Author: Michael

CS50 Logs Record-Breaking Enrollment Numbers

Nearly 12 percent of Harvard College is enrolled in a single course, according to data released by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Registrar’s Office on Wednesday.The course, Computer Science 50: “Introduction to Computer Science I,” attracted a record-breaking 818 undergraduates this semester, marking the largest number in the course’s 30-year history and the largest class offered at the College in the last five years, according to the Registrar’s website. Including non-College students, the enrollment number totals 875.

via CS50 Logs Record-Breaking Enrollment Numbers | News | The Harvard Crimson.

Cybersecurity hiring crisis: Rockstars, anger and the billion dollar problem

At no time in history has there been a greater need to hire security professionals to protect and defend infrastructures from an inexhaustible onslaught of organized crime, industrial espionage, and nation-state attacks.A small talent pool, an inflated wage bubble and the high tensions of a virulent attack landscape have made cybersecurity’s hiring crisis the “billion dollar” problem.

via Cybersecurity hiring crisis: Rockstars, anger and the billion dollar problem | ZDNet.

Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC

Unstructured programming with GOTO is the stuff of legend, as are calling subroutines by line number–GOSUB 1000–and setting global variables as a mechanism for passing parameters.

The little language that fueled the home computer revolution has been long buried beneath an avalanche of derision, or at least disregarded as a relic from primitive times. That’s too bad, because while the language itself has serious shortcomings, the overall 8-bit BASIC experience has high points that are worth remembering.

It’s hard to separate the language and the computers it ran it on; flipping the power switch, even without a disk drive attached, resulted in a BASIC prompt. If nothing else, it could be treated as a calculator:

PRINT "seconds in a week: ",60*60*24*7

or

PRINT COS(2)/2

Notice how the cosine function is always available for use. No importing a library. No qualifying it with MATH.TRIG.

Or take advantage of this being a full programming language:

T = 0
FOR I=1 TO 10:T=T+I*I:NEXT I
PRINT T

via Lost Lessons from 8-Bit BASIC.

Home Depot probes possible customer data theft

Home Depot said Tuesday it is investigating “unusual activity” related to customer data but stopped short of confirming it had fallen victim to a major credit card breach.The Atlanta-based home-improvement retailer announced it was working with law enforcement officials after security reporter Brian Krebs reported that “multiple banks” had seen evidence that Home Depot may be the source of a large cache of stolen customer credit and debit cards put up for sale on black markets.

via Home Depot probes possible customer data theft – CNET.

UCR Today: Hacking Gmail with 92 Percent Success

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — A team of researchers, including an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, have identified a weakness believed to exist in Android, Windows and iOS mobile operating systems that could be used to obtain personal information from unsuspecting users. They demonstrated the hack in an Android phone.

The researchers tested the method and found it was successful between 82 percent and 92 percent of the time on six of the seven popular apps they tested. Among the apps they easily hacked were Gmail, CHASE Bank and H&R Block. Amazon, with a 48 percent success rate, was the only app they tested that was difficult to penetrate.

via UCR Today: Hacking Gmail with 92 Percent Success.

100-Gigabit Connectivity to Pacific Wave International Peering Exchange for ESnet

Today, Pacific Wave announced the completion of a 100-Gigabit connection for the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the high-speed computer network serving US Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and scientific facilities. With the completion of this new connection in Sunnyvale, CA, ESnet has upgraded its peering capabilities to research networks in 40 countries throughout the Pacific Rim and beyond.

copy-header2CSU Channel Islands is a member of CENIC, which in turn peers with the Pacific Wave network.

via 100-Gigabit Connectivity to Pacific Wave International Peering Exchange for ESnet | Business Wire.

Community Health Systems’ HIPAA breach among largest ever reported

A cyber security attack on patient data for approximately 4.5 million patients of Community Health Systems-affiliated physicians apparently ranks as the second-largest HIPAA breach ever, in terms of patients affected, according to an Office of Civil Rights database.

Community Health Systems has not yet responded to a request for further comment on the breach.

The attack on CHS, committed by a Chinese group that accessed personal information including names, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers, would be second only to a 2011 breach at Tricare Management Activity that affected 4.9 million people, according to this database.

That breach, which took place at a military health care provider, involved the loss of back-up tapes containing personal information from military beneficiaries’ electronic health records, Healthcare IT News reported.

via Community Health Systems’ HIPAA breach among largest ever reported – Nashville Business Journal.

Position at CSU Channel Islands in Computer Science

CI-formal-logosCI is seeking to fill a tenure-track position in Computer Science at the Assistant Professor rank. The program is poised to grow and we are looking for enthusiastic candidates who will help build a world-class program. All areas of specialization are welcome; candidates with expertise in Computer Security, Networks, Theory, Data Mining or Software Engineering are particularly encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate and graduate computer science courses, pursuing funded research and scholarly publications, contributing to general education and interdisciplinary courses, assisting in the development of new academic programs and pursuing appropriate industrial collaboration.

See ad on AcademicKeys.

The Dullest, Most Vital Skill You Need to Become a Successful Manager

Written communication creates lasting consistency across an entire team because a piece of writing is leveragable collateral from which everyone, from marketing to sales to QA to engineering, can work and consult.

Accountability spreads as a manager’s written work product — product requirement documents, FAQs, presentations, white papers — holds the manager responsible for what happens when the rest of the team executes on the clearly articulated, unambiguous vision described by the documents.

To Horowitz, the distinction between written and verbal communication is stark and in fact is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Good managers want to be held accountable and aren’t looking for ways to weasel out of responsibility. And so, good managers write, while “[b]ad product managers voice their opinion verbally and lament … the ‘powers that be’.”

via The Dullest, Most Vital Skill You Need to Become a Successful Manager | LinkedIn.