Robert Morris: The Non-Cryptographic Ways of Losing Information

Black Hat Briefings, Las Vegas 2005 [Audio] Presentations from the security conference

To fully understand how to protect crucial information in the modern world, one needs to fully understand how the modern spy steals it. Since the glorious days of cryptanalysis during World War II, the art of stealing and protecting information has drastically changed. Using over 25 years of NSA field-stories, this talk will highlight the lesser-known world of stealing data: eavesdropping, theft, purchase, burglary, blackmail, bribery, and the like. Furthermore, my talk will highlight ways one can avoid the common pitfalls of carelessness and overconfidence that give the modern spy a full access pass. Robert Morris received a B.A. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1957 and a M.A. in Mathematics from Harvard in 1958. He was a member of the technical staff in the research department of Bell Laboratories from 1960 until 1986. On his retirement from Bell Laboratories in 1986 he began work at the National Security Agency. From 1986 to his (second) retirement in 1994, he was a senior adviser in the portion of NSA responsible for the protection of sensitive U.S. information.