Computer Science | Grinnell College

On Thursday, October 7, in Noyce 3821, Shitanshu Aggarwal 2011 will describe the software-development project on which he worked last summer. He writes:

During the Summer of 2010, I interned at Amazon's online grocery business, Amazon Fresh. It is an experimental project and is currently being tested in the Seattle area in Washington. In this talk, I will describe how an online grocery store operates, the computational problems that arise in their operation, and my contributions to Amazon's project.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, Delivering groceries in Seattle, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

This Friday at CS Table, Dr. Rebelsky and I will be presenting the XKCD comic "Password Reuse".

To add some seriousness to the conversation, please also read

• A. L. Penenberg, Is Google evil?, Mother Jones, October 10, 2006;
• J. Vascellaro, Google Agonizes on Privacy as Ad World Vaults Ahead, Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2010.

As usual, we'll be meeting at noon in JRC 224A. Hope to see you there!

At 4:15 on Thursday, September 30, in Noyce 3821, Professor Henry Walker will give a talk about software that he and his students have developed for the management of proposals for presenting research papers at conferences. In 1999, Mr. Walker was asked to develop the first iteration of a Web-based paper submissions and reviewing system. The current system represents the twelfth version of this software, and each version has implemented refinements, new capabilities, and adjustments. Reflections on the evolution of this system yield numerous lessons for software and Web-based systems. This talk discusses 10 (hexadecimal) observations that can help in the design of future software applications.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, Software for the submission and review of conference proposals: 10 (hexadecimal) lessons, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

This Friday at CS Table, Isaac and Josh will be leading a discussion about quality of service and network neutrality. The popular press articles are concerned with recent regulatory proposals:

• Nate Anderson, FCC proposes network neutrality rules (and big exemptions), Ars Technica, Oct 22, 2009.
• Declan McCullagh, Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality, CNET News, April 6, 2010.
• Matthew Lasar, Few neutrals in debate over third way net neutrality plan, Ars Technica, July 19, 2010.

Technical readings from Wikipedia are concerned with existing Internet service models:

• Best Effort Delivery
• Quality of Service

As usual, we meet at noon in JRC 224A. Hope to see you there!

• United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), Understanding Denial-of-Service Attacks, November 4, 2004.
• R. Singel, Twitter, Facebook attacks no surprise to security experts, Wired.com, August 6, 2009.
• R. Singel, Is there rhyme or reason to the attacks on Twitter?, Wired.com, August 6, 2009.
• Domain Name System (Wikipedia).
• ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), DNS Distributed Denial of Service, March 2006.

Also worth reading, not required: J. Davis, Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web, Wired 16.12, November 24, 2008.
Presenters: Martin & Max

At 4:15 on Thursday, September 16, in Noyce 3821, Professor Janet Davis will give a talk based on research conducted during her sabbatical last year:

Persuasive technology, in the words of B.J. Fogg, is technology to change what we think and do. Though technology can help us change our behavior for the better, persuasive technology raises ethical questions concerning both the means and the ends of the persuasion. Participatory design, with its commitment to engaging future users as full partners in the design process, is one approach to addressing such concerns. In this talk, I will present my participatory design work with Grinnell College's EcoHouse to design technology to support them in their mission of sustainable living.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, Exploring persuasive technology through participatory design, will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

This Friday, Jesse and Shitanshu will be leading a discussion on the SMTP application-level protocol and one of its most popular uses, spam. Please read this article:

• E. Allman, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, the FTC, and Spam, ACM Queue, Oct 2003.

For additional background, also read about SMTP.

As usual, we'll be meeting in JRC 224A at noon. Hope to see you there!

This Friday, Jordan and Alex will be leading a discussion on the Internet Engineering Task Force, the body which governs Internet protocols. It's very different from how you might imagine a standards organization, and Alex and Jordan have some great questions to discuss.

The main article for Friday is

• P. Borsook, How Anarchy Works, Wired 3.10, Oct 1995.

Those who are registered for the course or interested in further technical background should peruse the following Wikipedia articles. While Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, it gives a reasonably accurate overview of many Internet-related topics, and it is cheap.

• Communications Protocol
• Internet Protocol Suite

As usual, we are meeting on Friday at noon in JRC 224A. Hope to see you there!

Welcome back! This semester, CS Table will be conducted together with the 1-credit special topic course CSC 295, Socio-Technical Issues in Computer Networks. We will consider issues from access and net neutrality to censorship and denial of service attacks. Registered students will be expected to lead discussions throughout the semester; all other interested students are welcome to attend and participate in discussions.

We will be meeting in JRC 224A. There is no reading for this Friday. Our agenda:

We'll consider metaphors as a way to consolidate our prior knowledge of how the Internet works (and perhaps learn some new things as well). Registered students will sign up for the first round of presentations.

A schedule for the entire semester is available at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~davisjan/csc/295/2010F/.

Hope to see you there!

The Computer Science majors of the class of 2010 are:

• Andrew Fred Applebaum
• Paul Robert Bellora (Henry-York Steiner Prize for Fiction)
• Alexander Lewis Brooks, with honors
• Alexander James Exarhos, with honors
• Aditya Manjeshwar Kini
• Nathan Allen Levin
• Augustus Guang-Li Lidaka, with honors
• Richard Darryl Mays
• Jiabei Pan, with honors
• Patrick Russell Rich, with honors
• Jeffrey Bartholomew Thompson
• Cyrus James Witthaus

Congratulations to all!