Carnegie Mellon and the Council on Competitiveness will co-host the "National Symposium on Competitiveness and Security," Oct. 8-9, at the Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh.

Raymond V. Gilmartin, chairman of the Council on Competitiveness and chairman and CEO of Merck & Company, Inc., Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans, CEO's from some of America's largest companies, labor leaders, academics and others will meet to discuss prospects for economic growth in a new environment of heightened security costs for America's companies.

Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon is a member of the council's executive committee.

Leading universities and government labs will also be on hand to demonstrate technologies that have the capability to enhance both security and productivity. Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute will demonstrate lightweight network technologies for maintaining productivity while under a denial of service attack. Carnegie Mellon's CERT Coordination Center will display its Operationally Critical Threat, Asset and Vulnerability Evaluation System.

The symposium is by invitation only, however it will be broadcast on the Web at www.compete.org using End System Multicast (ESM) technology, pioneered by a Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science research team led by Associate Professor Hui Zhang. ESM can only be deployed by Windows users because software for other operating systems has not yet been completed. For directions on how to tune in to the upcoming conference, see www.cs.cmu.edu/~ESM-streaming.

"America's private sector faces a huge security challenge—to protect employees and customers, plants and facilities at home as well as abroad from attack while maintaining its competitive edge," said Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. "The private sector must take the lead on integrating security into core business practices. We need new ways of thinking to address these critical issues."

Wince-Smith said the symposium is a call to action for government and industry to work together to develop national standards for security while also protecting the pace of productivity.

The Council on Competitiveness, located in Washington, D.C., is a non-partisan, non-profit forum of leaders from the business, university, and labor communities working together to boost U.S. economic competitiveness and raise the standard of living for all Americans.

The symposium is supported by the National Governors Association, the Business Roundtable, the National Academies and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Related Links:

Council on Competitiveness

End System Multicast

Robotics Institute

Software Engineering Institute

End System Multicast News Release

Socket Handoff Defense to Denial of Service Attacks

Anne Watzman
(10/03/02)