Dear Readers,
This month's Cipher is short and newsy. It is summer time, and
the conference circuit is in full swing. Researchers socialize
and revitalize their deep thoughts in conference season, and then
return to the tough job of generating new papers in the fall.
More and more conferences, including the venerable Security and
Privacy Symposium, are switching to a continuous paper submission
model, which gives the academic workflow some leeway, but puts
more pressure on reviewers. Whatever your role in this process
may be, Cipher wishes you an enjoyable summer.
A few of our news articles this month concern the US Cyber Command and Presidential Memorandum 13. The issue is the reality of offensive cyber operations by the US against foreign countries. We know very little about these operations, but hints have been leaked about infiltrating Russia's power grid. This has caused me to think about the rapid pace of technology and its effect on how we think about the world. Computers are assets integral to the functioning of government and society, computer communication enables world-wide human communication, computers create an amorphous and essential virtual world of data and processing. Now computers are the subject of warfare, the means of warfare, the province of policy, negotiations, and treaties. That's just 60 years from calculating tool to world linchpin. With that kind of rapid change, can we say that we understand the ramifications of cyberwar? It seems unlikely, given that we cannot even guarantee the integrity of something as important as elections. Something to think about during these equinox months.
The Cipher monthly parody of a work that has nothing to do with computer security until its words are twisted:
Moscow Nights (from an American to his Russian lover)
Even whispers aren't heard in the garden,
Everything has died down without power.
If you only knew how dear to me
Are these Moscow nights.
The river moves, unmoving,
All in silver moonlight.
A song is heard, yet unheard,
In these silent nights.
Why do you, dear, look askance,
With your head lowered so?
Do you suspect, should I confess,
I hacked Moscow's power grid?
I wanted us to be alone
In the darkened garden.
No lights, no Internet,
Just a summer, Moscow night.
(My apologies to Mikhail Matusovsky)