Articles

159 Items

an alert from the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

AP/Jon Elswick

Journal Article - Foreign Affairs

The End of Cyber-Anarchy?

| January/February 2022

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan dedicates the COBAS 6800 testing machine

Wikimedia CC/Press Information Bureau, Government of India

Journal Article - Nature

Coronavirus Modelling — Boost Developing World Capacity

| May 26, 2020

In developing countries, where the coronavirus pandemic is potentially at its most dangerous and costly, the authors call for governments to work with academic institutions to build and sustain computational modelling capacity.

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Magazine Article

Jack Ma Offers to Supply the US With Covid-19 Tests and Masks

| Mar. 13, 2020

As the US government promises to ramp up more Covid-19 testing, an unlikely billionaire is offering to lend help: Jack Ma, cofounder of the Chinese tech giant Alibaba. Ma's philanthropic organization, the Jack Ma Foundation, said early Friday morning it would donate 500,000 Covid-19 testing kits and 1 million protective face masks to the US.

Chernobyl welcome sign

Wikimedia CC/Jorge Franganillo

Journal Article - Futures

Accumulating Evidence Using Crowdsourcing and Machine Learning: A Living Bibliography about Existential Risk and Global Catastrophic Risk

    Authors:
  • Gorm E. Shackelford
  • Luke Kemp
  • Catherine Rhodes
  • Lalitha Sundaram
  • Seán S. ÓhÉigeartaigh
  • Simon Beard
  • Haydn Belfield
  • Shahar Avin
  • Dag Sørebø
  • Elliot M. Jones
  • John B. Hume
  • David Price
  • David Pyle
  • Daniel Hurt
  • Theodore Stone
  • Harry Watkins
  • Lydia Collas
  • Bryony C. Cade
  • Thomas Frederick Johnson
  • Zachary Freitas-Groff
  • David Denkenberger
  • Michael Levot
  • William J. Sutherland
| February 2020

The study of existential risk — the risk of human extinction or the collapse of human civilization — has only recently emerged as an integrated field of research, and yet an overwhelming volume of relevant research has already been published. To provide an evidence base for policy and risk analysis, this research should be systematically reviewed. In a systematic review, one of many time-consuming tasks is to read the titles and abstracts of research publications, to see if they meet the inclusion criteria. The authors show how this task can be shared between multiple people (using crowdsourcing) and partially automated (using machine learning), as methods of handling an overwhelming volume of research.

What Is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance? Conceptions, Causes, and Assessment

AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

What Is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance? Conceptions, Causes, and Assessment

    Author:
  • Rebecca Slayton
| Winter 2016/17

Does cyberspace favor the offense, as many analysts and policymakers claim? Three factors undermine any cyber offensive advantage, as demonstrated in a cost-benefit analysis of the Stuxnet operation against Iran. First, any measurement of the offense-defense balance must consider a cyber operation’s value as well as its cost to both sides. Second, organizational capabilities play a significant role in determining the balance. Third, offensive advantages decline when attackers target physical infrastructure rather than information networks.

Deterrence and Dissuasion in Cyberspace

Senior Airman Lauren Penney

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Deterrence and Dissuasion in Cyberspace

| Winter 2016/17

Can states deter adversaries in cyberspace? Analogies drawn from nuclear deterrence mislead; nuclear deterrence aims for total prevention, whereas states do not expect to prevent every cyberattack. Additionally, cyber deterrence is possible even though it can be hard to identify the source of a cyberattack. Attribution problems do not hinder three of the major forms of cyber deterrence: denial, entanglement, and normative taboos.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed on a big screen in Beijing as Chinese battle tanks roll by during a Sept. 3, 2015 parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender during World War II.

(AP Photo)

Magazine Article - The Atlantic

The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?

| September 24, 2015

The defining question about global order for this generation is whether China and the United States can escape Thucydides’s Trap. The Greek historian’s metaphor reminds us of the attendant dangers when a rising power rivals a ruling power—as Athens challenged Sparta in ancient Greece, or as Germany did Britain a century ago. Most such contests have ended badly, often for both nations, a team of mine at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has concluded after analyzing the historical record. In 12 of 16 cases over the past 500 years, the result was war. When the parties avoided war, it required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but also the challenged.