This paper considers how cyber-enabled diplomacy may be undertaken by the United States. While cyber warfare has been a popular topic of discussion over the past decade, less has attention has been directed at the use of cyber instruments (information technology, social media, the blogosphere, etc.) in diplomatic engagement. Considered here is the debate regarding cybersecurity issues and how that debate factors into U.S. diplomatic initiatives. Covered are the: (a) framing of the issue; (b) emergence of cyberspace as an issue for diplomacy; (c) coverage of major incidents for consideration; and (d) prescriptive elements for inter-agency and intra-State Department policy development and collaboration. Considering Cyber Statecraft Should the United States appoint an ambassador to cyberspace? This question is the starting point for thinking about the elements necessary for diplomatic engagement in cyberspace by the United States. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reminded audiences in the United States and abroad, the Internet matters to America's diplomatic initiatives around the globe. This is codified in the State Department's organizational plan for the next few years, its sweeping inaugural Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). One of the State Department's new capacities to be developed is the position of a "coordinator for cyber issues." This position's incumbent "will lead State's engagement on cybersecurity and other cyber issues, including efforts to protect a critical part of diplomacy-the confidentiality of communications between and among governments." 1 Broader thinking on the "other cyber issues," however, is desirable for the State Department's first top cyber diplomat, and the capacities and deficiencies of the department must be carefully considered as it moves more deliberately into the international politics of the global digital information space. In a way, this is a paper directed at an audience of one: the cyber coordinator. Topics considered in this study include the an overview of the shaping of the State Department
SummaryFor 10 weeks during the summer of 2011, two Rice University student interns from the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership collaborated with faculty from the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy on a consultative engagement with the City of Houston. The program was initiated after stakeholders in the city's departments of Administrative and Regulatory Affairs and Information Technology indicated an interest in inviting outside talent to look at some of their most pressing issues. Under the supervision of Rice University adjunct faculty member Tory Gattis, the two students interns, Vivas Kumar and Robyn Moscowitz, worked to identify solutions, develop strategy, and prepare software prototypes for adoption by City of Houston offices.This report details the overarching framework that spurred our interest in bringing software engineering and information management talent to the City's problem set. With budgetary pressures continuing, there is a need for the City to better utilize its information resources and to migrate to more lean, nimble mechanisms that can locate, develop, and integrate the information services it needs. The days of seeking large, highly customized, platform-based information technology (IT) provided at high cost are over for America's large cities because the costs are unsustainable. Some answers will be provided by the proprietary IT market, but others will require unorthodox collaborations between small teams of software developers and government, with the end result being grassroots technical entrepreneurship.Beyond our philosophical model-what some are calling "open-source government"-we cover here the major programs undertaken in the summer program, as well as recommendations for future work conducted by Rice University in collaboration with the City. Three major initiatives were undertaken: (1) the development of a wiki platform to capture institutional knowledge; (2) identification of a solution to an email archive and retention issue; and (3) the development of a mobile computing prototype to replace the largely paper-based process currently in place in the Neighborhood Protection Corps. While we do not offer complete solutions to the City's information problems, we have undertaken efforts that might help city planners to think differently about how those challenges might be addressed. This concept is open-source computer software in which, through strong and capable governance, individuals collaborate on projects of utility to a reasonably wide audience and make it available to any who want it. While this open source collaboration baffles economists (as explained in Yochai Benkler's "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm"), the movement has been responsible for the development of most of the software code that makes the Internet work. Our question centers on how the process of a municipality becomes encoded in software as technology makes its way into the business processes of government. We ask: How can pub...
Cyber security is an issue of foremost interest for policy makers in the world’s governments, corporations, NGOs, academic institutions, and other associations, however remedy for the myriad cyber threats and vulnerabilities continues to elude technologists and policy makers alike. In this paper, we consider the concept of cyber risk intelligence, a general concept of understanding the varied phenomena that impact an organization’s capacity to secure its digital communications and resources from eavesdropping, theft or attack. We also consider the deeper economics of information held and transmitted in digital form and how those economics may alter thinking on modeling of risk. Finally, we offer guidance of how organizations and entire sectors of business activity may want to alter their thinking on cyber security issues beyond a technological framing to an informational one aligned with business activities.
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