Science & Technology

77 Items

President Putin attends a meeting

Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

Russia’s Complicity in Cybercrime Jeopardizes U.S. National Security

| May 15, 2021

The fuel crisis the Colonial Pipeline shutdown has caused underscores the serious, real-world consequences that bargain has for Americans. As the Biden administration begins to implement its national cybersecurity strategy, it must take steps to address Russia’s strategic negligence toward cybercrime.

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Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Pathogens Have the World’s Attention: The United States Should Lead a New Push Against Bioweapons

| Mar. 16, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden has spoken frequently of restoring the United States’ credibility as a global leader. That task, which comes at a moment of global crisis, will require the United States to recommit to multilateral diplomacy, even while managing a dangerously deteriorating relationship with China. By acting on biosecurity—a neglected priority hiding in plain sight—Biden can make progress on all of these goals. Washington has an opportunity to lead in an era of heightened great-power competition, address the need for arms control measures that reduce the risk of biological weapons, and potentially even push China to cooperate to that end.  

Mike Pence and Donald Trump

AP/Alex Brandon

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

China and America Are Failing the Pandemic Test

| Apr. 02, 2020

All national leaders must put their countr's interests first, but the important question is how broadly or narrowly they define those interests. Both China and the US are responding to COVID-19 with an inclination toward short-term, zero-sum approaches, and too little attention to international institutions and cooperation.

Travelers from China’s Wuhan and other cities go through body temperature scanners at Narita international airport in Narita, near Tokyo, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020.

AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Weaponizing Digital Health Intelligence

| January 2020

This paper argues that these potential vulnerabilities deserve rigorous, urgent, and thorough investigation. First, it draws from cybersecurity literature, and reviews general sources of vulnerability in digital systems. Next, with these sources of vulnerability in mind, it reviews the health intelligence systems used in the US as well as in a current Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It then It then reviews the possible motives state actors have to attack health intelligence systems, drawing on recent examples of state-led efforts to manipulate, conceal, or undermine health information. It then speculates about what an attack on a health intelligence system might look like. It concludes by proposing a research and education agenda to thoroughly interrogate these issues and generate policy recommendations needed to address them.

A visitor looks at a robotic hand powered by Kinfinity Glove, developed by the German Aerospace Center, on display at the World Robot Conference at the Yichuang International Conference and Exhibition Centre in Beijing, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017.

(AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Analysis & Opinions - WIRED

Help Us Recognize Tech That Protects Our Values

| Oct. 09, 2019

Technology and all of objective science are caught in a crisis of reputation. From investigations into competition practices to legislative scrutiny over the application and safety of new products, innovators are facing a reckoning for their seeming absence of principles such as privacy, security, inclusion, transparency, and accountability. But it is possible to bend the arc of innovation toward overall public purpose.

The Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and WIRED are excited to announce the inaugural Tech Spotlight, which will recognize products, initiatives, and policies that embrace principles such as privacy, security, safety, transparency, accountability, and inclusion—and that aim to minimize technological harms.  Nomination will be open until November 30, 2019 at 11:59pm EST.

biohazard bag in laboratory

Wikimedia CC/R.Bektaev

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

What Digital Nerds and Bio Geeks Have to Worry About

| Sep. 13, 2019

The authors explain how the risks of computer systems are transferring to biological systems. The difference is that biological systems have the potential to cause a greater degree of damage than computer systems. Stringent biocontainment helps, but no containment system provides zero risk.