Cyber attacks – Are smart cities safer or more vulnerable?
In the wake of the Brussels bombings, the French blogger Francis Pisani addressed the quandaries of modern, connected European cities facing terrorist threats. There is no simple answer to attacks, he noted, but most measures have an impact on our mobility.
More controls mean that we need to wait for our luggage to be X-rayed, or to line up for double checks at a gate. And many train stations are slowly turning to airport-like security measures. Mobility, a feature of modern, connected economies, is the first victim of security.
A freelance journalist with credits in various French newspapers and an enduring interest in information technology (IT), Pisani embarked on a world tour in 2012 and 2014 to look for examples of urban innovation. He then gave a clued-up account of this in an ebook published by the UNESCO (available in English and French).
Most of his recent work is devoted to studying and reporting examples of participatory technologies that can improve city life.