IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM

7:00 PM, Monday, 5 May 2014

Broad Institute Auditorium (formerly MIT building NE-30)

Note: Date & Location Change

Internet, Security, and Power

Bruce Schneier

The Internet affects power, and power affects the Internet. And while we first thought that the Internet would empower the powerless, the reality is much more complicated. Both government and corporate power dominate today's Internet even as distributed groups gain in power. This talk examines the various ways power manifests itself in the Internet, and how security both allows the powerful to remain so while permitting the powerless to thrive as well. On the Internet, data equals power, and the dynamic between the various forces is the fundamental societal issue of the Information Age.

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a "security guru" by The Economist. He is the author of 12 books -- including Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Thrive -- as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter "Crypto-Gram" and his blog "Schneier on Security" are read by over 250,000 people. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, has served on several government committees, and is regularly quoted in the press. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, a program fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Advisory Board Member of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Chief Technology Officer at Co3 Systems, Inc.

See https://www.schneier.com/ for some hints on what Bruce is thinking about security issues.

This joint meeting of the Boston Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society and GBC/ACM will be held in the Broad Institute Auditorium (MIT building NE-30). The Broad Institute, whose formal address is 7 Cambridge Center, is located on Main St between Vassar and Ames streets. You can see it on a map at this location. The auditorium is on the ground floor near the entrance.

Up-to-date information about this and other talks is available online at https://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/. You can sign up to receive updated status information about this talk and informational emails about future talks at https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/ieee-cs, our self-administered mailing list.

Updated: April 19, 2014.