Computer Science | Grinnell College

This Friday at CS Table, Isaac and Josh will be leading a discussion on community wireless networks. These articles will form the basis of our discussion:

• Terry Schmidt and Anthony Townsend, Why wi-fi wants to be free, CACM 46(5):47-52, May 2003.
• Tomas Krag and Sebastian Büettrich, Wireless mesh networking, O'Reilly Wireless DevCenter, Jan 22, 2004.

You may also be interested in browsing the following:

• Wireless Mesh Network, Wikipedia.
• AODV Description at http://moment.cs.ucsb.edu/AODV/ (UCSB CS)
• Community wireless solutions: The Urbana Project, at http://www.cuwin.net/projects/urbana

As usual, we meet in JRC 224A a little after noon. See you there!

The Thursday Extra talk originally scheduled for 4:15 p.m. today has been cancelled. Instead, the Department of Computer Science invites you to come and partake of the usual refreshments in our commons, Noyce 3817, and to stay for informal conversation.

This Friday at CS Table/CSC 295, Max and Martin will be leading a discussion on onion routing and its applications to anonymity. Several readings are suggested:

• Clark Boyd, WikiLeaks tech challenges 'top secret' security,  Discovery News, July 27, 2010.
• Paul Marks, How Wikileaks became a whistleblower's haven, New Scientist, July 2010.
• David Goldschlag, Michael Reed, and Paul Syverson. Onion Routing for Anonymous and Private Internet Connections, Communications of the ACM, vol. 42, num. 2, February 1999.
• Tor: overview, Who uses Tor? (torproject.com)

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

On Thursday, November 11, in Noyce 3821, Andrew Hirakawa 2012 and Russel Steinbach 2012 will discuss the software development project that they worked on last summer, under the direction of Professor Henry Walker:

We developed a system to place incoming students in classes based on high school transcripts. Development included an coding an inference engine in PHP that queries a MySQL database and produces a letter created in L^AT_EX, as well as an online interface for prospective students.

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

This Friday, Jeff and Simon will be leading a discussion on Internet censorship in China. We have a few recent news stories about Google in China, plus a 2003 research study.

• Migel Helft and David Barbazoa, Google Shuts China Site in Dispute over Censorship, New York Times, March 22, 2010.
• Robert Saiget, China defends Internet 'Great Firewall', AFP, June 7, 2010.
• David Barboza and Miguel Helft, Beijing Renews Google's License in China, New York Times, July 9, 2010.
• Jonathan Bittrain and Benjamin Adelman, Empirical analysis of Internet filtering in China (plus the technical appendix), March 2003.
• Stan Shroeder, Google Fights Censorship with Transparency Report, Mashable, September 21, 2010.

On Thursday, November 4, in Noyce 3821, Jeff Leep 2011 will describe the deployment of a configuration management system, cfengine, that automatically checks for problems in MathLAN computers and then either fixes the problem or alerts the system administrator.

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

This Friday at CS Table, Jesse Queen will be leading a discussion on IPv4 address space depletion and the transition to IPv6.

• Iljitsch van Beijnum, There is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly, Ars Technica, October 1, 2010.
• IP address, IPv4 address exhaustion (Wikipedia).
• XKCD, Map of the Internet: IPv4 Address Space, 2006.

As usual, we will meet in JRC 224A, a little after noon. Hope to see you there!

On Thursday, October 28, in Noyce 3821, Martin Dluhos 2012 will describe one of the major system-administration projects he carried out this summer: configuring and using software that automate the installation of a new version of Debian GNU/Linux on the workstations in the MathLAN, in order to make the entire process less tedious and less repetitive.

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

This Friday at CS Table, we'll talk about the possible use of the Internet as a medium for casting ballots in elections in the United States. Here are some readings to inform and point up the discussion:

• ACE Project. Internet voting.
• Urbina, Ian. States move to allow overseas and military voters to cast ballots by Internet. The New York Times, May 8, 2010.
• Epstein, Jeremy. DC Internet voting trial intermediate results. Risks digest, October 1, 2010.
• Halderman, J. Alex. Hacking the D.C. Internet voting pilot. Freedom to tinker, October 5, 2010.
• Basch, Michelle. D.C. voting pilot program filled with security holes. WTOP.com, October 8, 2010.
• Mercuri, Rebecca. Rebecca Mercuri's statement on electronic voting. 2007.

As usual, we'll meet at noon or a little after, in Rosenfield 224A.

This Friday at CS Table, Simon and Jeff will present the information contained in packet headers and lead a continued discussion on network surveillance. We suggest the following reading (as much as you have interest or time for):

• ResNet Guidelines and Policies
• Ellen Nakashima, US seeks ways to wiretap the Internet, Washington Post, Sept 27, 2010.
• Paul Ohm, When Network Neutrality Met Privacy, CACM 53(4):30-32, April 2010.
• Kristina Irion, International Communications Surveillance, CACM 52(2):26-28, Feb 2009.
• TCP Protocol Layers Explained, Dru Lavigne, ONLamp.com, March 14, 2001.
• Capturing TCP Packets, Dru Lavigne, ONLamp.com, March 21, 2001.
• IP Packets Revealed, Dru Lavigne, ONLamp.com, March 28, 2001.

As usual, we'll meet a little after noon in JRC 224A.

Students who are registered for CSC 295: We'll be doing sign-ups for after fall break. Please bring your calendars!