Diese Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt. 

Security is an endless competition of creativity about finding new defenses and overcoming them. Cryptography as a well-established technology of protection is becoming increasingly endangered by the evolution of quantum computers. Starting with quantum cryptography, the talk will introduce my two main areas of research: applied cryptography and security economics. We will look into how cryptographic mechanisms lend themselves to measurable and unconditional protection, by casting privacy breaching attacks into mathematical games to obtain optimal and quantifiable security. The evolution of black markets in the dark net, endowing cyber criminals with cheap and ready-to-use technology for attacking, calls for an economic re-definition of security: security is not the absence of threats, but rather a state where an attack is more expensive than what can be gained from it. The presented research has its roots in this “definition” and results in new perspectives and possibilities to protect information as the basic commodity of the 21^st century.

Univ.-Prof. DI DI Dr. Stefan Rass, Professorship Secure Systems

In this talk, I will first outline the foundations of the professorship of socio-technical transitions: Technologies are material or immaterial artifacts at the heart of many human activities, such as production, service delivery, and communication. Norms, values, beliefs, and interests shape how we create and make use of them. The professorship investigates the interplay between technology and society against the backdrop of the UN Sustainable Development goals. Second, I will provide an overview of our research focusing on open and collaborative forms of organizing sustainable transformations. Finally, I will close the talk by reflecting on our approach to leveraging the interplay between research, teaching, and transfer activities to create impact.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Gegenhuber, Professorship Management of Socio-Technical Transitions