Abstract

“Computer crime is a multitrillion dollar business,” Rome said. “Unfortunately, the bad guys are winning. I will speak on how to proactively take steps to remain safe on the internet and how to protect your devices.” 

Biographical Sketch:  

James A. Rome

Jim Rome, who calls himself “a computer security paranoid,” spent the latter part of his career at ORNL providing computer security for classified systems. 

After receiving four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he started his career in 1971 at ORNL as a theoretical plasma physicist with the Fusion Energy Division, where he conducted research for 25 years. He specialized in doing configuration design and following charged particle orbits in fusion devices.  Rome is an author/co-author of 155 publications listed on the ResearchGate.net internet site and he is a fellow of the American Physical Society.  

In the 1970s when personal computers first became available, Rome co-write a scientific graphics program, called GraphiC, for PCs.

He later moved to ORNL’s Computer Science and Mathematics Division, where he specialized in air traffic analysis and worked on making workstations “multi-level secure.”

He managed ORNL computer security for the National Science Foundation’s TeraGrid, a high-speed network that connected supercomputers and facilities at many universities. He also created a public key infrastructure to enable secure, encrypted logins and access to online Lab Notebooks.

Presently, Jim runs web sites for nonprofit organizations including the sites for the “Oak Ridge Music Association” (President), “Keep Anderson County Beautiful” (board member) “Friends of ORNL” (Adjunct board member), and the “Stellarator News” (Editor). He has his own site: https://jamesrome.net