Cate

How do we keep our computing environment safe and secure? Do we depend on market forces and economic competition to bring us safer hardware and software, or do we pass new laws?

The former hasn’t worked well, but there is resistance to the latter, according to Fred Cate, the C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law at Indiana University. Cate will discuss the role of law in cybersecurity in a talk from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, in G01 Gates Hall.

The lecture is the third and final in a series of talks featuring recognized thought leaders on the international dimensions of cybersecurity, presented by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and cosponsored by the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

This session, Cate said, will examine the role of law and policy in enhancing cyber preparedness and prospects for a more effective role in the future. The role of law is especially important – and challenging – in international contexts, he said.

Cate is vice president for research and adjunct professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University. He served from 2003 to 2014 as the founding director of the university’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, where he is a senior fellow.

He is a member of the National Academies’ Forum on Cyber Resilience, and chairs the academies’ study on Law Enforcement and Intelligence Access to Plaintext Information in an Era of Widespread Strong Encryption: Options and Tradeoffs. He is a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Committee Cybersecurity Subcommittee, the National Security Agency’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Panel, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Panel of Experts on Health Information Infrastructure, and Intel’s Privacy and Security External Advisory Board. He also serves as a senior policy advisor to the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton and Williams LLP.