Inherent Cyber Insecurity and Our National Security: Surviving on a Diet of Poisoned Fruit

Cyber systems are a security paradox. Even as they grant unprecedented powers, they also make users less secure. They nourish us, but at the same time they weaken and poison us. This talk aims to illuminate causes of this insecurity, reasons it is ineradicable, and policy consequences that should flow from this perception. It aims particularly to connect insight into digital technologies with recommendations for new approaches to enhance American national security.

Richard Danzig is a member of the Defense Policy Board, The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, and the Homeland Security Secretary’s Advisory Council, a Trustee of Reed College and of the RAND Corporation, a Director of the Center for a New American Security and a Director of Saffron Hill Ventures (a European investment firm). In recent time he has been a director of National Semiconductor Corporation (NY Stock Exchange) and Human Genome Sciences Corporation (NASDAQ). He has also served as The Chairman of the Board of The Center for a New American Security, Vice Chair of RAND, and Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.