Hacking Comes of Age: Climategate, Cyber-Espionage and iWar

Panel discussion, Thursday, March 18, 2010

4:30pm, McConomy Auditorium, University Center

The image of hacking as the work of the solitary teenager curiously testing the limits of a computer security system has been replaced with major institutions being targeted by sophisticated groups of cyber thieves, spies and warriors.  Climategate, Ghostnet and acts of “infowar” have transformed the face of hacking in the 21st century.

This panel will explore the changing nature of computer hacking by highlighting some recent cases that have made headlines and raised dire questions about computer security as a new infrastructure problem. Some of these questions include:

 • How was privacy compromised by the Climategate hackers so that the findings of climate change science that deals with global warming was itself placed in doubt?

 • What countries are using cyber tactics to spy upon one another and gather sensitive intelligence?

 • How do corporations use computers to engage in theft of intellectual property thereby gaining a competitive advantage in the market and make hacking an act of industrial espionage?

 • Which countries are engaging in acts of information warfare (iWar) and sabotage and potentially how damaging are cyber warfare tactics?

Panel Moderator:

Peter Madsen, Distinguished Service Professor for Ethics and Social Responsibility, Office of the Vice Provost for Education and Heinz College

Panelists:

Richard Pethia, Director of the CERT Program, Software Engineering Institute Fellow and CyLab Co-Director: a brief history of hacking

Paul Fischbeck, Professor of Social and Decision Sciences and of Engineering and Public Policy: hacking and “climate gate”

Dawn Cappelli, Senior Member of the Technical Staff in CERT, Software Engineering Institute: insider fraud, theft of information, and IT sabotage

Jason Hong, Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction Institute: phishing and industrial espionage

Richard Power, Distinguished Fellow and the Director of Strategic Communications, CyLab: China’s alleged hacking of Google

Watch the video as a CyLab News post.

Watch the video on the CyBlog site with commentary.