CNN did a story on the Masters of Science in Security Technologies (MSST) program I’m enrolled in at the U. The story can be found here. I’m in the story for a few seconds of talking and clicking around on my computer at work (I’m clicking on the database app I created, not Solitaire). Except for my appearance on ‘N Sync’s website many years ago, it’s probably my broadest media appearance yet. I’m so proud!

As for the MSST program itself, it’s going very well. Our first course, dealing mainly with the psychology of terrorism, is already over, and it was very interesting. Ron Krebs, the instructor for the majority of the class, handled the class exceptionally, with a very good balance of lecture and group activities, as well as engrossing readings. I and several of my classmates were interested in taking a course he is teaching in the fall, but the workload just isn’t something I could handle while working, planning a wedding, and electioneering. Our current two courses, on critical infrastructure protection and science and technology in security, are also very interesting. They are pretty broad courses with a number of guest speakers lecturing on their particular expertises (cybersecurity, biosecurity, food security, pandemic preparedness, and so on) and they will provide for a good base upon which we can expand in later classes. They are also great at scaring the crap out of us.

In a little more than a month, the summer semester will be over and I’ll be 25% done with my degree. Not bad. Next on the to do list: thinking of a capstone project.

• Current Mood: Hump day
• Currently Listening To: "Let It Bleed", The Rolling Stones

Why am I so interested in issues of data privacy and data security? I think this story about “black boxes” in Toyota cars illustrates it well. In short, Toyota cars have airplane-like black boxes in many of their cars that can track data like speed, whether the airbags deployed, and so forth. However, the data is stored in a proprietary format, and only Toyota can access it; they only do so when requested by law enforcement. I am interested in security and privacy precisely because I want to see the end to what I consider to be horrible practices like this.

I don’t think it’s horrible because black boxes shouldn’t exist, or that they infringe upon privacy. On the contrary: my major problem with this is that it is far too private: only Toyota has access to the data, despite the fact that the owner of the car paid for the black box and the driver of the car is the one generating that data. Toyota should not store this data in a proprietary format that only Toyota has access to, and only when Toyota wants to divulge the information. The owner of the vehicle should have full access to the data at all times and should be able to control it.

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• Current Mood: Friday
• Currently Listening To: "Cityscape", Matt Hunstad