POSITION: Verisign Labs Internships; Summer 2015

Verisign is the entity responsible for running .COM and .NET, two of DNS’ root instances, and a number of other top level domains; answering 80+ billion queries daily. Not just a leader in the domain industry, the company is also a prominent provider of DDOS protection and a suite of security services.

Verisign Labs, founded just a few years ago, is the operational research lab that generates insights from this wealth of Internet-scale routing and security data. Proprietary data sets, a computing infrastructure built for ‘big data’, and a diverse team of expert researchers are among our most prominent assets.

We are seeking highly motivated summer interns to work with our research scientists on existing and emerging topic areas in our research portfolio. Interns work closely with one or more mentors on a well-defined topic area. Past years’ intern work has resulted in internal product advancements, intellectual property (i.e., patents), and externally facing conference/journal publications. Given Verisign’s broad business capabilities and the diversity of our scientists’ expertise, the Lab seeks interns from a breadth of disciplines. Current projects include DNS privacy/security/stability, large-scale data analytics, DDoS defense, reputation and behavioral modeling, NLP over domain names, and future Internet design — and this is just a small sampling of the topics that our researchers tackle.

In addition to research work, interns participate in programming that embraces the technical, business, and social opportunities the summer provides. These include technical talks, research huddles, social events, and an intern-specific speaker series. The summer concludes with a poster session that gives interns an opportunity to present their work to Verisign’s thought and business leaders.

Verisign Labs is located in Verisign, Inc.’s global headquarters, in Reston, Virginia. The office is in Reston Town Center, an exciting cultural area with a great social atmosphere and close to plenty of outdoor activities. Reston is just about 20 miles from Washington, DC (with metro access), and is a great place to spend an exciting summer doing cutting edge research and relaxing in (and around) the nation’s capital.

Responsibilities:

• Work with technology and business leaders to identify pertinent research questions.
• Perform research tasks under the guidance of a Verisign thought leader.
• Document and present research results in appropriate forums (internal and external).

Qualifications:

• Current enrollment in a US-based PhD or MS degree program in Computer Science or a related field; PhD students are preferred.
• Availability for ~12 weeks of summer 2015 and a willingness to relocate to Reston, VA for that period. There is some flexibility with respect to start dates and duration.
• Involvement in applied/operational research; publications are a significant plus (send a complete CV).
• Experience in one or more of the following technology areas:
  • Internet infrastructure and application protocols, including TCP/IP, DNS, BGP, and HTTP.
  • Internet security and privacy, including DDoS, DNSSEC, and authentication.
  • Internet profiling and measurement, including crawling and content analysis.
  • Applied machine-learning, especially the extraction of metadata and NLP features.
  • Big data technologies (Hadoop, Hive, Pig) and statistical analysis.
  • Strong interpersonal and communications skills.

LEARN MORE here

APPLY DIRECTLY here

See Flyer here

In this week’s ebiquity meeting (10am Wed. Oct. 15 in ITE346), Abhay Kashyap will give a tutorial and demonstration of responsive web design using Twitter Bootstrap. A draft of the slides is available.

Does your webpage look like its from the 90’s? Does it scale well on mobile devices or do you have to finger skate on your the mobile device to navigate the page? Or worse! Do you still not have a personal portfolio page? If the answer is yes, then its time create or update your webpage! With a front end framework like Twitter Bootstrap, you can make a quick upgrade to beautiful, modern and most importantly responsive design for your portfolio page.

The presentation will start with a brief overview of responsive design and Twitter Bootstrap and then continue with a live demonstration. We will download a Bootstrap starter template, customize the theme and content, build a static portfolio page and host it on a UMBC server.

Disclaimer: The presenter is a front end noob and will very likely look like a deer in headlights when confronted with advanced css/js questions.

We need your help! The Fall 2014 issue of UMBC Magazine will explore the history – and the future course – of UMBC Athletics. We need YOU – alumni at UMBC – to help us tell that story with photos of your time as a student athlete or even as a fan of Retriever sports.

Editors at UMBC Magazine will select the best photos to appear in the forthcoming issue. Please email photos to retrievernet@umbc.edu. (And please scan them at the highest resolution possible.) You can also share your stories and photos on Facebook or Twitter using #houseofgrit.

Baltimore has been practically giddy in the wake of the Orioles’ first round playoff win, which ushers the team into the Championship Series and one step closer to the World Series. And as the O’s get ready to take on the Kansas City Royals, we’d like to take a moment to highlight two UMBC alums who have also recently made the Orioles-related news.

Sergeant First Class Michael Zambito ’99, geography, was honored in Oriole Park’s Salute to Military Service during Game 1 of the Orioles playoffs last Thursday. The Salute is sponsored by the O’s and Bank of America and honors local service men and women for their service and sacrifice. Zambito attended UMBC on the GI Bill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Ai9A0j4eQ

And Lauren Hall ’10, psychology and sociology; ’14 M.A., sociology, has been making the social media rounds with her clever parody of Lorde’s “Royals.” As the video steadily climbs towards 75,000 views, Hall is understandably overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception. “I think it’s kind of funny,” Hall said in a WBALTV interview, “I wasn’t expecting the response that I got.” Hall is currently a University of Maryland research analyst.

And if any of you folks are on Twitter, keep an eye on #wewontstop. Let’s keep it trending all the way to a World Series win.