Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

The Maryland Cyber Challenge & Conference (MDC3) will be held on Friday and Saturday, October 21-22 at the Baltimore Convention Center. See the Web site for the schedule and to register.

The MDC3 is open to anyone who’s interested in advancing, studying or working in the field of cybersecurity, including IT and cybersecurity professionals, corporate and government leaders, college and high school students, teachers, administrators and parents and cyber enthusiasts.

The MDC3 cyber challenge gives teams of high school students, college and university students, and professionals the opportunity to learn more about cybersecurity and develop practical skills for defending computers while competing for scholarships in a fun environment. The MDC3 conference features government and industry leaders, breakout sessions and cyber innovation exhibits for an audience of students, parents and professionals from academia, industry and government.

MDC3 was founded by Science Applications International Corporation and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in partnership with the Department of Business & Economic Development, the Tech Council of Maryland and the National Cyber Security Alliance with the goal of encouraging Maryland students and young professionals to pursue education and careers in cybersecurity.

Joseph Tuzo graduated from UMBC this past May with a B.S. in Computer Science. His research projects included analyzing the dynamics of simulated roadway traffic in order to reduce commute times, and work with UMBC's MAPLE Lab on the Playing to Program (P2P) Project. To learn more about Joseph's research pursuits, read his research profile.

This year, October 7 has been designated as Ada Lovelace Day, a day to honor Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. She is widely regarded as the first computer programmer for her work with Charles Babbage who developed an early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine.

ReadWriteWeb commemorated the day with a story on the Women Who Made Google Plus and profiled twenty-two of the  Googlers:

"Launched on June 28th and just opened to the public at large late last month, Google Plus is a feature-rich social network with variable privacy and sharing settings at the core of its experience. Who were the women involved in building such a big, important technology? We asked, on Google Plus, and were told about twenty two of them profiled below. They are an incredibly accomplished group of people and a great source of inspiration for young women interested in science and technology – or for anyone else who could use some powerful role models. You should share this list of women with the girls in your life, though, that's what Ada Lovelace Day is all about."

You can visit their public G+ profiles and see more about who they are and what they do. The article points out that the 22 profiled are just some of the women who helped to build and launch this new and successful application.  

Many former UMBC students work at Google or have done internships there.  If you are interested in either, you can explore the opportunities at Google's pages for internships and jobs.

If you are interested in machne learning you might check out the  American Meteorological Society  Wind Power Prediction Contest.  It is sponsored by the AMS Committee on AI Applications to Environmental Science, Energy, and Probability and Statistics.  The goal is to compare various statistical learning techniques to predict wind power production. This contest considers a wind farm consisting of 53 turbines located in northern Colorado. The objective is to forecast the wind power for the wind farm (sum of the power from the 53 turbines). The inputs are forecast variables from several Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, both from the National Center for Environmental Prediction and NCAR's high resolution WRF forecast. Training data are currently available on the download site, and the test data will be available in November.

The contest consists of two parts: (1) a day-ahead forecasting contest and (2) a short-term (one-, two-, and three-hour) contest. Participants are welcome to enter either or both parts of the contests. The AMS welcome entries from professionals to students, but registration is required by November 15. Entrants names will be kept blind – they must register an abstract to present a poster at AMS, then winners will be notified of an invitation to present a talk at the January AMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta. The AMS expects to solicit prize money, which will be announced on the website at a later time.

Cybersecurity Guest Lecture

An Evening With General Michael Hayden, USAF (Ret.)

6:00-8:00pm Thursday, 27 Oct. 2011
Room 102, Information Technology and Engineering

UMBC is proud to announce this opportunity for students and faculty to meet with General Hayden to hear his perspectives and discuss current issues regarding cybersecurity. The evening is sponsored by Next Century Corporation.

Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden will discuss the evolution of technology from World War II to the present and outline the challenges this evolution presents to national security organizations. He will address the timely issues of cybersecurity and cyberwarfare, stress the role of education in preparing the intelligence community workforce to deal with cyber concerns, and share anecdotal stories of his time as Director of both the CIA and NSA in meeting these challenges facing the nation. General Hayden is happy to answer questions and make this an engaging, informative, and interactive evening.

Refreshments will be furnished by Next Century Corporation.

RSVP REQUIRED: Space is limited, with preference given to graduate CYBR, CSEE, and IS students and faculty. Please RSVP to Allison Jones () by October 25th if you plan to attend.

General Michael Hayden, USAF (Ret.), served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency and was the nation’s first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. He retired from the CIA in February 2009, and is now a Principal in the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy co-founded by former Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. General Hayden also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy and in an advisory capacity to several organizations focused on national security.

General Hayden retired from a distinguished thirty-nine year career in the United States Air Force on July 1, 2008. In addition to his senior intelligence community assignments, he served as Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency, Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center, and Chief of the Central Security Service.

General Hayden graduated from Duquesne University with a Bachelor’s degree in history in 1967 and a Master’s degree in modern American history in 1969.

Photo Courtesy Jim Wilson/The New York Times

According to a New York Times article Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, died on Wednesday of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 56.

Mr. Jobs’ death occurred just one day after the release of the highly anticipated iPhone 4S.

On August 24, 2011, Mr. Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple Inc. because of his illness. “I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come,” said Jobs in a letter released by the company.

An obituary on Apple’s website reads: “Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

To read about Mr. Jobs’ life and his work developing what is now the largest technology company in the world, see the full New York Times   article.

Got Linux? If you've ever wanted to try Linux but didn't know where to start, bring your computer to the Linux Installfest this Friday.

The UMBC Linux Users Group will hold a Linux Install Fest from 10:30am to 4:30pm on Friday 7 October on Main Street in the Commons. Experts from the Linux Users Group will help you install a free copy of Linux on your computer as a multi-boot operating system on your computer. They can help you to ensure that your hardware, including wireless, fingerprint reader, and webcam, is working. At the Fall 2011 installfest, they will be installing Ubuntu version 11.04. If you would like assistance installing a different release or distribution, bring install media.

If you are bringing a laptop, bring the AC adapter or charger. If you are bringing a desktop, then bring power cables, a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, too. If you will be dual-booting with Windows, please defragment your C: drive before attending the installfest. This increases the maximum size of your Linux partition. Finally, back up your data. The LUG will make all attempts to keep your data intact, but there's always the slim chance that something will go wrong.  See the LUG site for more information.

Department of Information Systems Colloquium

Beyond Reactive Management of Network Intrusions

Professor Sushil Jajodia
Center for Secure Information Systems
George Mason University

12:00pm Wednesday, 12 October 2011, ITE456, UMBC

This talk will discuss issues and methods for survivability of systems under malicious attacks. To protect from such attacks, it is necessary to take steps to prevent attacks from succeeding. At the same time, it is important to recognize that not all attacks can be averted at the outset; attacks that are successful to some degree must be recognized as unavoidable and comprehensive support for identifying and responding to attacks is required.

In my talk, I will describe the recent research on attack graphs that represent known attack sequences attackers can use to penetrate computer networks. I will show how attack graphs can be used to compute actual sets of hardening measures that guarantee the safety of given critical resources. Attack graphs can also be used to correlate received alerts, hypothesize missing alerts, and predict future alerts, all at the same time. Thus, they offer a promising solution for administrators to monitor and predict the progress of an intrusion, and take appropriate countermeasures in a timely manner.

I will conclude my talk with a demo of the working system.

Sushil Jajodia is University Professor, BDM International Professor, and the director of Center for Secure Information Systems in the Volgenau School of Engineering at the George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. He served as the chair of the Department of Information and Software Engineering during 1998-2002. He joined Mason after serving as the director of the Database and Expert Systems Program within the Division of Information, Robotics, and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation. Before that he was the head of the Database and Distributed Systems Section in the Computer Science and Systems Branch at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington and Associate Professor of Computer Science and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Milan, Italy; Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, England; and King's College, London, England.

The UMBC ACM Student Chapter is co-hosting Interdisciplinary Engineering Panel Night at 7:00pm on Thursday 6 October 201 in the Commons Skylight Lounge. This free event is open to both undergraduate and graduate students in all engineering disciplines. Students have a chance to hear the perspective of professionals from industry, socializing and expanding their network. The event is co-sponsored with mechanical engineering (ASME), chemical engineering (AIChE), Device and the National Society of Black Engineers. Hors d’oeuvres will be served. Business casual dress suggested.