New Computer That Could Prevent Software Hacks

Today’s fight against cyber insecurity involves the creation of software patches with the hope that they will tackle software vulnerability problems. These among many other issues facing the security of our data and personal information are often due hardware weakness such as information leakage, code injection and errors with cryptography. Last Tuesday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it will be taking on a new project named MORPHEUS, after the ancient Greek god of dreams. The team is planning to inject $3.6 million dollars into building a computer whose hardware minimizes cybersecurity threats by up to 40%. The idea is to create some sort of unsolvable puzzle, where information is randomly and quickly shuffled around the computer.
According to the University of Michigan’s professor of computer science, Todd Austin, an attack on MORPHEUS would be equivalent to trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. Every time a hacker tries to solve it, the information is rearranged. The idea is to change the modern computer hardware design. In our ordinary computers, once a hacker identifies and exploits a bug, he/she is able to access valuable information, steal it and leave. As long as they can figure out where the vital information is stored, it is game over. MORPHEUS will constantly change the location of that software bug and vital information using computer circuits. Even though it may not be completely “unhackable”, it could save the world a lot of petty cybersecurity problems.
Research source link:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw4dxq/darpa-morpheus-hardware-hack-michigan

Tiny Robots That Move and Think Like Insects

With the success that engineers have had in the past while trying to make tiny and insect-like robots, much is yet to be achieved in programming them. At the moment, the technology required to enable such a robot to plan its path, adjust its flight appropriately and sense gusts of wind is unavailable. It would require the robot to carry a desktop-sized computer for it to mimic the behavior and movements of an insect. Director of Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Controls and professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at Cornell, Silvia Ferrari, has teamed up with Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory to incorporate neuromorphic computer chips to achieve this dream.
Like the neurons in our brains, neuromorphic chips process spikes of electricity firing in complex combinations. Ferrari and her lab partners are developing a new system of control and sensing algorithms that imitate neural activity. They have also created a flying RoboBee equipped with optical flow, motion and vision sensors that weigh only 80 milligrams. Obstacles and wind can cause tiny robots to lose control. To prevent crashes and survive them, Ferrari and her team are developing new algorithms and sensors. Their development is being led by Taylor Clawson, Ferrari’s doctoral student, who uses a simulator that models the ideal motions and forces that RoboBee may encounter. The simulation also assists in improving the design of the robot. Ferrari has been awarded a $1 million grant to continue her work.
Research source link:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171214141923.htm

A Simple Tool to Tell if a Website Has Suffered Data Breach

When it comes to Cybersecurity, no organizations, corporation or state is above it. A breach is always going to happen; it’s all a matter of when. A team of computer scientists has successfully developed and tested a simple tool designed to monitor websites by keeping track of the activity of emails and other accounts associated with them. In their study, the team found that 1% of the websites tested had experienced a breach in the last 18 months. This was regardless of the website’s audience or reach. Having in mind that there are billions of websites online today, this means that tens of millions of them are at risk of a data breach.
The researchers named the tool Tripwire. It has a bot that creates and registers accounts on a given number of websites. Every account has a unique email address. The tool uses the same password for the website and email account associated with it. The user then waits to see whether an outside party uses the same password to access the email account. The researchers discovered that out of the websites tested, 19 had had their information leaked to outside sources. They immediately contacted the owners of the sites and warned them of the breaches. They hope that companies will take up the tool and use it to safeguard their clients’ and customers’ information.
Research source link:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/uoc–csd121117.php

Women in Computer Science

In the 1980s, there were more women in computer science than men. They were the pioneers and worked at the forefront to ensure that the knowledge was available for all. Much of those in the current world don’t know that women comprised the majority of PC users back in the day. They wanted to make the knowledge more interesting for men. To achieve this, they changed its presentation and the culture surrounding it. This created a sudden shift and a drop-off. The number of females in the field stalled and suddenly dropped. Today, only 24.4% of computer science professionals are women.
The plummeting enrollment is due to multiple events that occur at the same time. A recent study showed that women do not give up in computer science when only faced with either bad grades, a lack of presentation or society’s perception. They drop out due to of all those factors combined. Internships in schools do not prepare women for the sexism that lies in the tech world. And, for this reason, it is important to enroll more females into the industry. Currently, women are like superheroes. They have to endure the challenging perceptions and views of them in the industry. Looking back in history, several women made it big in the tech world. For example, Ada Lovelace was a mathematician whose computing ideas took the world nearly 100 years to comprehend and catch up to. This shows that with some sort of encouragement, they can do incredible things in the industry.
Research source link:

Women in Computer Science