Complexity and Security - An Essential Connection, A Lacuna of Understanding
Dr. Herb Lin

January 5, 2017

This talk is intended to tee up a discussion on complexity/security trade-offs in a cyber context. It is known among cybersecurity practitioners system complexity correlates with difficulty in assuring cybersecurity. In software, for instance, even systems assembled from secure components cannot be assured to be secure if they are too large or complex. A short presentation will motivate the problem and its importance, and for most of the allotted time, seminar participants will discuss possible ways of systematically understanding this problem.

Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University. His research interests relate broadly to policy-related dimensions of cybersecurity and cyberspace, and the use of offensive operations in cyberspace, especially as instruments of national policy. In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of projects on public policy and information technology, and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar and Senior Fellow in Cybersecurity at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies in the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He recently served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Complexity and Security - An Essential Connection, A Lacuna of Understanding

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored this talk entitled “Complexity and Security - An Essential Connection, A Lacuna of Understanding” by Dr. Herb Lin on Jan. 5, 2017.

LLNL-VIDEO-721257