Posted by Ted Julian
Gartner’s Science Fiction Writers panel was just crazy enough to work.
This week I’m in Washington, DC at Gartner’s annual IT Security Summit. In case you might be familiar with it, they moved it this year from the Marriot Wardman Park in DC proper to the Gaylord National Resort across the Potomac in Maryland. The locations could not be more different. The Wardman Park was either historic and quaint or run-down and stodgy depending on your perspective. But in any case it was in a true DC neighborhood and right on the Metro; so the greater DC area was just a train ride away. In contrast the Gaylord National is relatively speaking in the middle of nowhere, brand new, and is one of the largest convention-class hotels I’ve even seen. Think of the largest Vegas complex you know of, then make it bigger and plop it on the banks of the Potomac opposite Alexandria, VA. In case you’re interested, development of the area is far from done, there are at least three more hotels under construction out here.
I hope to get a few posts in from the show. Today I thought I’d recap this morning’s quasi keynote entitled, “Science Fiction Writers Panel: Information Security and the Sci-Fi Future.”
The panelists were Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, and Robert Sawyer. Bruce Sterling was listed on the program, but ultimately a no-show. If you’re into Sci-Fi you probably know one or two of these guys – there have multiple Hugo / Nebula award winners / nominations among them. If you’re not, let’s just say this is an all-star panel. Weird unrelated tangents, lengthy obtuse diatribes – this panel could have gone horribly wrong lots of ways. But thanks at least in part to deft guidance by Mr. Sawyer it didn’t. I confess I didn’t understand a fair amount of what they were talking about, but below are a few of the more interesting ideas I heard. By all means, add your feedback for any clarifications or guidance.
- Bacterial computing. Mr Bear was the main proponent of this idea. His theme was that the future of IT solutions, including security, was in biology. Bacterial computing will come after quantum computing. Biological systems are self-programming and routinely operate without perfect information quite effectively. For example, bacteria in our mouths and stomachs are constantly working on our behalf – how can we hack into that function to leverage its capabilities?
- The singularity. According to Wikipedia, this “is a hypothesised point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of self-improving intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two” On this idea, Sawyer suggested that we were on the cusp of reaching this moment, and that for security professionals this meant that the artificial intelligence engine of your competitor would be your new enemy. Bear suggested we are already there as computing systems, including security systems, have become so complex that even the programmers don’t fully understand them.
- Hacked by aliens!. Andrews proposed that with quantum computing we’ll see the ability for data to transmit through time and space and that when that happens, “aliens” will be able to interact and presumable attack our systems.
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