The next WATCH talk, called Cryptocurrencies: the ideas behind the hype is Thursday, July 21st, from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Arvind Narayanan, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton. He leads a research team investigating the security, anonymity, and stability of cryptocurrencies as well as novel applications of block chains. He co-created an online course and textbook on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies. He also leads the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project to uncover how companies collect and use our personal information. His doctoral research showed the fundamental limits of anonymization, for which he received the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award. Abstract Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have been polarizing. […]

The next WATCH talk, called Welcome to the Panopticon(s) is Thursday, June 16th, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Nicholas Weaver. He received a B.A. in Astrophysics and Computer Science in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2003 from the University of California, Berkeley. Although his dissertation was on novel FPGA architectures, he also focused on computer security, including postulating the possibility of very fast computer worms in 2001. He joined the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in 2003. His primary research focus is on network security, notably worms, botnets, surveillance, and other internet-scale attacks, and network measurement. Other areas have included both hardware acceleration and software […]

The next WATCH talk, called How can we enable privacy in an age of big data analytics? is Thursday, May 19, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Carl Landwehr, a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the first class of inductees to the National Cybersecurity Hall of Fame. His current appointments include Lead Research Scientist at the Cyber Security policy and Research Institute at George Washington University and Visiting McDevitt Professor of Computer Science at LeMoyne College, where he teaches a course entitled “Cybersecurity for Future Presidents.” His thirty five year career in cybersecurity R&D includes service with the Naval Research Laboratory, National Science Foundation, IARPA, and several other […]

The next WATCH talk, called Crypto Wars: Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose is Thursday, April 21, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Susan Landau, professor of Cybersecurity Policy in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Landau works at the intersection of cybersecurity, national security, law, and policy. During the Crypto Wars of the 1990s, her insights on how government encryption policy skewed civil society and business needs for security helped win the argument for a relaxation of cryptographic export controls. Beginning in the early 2000s, Landau was an early voice in the argument that law-enforcement requirements for embedding surveillance within […]

The next WATCH talk, called The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work is Thursday, March 24, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Phillip Rogaway, professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. Rogaway studied cryptography at MIT (1991), then worked as a security architect for IBM before joining the faculty at the University of California, Davis in 1994. Co-inventor of “practice-oriented provable security,” Rogaway’s work seeks to meld cryptographic theory and cryptographic practice in a mutually beneficial way. Abstract: Cryptography rearranges power: it configures who can do what, from what. This makes cryptography an inherently political tool, and it confers on the field an intrinsically moral dimension. […]

The next WATCH talk, called The Citizen Lab’s Mixed Methods Approach to Research on Information Controls is Thursday, January 21, 2016 from Noon-1pm ET. The presenter is Ronald J. Deibert, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab undertakes interdisciplinary research at the intersection of global security, ICTs, and human rights. He is a former founder and principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative (2003-2014) and a founder of Psiphon, a world leader in providing open access to the Internet. Deibert is the author of Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet (Random House: 2013), […]