Understanding Cyber Geography by Professor Kavé Salamatian.

Seminar Abstract

The interplay of cyber-physical infrastructures and how it is leveraged by governments and economic players is complex and yet has a strong influence on world power. Although cyberspace is a virtual world, it is firmly rooted in a physical network infrastructure. This talk discusses how the Internet infrastructure (e.g. the BGP protocol, routing policies, internet service providers) influences the distribution of power via the way that information is exchanged and flows through cyberspace. We describe how the addition of new infrastructure artifacts can transform strategic thinking. During the past two decades, new actors have emerged and have built their power (i.e., their ability to impact both the real world and cyberspace), by gathering diverse types of information, and by projecting their “cyber-power ” to dispute to each other’s “cyber-territories “. This talk provides examples of this competition, including some from Russia and its interactions with the former Soviet republics and discusses how this evolving interaction loop influences and shapes the contemporary world’s economics, politics and geography.

Speaker

Kavé Salamatian is a full professor of computer science at University of Savoie. His main areas of research are Internet measurement and modelling, network security, and networking information theory. He was previously a reader at Lancaster University, UK and an associate professor at the University Pierre et Marie Curie. He is also a distinguished visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Science and works closely with the Castex CyberStrategy Chair at the French National Defense Institute. He was the recipient of the Chinese academy of Science Presidential Award in 2018.