IIT Discussion on the Sony Hack (Jan 27, 2015)
Channel: Shlomo Argamon
Date: 2015-01-29

What is publicly known so far? What is suspected? How can such breaches be prevented? How might we identify the hackers?

The panel of experts give a timeline of what happened and discuss what is known about this and similar incidents – different kinds of security vulnerabilities, what can and cannot be done to protect against this kind of attack, and how to deal with such a breach after the fact. The discussion covers a wide range of technical, legal, and policy issues, with the speakers offering thoughts on how technology and legal professionals can join forces to improve data security.

The speakers are Professors Shlomo Argamon and Kevin Jin of the Illinois Institute of Technology Department of Computer Science and Professor Richard Warner of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

• Shlomo Argamon, who was recently quoted about the hack in the New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR and other media, is an expert in computational linguistics who specializes in determining authorship based on language style. His research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), and other agencies. He is a professor of computer science, the director of the data science program, and the co-editor of Computational Methods for Counterterrorism (Springer 2009).

• Kevin Jin is an assistant professor of computer science who focuses on cyber security, networking, and modeling and simulation of large-scale computing and communication systems and networks. He teaches courses in advanced computer security, information security, and network security. His research has been funded by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

• Richard Warner is faculty director of the Center for Law and Computers, a professor and Freehling Scholar. He is the co-author of Unauthorized Access: The Crisis in Online Privacy and Security and a member of the U.S. Secret Service’s Electronic and Financial Crimes Taskforce. He has written about earlier corporate data breaches, such as at Target [http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141021/OPINION/141029976/why-those-corporate-data-breaches-are-happening].