in an open letter to the MIT community:

The Executive Order on Friday appeared to me a stunning violation of our deepest American values, the values of a nation of immigrants: fairness, equality, openness, generosity, courage. The Statue of Liberty is the “Mother of Exiles”; how can we slam the door on desperate refugees? Religious liberty is a founding American value; how can our government discriminate against people of any religion? In a nation made rich by immigrants, why would we signal to the world that we no longer welcome new talent? In a nation of laws, how can we reject students and others who have established legal rights to be here? And if we accept this injustice, where will it end? Which group will be singled out for suspicion tomorrow? …

Yet I would like us to think seriously about the fact that both within the MIT community and the nation at large, there are people of goodwill who see the measures in the Executive Order as a reasonable path to make the country safer. We would all like our nation to be safe. I am convinced that the Executive Order will make us less safe. Yet all of us, across the spectrum of opinion, are Americans.

In this heated moment, I urge every one of us to avoid with all our might the forces that are driving America into two camps. If we love America, and if we believe in America, we cannot allow those divisions to grow worse. We need to imagine a shared future together, if we hope to have one. I am certain our community can help work on this great problem, too, by starting right here at home.