Emeritus Professor William J (Bill) Caelli, AO

Professor Bill Caelli is a Director of cybersecurity consultancy company IISEC Pty Ltd and an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Griffith University and Bond University. He is also a Member of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia (ISAA) and a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society (ACS). He chairs the Safety and Stability Advisory Committee of Australia’s Domain Name Authority (auDa) and is a Board Member of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE) based in Maryland, USA.  He was a founder of ERACOM Pty Ltd in 1979 which developed and manufactured a range of computer and network security products and systems in Australia and Europe. He was the Founding Director of the Information Security Research Centre (ISRC) at QUT in 1988 and then the Head of the School of Data Communications, later the School of Software Engineering and Data Communications there, from 1994. He was made an Officer in the Order of Australia in 2003 for his contributions to cybersecurity and the ICT industry. He has some 48 years of experience in ICT with some 38 years in all aspects of cybersecurity, including commercial cryptography having worked for both Hewlett-Packard Company and Control Data Corporation. His PhD is in nuclear physics and high speed data acquisition and control systems (SCADA).

AusCERT2012 Presentation

Cyber Deterrence, Cyber Response and Defence of the Digital Nation / Economy

This presentation, based on the published results of a three year research project on cybersecurity in conjunction with researchers in India and sponsored by the Australian and Indian Governments, examines two controversial aspects of cyber defence, namely “cyber deterrence” and “cyber response”. The study, based on open source materials, finds that, contrary to other policy aspects of national defence, these two vital components appear underdeveloped, yet subject to rapid and developing change in political and defence thinking. Themes, such as government and industry cooperation in cyber defence, appear limited in scope contrary to historical precedents. In a complimentary theme, the development of the “militia” movement, the retaining of “posse comitatus” or the “sheriff’s posse”, etc. in the USA and other related schemes need to be assessed. Is AusCERT, for example, a cyber “militia” or even a cyber “posse”? Is a “Cyber Challenge” for high school or tertiary students a military or law enforcement exercise? The digital nation and the digital economy both highlight questions related to the role and function of military and law enforcement entities along with that of private enterprise and even the individual citizen.

The presentation poses two vital questions, still largely unanswered, namely:

a. While in physical space a military deterrent is readily understood, e.g. Australia’s purchase of F-35A fighter jets, etc., what could be a cyber “deterrent” and how would that relate to the research, development and deployment of cyber “weapons” or cyber “munitions”, and

b. What is a cyber “response” and how does it relate to concepts of acceptable collateral damage and equivalent, physical world concepts in conflict?

AusCERT2012 Powerpoint presentation in PDF format