Information Security: Going Digital (Invited Lecture)

Because ‘going digital’ regards using digital technologies to fundamentally change the way things get done, information security is necessarily engaged in going digital. Society and science are going digital. For the sciences, this digitalization process invokes an emerging model of the science of design that incorporates the assembly of information systems from a wide variety of platform ecosystems. According to principles of bounded rationality and bounded creativity, this mode of design requires more creativity to develop needed functionality from a finite set of available platforms. Going digital requires more creativity in designers of all types of information systems. Furthermore, the designers’ goals are changing. The traditional model of information systems is representational: the data in the system represents (reflects) reality. Newer information systems, equipped with 3D printing and robotics actually create reality. Reality represents (reflects) the data in the system. This invited paper explores the example of information security. Designers of security for information systems not only must be more creative, they must design for more goals. The security task is no longer just protecting the digital system, the security task is protecting the products of the digital system. These innovations have particular implications for information systems curricula at university, too.