Prof.Robert H. Sloan
Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).
From 2007 through the summer of 2025, he served as Head of the Computer Science Department, leading its growth from 28 to 80 faculty members. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Yale University and his S.M. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Earlier in his career, he served as a Program Director at the U.S. National Science Foundation, and in the late 2010s as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee.
Dr. Sloan’s current scholarship explores the intersection of computer science, public policy, and law, with particular focus on computer security, electronic privacy, and automated decisions systems. His earlier research encompassed theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and computer science education. Together with legal scholar Richard Warner, he has coauthored several books, including Unauthorized Access: The Crisis in Online Privacy and Security (CRC Press, 2013), Why Don’t We Defend Better? Data Breaches, Risk Management, and Public Policy (CRC Press, 2019), and The Privacy Fix: How to Preserve Privacy in the Onslaught of Surveillance (Cambridge University Press, 2021). With Warner and retired federal prosecutor Edward Carter, he coauthored Basic Cybersecurity Law for the Business Environment: Cases and Commentary (Aspen Publishing, 2025) designed for use in law school courses beginning in Fall 2025. Dr. Sloan is an IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Member and a 2019 University of Illinois University Scholar.
Cybersecurity and Privacy at the Crossroads of Economics, Public Policy, and Law.
Talk Abstract:
This talk traces the development of cybersecurity and privacy research from its early foundations to current challenges at the intersection of technology, economics, public policy, and law. The origins of cybersecurity can be seen by the 1970s, with breakthroughs in what became the distinct field of cryptography and results demonstrating the undecidability of certain forms of access control. In the 1980s, the 1983 techno-thriller WarGames and the 1988 Morris Worm brought computer security issues to the attention of the general public, researchers, and policymakers alike. By the 1990s, the rise of SSL and the commercial web helped establish computer security as a distinct and vital field.
Building on this historical context, I examine how interdisciplinary approaches have shaped our understanding of security and privacy, including how economic forces came to be recognized as central to security challenges around the year 2000. I then outline results from more than a decade of collaboration with legal scholar and philosopher Richard Warner of Chicago-Kent College of Law. Our work explores questions such as why computer security is often weaker than it should be, why behavioral advertising and large-scale tracking are so difficult to curb, and what, precisely, privacy means in an era of perceived erosion.
The talk concludes by considering how insights from cybersecurity and privacy research can inform efforts to regulate fairness in data-driven decision systems, particularly where governments lack deep technical expertise.
