Computer Science | Grinnell College

Thursday, October 4, 2018
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Lisong Xu, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, presents this Thursday Extra.

Bandwidth allocation is a fundamental problem of the Internet, because bandwidth is the most important type of resources in the Internet and bandwidth allocation algorithms determine the performance and fairness of the Internet. Xu will first talk about how the Internet works, then discuss recent research works on bandwidth allocation, and finally introduce the graduate program of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UNL.

During our CS Table on net neutrality, we'll run through the basic principles and history, discuss previous actions to strengthen or erode net neutrality, and think about the consequences of possible upcoming changes from the FCC. As always, we strongly encourage you to complete the readings before the discussion, but you are welcome whether you have read or not.

1. Net Neutrality: A Guide to (and History of) a Contested Idea. Alexis C. Madrigal and Adrienne LaFrance. The Atlantic. April 25, 2015.
2. Net Neutrality Foe to Head the FCC. Larry Greenmeier. Scientific American. January 30, 2017.
3. What Happens If Net Neutrality Goes Away? Mike Orcutt. MIT Technology Review. January 20, 3017.

Computer science table (CS Table) is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm in JRC 224B. Contact the CS faculty for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

The first CS Table of the semester will be a discussion of Facebook's new efforts to bring Internet to the world. In Facebook's words:

"At the core of our efforts with Internet.org are non-exclusive partnerships with mobile operators to offer free basic internet services to people through Internet.org. This is a set of basic websites and services to introduce people to the value of the internet, and that we hope add value to their lives."

Apologies for the many loose readings, but this issue is new enough that there isn't a good, canonical resource out there describing both sides. Come to lunch having skimmed the links below and some sense of what the Free Basics controversy is about, and we'll discuss!

• Facebook announcing the internet.org platform
• Internet.org website
• Read up on Free Basics and its underlying platform
• The service being banned in Egypt
• Controversy in India
• Criticism of its limited services

Computer science table (CS Table) is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00-12:45 in JRC 224C. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, May 1, a video recording of a recent talk by Edward Snowden, “Here's how we take back the Internet,” will be presented. Mr. Snowden is a former system administrator for the National Security Agency who resigned last May in order to expose widespread violations of civil rights and other abuses of power in the NSA.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The presentation, “ Here's how we take back the Internet,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!

This Friday, Jordan and Alex will lead a discussion on approaches to bringing network resources to education in rural communities. Please read the following:

• R. Wang, et al., Digital network going postal and a tale of three schools, Winter 2005.
• M. Trucano, Mobile Phones and Literacy in Rural Communities, World Bank EduTech blog, April 23, 2010.

If you want to learn more, the CSC 295 site links to the research articles these stories report on. As usual, we meet a little after noon in JRC 224A. Hope to see you there!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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.