The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/406282
14 Fall 2014 W π faculty iProfessor Cybersecurity professor brings computer science to a new level A s technology advances into every back pocket through a mul- titude of wireless gadgets, so does the concern of privacy and security in the digital age. To help guide today's students through this digital—and ethical—landmine, Susan Landau, former senior staff privacy analyst at Google and a widely respected authority on cybersecurity, privacy, and public policy, has joined the WPI faculty as a professor of cybersecurity policy. Before Landau began her new position this fall, we sat down to do some prying of our own to discover what she hopes to bring to her tech- savvy students this school year. How did you frst become involved in the cybersecurity feld? In May 1993, the New York Times reported on the "Clipper Chip," a key escrow system proposed by the Clinton administration. Clipper pro- vided 80-bit cryptography for telephone conversations—a reasonable amount for the time—but the keys were split and stored with agencies of the U.S. government. There were many objections to the proposal, and the Association for Computing Machinery, a professional organization of computer scientists, put together a group to study the policy issues. I was part of that group. I later ended up writing a book on wiretapping and encryption policy with a member of the committee, Whitfeld Dif- fe, the co-inventor of public-key cryptography. After our book, Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, was published, Sun Microsystems, where Diffe worked, offered me a job. I was supposed to be two-thirds technical, one-third policy, but at some point I had become three-quarters policy. I thought about it, realized I was hooked on the security and privacy policy issues, and never looked back. What do you hope to convey to your students in regard to privacy and public policy? Privacy and public policy are quite different. On privacy, I'll be teaching a generation of students who have grown up with the Internet, with cell phones, and with increasing electronic gadgetry. I'll also be teaching students who grew up not only in the U.S., but also in other places with different views on privacy. So there's lots to explore here. There's legal issues—for example, examining what the constitutional protections for privacy are, or how legal approaches to privacy differ around the world—policy issues, technical approaches, and a lot more. It will be challenging—and fun. On public policy, I'll be working to teach not only about a wide variety of issues, including digital rights management, privacy (of course!), wire- tap and surveillance, cybersecurity, and telecommunications concerns, but also about how different interests infuence the policy decisions that are made. Why do you think it's important for a science and tech school to instruct students in the social science aspects of cybersecurity? Technology is only part of a solution in cybersecurity. In order for cybersecurity solutions to really take hold, laws and policy incentives have to be aligned. So technologists need to have some understanding of law and policy as well as how the pieces all ft together. But it's also the case that the social sciences are important—for example, anthro- pology, in order to understand the social system before you design your security or privacy solution; psychology, in order to understand how to design systems that people will fnd easy to use; and economics, in order to understand how people measure risk and make choices. As an advocate for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, what do you feel is the biggest road block for women in these areas? What advice would you give to them? Even a half-century after the women's movement began, women are still underestimated, our abilities and skills often called into question. This lessened for me as I got older and developed my professional reputation. But for younger women, this behavior continues and can be overwhelm- ing. So, I have two pieces of advice: "Never, never, never give up"—that's from Winston Churchill. And surround yourself with people who be- lieve in you. That will provide you with the greatest strength as you handle adversity, whether about being a woman or otherwise.