Computer Science | Grinnell College

Welcome back, CS students! Thanks to Josh Raymond's work this spring, this semester's CS Table will focus on current topics in health care and computing. Topics will include electronic health records, safety critical systems, online health communities, diagnostic tools, and much more. See the course front door for more information.

We will meet on Fridays at noon in JRC 224A (upstairs in the Marketplace), starting with introductions and topic sign-ups this Friday.

Please consider registering for CSC-295-02 (one credit). Students who are registered for CSC-295-02 will collaborate in small groups of 2-3 to lead discussions (see below) on 2-3 topics over the course of the semester. Several students interested in health care have already registered for the course, so you'll have great opportunities for interdisciplinary interactions.

Any interested student may participate in our discussions. If you do not have a meal plan, you may sign in at the Marketplace entrance. Hope to see you this Friday!

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.

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!

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!

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!