Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS)

"Are People Basically Good?" - An Interweaving Story of Trust, Commerce, and Technology at the Long Tail

Abstract:
A Commerce website was born more than fourteen years ago just about the time the Internet was taking off. It boldly brought buyers and sellers together with the limited tools and technologies available then.... It helped them conduct commerce without physically meeting each other but trusting each other with goods and money. A model for trust and social network was facilitated by technology through online commerce. The phenomenal growth and evolution of this site called eBay is filled with stories of man meets machine. In this talk we will discuss technical, economic, and social aspects of these stories at the “Long Tail” – a term that has become synonymous with eBay.

Bio:
Neel Sundaresan is the head of eBay Research Labs and a Senior Director. His current areas of research interest includes Social and Incentive Networks, Trust and Reputation Systems, Machine Learning as applied to Recommender systems, Classification, Ontology, and Search. He joined eBay in 2005 as a Distinguished Research Scientist. Prior to joining eBay was a founder and CTO of a startup focused on multi-attribute fuzzy search and network CRM. Prior to this he was the head of the eMerging Internet Technologies group at the IBM Research Center. There he built the first XML-based Search Engine. He was one of the early leaders in building XML technologies including schema-aware compression algorithms, application component generators and pattern-match systems and compilers. He built the first RDF reference implementation as a W3C standard recommendation. He led research work in other areas like domain specific search engines, multi-modal interfaces and assistive technologies, semantic transcoding, web mining, query systems, and classification for semi-structured data. Prior to this he worked on C++ compiler and runtime systems for massively parallel machines and for shared memory systems and also on retargetable compilers, program translators and generators. He has over 40 research publications and several patents to his credit. He has been a frequent speaker at several national and international technology conferences. He has advised 2 PhD and several masters dissertations. He has a degree in mathematics and a masters in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a PhD in computer science from Indiana University, Bloomington. His dissertation was on Modeling Control and Dynamic Data Parallelism in Object-Oriented Languages.Read More

Over-Exposure in the Digital World: Drawing the Line between our Public and Private Selves

A job applicant searches the web for information on the person who has called her in for an interview; at the same time the interviewer pulls up the applicant’s Facebook page. Do personal searches of this kind violate the ethics o...f online behavior? Do they blur the line between one’s public and private lives? Or are they simply a legitimate—and helpful way to enrich a job-related conversation?

Join the Dartmouth community for a discussion of these and other ethical issues wrought by the digital era. “Over-Exposure in the Digital World” a panel discussion hosted jointly by Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS) and the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) in recognition of Cyber Security Awareness Month will explore a range of topics related to the separation of our private and public selves online, addressing such vexing questions as: Does an employer have the right to monitor and control its employees’ online activities? Does anonymity alter a person’s online behavior and is that OK? Should any information posted on the Internet be considered private? Do these questions suggest a paradigm shift in human interaction unique to the cyber realm or have we faced similar questions from technologies in the past?

The panel—moderated by Denise Anthony, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Research Director of ISTS—will feature:

- Hans Brechbuhl, Adjunct Associate Professor of Business Administration at Tuck
- James Moor, Daniel P. Stone Professor in Intellectual and Moral Philosophy
- Charles Palmer, Chief Technical Officer of Security and Privacy at IBM and strategic advisor to the I3P
- Mark Williams, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies

For more information visit http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/events/overexposurepaneldiscussion.htmlRead More

The ISTS - Neukom Institute Internship Program

Starting with the Winter 2010 term, the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS) and the Neukom Institute
will offer leave-term funding each term to support an undergraduate
pursuing work experience at the nexus of our institutes’ missions. In
every instance, a c...ompany, organization or advisor must be located
before an application can be submitted.

This off-term internship support can be used to
help you gain work experience, advance research skills or become familiar with
a new area of information technology, including topics as diverse as:


- the use of computational thinking in academic
disciplines (i.e., the sciences, social sciences, and humanities) or in
real-world applications
- the impact of information technology on security and
privacy throughout society
- the relation of information technology to
socio-economic forces, cultural values and political influences



For more information and to apply go to: http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/opportunities/internship-program/index.html

Applications Due: October 28th!Read More

"Securing Your eLife"
Technology and You Discussion Series

Did Iraqi War veteran Colonel Hassan really leave $30M from which I can profit?
Did PayPal really temporarily limit my account?
Does Computing Services really want my user ID and password?
Should I take all these Facebook quizzes?

October is National Cyber Security ...Awareness Month. To raise awareness and help our community stay secure online the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS), Peter Kiewit Computing Services, and the Dartmouth Digital Interest Group (DDIG) present a discussion led by staff and students to provide answers to your questions and recommendations and guidance on how to stay safe online.

About the Technology & You Discussion Series Join the Dartmouth community for discussions about new technologies in society-what do digital technologies do for us? To us? What do new technologies mean for us as individuals, as a community, as a society? What are the personal and social benefits as well as the potential costs of using new technologies? The Technology & You discussion series invites Dartmouth students, faculty, and staff to share thoughts and experiences about digital technologies and their impact on us and on society.

Brought to you by the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS), Peter Kiewit Computing Services, and the Dartmouth Digital Interest Group (DDIG)
Read More

Andrew Cutts, Director for Cyber Security
Office of Policy, Department of Homeland Security

Abstract:

Cybersecurity is a broad and multi-faceted field. Many people and organizations see individual facets. Cybersecurity leaders within the Department of Homeland Security must be cognizant of many. The DHS Office of Policy, ...which looks across organizational boundaries, helps to provide them this view. Its role is to help harmonize efforts across component missions, to think broadly and long-term.

Mr. Cutts will talk about that role, discussing a range of cybersecurity policy issues he has dealt with since joining DHS in March of last year.

These include supporting the national cyber initiative, developing cybersecurity strategies, advancing the understanding of national cyber risk, clarifying roles and missions, and helping operational efforts mature.


Bio:
Mr. Cutts joined the Department of Homeland Security in March 2008, working within the Office of Policy as Director for Cyber Security.

Prior to joining DHS, he directed the Cyber Conflict Research Institute at Norwich University Applied Research Institutes. While there, he organized a national research consortium in the field of cyber conflict to perform related research for industry and government, developed Cabinet-level exercises for the Department of Homeland Security, and worked with crisis managers in the finance sector to develop a distributed, scenario-based, computer simulation of securities transactions. While at Norwich University he consulted for the Japanese Cabinet Ministry on cyber threats. He was also on the board of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association, a non-profit entity dedicated to broadening national intellectual capacity in the field of cyber conflict.

From 2002-2004 he was a research program manager at the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth College.

He was in the private sector from 1995 to 2002, where he became Vice President for Information Technology at a high-tech engineering services firm based in Connecticut. Before that, he served as a Naval Intelligence Officer for nine years.Read More