Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Security Networking

Berkeley Researchers Examine Five Worst-Case Security Nightmares (berkeley.edu) 22

An anonymous reader writes: Berkeley researchers have gamed out five worst-case security scenarios at their Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, calling it "a disciplined, imaginative approach to modeling what cybersecurity could mean in the future...to provoke a discussion about what the cybersecurity research and policy communities need to do now in order to be better positioned..." Two of the scenarios are set in 2020 -- one called "The New Normal" imagining a world were users assume their personal information can no longer be kept safe, and another involving the privacy and security implications in a world where hackers lurk undetected on a now-ubiquitous Internet of Things.

"Our goal is to identify emerging issues that will become more important..." they write in an executive summary, including "issues on the table today that may become less salient or critical; and new issues that researchers and decision-makers a few years from now will have wished people in the research and policy communities had noticed -- and begun to act on -- earlier.

Scenario #2 imagines a super-intelligent A.I. which can predict and even manipulate the behavior of individuals, and scenario #3 involves criminals exploiting valuable data sets -- and data scientists -- after an economic collapse.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Berkeley Researchers Examine Five Worst-Case Security Nightmares

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward
    That's the "new norm" now...
  • Until some people get a clue.
  • These people have no clue and very likely nothing they do is anywhere near fact-based.

    • You just say that because you are not super intelligent.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        If you mean that my intelligence is not on the right level so that I can see their unmitigated greatness, I am damn happy that this is the case.

        • Not at all. It's my commentary on the summary's use of "super-intelligent" as opposed to just intelligent: "Scenario #2 imagines a super-intelligent A.I. which can predict and even manipulate the behavior of individuals"
    • Re:#2 says it all (Score:5, Informative)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Saturday April 30, 2016 @10:38AM (#52018681)

      Let's start with their name:
      The Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity.

      whatever

      Next, click on the link to go to a page that is, essentially, the summary posted here. Click on a link there to go to a page with summaries of the scenarios. Click on each one of those ...

      whatever

      The scenarios:

      1. The new normal - postulates that there is NOTHING you can do to stop crackers anywhere in the world from cracking your systems.

      2. Omega - remember Isaac Asimov's "Hari Seldon" and "psychohistory"? Well this postulates exactly that but at an individual level. Each PERSON'S behaviour can be modelled and predicted.

      3. Bubble 2.0 - advertising companies go bankrupt and criminals buy their data sets. Because their data is always so accurate.

      4. Intentional Internet of Things - networked water meters and Internet connected fridges lead to a Utopia. But crackers seek to exploit the massive number of Things connected in your house.

      5. Sensorium - your fitbit tells you (and the Internet) how far you've walked and how happy/sad you are. Crackers hack your hormones and endorphins.

      whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever

      I don't think "worst-case" means what they think it means. O "nightmares". Or "security".

      • As _privacy_ concerns, not bad, but there are many, MANY worse security nightmares.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Hahaha, nice. I should possibly start to read these things again even when they scream "stupid" at me from far away. May provide some entertainment value.

  • "...one called "The New Normal" imagining a world were users assume their personal information can no longer be kept safe"

    Too late, I already assume this is the case for the vast majority of people.

    The IoT is only going to make exploits more common and pervasive, and far more creative in terms of their destructive capability.

  • I guess I lucked out. I applied to UCB in 1985 but I was rejected because they were full.

    While they were once the global leaders in real world computer science, I wonder what they do today other than this type of drivel.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    https://cltc.berkeley.edu/file... [berkeley.edu]

    Mother of fuck. Why can't we just get to the meat of things?

Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach

Working...