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SUMMARY:'Security Economics' - Professor Ross Anderson - Professor Ross An
 derson
DTSTART:20061114T173000Z
DTEND:20061114T183000Z
UID:TALK5744@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Rebecca Arkell
DESCRIPTION:Until 1945\, both academics and politicians were keenly aware 
 of the interaction between economics and security\; wealthy nations could 
 afford large armies and navies\, enabling them to expand territory or at t
 he very least protect trade. But nowadays a web search on `economics' and 
 `security' turns up relatively few articles. The main reason is that after
  1945 both academics and officials working on economics drafted apart from
  those working on national security\; nuclear weapons were thought to deco
 uple national survival from economic power\, and while the USA confronted 
 the USSR over security\, it fought with Japan and the EU over trade.\n\nOv
 er the last half-dozen years\, interest in security economics has revived\
 , driven by information security problems. From bank card fraud through sp
 am and phishing to digital rights management\, many of the thorny problems
  of the information age resist purely technical solutions. Incentives matt
 er\, and very often things fail because the people defending a system are 
 not the people who suffer the costs of failure. Internet insecurity has be
 en likened to environmental\npollution: someone connecting an insecure PC 
 to the Internet does not face all the costs of their action\, any more tha
 n someone heating their house with a coal fire.\n\nProf. Anderson will dis
 cuss recent research in security economics\, which is starting to spill ov
 er from pure information security issues to neighbouring problems from sys
 tem dependability to the economics of crime and conflict.\n
LOCATION:Boys Smith Room\, Fisher Building\, St Johns College
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