The R. Kent Nagle Lecture Series
February 24, 2005
Andrew M. Odlyzko explores the topic "Cybersecurity, Mathematics, and Limits on
Technology"
Audience: The talk is open, intended for the general public, and
it is free.
Date: February 24, 2005
Time: Thursday evening 7:30-8:30 p.m.
Place: BSF 100, at USF-Tampa (For a map of the campus,
click here.)
Parking: Free parking is available in the lot adjacent to the lecture
hall and in the lot just to the south of the Administration Building, if necessary.
Andrew M. Odlyzko
Andrew M. Odlyzko
Cybersecurity, Mathematics, and Limits on Technology
A description of the talk: Mathematics has contributed immensely
to the development of secure cryptosystems and protocols. Yet our networks are terribly
insecure, and we are constantly threatened with the prospect of imminent doom. Furthermore,
even though such warnings have been common for the last two decades, the situation
has not gotten any better. On the other hand, there have not been any great disasters
either. To understand this paradox, we need to consider not just the technology,
but also the economics, sociology, and psychology of security. Any technology that
requires care from millions of people, most very unsophisticated in technical issues,
will be limited in its effectiveness by what those people are willing and able to
do. This imposes strong limits on what formal mathematical methods can accomplish,
and suggests that we will have to put up with the equivalent of baling wire and
chewing gum, and to live on the edge of intolerable frustration.
A description of the speaker: Andrew M. Odlyzko is the director
of the Digital Technology Center, Professor of Mathematics, and holds an ADC endowed
chair at the University of Minnesota. He graduated from Caltech and received his
Ph.D from MIT as a Hertz Foundation Fellow. His research interests are so diverse
that we can only list a few: Computational complexity, cryptography, number theory,
combinatorics, coding theory, analysis, probability, electronic publishing, electronic
commerce, economics of data networks, and technology and society. He is on editorial
boards of more than twenty mathematical journals, and is on several advisory boards.
He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1986,
and has been a keynote speaker at numerous workshops and conferences on mathematics,
computer science, and technology. He holds patents in network congestion, economics,
and cryptography. Professor Odlyzko has an honorary doctororate from the University
of Marne La Vallee.