OXFORD,
Miss. – Ever more connected, the world’s population may continue to
rely on the proverbial “chewing gum and bailing wire” for cyberspace
security.
So says Andrew Odlyzko, a University of Minnesota
mathematician and former telecommunications researcher, who is slated
to deliver the annual Dalrymple Lecture Thursday (April 2) at the
University of Mississippi.
“We will never attain a secure
infrastructure,” Odlyzko said. “But a combination of technology and
traditional tools of human society will prove adequate, and we are
unlikely to face disaster.”
Odlyzko’s lecture, “Cybersecurity,
Mathematics and Limits on Technology,” starts at 6 p.m. in Butler
Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.
Odlyzko is
founding director of the interdisciplinary Digital Technology Center at
the University of Minnesota, and he served as interim director at the
Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Before joining academe, he devoted
26 years to research at Bell Telephone Laboratories, which later became
AT&T Labs.
“Dr. Odlyzko is a renowned mathematician,” said Iwo Labuda, UM mathematics chair. “We look forward to his expertise, and we hope a better appreciation and understanding for the field of mathematics will result from his lecture.”
Odlyzko has authored more than 150 technical papers in computational complexity, cryptography, number theory, combinatorics, coding theory, analysis and probability theory, and he owns three patents. He is writing a book that compares the Internet bubble to the British Railway Mania of the 1840s and explores the implications for future technology diffusion.
The Dalrymple Lecture in mathematics was endowed by Mr. and Mrs. Arch Dalrymple II of Amory to bring distinguished speakers to the UM campus to discuss mathematics and mathematics research.
For more information or assistance related to a disability, call 662-915-7071. To learn more about mathematics education at UM, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/mathematics/ .