correctly labelled Black defendants as “high risk” – at twice the rate of white defendants.
It’s time for a more holistic approach to cybersecurity
Mickens further adds that we need a more holistic perspective when it comes to security. To do this,, developers should ask themselves not only if a malicious actor can perform illicit actions on a system, but also should a particular action on a system be possible and how can the action achieve societally-beneficial outcomes.
He says developers have 3 major assumptions while deploying a new technology:
#1 Technology is Value-Neutral, and will therefore automatically lead to good outcomes for everyone
#2 New kinds of technology should be deployed as quickly as possible, even if we lack a general idea of how the technology works, or what the societal impact will be
#3 History is generally uninteresting, because the past has nothing to teach us
According to Mickens developers assume way too much. In his assessment, those of us working in the industry take it for granted that technology will always lead to good outcomes for everyone. This optimism goes hand in hand with a need for speed – in turn, this can lead us to miss important risk assessments, security testing, and a broader view on the impact of technology not just on individual users but wider society too.
Most importantly, for Mickens, is that we are failing to learn from mistakes. In particular, he focuses on IoT security. Here, Mickens points out, security experts are failing to learn lessons from traditional network security issues. The Harvard Professor has written extensively on this topic – you can go through his paperon IoT security here.
Perhaps Mickens talk was intentionally provocative, but there are certainly lessons – if 2018 has taught us anything, it’s that a dose of scepticism is healthy where tech is concerned. And maybe it’s time to take a critical eye to the software we build.
If the work we do is to actually matter and make a difference, maybe a little negative is a good thing. What do you think? Was Mickens assessment of the tech world correct?
You can watch James Mickens whole talk at Youtube