Registration for the 2016 Global Game Jam is open!

UMBC is once again hosting the Global Gam Jam this January. It will run from 5pm Friday, January 29th to 5pm Sunday, January 31st, just after classes start. Space is limited, so sign up now!

For anyone who hasn’t participated, the global game jam is a 48 hour game development event with hundreds of host sites around the world. At 5pm local time, introduce the jam and announce this year’s theme. Previous year’s themes have ranged from a phrase (“as long as we’re together there will always be problems”) to a word (“extinction”) to an image (ouroboros: a snake eating its tail), to a sound (the recording of a heartbeat). Participants brainstorm game ideas around the theme, form into teams, and spend the weekend building games that are designed to be both fun and express the theme.

The UMBC site is not restricted to just students. In previous years, we have had a mix of UMBC students, alumni, students from other schools, game development professionals, and just people with an interest in game development. More details at gaim.umbc.edu/global-game-jam. However, we are limited to just 40 participants, so sign up early if you want to come. If UMBC fills up, other local(ish) sites include the Universities at Shady Grove and American University. If you are not near UMBC, check the Global Game Jam for a site near you.

A winter lesisure book report compiled by Women’s Center Director, Jess Myers

The winter term is wrapping up and the “spring” semester (and winter storm Jonas) is right around the corner. I’m already mourning what I know will soon be the inevitable dry season of leisure reading which will be replaced by amazing Women’s Center events and programs (plus, let’s be honest, the last season of Parks and Rec is finally on Netflix and Leslie is calling my name). Before that, though, I thought I’d report out on my winter reading list.

I gave myself few rules to follow as I selected my books for the winter break. I purposely avoided the critical feminist textbooks I have on my reading list and did not seek out books with themes of sexual violence (I’m still recovering from last winter’s reading Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State. Amazing and heartbreaking.). I steered myself in the direction of “light” and “fun,” sought out stories with women positioned as critical characters, and kept to the intentional practice of reading books authored by women or people of color only. I’m already reflecting on the more intentional ways I’ll need to craft my next binge reading session. While most of my winter reads ended up on my list through recommendations from feminist and social justice-orientated friends or podcasts, the end result still produced a very white-centric cast of women authors. This is in contrast to last winter, when I sought out specific authors such as Gay and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and took away a much more intersectional and global perspective through my reading. I’ve (re)learned it’s not good enough to just exclude white male authors when seeking out book recommendations if you’re really looking to expand your perspective beyond stories of whiteness and white supremacy.

So here’s my report (I’ve also included links for the full official summary of each book):

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
I was supposed to be a part of a book club and this book was the December read. Long story short, I ended up not going to the discussion but continued reading the book anyways. I had just listened to a podcast about Judy Blume and was feeling disappointed that I never really got into reading her many young adult novels growing up especially after learning more about the ways in which Blume’s books were censored and banned throughout the years due to their portrayals of girls’ bodies, puberty and exploring sexuality. In the Unlikely Event, three planes crash in a small town in New Jersey over the course of just two months in 1952. The story is told from the view of various characters, to include my favorite, young Miri Ammerman. Though the town is experiencing horror, death, and devastation, life does not stop for Miri and many other characters. First loves, big dreams, complex family relationships, and complicated friendships all still ravel and unravel giving Unlikely that classic Blume appeal.
Recommend it? Sure, why not? The Ammerman family’s love and loyalty for each other told through not only a mother-daughter perspective but grandmother-mother-daughter perspective is rich and moving. Just don’t consider it as a read for your next long plane ride – having the story recently in my mind before flying for the holidays made me more anxious than normal about take-off and landing.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
This came to me by recommendation when I put out an all- call to my Facebook world to send me suggestions for an easy, lighthearted read. The novel spans across decades moving back and forth in time and through the lens of several different characters to tell the story of life after a world-wide flu epidemic causes the collapse of civilization. Ah, yes, another dystopian novel under my belt. And, as with Hunger Games and Divergent, I was drawn to the main female character, Kirsten. When the story was told through her lens, I immediately became more engaged wanting to know more about how she came to survive the flu and life thereafter. While she wasn’t a Katniss or Tris, I admired her knack for survival and defying gender norms and roles in this dystopian world. Moreover, the character of Kirsten moved me into self-reflection and contemplation of my own abilities, determination, and self-reliance.
Recommend it? Yup! Unless you’re already have disconcerting thoughts about the end of the world. The fact that the entire world completely collapsed within days due to a flu virus was unsettling. I also became sick two days after finishing the novel, disappointing myself that I would indeed never be part of the 1% of society to survive and rebuild a new world.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
My mom was reading this book while I was reading Judy’s novel. She couldn’t stop raving about it so I picked up my own copy from the library. While I liked the overall story, with its White Savior Complex leanings, I’m going to have to put The Invention of Wings in the same category as The Help. I absolutely enjoyed learning more about Sarah and Angelina Grimke and their work on behalf of the abolition of slavery and the advancement of women’s rights, I didn’t like how Kidd used the Grimke’s family slaves, namely, Handful and Charlotte, to drive the plot and develop the character of Sarah. Unlike The Help, Kidd dives much more into the complexities of race, racism, and the guilt surrounding white privilege, but I was still left with an overall feeling of icky-ness in which white women are given voice and purpose on the backs of women of color.
Recommend it? Eh, maybe, but probably not.

The Notorious RGB by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
Loved it! I’m going to law school and clerking for RGB as soon as possible. I adore Ruth! This is a quick read on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg through a feminist lens. The authors also spend a good amount of time giving a feminist (and accessible) context to important Supreme Court cases dealing with gender equity to help share the personal and professional progression of Ginsburg’s life. I loved learning the little nuances of RGB’s life to include her being a night owl, the meaning behind those fancy collars, and her current workout routine. Moreover, I appreciated the ways in which Gingburg’s dedication to building bridges and relationships across differences (i.e. her friendship with Justice Scalia) spoke truth to the ways in which I can (and must) do a better job cultivating relationships with both my allies and adversaries. Bonus – Marty and Ruth’s relationship is a gem and gave me all the feels.
Recommend it? Heck yes. “You can’t spell truth without Ruth.” Also for more on how Notorious RGB came to be, check out the tumblr page.

I Am Malala by Malala Yuzafzai with Patricia McCormick
This books has been on my reading list for quite a while. Through NPR, I somewhat followed the story of Malala after she was shot by the Taliban in 2012. Malala’s story is so powerful because she was (IS) so young. Yet, it wasn’t until I read about her experience in her own words, that it really truly sunk in how young she was when she decided to take on the Taliban and fight for girls’ and women’s rights. She was 11 when she first started speaking publicly! Eleven! As I was reading, I kept thinking, how lucky is the world that we’ll hopefully have Malala in it for years and years to come. She’s only just begun (and I need to get my butt in gear)! And, much like The Notorious RGB gave me context to political landscapes, I loved not only learning more about Malala, but also gaining a better understanding of the political and cultural climate of Pakistan surrounding her story.
Recommend it? Absolutely. The library gave me the “young readers edition” so I’m wondering how different it is from the “adult” text. I found it to be an elementary read but inspiring nonetheless. If you’re looking for some hope in the world or simply some personal motivation, this is the book for you.

Have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts? Though snow is in the forecast this weekend, I’m already looking forward to my spring break reading splurge – what recommendations do you have for me?

Aaron Sakulich, REU Site Director

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

irsim@wpi.edu 

Meet Su Hyoung,

She is a Visual Arts major and current URA Scholar. Her research focuses on the Gwangju Art Biennale– a major exhibition of contemporary Asian art held every two years in South Korea..

Her research involved traveling to Korea and interviewing organizers of the Biennale. She also studied newspaper archives and private photo collections of families living in Gwangju.

This past weekend, Dr. Rick Forno, CYBR GPD and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, joined Dr. Matt Blaze (UPenn), Dr. Jeff Foster (UMCP), and COL (Ph.D) Greg Conti (USMA) on the closing plenary panel for Schmoocon 2016 in Washington, DC.

ShmooCon is an annual east coast hacker convention offering three days of an interesting atmosphere for demonstrating technology exploitation, inventive software and hardware solutions, and open discussions of critical infosec issues.  The first day is a single track of speed talks called One Track Mind.  The next two days bring three tracks:  Build It, Belay It, and Bring It On.

The panel examined the current state of information security programs in academia. Along the way they discussed issues around dealing with administration and the peculiarities of information security, the current state of information security research, attracting and vetting students/faculty, and generally what it’s like to be growing the next generation of information security professionals in a time where academia frequently is placed in the position of “building the bus while going down the road.”

This past weekend, Dr. Rick Forno, CYBR GPD and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, joined Dr. Matt Blaze (UPenn), Dr. Jeff Foster (UMCP), and COL (Ph.D) Greg Conti (USMA) on the closing plenary panel for Schmoocon 2016 in Washington, DC.

ShmooCon is an annual east coast hacker convention offering three days of an interesting atmosphere for demonstrating technology exploitation, inventive software and hardware solutions, and open discussions of critical infosec issues.  The first day is a single track of speed talks called One Track Mind.  The next two days bring three tracks:  Build It, Belay It, and Bring It On.

The panel examined the current state of information security programs in academia. Along the way they discussed issues around dealing with administration and the peculiarities of information security, the current state of information security research, attracting and vetting students/faculty, and generally what it’s like to be growing the next generation of information security professionals in a time where academia frequently is placed in the position of “building the bus while going down the road.”

Cyber Defense Lab
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

cMix: Anonymization by High-Performance Scalable Mixing

Farid Javani
Cyber Defense Lab, CSEE Dept., UMBC

11:15am-12:30pm Friday, 29 January 2016, ITE 231

cMix is a cryptographic protocol for mix networks that uses pre-computations of a group-homomorphic encryption function to avoid all real-time public-key operations by the senders, mix nodes, and receivers. Like other mix network protocols, cMix can enable an anonymity service that accepts inputs from senders and delivers them to an output buffer, in a way that the outputs are unlinkable to the inputs. cMix’s high-performance scalable architecture, which results from its unique pre-computation approach, makes it suitable for smartphone-to-smartphone use while maintaining full anonymity sets independently per round.

Each sender establishes a shared key separately with each of the mix nodes, which is used as a seed to a cryptographic pseudorandom number generator to generate a sequence of message keys. Each sender encrypts its input to cMix with modular multiplication by message keys. cMix works by replacing the message keys, which are not known in the pre-computation, in real time with a precomputed random value.

Our presentation includes a detailed specification of cMix and simulation-based security arguments. We also give performance analysis, both modeled and measured, of our working prototype currently running in the cloud.

cMix is the core technology underlying our larger PrivaTegrity system that allows smart devices to carry out a variety of applications anonymously (including sending and receiving chat messages), with little extra bandwidth or battery usage. This talk focuses on cMix.

Joint work with David Chaum (Voting Systems Institute), Aniket Kate (Purdue Univ.), Anna Krasnova (Radboud Univ.), Joeri de Ruiter (Univ. of Birmingham), Alan T. Sherman (UMBC).  See and recent articles in Wired and Fortune for discussion.

Favid Javani is a PhD student working with Dr. Sherman. He earned a MS from the Middle Eastern Technical University, Turkey, with a thesis on lattice-based cryptography.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.