security

Intelligences

Cybersecurity in the Icelandic Multiverse

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Photo of Megan McGrath presenting at EPIC2022. Projected slide says "Building a Strategic Multiverse"
MEGHAN MCGRATH IBM “Security in cyber space should be one of the main cornerstones of economic prosperity in Iceland, resting on a foundation of sophisticated awareness of security issues and legislation.” —Icelandic National Cyber Security Strategy Iceland makes a unique case study for cybersecurity in that it ranks among the world’s most connected nations as well as among the highest for social trust. Data that elsewhere is considered sensitive is shared freely by individuals and businesses. As a result, technology built in places with different cybersecurity paradigms may not function as intended in an Icelandic context. This work, undertaken with undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Iceland’s Computer Science department, employed ethnographic methods in a classroom setting to build cybersecurity awareness with a special emphasis on culture and to engage the broader community in conversations about security from local perspectives. This work lends itself well to multinational enterprise...

Intelligences

Adapting to the Lack of Agency: Research in Prisons

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RUBEN PEREZ HUIDOBRO Shopify   PechaKucha Presentation How can a researcher adapt to the lack of agency in secure environments? HM Inspectorate of Prisons in the UK published in 2012 a thematic report about the use of the “person escort record” (PER) with detainees at risk of self-harm, highlighting the high number of deaths in custody. The PER was used during the transport of people under custody, and informed about their security and safety issues. As a result of this report, my team had the mandate to improve how security and safety risks were communicated. I needed to identify the needs and pain points of the people working on prison and court services, and I did so throughout multiple contextual research sessions. Due to the lack of agency in secured environments, I had the constant need to adapt and identify opportunities to bring to the team the information they needed. Ruben Perez Huidobro is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Shopify. He has over a decade of experience in the UX field. He has...

Intelligences

Bringing the Security Analyst into the Loop: From Human-Computer Interaction to Human-Computer Collaboration

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LIZ ROGERS IBM Security This case study examines how one Artificial Intelligence (AI) security software team made the decision to abandon a core feature of the product – an interactive Knowledge Graph visualization deemed by prospective buyers as “cool,” “impressive,” and “complex” – in favor of one that its users – security analysts – found easier to use and interpret. Guided by the results of ethnographic and user research, the QRadar Advisor with Watson team created a new knowledge graph (KG) visualization more aligned with how security analysts actually investigate potential security threats than evocative of AI and “the way that the internet works.” This new feature will be released in Q1 2020 by IBM and has been adopted as a component in IBM’s open-source design system. In addition, it is currently being reviewed by IBM as a patent application submission. The commitment of IBM and the team to replace a foundational AI component with one that better aligns to the mental models and practices of its...

Intelligences

Surveillance, Technology, and American Conceptions of Freedom

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MIKE GRIFFIN Amazon This paper traces the role of ideology in shaping the beliefs and situated knowledge used by information technology and security managers to make sense of and justify systems of surveillance they oversee. In particular, the analysis explores the role of the contested meanings of the ideology of ‘freedom’ as an important resource in this process of meaning construction, providing a ground-level account of the process of interpellation, described by Louis Althusser as the subjectification of individuals by ideology made available from dominant discourse....

Intelligences

Paradoxical Thinking as a Gateway to Socio-Cultural Insights

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ELIZABETH ANDERSON-KEMPE Artemis Research By Design Download PDF PechaKucha—Paradoxical thinking can reveal complex emotions and beliefs, even self-contradictory behaviors. It can also provide a gateway to the socio-cultural forces that underpin a topic. In a project on IT security, we encountered a participant whose paradoxical beliefs influenced his approach to managing risk in his personal life. Though as an IT security director, he ‘immunized’ his company against potential security breaches and data loss, as a father he chose not to have his son immunized against disease, even though he went to great lengths to protect him in every other way. This encounter inspired me to delve more deeply into the socio-cultural context surrounding the opposition to vaccination in the U.S. Elizabeth Anderson-Kempe, PhD, is a partner in Artemis Research By Design, a consultancy that helps companies develop new products and services grounded in human-centered insights. A cultural historian by training, for over 18 years – in the US...

Intelligences

Making Silence Matter: The Place of the Absences in Ethnography

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BRIAN RAPPERT Professional and organizational attention in recent years to what ethnographers can and cannot disclose as part of their research accounts has extended the range and relevance of concerns pertaining to the relation between investigators and those they study. When researchers are working under conditions characterised by secrecy and a limited access to information, then the difficulties faced in offering accounts are all the more acute. This presentation examines the political, ethical, and epistemological challenges associated with how we manage what is missing within our writing. The argument is based on an ethnographic-type engagement over a five-year period. I want to consider the representational implications of the disclosure rules, confidentiality agreements, informal arrangements, etc. associated with contemporary research; in particular their implications for how knowledge claims are substantiated and reproduced. I also want to go further though to ask what novel writing strategies and methods could enable us to...