Just how will the research community, where all of the really innovative ideas come from, influence the future of the Internet? That is one of the more interesting problems of our time.

—Robert Kahn *64
Internet co-founder/President Corporation for National Research Initiatives

Expectations of privacy change constantly. From the dawn of society to today’s globally and socially networked world, they have always been in flux. Privacy expectations also vary from individual to individual, and from country to country.

What stays constant is the need for trust—trust that information about us is gathered and used constructively and accountably. The next decade will be critical to developing the right set of public policies and private-sector privacy and security practices.

With widespread deployment of digital technologies, we are becoming more networked—both as corporations and as individuals.

So it is inevitable that we will become more comfortable sharing information—just look at what teens are willing to write on their blogs. But at the same time, society will demand accountability and transparency—who has our personal data, what are they doing with it, and how can we make sure that people don’t get harmed?

—Harriet Pearson ’85
Vice President, Regulatory Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, IBM

The information age has triggered a quantum leap in the ability of people around the world to communicate and create, speak and be heard. However, these technological advances sometimes make it feel as if we are all living life in a digital goldfish bowl. Security cameras and mobile phones track our movements. Emails leave a trail of correspondence. At the click of a mouse it’s possible to share almost anything—photographs, videos, one’s innermost thoughts—with almost anyone.

That’s why I believe it’s important we develop new privacy rules; and by new rules I don’t automatically mean new laws. In my experience, self regulation often works better than legislation, especially in highly competitive markets where people can switch providers simply by typing a few letters into a computer. Also, when a single credit card transaction can involve six separate countries, national legislation is of limited value.

The task we face is twofold: to build trust by preventing abuse and to enable future innovation. Global privacy standards are central to achieving these goals. For the sake of economic prosperity, good governance and individual liberty, we must step up our efforts to implement them.

—Eric Schmidt ’76
Chief Executive Officer, Google Inc.
Abstracted from an op-ed published on the blog of Peter Fleischer, Google’s chief privacy officer

The biggest problem with security on the Internet is that the basic protocols are insecure; security is not integrated into the network infrastructure. We treat security today at almost the same level as we did 30 or 40 years ago when the Arpanet was created, when the only people who used it were respected researchers at a few universities and industries and the government.

Even if we fixed the protocols, though, having a more holistic approach to security is very important. It is going to take a major effort by governments and cooperation with industries to change protocols and improve security. We need to increase the funding for the National Science Foundation and other programs that support fundamental security research. We also need to recruit more security experts at universities and improve the coordination between research programs. It’s not one single solution; all these approaches are urgent.

—Tom Leighton ’78
Co-founder and chief scientist, Akamai Technologies
Professor of Applied Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Patrolling the edges, rethinking the core, Princeton researchers envision a more secure Internet

Using physics to secure future wireless networks

Code perfect: Research offers promise of mathematically guaranteed security

Princeton Engineering alumni on the Internet, privacy and security