The Cybersecurity Philosopher

Rod Beckstrom, director of the new National Cyber Security Center, has brought a rather deep philosophical bent to his position -- one that isn't seen too often in top-level technology executives.

At the annual Black Hat convention, Beckstrom, in his first public address since being named director, said "as a country and as users of the global Internet still have to figure out how our networks should function in the context of democracy, justice, governance, and international relations," according to an Information Week article.

Sci-Tech Today found Beckstrom just as scholarly, but maybe with a more of an economist bent, reporting that Beckstrom said the government needs to determine how much systems -- and presumably the information stored on them -- is worth and then figure out what is worth investing in to protect them. The government needs to "do more research on things like the physics of networking, the economics of networks and security, and risk management to help figure out what the U.S. cyber protection system will look like," according to Sci-Tech Today.

Nextgov is looking into the question of just how much government should spend on security. The article is due out next month. Please look for it. In the meantime, security experts say something akin to what Beckstrom alluded to: We must think about how we are spending security funds and focus them on the highest risks.