This roundtable will bring together, for the first time, three prominent computer hackers from the golden age of the underground hacking scene (the 1990s and early 2000s) in conversation with one of academia’s leading voices in the burgeoning field of hacker studies. Hackers have had an outsized influence on the technologies we use on a daily basis, but their story isn’t often told to the public. This event will be a unique window into the culture that helped bring us the modern Internet.
The roundtable participants have invented seminal attack and defense strategies in network security, helped establish and criticize the modern computer security industry, and, in one prominent case, have had to endure federal prison time over a questionable conviction. We expect the roundtable to cover topics as varied as the evolution of computer security over the past few decades to the state of the American prison system. This event will appeal to students, faculty and researchers with an interest in computer security, security studies, history of technology, technology ethics, and Internet culture.
The participants include:
- Gabriella Coleman (Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University), moderator
- Mike Schiffman (Lead of Network Security Engineering, Google)
- Rocky Witt (Senior Security Engineer, Cryptocurrency Industry)
- Stephen Watt (Software Engineer, DomainTools)
Event sponsored by The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Department of Anthropology, The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, The Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, The Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship, The Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, The Notre Dame International Security Center, The Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society, The Idzik Computing and Digital Technologies Minor, and the College of Arts and Letters Office of Digital Strategy.
Organizers: Felipe Murillo (Anthropology), Walter Scheirer (Computer Science and Engineering)