Topic: Security

Our long-term interaction with the web will be defined by six trends. These trends will will involve dramatic changes that will make computing more like what we are used to seeing in many of today's movies. Kevin Kelly explains why he believes that soon the internet will beneficially surround us in ways that most users don't imagine today.

In the future consumers may have lower costs for services they demand but at the cost of their privacy and attention, while private enterprise will benefit from a wide variety of customers and more expansive relationships with those customers. Martin Geddes imagines the public will soon be ready to receive billing and customer service notices via pay-per-moment options added to Twitter or other social media instead of through today's minute-based telephony.

Nearly every day the news media carries stories about how much information the government compiles about the average citizen. As Daniel J. Solove writes in his new book Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security, many people say, "If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry about government surveillance." However, Solove argues that it should not be necessary to choose security over privacy. He discusses the history of privacy law and reviews the problems of technology and privacy.

Jamillah Knowles and Chris Vallance tease out the strands of the Wikileaks story so far and chat with experts on the real meaning of cyberwar and the future of leaked documents. Oh - and there's a great song about maths too.

Stormy Peters of the GNOME Foundation makes a call for the development of free, open-source web services in which complete data rights are maintained by the user. Noting cases of data lock-outs, or re-use of user data by service providers, she calls for close examination of user agreements. In this short and earthy appeal, Peters says "Don't give away your future choices with the choices you make today."

Technology reporter Glenn Fleishman discusses a number of current networking and mobile issues. Beginning with an examination of a newly found hole in the 802.11 standard, he also discusses WiFi security issues and how both enterprises and the personal users are dealing with them. Glenn also reviews such topics as location data, the now legal ability to jailbreak the iPhone, and his objections to the DMCA.

Developing software solutions for the defence and intelligence industries is not normally open to public discussion. In this exciting talk Lena Trudeau interviews experts from Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on how their organizations manage and embrace the latest web technologies. Find out how Dungeons and Dragons inspired the Intelligence community and what Twitter has to do with the Department of Defense.

Join Alex "Sandy" Pentland as he talks about the indoor spaces of the city and the answers that can be gleaned from human movements within the interiors of buildings. From the movement of bees to the layout of boardroom locations, software can be used to predict and prevent communication failures. Tracking organizational and social behavior through data analysis has the potential to improve and perhaps even change the world.

Everyone has too many distractions and too many fires to put out. How can you stay aware of the status of your systems and prioritize events that interrupt your day? Conrad Albrecht-Buehler presents "Heed": Simpler than a dashboard, but more informative. Less disruptive than an alarm, it helps you keep an eye on your systems and gives you a more usable warning when things are going to blow!

Cloud computing can be a powerful tool in academic research but the costs associated with commercial implementations and the established hardware available at most universities has left a gap in the development of solutions for academic environments. Join Rich Wolski, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbra, as he discusses the challenges involved with building an open source project that gets scientists' heads into the (computing) cloud.