2014 Gibbons Lecture 4: The Psychology of Computer Insecurity
Room OGGB3/260-092
Owen G Glenn Building, University of Auckland
12 Grafton Road
Auckland
There is public parking in the basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton Road.
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2014 Gibbons Lectures in association with IITP
The 2014 Gibbons Lecture series, presented by the University of Auckland's Computer Science department in association with IITP, is a free public lecture series this year focusing on privacy and security research in NZ. All are welcome.
In modern times, with our reliance upon electronic communication and the burgeoning use of social media, our privacy is under increasing threat. Indeed, privacy, as it applies to both individuals and to governments, is a topic of great current concern.
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves. In the world of computers and communications, privacy is intimately connected to security, which provides a means for us to protect our information from unauthorized access, modification, or use. One cannot expect privacy to be maintained if the systems being used are not secure and, security itself cannot be guaranteed unless some aspects of the security mechanisms, such as passwords, are held privately.
Lecture 4: The Psychology of Computer Insecurity
A fairly standard response with computer security failures is to blame the user. The real culprit, though, is the way in which the human mind works.
Millennia of evolutionary conditioning and the environment in which users operate cause them to act, and react, in predictable ways to given stimuli and situations. This talk looks at the (often surprising) ways in which the human mind deals with computer security issues, and why apparent "bugs in the wetware" are something that not only cannot be patched but are often critical to our functioning as humans.
Includes refreshments
About The Speaker
Dr Peter Gutmann is an honorary research associate of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland. His research is on the design and analysis of cryptographic security architectures and security usability.
He helped write the popular PGP encryption package and has authored a number of papers and RFCs on security and encryption. He is the author of the open source cryptlib security toolkit "Cryptographic Security Architecture: Design and Verification" (Springer, 2003), and also has an upcoming book "Engineering Security".
In his spare time he pokes holes in whatever security systems and mechanisms catch his attention and grumbles about the lack of consideration of human factors in designing security systems.
About the Gibbons Lectures
The Gibbons Lectures is an annual series of talks given in the University of Auckland's Department of Computer Science in association with the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP).
There are 4 lectures delivered at weekly intervals in the first semester. The goal of each lecture is to describe detailed developments in a particular research area to a general but technical audience - to IT professionals, Computer Science students at all levels, and IT practitioners and students in other departments and outside the University.
Registration Details:
Attendance is free however please register below for catering and to secure your place.
Please note that this session may be video or audio recorded for viewing by other members at a later date. As it is possible that audience members may be incidentally recorded, please let us know if you specifically want to be excluded and we will ensure you are not shown.