Briefings Direct

There's a looming threat to Internet commerce and general Web usage the world over. The underlying protocols that the modern Internet is built upon are inadequate to the task of providing secure and reliable packet traffic. Because the world is growing more dependent on the Internet for more aspects of business, government, communications, and broad societal functions, this vulnerability to criminal and terrorist attack could have dire consequences. This all according to Professor Tom Leighton, co-founder and Chief Scientist at Akamai Technologies. He's also professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT and -- especially in the context of this discussion -- the former chairman of the Cyber Security Sub-Committee of the U.S. President's IT Advisory Committee (PITAC). In this Akamai-sponsored BriefingsDirect podcast, Leighton and show moderator Dana Gardner explore the situation around cyber security, and what needs to be done by both the business community and U.S. government to reduce the risk to the global Internet infrastructure. While the U.S. government has cut basic research into creating the next generations of Internet technology, a time bomb of potentially catastrophic proportions is ticking away. Have a listen to the podcast, or read the transcript at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2006/06/full-transcript-of-dana-gardners.html.