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Need for digital security spurs growth of cyber security field
The growing need for digital security has made the shortage of cyber security professionals in the United States even more apparent, and the U.S. government is now engaged in a campaign to train, hire, and retain thousands of cyber professionals; the private sector is doing its share, too: Raytheon initiated the MathMovesU program in 2005, to inspire middle school students to consider math, science, and engineering education and careers; Raytheon awards more than $2 million annually in scholarships and grants to students, teachers, and schools nationwide
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Computing frontiersNew computer chip computes probabilities, not logic
A new type of chip has been unveiled that uses probability inputs and outputs instead of the conventional 1's and 0's used in logic chips today; crunching probabilities is much more applicable to many computing task performed today rather than binary logic
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More police departments use predictive analysis to predict where crime will occur
The Chicago Police Department is teaming with a local university to develop a system that predicts where crime will occur; the policing approach, called predictive analytics, has gained momentum in recent years as law enforcement agencies have recognized that some types of crime follow patterns that can be predicted by software
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CybersecurityNew report: Apple software has the most vulnerabilities
The usual suspects lead the list of software makers whose software come with most vulnerabilities -- Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and Adobe; new vulnerabilities report offers support to the notion that a high market share correlates with a high number of vulnerabilities
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Nuclear mattersSoftware to cut millions from nuclear clean-up bill
New software lets planners work out the best way of breaking up and packing contaminated equipment while minimizing workers' radiation exposure. It also shows in minute detail how radioactive waste can be stored in the smallest possible space, reducing the number of long-term storage containers needed
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Keeping the cloud safeWeb services could work with sensitive data -- without decrypting the data
A cryptographic method could allow cloud services to work with sensitive data without ever decrypting it; a novel technique could see future Web services work with sensitive data without ever being able to read it; several implementations of a mathematical proof unveiled last year will allow cryptographers to start making the proposal more practical.
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China syndromeChinese government buys stake in U.S. semiconductor firm
The investment represents China's first ownership stake in the firm behind part of China's home-grown Loongson processor; the third generation of the Loongson processor might even be fast enough to allow China to build the world's fastest supercomputer using Loongson chips
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Nuclear mattersNew automated tool debugs nuclear weapon simulations
The United States relies on nuclear weapons in its deterrence strategy; international conventions, however, prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons; U.S. leaders , military and civilians, must thus rely on simulations to have confidence in the operational reliability of these untested weapons; Purdue researchers offer a new methods to debug nuclear weapons simulations
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Different approaches to identity protection on the Web
Facebook and Mozilla offers different visions for the future of your online identity; Facebook uses the oAuth standard, which lets a Web site identify a user via a third-party site without exchanging sensitive information; for Mozilla, identity would be moved out of the Web page itself and into the "chrome" of the browser -- the parts around of the Web page; logging in and out of sites would be accomplished through buttons at the top of the browser that would activate secure protocols -- rendering the process of creating and memorizing usernames and passwords obsolete
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New forensic tool advances data recovery
Data recovery for images will be applied to other file types; new text tool will make it possible to recover more data from corrupted hard drives; the text tool will examine fragmented chunks of files that may be distributed across a disk and analyze their content to see which ones likely go together
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World Cup watchSoftware helps World Cup emergency planning
The organizers of this summer's World Cup are using a simulation software developed by researchers at the University of Salford which allows emergency personnel and hospital better prepare for different emergencies
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Laptops to serve as roaming earthquake detectors
Newer models of laptops contain accelerometers -- motion sensors meant to detect whether the computer has been dropped; if the computer falls, the hard drive will automatically switch off to protect the user's data; researchers say this motion sensing ability allows laptop to serve as roaming earthquake detectors -- even though laptop accelerometers are not as sensitive as professional-grade seismometers, so they can only pick up tremors of about magnitude 4.0 and above
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Charles Thacker wins Turing Award
Inventor Charles Thacker wins computer industry's most prestigious award for his contributions to the field; Thacker built a prototype of a desktop computer, called the Alto, which featured a number of innovations that have since become commonplace: a television-like screen, a graphical user interface, and a WYSIWYG text editor; Thacker was also co-inventor of the Ethernet networking technology
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New group calls for holding vendors liable for buggy software
The group released draft language it advises companies to incorporate into procurement contracts between user organizations and software development firms; SANS Institute, Mitre also release 2010 list of Top 25 programming errors
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Oak Ridge develops powerful intrusion detection systems
The attack analysis program uses machine learning to increase effectiveness; ORCA effectively sits on top of off-the-shelf intrusion detection systems, and its correlation engine processes information and learns as cyberevents arrive; the correlation engine supplements or replaces the preset rules used by most intrusion detection systems to detect attacks or other malicious events
The Long View
DARPA seeks deep-learning AI to cope with flood of information
The growing use of UAVs to loiter over enemy territory and send images and streaming videos back to HQ has created a glut of information; DARPA seeks a better, deeper, and more layered artificial intelligence to help the intelligence community cope with the avalanche of information coming in
No end in sight for Moore's Law
Moore's Law lives! Worries that reduction in transistor size to below ~20 nm would create heating and quantum effects so severe that such transistors will not be of practical use (read: an end to Moore's Law) are misplaced; researchers show the Moore's Law will obtain for a while yet
Good code, bad computations: A computer security vulnerability
Beware of return-oriented programming -- that is, if you want to make sure your computer or server is not tricked into undertaking malicious or undesirable behavior
