Monday, June 20, 2011
Land War in Asia (aka, CS undergraduate education)
Today on Scientopia I get involved in a land war in Asia.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Achoo !
I feel strange not blogging much, like I didn't brush my teeth or something.
Life has been incredibly busy, though all for good reasons which I'll discuss here soon.
I think we need a panel not on work-life balance, but on blog-life balance. After housework, the blog is the first thing to go.
Anyway, it seems my first blog-a-versary is on Sunday, which is neat. I've enjoyed meeting so many of you online and interacting with you, reading your blogs, and learning from you. It's fun when people in meatspace mention some of your blogs at work, and I have to silently giggle under my thin veil of pseudo-anonymity.
Thanks for reading!
Life has been incredibly busy, though all for good reasons which I'll discuss here soon.
I think we need a panel not on work-life balance, but on blog-life balance. After housework, the blog is the first thing to go.
Anyway, it seems my first blog-a-versary is on Sunday, which is neat. I've enjoyed meeting so many of you online and interacting with you, reading your blogs, and learning from you. It's fun when people in meatspace mention some of your blogs at work, and I have to silently giggle under my thin veil of pseudo-anonymity.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Secure your networks, this time with feeling!
I know I've said that my research area is not security, but you'd think I was lying with all my recent posts on these topics.
The IMF has now been hacked. (Apparently by a foreign government). I read this in the NY Times article -
1) How could it be unclear what information the attackers were able to access? Don't they have logs? And if the logs were vaporized, don't they have clever digital forensics experts who can figure out what happened? This is the IMF for pete's sake.
2) All the data stored in these databases was encrypted with strong encryption, right? Oh, and all the traffic from client computers to the database was encrypted, right? And they keep a tight access control list, right? Right?
If you follow good practice to begin with, you don't have to worry quite as much when you're hacked. But so few organizations do, which is really depressing.
I used to bemoan the lack of good practice to friends who do work in this field, and they would chuckle and said, "Look, FCS, if you want to protect your data, write it on a slip of paper, burn the paper, dig a hole 10 feet deep, and put the ashes in the hole. Or better yet, don't write it down in the first place."
Yeah.
The IMF has now been hacked. (Apparently by a foreign government). I read this in the NY Times article -
Because the fund has been at the center of economic bailout programs for Portugal, Greece and Ireland — and possesses sensitive data on other countries that may be on the brink of crisis — its database contains potentially market-moving information. It also includes communications with national leaders as they negotiate, often behind the scenes, on the terms of international bailouts. Those agreements are, in the words of one fund official, “political dynamite in many countries.” It was unclear what information the attackers were able to access.- and had two immediate thoughts:
1) How could it be unclear what information the attackers were able to access? Don't they have logs? And if the logs were vaporized, don't they have clever digital forensics experts who can figure out what happened? This is the IMF for pete's sake.
2) All the data stored in these databases was encrypted with strong encryption, right? Oh, and all the traffic from client computers to the database was encrypted, right? And they keep a tight access control list, right? Right?
If you follow good practice to begin with, you don't have to worry quite as much when you're hacked. But so few organizations do, which is really depressing.
I used to bemoan the lack of good practice to friends who do work in this field, and they would chuckle and said, "Look, FCS, if you want to protect your data, write it on a slip of paper, burn the paper, dig a hole 10 feet deep, and put the ashes in the hole. Or better yet, don't write it down in the first place."
Yeah.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Why I'm glad Computer Scientists invented the internet -
- and not politicians. (No offense, Al).
Apparently after Sarah Palin's recent gaffe claiming a revisionist American history regarding Paul Revere's ride (and then doubling down about it), inspired a group of her supporters to rewrite the Revere wikipedia page to support her statements. As it happens, an interview with Sarah Palin does not exactly constitute a valid source, so Wikipedia said, "uh, no," and that was that.
Not that Wikipedia was exactly a bastion of valid historical data to begin with (and people are easily fooled by citation-looking-things), but this was a pretty weird thing for Palin-fans to do in my not particularly humble opinion. (Twitter is much better for spreading misinformation, doncha know?)
Anyway - Pedantic Wikipedia editors: 1, Wignuts: 0.
Also:
Apparently after Sarah Palin's recent gaffe claiming a revisionist American history regarding Paul Revere's ride (and then doubling down about it), inspired a group of her supporters to rewrite the Revere wikipedia page to support her statements. As it happens, an interview with Sarah Palin does not exactly constitute a valid source, so Wikipedia said, "uh, no," and that was that.
Not that Wikipedia was exactly a bastion of valid historical data to begin with (and people are easily fooled by citation-looking-things), but this was a pretty weird thing for Palin-fans to do in my not particularly humble opinion. (Twitter is much better for spreading misinformation, doncha know?)
Anyway - Pedantic Wikipedia editors: 1, Wignuts: 0.
Also:
 |
| Image description: Paul Revere holds his head in his hand whilst holding a teapot. Credit: From Charles Johnson, from Boing Boing. |
Monday, June 6, 2011
2010 ACM Awards - A Glance at Gender
I've posted today in Scientopia about a glance at gender for the 2010 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Awards. The ACM is our major professional organization in Computer Science.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Female Computer Scientists FTW
In other security news this week, Google is claiming China orchestrated some major attacks against gmail users. No shock, but what I found interesting is that they were discovered by blogger and fellow female computer scientist Mila Parkour.
Kudos, Mila!
And this just in - apparently Sony! Soni! Soné! has been hacked again. With script kiddie SQL injection attacks. The PC World article says, "Sony seems to ignore compliance requirements and basic security best practices".
For shame, Soné, for shame. You should totally hire Mila to fix you up. After China I suspect a gaming network will be child's play.
Kudos, Mila!
And this just in - apparently Sony! Soni! Soné! has been hacked again. With script kiddie SQL injection attacks. The PC World article says, "Sony seems to ignore compliance requirements and basic security best practices".
For shame, Soné, for shame. You should totally hire Mila to fix you up. After China I suspect a gaming network will be child's play.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
What's the deal with workshops?
One of my students recently asked me about workshops: what are they, how are they different from conferences, and is it a worth attending them?
When it comes to workshops there is huge variation across and within CS subfields, but I'll try to answer generally.
Scale
One might define workshops as conferences on a smaller scale. They usually last anywhere from half a day to several days. They are usually single-track (i.e., only one thing is happening at a time).
It is usually easier to get a paper into a workshop than a major CS conference, but this is not always true. I was talking to a friend in a subfield that has a "workshop" which is the top venue in his field - it has an acceptance rate of less than 17%.
If it's a workshop in a very niche area, like Green Non-Embedded Ducks, chances are your paper will be accepted so long as you can sneeze some words in the general theme area.
Social Events
Sometimes workshops have pre- or post- workshop meals and/or social activities associated with them. These events are generally informal, and in my observation usually organized at the last minute. "Hey, anyone wanna get some food?"
When you plan your travel to workshops, try to leave some time free a few hours after the workshop (or the night before). Social events are great networking opportunities, just like at conferences.
People: Organizers / Program Committee (PC)
I usually only go to workshops that are either: organized by people I've heard of, have people I've heard on on the PC, or are co-located with a conference I wanted to attend anyway. If none of these things are true, then I usually have to have a long think about whether it's worth attending. Sometimes if I'm foraying into a new discipline and the workshop isn't too far away or too expensive, I'll take the chance.
People: Attendees
It's generally a mix. Some workshops I've gone to it's nearly all graduate students. Others it's nearly all mid to senior academics. It really varies. Workshops that are organized by people from industry or government tend to draw a different crowd as well.
Proceedings / Outcomes
The best workshops combine fantastic workshop-y goodness and publish your paper in the ACM Digital Library or IEEExplore. Or, the organizers have actually applied for and received approval for a journal special issue.
This is not always the case, though. Sometimes your paper doesn't actually go anywhere, sometimes organizers promise ACM or IEEE or special issue journal publications and it never happens. Sometimes they just grab your paper and plunk it up on a website.
Other outcomes include websites and wikis (usually promised, though some organizers follow through), as well as a poster that is presented at the main conference. In my experience this poster is a strange thing, and seems to happen at the end of a 13 hour day when you're still hungry and Dr. Loquacious is still whinging, except this time while holding PostIt notes and markers.
Why should you go?
- Workshops are a great place to meet people pre-conference if they happen before the conference begins. This is especially true if you're attending a conference where you don't know anyone. The further you get in your career the more rare this will be, but in your first few years of conference-going, workshops are very helpful.
- Sometimes super-huge people attend workshops, and you get the chance to rub elbows with them all day long. I once got to spend a day with my idol this way.
- From an academic perspective, workshops are a great place to float half-baked ideas.
- Finally, because the acceptance rate is usually higher at workshops co-located with conferences, it's a great excuse to go. Fantastic back-up plan.
Why should you not go?
- From a paper publication standpoint, sometimes workshops are more trouble than they're worth. If they haven't planned for proper proceedings (e.g., ACM Digital Library/IEEExplore / Springer LNCS), your paper might not "count" as much from a career perspective as it would if it were properly published. On the other hand, for really early work this can be a boon because you can get feedback on your work, improve it, and then publish it in something good later.
- Some workshops promise a journal special issue or book but this doesn't actually ever come to fruition. You can usually tell based on the track record of the organizers. I know some organizers who are super on top of such things and really do pull together journal special issues, books, etc., and I know others that always promise but never deliver. So view this as a nice bonus, but don't bank on it.
- It's hard to predict what kind of experience you'll have at a workshop compared to a well-established conference. Some organizers are great and some are awful. (Academic skillz does not necessarily translate into good workshop organizing skillz).
Bottom Line
In my experience, if you have the funding and time to attend, and you think you'll enjoy yourself and learn something, it's worth attending workshops - especially ones co-located with top conferences. You'll usually learn something, and if you don't learn something you'll at least meet interesting people. Some of my Research BFFs I met at wokshops, and we're still working together to this day.
When it comes to workshops there is huge variation across and within CS subfields, but I'll try to answer generally.
Scale
One might define workshops as conferences on a smaller scale. They usually last anywhere from half a day to several days. They are usually single-track (i.e., only one thing is happening at a time).
Location
Workshops are typically co-located with another event, such as a conference or the anniversary of Alan Turing's 33rd birthday. Sometimes they stand alone. Sometimes they are co-located with a bunch of other workshops.
Format
Workshops are usually more interactive than conferences in that they tend to foster longer and more in-depth periods of discussion. Sometimes this means discussion so intellectually stimulating you lose track of time, sometimes this means it's 6:30pm and you're starving and angry at the organizers for not telling Dr. Loquacious it's dinner time.
Also, workshops are usually less formal and more relaxed than conferences.
Acceptance Rate
It is usually easier to get a paper into a workshop than a major CS conference, but this is not always true. I was talking to a friend in a subfield that has a "workshop" which is the top venue in his field - it has an acceptance rate of less than 17%.
If it's a workshop in a very niche area, like Green Non-Embedded Ducks, chances are your paper will be accepted so long as you can sneeze some words in the general theme area.
Sometimes workshops have pre- or post- workshop meals and/or social activities associated with them. These events are generally informal, and in my observation usually organized at the last minute. "Hey, anyone wanna get some food?"
When you plan your travel to workshops, try to leave some time free a few hours after the workshop (or the night before). Social events are great networking opportunities, just like at conferences.
People: Organizers / Program Committee (PC)
I usually only go to workshops that are either: organized by people I've heard of, have people I've heard on on the PC, or are co-located with a conference I wanted to attend anyway. If none of these things are true, then I usually have to have a long think about whether it's worth attending. Sometimes if I'm foraying into a new discipline and the workshop isn't too far away or too expensive, I'll take the chance.
People: Attendees
It's generally a mix. Some workshops I've gone to it's nearly all graduate students. Others it's nearly all mid to senior academics. It really varies. Workshops that are organized by people from industry or government tend to draw a different crowd as well.
Proceedings / Outcomes
The best workshops combine fantastic workshop-y goodness and publish your paper in the ACM Digital Library or IEEExplore. Or, the organizers have actually applied for and received approval for a journal special issue.
This is not always the case, though. Sometimes your paper doesn't actually go anywhere, sometimes organizers promise ACM or IEEE or special issue journal publications and it never happens. Sometimes they just grab your paper and plunk it up on a website.
Other outcomes include websites and wikis (usually promised, though some organizers follow through), as well as a poster that is presented at the main conference. In my experience this poster is a strange thing, and seems to happen at the end of a 13 hour day when you're still hungry and Dr. Loquacious is still whinging, except this time while holding PostIt notes and markers.
Why should you go?
- Workshops are a great place to meet people pre-conference if they happen before the conference begins. This is especially true if you're attending a conference where you don't know anyone. The further you get in your career the more rare this will be, but in your first few years of conference-going, workshops are very helpful.
- Sometimes super-huge people attend workshops, and you get the chance to rub elbows with them all day long. I once got to spend a day with my idol this way.
- From an academic perspective, workshops are a great place to float half-baked ideas.
- Finally, because the acceptance rate is usually higher at workshops co-located with conferences, it's a great excuse to go. Fantastic back-up plan.
Why should you not go?
- From a paper publication standpoint, sometimes workshops are more trouble than they're worth. If they haven't planned for proper proceedings (e.g., ACM Digital Library/IEEExplore / Springer LNCS), your paper might not "count" as much from a career perspective as it would if it were properly published. On the other hand, for really early work this can be a boon because you can get feedback on your work, improve it, and then publish it in something good later.
- Some workshops promise a journal special issue or book but this doesn't actually ever come to fruition. You can usually tell based on the track record of the organizers. I know some organizers who are super on top of such things and really do pull together journal special issues, books, etc., and I know others that always promise but never deliver. So view this as a nice bonus, but don't bank on it.
- It's hard to predict what kind of experience you'll have at a workshop compared to a well-established conference. Some organizers are great and some are awful. (Academic skillz does not necessarily translate into good workshop organizing skillz).
Bottom Line
In my experience, if you have the funding and time to attend, and you think you'll enjoy yourself and learn something, it's worth attending workshops - especially ones co-located with top conferences. You'll usually learn something, and if you don't learn something you'll at least meet interesting people. Some of my Research BFFs I met at wokshops, and we're still working together to this day.
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