Is Your College Campus Ready for the Next Threat

I don’t mean to single out any one college, or seem callous towards schools that have fell victim to attacks. To me, it just seems that there are plenty of internet-published threats and school shootings to bring forward some pattern that can be traced, or some technology that can be used to snuff out the threat before it’s too late.

For instance: in the case of the University of Chicago, the person who posted the threat was initially anonymous, and had access to post the threat somewhere on the internet. I wonder if there is some type of solution that could have identified that person, and blocked his access from the internet, preventing him from sending out that message. Or, maybe there is a way to hack through the internet and trace where the source physically sat to type the message and send in the troops before it was sent out campus-wide.

Then, I suppose, you run into privacy violations and freedom of speech issues regarding internet usage.

I would also anticipate that people, students especially, would be deterred from using a college’s public computers or network so that they don’t feel like “big brother is watching” them. Even now, not all students report if they bring a new device to campus, and help the institution protect its network against soft spots and cyber threats.

So what’s the answer to preventing threats on campus?

I don’t know. I imagine no one knows how to protect a campus until a threat happens. Only then will safety experts know how to diffuse the situation and ultimately prepare for next time.

However, I challenge security experts to reach out to other campuses. See what your peers are doing, ask students what their needs are, and track threat trends. Put your heads together and draw out the plans that come to mind.

Use technology as a way to pull the trigger on preventing the danger before it strikes.