Scott Hamilton

Network security under siege: the timing attack

Although most encryption algorithms are theoretically secure and remain impervious to even the most sophisticated cryptanalytic techniques, new attacks like the timing attack exploit the engineering side of network security. A timing attack is basically a way of deciphering a users private key information by measuring the time it takes to carry out cryptographic operations. Factors such as branching and conditional statements, RAM cache hits, processor instructions that run in nonfixed time, as well as performance optimizations to bypass unnecessary operations, all contribute to predictability and therefore to the probability of key decryption.

NASA's mission reliable

Like industrial development organizations, the US space agency struggles with the challenges of creating reliable software. NASAs deep space community is attacking its software crisis via two complementary approaches - one stressing the power of engineering discipline, the other the potential of automated code generation and verification. Both predictable and unpredictable hazards await the spacecraft, robots, and scientific instruments that humans dispatch to explore our solar system. The toughest hazard may be the known presence of unknown bugs in even rigorously tested software. By exploring new technologies and approaches to develop provably reliable software within tough constraints, NASA has a chance to advance the state of the art, contributing to computer science as well as software engineering. In addition, any successful spin-off that improves reliability while cutting development time and costs could, in principle, generate savings for US industry equal to the nations budget for space exploration.

Intel research expands Moore's law

Intels research agenda includes 90-nanometer fabrication processes and work in extreme ultraviolet lithography that will help extend Moores law. It also embraces disruptive technologies exemplified in devices such as micro-electromechanical-systems microradiators, smart antennas, and radiofrequency components for analog switches, resonators, and filters; ad hoc sensor networks with wireless communications; and photonic devices such as optical switches and cheap tunable lasers. To implement these advances, Intel has created a network of university-based labs that group the corporations scientists with academic researchers to form multidisciplinary teams. These lablets leverage industry and academic synergy to nurture off-the-roadmap ideas and technologies and provide a proving ground for testing their viability.

Employment 2005: boom or bust for computer professionals?

Over the last few years, the worlds corporations have been restructured, reengineered, downsized, and rightsized. Whatever it is called, the process usually involves laying off workers. Some of the largest upheavals have involved those corporations built around the sale and application of computer technology, and one of the professions affected most is the computing profession. We continue to hear contradictory reports of excesses and shortages of skilled labor in the worlds technology market. Is it boom or bust for computer professionals? This article examines the trends that are important to computer professionals. The fact is that the computing profession as a whole is enjoying stable employment and renewed hiring.

Thinking outside the box at the IHMC

The IHMCs human-centered-computing approach to research embraces a closely interrelated collection of theory-based, yet highly practical applications. Founded by Kenneth M. Ford and Alberto Canas at the University of West Florida in 1990, the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition houses experts in computer science and engineering, medicine and cognitive psychology, statistics and mathematics, and the social sciences and philosophy. The IHMC has drawn scientists and researchers from these diverse backgrounds to study the complex phenomenon of human cognition and, ultimately, to develop cognitive prostheses that will augment our capabilities and overcome our limitations.

New directions at NASA Ames Research Center

Few people in the scientific community would dispute the role NASA has played in the advancement of aerospace and aerodynamic research in the 20th century. But to fulfill next-century goals of a manned mission to Mars and deep space exploration, NASA must drive the state of the art in computer science in the 21st century the way it has pushed advances in aerospace, rocketry, and aerodynamic research in the 20th century. However, NASA faces a wide array of difficult problems that, in order to be solved, require fundamental breakthroughs in virtually every area of computer science. During the past three years (1997-2000), NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) has led an effort to understand NASAs future Information Technology requirements and the concomitant research investments necessary to meet them. This study process has converged on three IT research cornerstones upon which NASA can build its future: automated reasoning for autonomous systems, human-centered computing, and high-performance computing and networking. The article focuses on several projects that embody these three research cornerstones.

Object technology. A virtual roundtable

Heralded by many as a promising solution to software complexity, object technology is coming into its own. This article explores some recent trends, including distributed objects, object-oriented databases (OODBs), parallel computing, software testing and theoretical foundations. >

Computer celebrates NASA's 50th anniversary

A collection of articles emphasizes NASAs contributions to computer science during its 50-year history.

Evolving the HPCCI. Recommendations from the NRC/CSTB 1995 Report

Early in 1994 Congress asked the National Research Council to assess the goals, management, and progress of the High-performance Computing and Communications Initiative (HPCCI) and to determine how it needs to evolve to meet the challenges of the nations information infrastructure. The NRCs Computer Science and Telecommunications Board convened a committee of 12 experts, which offered its assessment of the HPCCI in a recent NRC monograph. The results of this assessment are summarised: Evolving the HPCCI to support the nations information infrastructure. Using Grand Challenge problems as a vehicle, the HPCCI has been generally successful in developing a better computing and computational infrastructure and increasing researcher-developer-user synergy. Having helped bring parallel computing into the mainstream, the HPCCI should continue to focus its considerable expertise on new computing and communications technologies, particularly those that support the improvement of the nations information infrastructure. >