Browsing by Author "Bronk, Christopher"
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Item A Governance Switchboard: Scalability Issues in International Cyber Policymaking(University of Toronto, 2012) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Analyzing the use of Cyber in Warfare at the Strategic, Operational, and Tactical Levels(2015-04-16) Dressler, Judson; Wallach, Daniel S.; Bronk, Christopher; Ng, EugeneThe United States relies on networked computing for all manner of economic, social, and civic activity. However, cyberspace also presents potential adversaries with an avenue to overcome the overwhelming advantage enjoyed by the US in conventional military power. The introduction of cyberspace has blurred the edge of the battlefield; allowing an adversary to use easily procured equipment and from anywhere attack the process of a commercial or government target. This addition has introduced challenges to many traditional military concepts at each level of warfare: strategic, operational, and tactical. This thesis investigates and presents solutions to three of these challenges. At the strategic level, the DoD has declared cyberspace as a war-fighting domain. The ultra high-speed, fluid, and omnipresent nature of cyberspace makes it fundamentally different from the traditional domains. Strategic thinkers cling to ideological legacies of the past regarding problems, innovations, and strategies. So before imposing past tenets of and terminology onto the new field, these legacies need to be examined to see if they are pertinent and to what degree. At the operational level, the DoD relies heavily on networking technologies to efficiently conduct missions across the globe. This dependency places the nation at risk of a loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its critical information resources; degrading its ability to complete the mission. I introduce the operational framework for establishing situational awareness in cyberspace. Using this framework will provide the nation’s leadership timely and accurate information to gain an understanding of the operational cyber environment to enable decision-making at all levels. In regards to social media, there has become a growing tension between military users’ personal needs and military operational security at the tactical level. Like everyone, military members post seemingly trivial information and pictures; which can be aggregated and augmented by an adversary to determine possible intelligence targets. I investigate the current state of DoD social media policy, use an automated approach to determine the amount of openly available information provided by U.S. military members, analyze it through content analysis, apply machine learning techniques, then finally rank the vulnerability of each individual.Item Between War and Peace: Considering the Statecraft of Cyberspace from the Perspective of the U.S. State Department(2011) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyThis paper considers how cyber-enabled diplomacy may be undertaken by the United States. While cyber warfare has been a popular topic of discussion over the past decade, less has attention has been directed at the use of cyber instruments (information technology, social media, the blogosphere, etc.) in diplomatic engagement. Considered here is the debate regarding cybersecurity issues and how that debate factors into U.S. diplomatic initiatives. Covered are the: (a) framing of the issue; (b) emergence of cyberspace as an issue for diplomacy; (c) coverage of major incidents for consideration; and (d) prescriptive elements for inter-agency and intra-State Department policy development and collaboration.Item Considering a New Information Architecture for the City of Houston(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2011) Bronk, Christopher; Gattis, Tory; Kumar, Vivas; Moscowitz, Robyn; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Cybersecurity Issues and Policy Options for the U.S. Energy Industry(2012) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Diplopedia Imagined: Building State's Diplomacy Wiki(IEEE, 2010) Bronk, Christopher; Smith, Tiffany; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyConsiderable interest has been directed by the Obama Administration in harnessing Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, social media and cloud computing to overhaul the business of government. Addressed here is the account of an enterprise wiki at the U.S. State Department. That wiki, Diplopedia is currently employed by the State’s employees to share subject matter knowledge related to the process of diplomacy. Contained herein is an account of how Diplopedia was conceived and became a functional system for knowledge sharing at the Department of State (DoS).Item From Tunis to Tunis: Considering the Planks of U.S. International Cyber Policy, 2005-2011(2012) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyHow have U.S. policies on the governance of the Internet and cyberspace evolved between the 2005 World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia and the massive, cyber-fueled uprisings in the Middle East of 2011? The paper develops a framework of possible actions regarding Internet or cyber governance to produce contexts for the timeline of significant policy statements by U.S. government officials and agencies on the topic. In the resulting narrative, Internet governance policy rises from a relatively marginal issue for the foreign policy establishment to a significant component of U.S. grand strategy. Because it covers a brief time period and focuses on a single actor (the United States), this narrative provides input as to how and how rapidly Internet politics and policies have become integral to international affairs.Item Hack or Attack? Shamoon and the Evolution of Cyber Conflict(2013) Bronk, Christopher; Tikk-Ringas, Eneken; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Hacks on Gas: Energy, Cybersecurity, and U.S. Defense(2014) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyCybersecurity as it pertains to energy is a topic of increasing interest in both the U.S. government and private sector. Cyber incidents have impacted energy targets, as demonstrated by the Stuxnet and Shamoon cyber attacks. This paper, prepared for the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, considers cyber issues relevant to the Army and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), including the electrical grid, oil and gas security, and the military’s fuels supply chain. The DoD is incredibly reliant on private sources of energy, and the level of preparedness for cyber attack among those sources likely varies greatly. The author provides characterizations of these problems, as well as a set of policy prescriptions.Item Information Technology Policy: Action Items for the Next Four Years(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2013) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Information Technology Policy: Recommendations for the Next Administration(2008) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Innovation by Policy: A Study of the Electronic Passport(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2007-05) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyThe author argues that the congressional mandate to create a biometrically enabled, electronic passport put political goals ahead of the technically feasible. Congress wrote into law a directive to create an advanced computer imaging technology—that did not, and likely still does not, exist—by producing legislation demanding an electronic passport as the “silver bullet” rhetorical solution to an immensely complex problem.Item Innovation by Policy: A Study of the Electronic Passport(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2007) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Innovation for Sustainability in Information and Communication Technologies(2010) Bronk, Christopher; Lingamneni, Avinash; Palem, Krishna; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Managing the U.S.-Mexico Border Problem(2007) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Managing the U.S.-Mexico Border Problem(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 8/17/2007) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyAlthough legislation for migration reform and an international guest worker program has been effectively tabled for the remainder of the Bush administration, work continues on projects to more effectively monitor the U.S.-Mexico border. A key federal program in this effort is the Department of Homeland Security’s adoption of military surveillance methods employing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other advanced surveillance technologies to police the shared boundary.Item Managing the U.S.-Mexico Border: Human Security and Technology(2009) Bronk, Christopher; Payan, Tony; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyThis paper examines the current U.S.-Mexico border management system, analyzing the factors and actors that have shaped the discourse about the border and its physical and technological development. The paper points out the limits of the current border management system, and outlines suggestions designed to address cross-border flows and ensure the security and prosperity of the region.Item Managing the U.S.-Mexico Border: Human Security and Technology(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2009) Bronk, Christopher; Payan, Tony; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyThis paper examines the current U.S.-Mexico border management system, analyzing the factors and actors that have shaped the discourse about the border and its physical and technological development. The paper points out the limits of the current border management system, and outlines suggestions designed to address cross-border flows and ensure the security and prosperity of the region.Item Municipal Connectivity Provision: Societal Imperative or Fiscal Folly(2008) Bronk, Christopher; Jones, Kirsten; James A. Baker III Institute for Public PolicyItem Off We Go…Cyberspace, the Air Force and the New Face of Battle(James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 2008) Bronk, Christopher; James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy