MIT Cybersecurity Policy Initiative (CPI)

MIT has received $15 million in funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to establish an initiative aimed at laying the foundations for a smart, sustainable cybersecurity policy to deal with the growing cyber threats faced by governments, businesses, and individuals.

The MIT Cybersecurity Policy Initiative (CPI) is one of three new academic initiatives to receive a total of $45 million in support through the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative. Led by CSAIL principal research scientist Daniel Weitzner, it will focus on establishing quantitative metrics and qualitative models to help inform policymakers.

Simultaneous funding to MIT, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley is intended to jump-start a new field of cyber policy research. The idea is to generate a robust “marketplace of ideas” about how best to enhance the trustworthiness of computer systems while respecting individual privacy and free expression rights, encouraging innovation, and supporting the broader public interest.

Developing a more formal understanding of the security behavior of large-scale systems is a crucial foundation for sound public policy. As an analogy, Weitzner says, imagine trying to shape environmental policy without any way of measuring carbon levels in the atmosphere and no science to assess the cost or effectiveness of carbon mitigation tools.