Dependable IT for Mega Disasters
Dr. Jane Liu, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica
Dr. Chi-Sheng (Daniel) Shih, National Taiwan University
Jane Liu provided an excellent talk on the role of technology and information in preparedness, prediction and warning, response, and recovery to help lower the impact of natural or other disasters. She talked about the impressive research she and her colleagues have undertaken at the National Taiwan University in showing the importance of sensors and data collection, filtering, and analyses to more effectively react to and diminish the impact of natural disasters.
Securing Our eCITY®
Liz Fraumann, Director Cybersecurity Awareness and Education, ESET Foundation/Securing Our eCITY®
Liz Fraumann presented striking statistics about the penetration of Internet usage among the populations of the world, with the latest data revealing over 360 million users worldwide. The importance of cyber security has been recognized at every level of government and is the subject of a Presidential Directive. It is a national security that affects every user, who is almost always the weakest link. A surprising number of users are not familiar with Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, and Cybersecurity. Most users seek the assistance of friends rather than professionals when tending to their own cyber security. Liz described a pilot effort in San Diego, “Securing Our eCITY”, a community-based public/private partnership. The mission of Securing Our eCITY is: “to enable every digital citizen to live, work, and play safely in the cyber world”. It addresses itself to business, family, youths, and seniors. Seniors are often the most vulnerable, being “cyber tourists” rather than having spent their entire lives in the cyber world, as have young people. She described how the outreach is working, bringing the “right message to the right people at the right time”. Securing Our eCITY is a broad-based collaborative effort by government industry, education, community, and non-profits. Their motto is: STOP. THINK. CONNECT™.
Panel Discussion
Moderated by Dave Lounsbury (CTO, The Open Group) with Dr. Liu, Dr. Shih, and Liz Fraumann
The Panel discussion was very informative and the panelists were very much aligned in their objectives for a more global and automated approach to the security of our infrastructure and the need for the ability to respond to any damage to that infrastructure.
There were no additional presentations during the panel session.
TOGAF® to the Platform
Ed Roberts, Elparazim
Ed Roberts gave a great presentation on the benefits of evolving TOGAF to the Platform – and talked about if we did extend TGAF to the platform how it would provide a framework for real-time and high assurance architects, who are developing solutions for higher assurance environments. His presentation answered the questions: Why do we care to connect TOGAF to the platform? What does that mean? What needs to be done to affect that connection? What is currently being done concerning this in the RTES and Architecture Forums?
Open Systems Architecture and Data Rights
Nicholas Guertin, Director for Open Architecture, US Navy – DASN (RDT&E)
Nicholas Guertin provided an insightful look at the importance of Open Systems Architecture (OSA) and Data Rights in preventing vendor lock-in and enabling innovative and evolutionary solutions. In his presentation he discussed some important concepts for achieving this – sighting that a successful OSA can be: added to, modified, replace, removed, supported … by different vendors throughout the life cycle. Additionally, he emphasized some of the critical components of OSA: open standards, modularity and loose-coupling, understanding what to look for to get OSA products, leveraging intellectual property/data rights for the life cycle, and utilizing OSA best practices for your own programs.