"IT is everywhere." These were the opening words of Peter Apers,
scientific director of Centre for Telematics and Information
Technology, CTIT, at the centre's annual symposium. "Nowadays, it
is perfectly normal for IT to play a role in our everyday lives."
This has numerous advantages, certainly. However, it also means we
have to accept the fact that we are dependent on IT. Take your
mobile phone, for example, your car or your washing machine. For
the majority of people, it is extremely difficult to comprehend how
complex these systems are.
Society without IT is no longer an option. Our electricity
network, water supply, railway network, landline and mobile
telephone networks, internet and more central networks are all
administered by highly complex IT systems. If these systems fail,
we will have no electricity or water and trains will not run on
time. Since society is so dependent on IT, it is essential that
these systems are reliable. During the annual CTIT symposium,
speakers from the Netherlands and abroad, including the
internationally renowned Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum from VU
University Amsterdam and Prof. Kim Larsen from Aalborg University
in Denmark, gave presentations on the great importance of reliable
IT systems for society.
Reliability
One of the guest speakers was Ank Bijleveld-Schouten, State
Secretary for the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. A
full audience listened to Bijleveld discuss the reliability of IT,
in particular within the context of government systems (for
example, the tax authorities, the voting machine or the linking of
systems between different departments) and the importance of this
in securing the public's trust. "IT is one of the backbones of our
society" explained Bijleveld, "and must therefore be reliable".
This reliability is essential for building the public's trust. She
listed a number of points that must contribute to creating this
sense of trust. We must first develop a better understanding of IT.
Our focus should not only be on the reliability of the
systems themselves, but also on the reliability of IT applications.
Simply conducting more research is not enough; we need to translate
the findings to the wider public. The State Secretary believes that
by encouraging greater transparency, we can generate greater trust
in IT. According to Bijleveld, it is also important that we
continue to report the risks, since we cannot remove them all.
Bijleveld closed her speech with the words, "if we succeed in
performing these steps, we will engender greater public trust."
Social problem
Apers explained how the IT sector has grown enormously in recent
years, while funding for IT research has dwindled. "People are
insufficiently aware of how dependent we are on IT," said Apers,
"the reliability of systems is often grossly underestimated." IT is
often approached from a technical angle but that is not enough
these days. With increasing regularity, IT is being considered from
a social point of view. In order to be able to continue to
guarantee a reliable IT infrastructure, we need investments in
technology and social research. Both Bijleveld and Aspers are,
therefore, calling for more investments to be made into IT
research.
Poster competition
In addition to the presentations, a poster competition was held
for PhD students from CTIT. The jury comprised Prof. Gerard Smit,
Prof. Kim Larsen (Aalborg University, Denmark) and Jacek Skowronek
(Thales Nederland). The jury were unanimous in their choice of
winner, Rafael Barboas (EWI/DACS group) with his poster entitled
"Intrusion Detection in SCADA networks". His poster caught the
judges attention due to its clarity, aesthetic design and
accessibility to the general public. Second place went to Maartje
Zonderland (EWI/SOR-group) and joint third place went to Robin van
Rootseler and Chris van Dam (EWI/SAS-group).
