The Math and Computer Science Society will be hosting Quibbles ‘n Bits this Thursday, November 19 at 5PM in University Crossings 153. This event is an open forum for discussing the Computer Science department’s computing facilities (CS Lab, Tux nodes, etc). Bring questions/comments/suggestions you may have to the System Administrators. Food will be provided.
Quibbles ‘n Bits
Thursday, November 19 @ 5PM
UCROSS 153
FREE FOOD!!!
NOTE: THIS EVENT IS ON TUESDAY, NOT THURSDAY
The Math and Computer Science Society will host a talk by Doug Wright about latency and its implications in Wall Street businesses on Tuesday, November 3 at 5pm in UC153. Latency is a measure of the time delay experienced in a system and he will discuss the design and implementation of reducing latency in business environments such as the
investment sector.
Doug is a former MCS member and graduate of Drexel and currently works for Susquehanna International Group a global investment, trading and technology firm. Representatives from SIG will also be on hand to talk about co-op employment. Food will be providded.
The Latency Arms Race on Wall Street
***TUESDAY*** November 3 @ 5PM
UCROSS 153
FREE FOOD!!!
This Thursday, October 29th, the MCS Society will be hosting a talk by Roger Dingledine, project leader for the Tor Project. See below for the talk abstract. The event will be held at 5PM in University Crossings room 153. Food will be provided.
Tor and Censorship: Lessons Learned
Thursday, October 29 @ 5PM
UCROSS 153
FREE FOOD!!!
Abstract:
Tor was originally designed as a civil liberties tool for people in the West. But if governments can block connections *to* the Tor network, who cares that it provides great anonymity? A few years ago we started adapting Tor to be more robust in countries like China. We streamlined its network communications to look more like ordinary SSL, and we
introduced “bridge relays” that are harder for an attacker to find and block than Tor’s public relays.
In the aftermath of the Iranian elections in June, and then the late September blockings in China, we’ve learned a lot about how circumvention tools work in reality for activists in tough situations. I’ll give an overview of the Tor architecture, and summarize the variety of people who use it and what security it provides. Then we’ll focus on
the use of tools like Tor in countries like Iran and China: why anonymity is important for circumvention, why transparency in design and operation is critical for trust, the role of popular media in helping — and harming — the effectiveness of the tools, and tradeoffs between usability and security. After describing Tor’s strategy for secure
circumvention (what we *thought* would work), I’ll talk about how the arms race actually seems to be going in practice.
Bio:
Roger Dingledine is project leader for The Tor Project, a US non-profit working on anonymity research and development for such diverse organizations as the US Navy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Voice of America. In addition to all the hats he wears for Tor, Roger organizes academic conferences on security and anonymity, speaks at such events as Blackhat, Defcon, Toorcon, CCC congresses, and Hacking at Random, and also does tutorials on anonymity for national and foreign law enforcement. Roger was honored in 2006 as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35 by Technology Review magazine.
Further links:
Tor Project website
Tor bridges page
Bridge distribution strategies
The MCS Society will be holding it’s Student/Faculty Forum this Thursday, October 22nd, at 5pm in Crossings 153. Come have your questions and concerns addressed by our faculty and enjoy some free food.
If you cannot make it to the event, but still have questions or concerns, please send them to tmcssoc@cs.drexel.edu and we will bring them up for you.
Also, we will be holding elections the positions of vice president, public relations, and student representative. Anyone interested in running should attend this meeting, or email tmcssoc@cs.drexel.edu.
Open tryouts for this year’s ACM Scholastic Programming Team will be held on Thursday, October 15th in the University Crossings 151 Computer Lab. Tryouts will be 90 minutes long. In order to accommodate class schedules, the tryout period will be from 3:00-5:00 PM. If you are an experienced/highly capable programmer, and would like an opportunity to use your skills for a chance at international competition, please try out for a team. Here are some important details:
Teams of 3 students will be chosen to represent Drexel at two events in which we will participate in the near future.
The competition will involve more than 150 teams and 75 universities from the mid-Atlantic region, ranging from the eastern halves of Pennsylvania and Maryland and central New Jersey through the northern half of North Carolina. The top several schools in the regional competition will advance to the International Finals Feb. 1-6 in Harbin, China.
All programming will be done in C, C++, or Java.
In team competition, each team shares one PC, and develops solutions as quickly and accurately as possible for a set of problems. Our tryouts will be held to help find individual programmers who can solve problems quickly and accurately in a contest environment.
Eligible participants in the contest are students enrolled for at least half-time study (as well as undergraduate students on co-op assignment), who began college study in 2005 or later and were born in 1986 or later. Complete policies and procedures are explained at http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/regionals/About.htm . You don’t have to be a senior! Some graduate students may be eligible! You don’t have to be a computer science or software engineering major!
You can read more about the contest at the websites shown below.
Mid-Atlantic Regional Programming Contest site: http://www.radford.edu/~acm/midatl/index.html
International Collegiate Programming Contest: http://acm.baylor.edu/icpc
Want some practice? Sample programs from previous competitions can be found online at
http://www.programming-challenges.com which has an automated judge to check your programs for correctness.
There is also an automated “programming contest judge” website at the Universidad de Vallodolid (http://online-judge.uva.es/problemset/) which has quite an extensive set of problems. Should you wish to utilize these sites, you will need to create contestant accounts for yourself.
See, for instance, the “Stacks of Flapjacks” problem, at
http://www.programming-challenges.com/pg.php?page=downloadproblem&probid=110402&format=html
Please direct further inquiries to Dr. Popyack.
This Thursday, October 8th, the MCS Society will be presenting an introduction to the Mario AI gameplay library. The library provides a Java API implementing the classic Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. The API allows for programming Mario controllers to navigate randomly generated levels. This API was recently used in a competition a few months ago.
This talk will provide a brief overview of the API along with some results. Attendees are encouraged to bring their laptops to the event in order to collaborate on an AI. We may try to incorporate this into our programming competition later in the term. Pizza will be provided.
Also, anyone interested in the CCSC-E programming competition later this month should attend this meeting for more information.
UPDATE: Links from the talk.
If anyone comes up with cool AI’s, let us know and we’ll post them here.
This Thursday, October 1st, the MCS Society will be hosting a workshop presented by ARM. This event will be held from 5-7PM, in Disque 103. Also, students who attend will be registered to win a FREE ARM-powered Apple iPod!
This event is open to all students! Please let your friends know about this event!
The workshop description follows:
ARM announces a technical seminar specifically for university students, staff, and others interested to be held at the Drexel University. In 2 hours, the workshop covers the company business model, ARM processors and architectures (new and old), programmers models, the ARM Instruction Set Architecture, basic system design, new core pipelines, power issues, GPUs, development tools, and a demonstration of the latest ARM technology. The seminar is free to students and faculty.
If you are an engineering or computer science student studying hardware or software, computer architecture, embedded, real-time systems/applications, low-power applications, cryptography, interpreters and compilers, or you’re starting a senior project, you will find this short course useful. Think of it as a crash course on ARM.
UPDATE: Slides from the presentation are now available!
The US Army Chief Information Office (CIO) is seeking outstanding Computer Science and Information Technology students/graduates who are looking for a dynamic career in public service with the U. S. Government. The Army Knowledge Leaders (AKL) Program is designed for current and 2010 graduates who have a proven record of academic excellence, demonstrated leadership skills, and wish to pursue a career in IT management as a Federal civilian employee supporting the mission of the Army CIO.
This promising opportunity with the AKL Program is an intense two–year experience of exciting training and work rotations with Department of the Army and Department of Defense. The Program’s goal is to help hone a new breed of IT leaders to work on critical defense projects and initiatives in a collaborative setting. Candidates will enjoy hands on training in leadership skills, business expertise, and technology competencies that will support the U.S. Government’s Army Chief Information Officer’s (CIO) mission.
Qualified Candidates will:
The AKL Program’s rewards are:
Projected Start Date: July 2010
PLEASE NOTE: Students must attend Drexel University’s October 7th, 2009, Career Fair and meet with us in order to apply for the program.
Welcome to the new MCS website! This site will hopefully make it easier for us to update regularly, and for you to read. If you have any suggestions, feel free to email us at tmcssoc@cs.drexel.edu