UMBC Center for Information Security and Assurance

Quantum Computing and Cybersecurity

John Seymour

Noon-1:00 Friday, 4 October 2013
Cyber Defense Lab, room 228 ITE, UMBC

This talk will be a brief introduction to the topic of quantum computing for the computer scientist interested in cybersecurity. It will begin with a light summary of the fundamental quantum algorithms and move to discuss the recent advances in quantum computing, including the D-Wave quantum optimizer, University of Bristol’s new quantum chip, quantum programming languages, and more. Finally, it will introduce some current research questions and projects residing in the intersection of quantum computing and cybersecurity.

John Seymour is a Ph.D. student in the UMBC computer science graduate program. As a UMBC undergraduate, he was a triple major — Computer Science, — Mathematics and Philosophy. He is currently working on three research projects: evaluation of a detection protocol for Man-in-the-Middle attacks, a web-based game for teaching students basic concepts of internet security, and integration of social media with internet voting to facilitate collaborative decision making.

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

Catonsville startup Light Point relishes national attention

Cyber security firm is among five contestants in a Wall Street Journal startup competition

Cyber startup Light Point Security is feeling the warmth of being in the spotlight.

Catonsville-based Light Point has made it to the top five contestants in a Wall Street Journal startup competition that attracted 500 applications. The company still has to make it through two more challenges to win, but already Light Point is experiencing the benefits of being a winner. Investors, potential clients and media have been flocking to Light Point.

“It elevates our name, company brand,” said Zuly Gonzalez, chief operating officer for Light Point. “It’s brought us more recognition, made us a more familiar name with people.”

Light Point, which launched in 2010, has developed a software product to protect computers from Web-based malware attacks. The software allows users to browse the Web from a virtual cloud, meaning any attacks go there, instead of users’ own computers. The company is based at bwtech@UMBC Research and Development Park.

“It’s nice,” she said. “It validates that we’re doing something right — we’ve got an interesting product, an interesting company.”

Light Point is not currently raising money, but will look to do an angel investing round next year. Getting to know investors now will be a leg up when it comes time to start raising next year, Gonzalez said.

The experience has also led Gonzalez and company CEO Beau Adkins to rethink their approach to building a customer base. The pair originally planned to reach out to potential customers directly. But through the startup contest, Light Point has realized that getting in with managed service providers — companies that handle IT operations for other businesses — could build their customer base more quickly. Those companies could provide Light Point’s software as a service to their entire network of clients.

The Wall Street Journal will narrow the remaining contenders to three in the next few weeks. A final winner will be announced Nov. 4. Light Point is one of 24 companies selected to participate.

The contest does not have a prize, other than bragging rights. But winning would be a huge vote of confidence from a publication the business community trusts — that would definitely be good for business, Gonzalez said.

“It would say a lot about the company,” Gonzalez said. “We could say, ‘We’re the most innovative and risk-taking company in the nation, according to the Wall Street Journal.’”

As designers, we each develop distinct styles, and usually gravitate towards different kinds of projects when we have a choice in the matter. For me, it’s content-driven websites and nothing is more content-driven than the good old-fashioned blog.

There is something that simply feels right about putting a whole bunch of meaningful, interesting text, pictures, and/or video together in an aesthetically pleasing way. Blog content is all about ideas, and ideas are meant to be read, appreciated, and if everything goes well, discussed at length. Facilitating that process is personally fulfilling, and often challenging.

For people who own blogs, the advantages are clear: 

1. The format is flexible. They are free to discuss a variety of topics. Even if a blog has a central theme, they can occasionally break away from it to explore other ideas that intrigue them.
2. Posts can be as short or as long as you like.
3. Posts don’t have to be text. Video and photo blogs can be engaging, and some are pretty popular.
4. Blogs can be used to establish someone as an expert in their field, thereby increasing business opportunities.
5. Blogs are incredibly easy to create and experiment with, thanks to services like WordPress.com, Blogger, and so on.

Blogs haven’t changed much

No matter what blog you go to, you’ll see a variation on the following system: 

1. a home page with the latest articles, either displayed in full, or as a list;
2. a list of categories – probably in a sidebar;
3. an archive, with links to listings of articles sorted by month or year;
4. individual articles with an attached comment thread;
5. usually, an “About” page, and/or a “Contact” page.

This is not a bad set of defaults. By and large, this structure works and it’s familiar. This does not mean, however, that it’s right for you, or your content. 

As UX designers, our job isn’t just to make sure that text is big enough to read, that navigation is easily recognizable as such, or that buttons are big enough to tap on. We solve problems. We make sure that it’s easy for users to find what they’re looking for, and quickly. We have mere seconds to engage readers and keep them on our site, so we have to get creative.

In this article, I’m going to look at features which are common to the majority of blogs, and see how we might make them easier to use, more engaging, and/or irrelevant. Let’s start with my absolute favorite pet peeve:

The sidebar

One problem that I have with the sidebar is that too often it distracts me from the content as I try to read. It might be a colorful animated ad, or worse, one that comes with sound and no mute button, or the sidebar itself just clashes too harshly with the rest of the site.

Sometimes, sidebars are rendered next to unusable by people who try to cram far too much information into them, making the text smaller and smaller all the time. Sometimes, sidebars are much much longer than an individual article.

Here’s a hint: putting five years of archives, sorted by month, in one sidebar is not a good idea. This might sound like it’s just a personal irritation to some people, but there is no reason why a sidebar should be twice the height of my 1600×900 screen.

Many blogs have solved this problem in one of a few ways, the most notable of which being that they often drop the sidebar altogether. Navigational lists such as categories and archives are moved to their own section, usually under the main content.

Now let me be perfectly clear. I am not saying that sidebars should go altogether. In fact, when I move my personal blog from my main domain to its own, I actually intend to use a sidebar for some rather important things.

What I am saying is that sidebars should not be stuffed with more information and widgets than is reasonable, and they should not dominate the page. They are meant to be navigational aids only. Let’s treat them that way.

If you want to display more information than can comfortably fit in a sidebar, display it elsewhere.

Individual articles

I’d like to talk about individual articles before the home page because if you’re doing well as a writer, the home page will rarely be the first thing that people see. People will be sent directly to individual articles by search results, links provided by friends, and services such as Stumbleupon.

For this reason, make sure that navigation options like categories and search are available on every page of your blog. The article that your users find may not be the one they’re looking for, so you’ve got to make it easy for them to find your other content.

A lot of self-styled blog “gurus” will talk about the importance of having “related articles” listed for each individual post. As much as I hate to agree with anyone who calls himself a “guru”, they have a point. Reading through a blog is all about discovery, and that discovery process should happen quickly. Users are more likely to click on an eye-catching related headline than look for the category link to see similar articles on your site.

Make sure that there’s a bit of descriptive “About” text on every page. If it’s a really short paragraph, it could go in the sidebar. If it’s longer, you could put it in the page footer, where users are likely to see it after they’ve finished reading/skimming the article.

Finally, if there’s one thing you learn from this part of the article, remember this: on a blog, you should spend more time designing your post content than your home page. Your content is what people will see first, in all likelihood.

The home page

Many people design the home page of their website as though it will be the first thing that every user sees. This is a mistake. The users most likely to view a home page are regular readers who don’t use RSS feeds (which should always be available), and those first-time visitors who’ve just read an article, then clicked “Home” because they felt like it.

So yes, the home page of most blogs is essentially a glorified RSS feed. This is where users come for updates.

Unless you’re running a tumblelog – a blog made up of very short posts, images, and videos – I would recommend displaying no more than a headline, an excerpt, and an optional image thumbnail. Blogs that display entire posts on the home page force readers to scroll down and down to make sure they haven’t missed anything.

Some people get around this by displaying a list of the most recent headlines in their sidebar, but I see this as redundant. Such a list can be useful on every page of the blog except the home page.

This is not the only way to make a home page for a blog, of course. There are other ways to present your content, but I believe that this approach makes the most sense from the perspective of a reader.

Need more proof? Look up a newspaper or magazine site. All they do is display the links to the most recent articles in every major category.

Chronological navigation

It’s typical to put a date on every post published, and to allow users to navigate the site’s content by month or year. For some writers, this makes sense. If you’re writing about design trends, reviewing technology, addressing political issues, or doing anything else that’s time-sensitive in any way, use it.

However, is chronological navigation always necessary? Probably not. Examine your content. If you’re writing about things that aren’t going to change in a hurry, like history, human nature, or less-than-contemporary art, you may want to leave date-based navigation options out altogether.

Look for other ways to organize your content based on your subject matter. Categories will never go out of style, but let’s take art, for example. You could design the site in such a way that people can browse your posts by which artists are mentioned, or by the art styles and mediums you discuss.

You know your audience. How would you like to be able to find the things that interest you?

Comments

Ah, comments. The place where everyone can virtually gather round and discuss the post at hand without getting off-topic, starting pointless debates, or insulting each other. And just as we’re all about to indulge in a quick drink before we peacefully disperse to go about our lives, I wake up.

All jokes aside, having a comments section can provide invaluable feedback, and the interaction and user engagement can help bring your readers back for more.

One thing I’ve seen many blog designs and themes do is make their comment areas too small. This is especially a problem when you consider two things:

1. Threaded comments are a standard these days. As people reply to comments, and then to other replies, the content area of these sub-comments tends to get smaller and smaller.
2. The problem above can be exacerbated when the website’s design is fluidly responsive.

My solution? A comment section should be as wide as the article above it. At least.

What do you like least about blogs? What features are essential for you? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, blogging image via Paolo Valdemarin.

eBook: Google AdWords for Creatives – only $12!

DETAILS

• This program is in its third week.  It runs Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 2:30-6:30 pm until mid/late May 2014.
  

• Lakeland Elementary Middle School is located in South Baltimore, 15 minutes from UMBC.  Transportation to the site is provided. 

• UMBC students work with Lakeland teachers and staff to deliver engaging educational activities:
  

                Mondays - NASA's Best
                Tuesdays-  Character Education
                Wednesdays - Service-Learning
                Thursdays - Games

• This is also a great opportunity for aspiring elementary teachers who could strengthen their science and math skills by being paired with Fellows who have STEM backgrounds. Graduate students are welcomed to apply!

Interested?

USI is seeking a few more volunteers each day.   If you are interested,  complete the brief Volunteer Application (see attached).  You should submit your application to Lori Hardesty, Assistant Director, Service-Learning, K-16 Partnerships via email at lhardesty@umbc.edu.  You can also drop off your application to The Shriver Center, 1st floor of the Public Policy Building (just past the elevators) 

QUESTIONS?
Contact Lori Hardesty via email at lhardesty@umbc.edu. See application for additional information.  

When the government was shutdown, so were all of the National Parks and national memorials.

But no government shutdown was going to stand in the way of some determined  World War II veterans.

On Tuesday, a group of veterans from Mississippi ignored the government shutdown and visited the World War II memorial on the Mall in Washington DC. Some Congressional Republicans and Democrats decided they would join the party and came along to show their support to the feisty veterans. Then on Wednesday, more veterans showed up and sang ‘Amazing Grace’ together at the memorial. Though still closed to the public, the veterans had now been officially granted access.

The veterans, many in their eighties fought for a country that, 70 years ago was facing adversity but was unified in purpose. A concept the politicians present at the memorial are not familiar with…

 You have to admire those who can maintain a sense of humor even in the face of tragedy.

During the relief effort to help those stranded during Colorado’s recent catastrophic “Biblical Flood,” a police officer in Colorado decided to indulge in some light relief of his own.

When he spotted a National Guard Blackhawk Helicopter perched on the street of his town, he did what every self respecting  cop would do… he gave it a parking ticket.  The ticket cited that the Blackhawk was “facing the wrong way” and “parked in no parking zone.”

Fortunately the National Guardsmen took the ticket with a spirit of mischief that was intended. They paid no attention nor fine.

Photos and story here.

Is the government open? No, but yes. Here are a few quick answers to the questions we’re sure you’re asking:

1. Why did the government shutdown?

“Congress has one key duty in the Constitution — pass spending bills that fund the government.

If it doesn’t, most functions of government  grind to a halt. But some services, like Social Security, air traffic control and active military pay, will continue to be funded. Oh, and Congress still gets paid, too.” -CNN

2. But why couldn’t Congress pass a spending bill?

“The Republican-controlled House has passed a spending bill that maintains spending levels but does not provide funding to implement the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The Democratic Senate insists that the program be fully funded and that Congress pass what they call a “clean” CR – a continuing resolution without policy changes” -USA Today

3. Has the government shutdown before?

“Government shutdowns were once a common occurrence in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1976 and 1996, the government shut down 17 times.” -ABC News

4. Then why are people saying it’s the second shutdown in modern history?

“Prior to 1980, everything kept on running pretty normally during budget impasses. True shutdowns didn’t happen until after a series of Justice Department rulings at the tail end of the Carter administration.

Since then, there have been a handful of shutdowns prompted by garden variety disagreements over funding levels for defense and domestic programs, but they’ve been so brief as to be barely noticeable.

The only exception was the long shutdown of 1995, prompted by Newt Gingrich’s demands. So when you hear someone saying that there have been loads of government shutdowns in the past and this one is really nothing new, it just isn’t true. In practice, there’s only been one serious shutdown in recent history, and like this one, it was the product of Republican ultimatums.” -Mother Jones

5. What is a furlough?

“A furlough is the placement of an employee in a temporary nonpay and nonduty status (or absence from duty) because of lack of work or funds, or for other nondisciplinary reasons.” -US Office of Personnel Management

6. How many people are furloughed?

“The government estimates that roughly 800,000 federal workers will get sent home if the government shuts down. That leaves about 1.3 million “essential” federal workers, 1.4 million active-duty military members, 500,000 Postal Service workers, and other employees in independently-funded agencies who will continue working.” -The Washington Post

7. Well that’s no fun. Who exactly isn’t working?

Check out this chart compiled and regularly updated by The Washington Post on each department’s impact and contingency plans.

During this shutdown, over 400 national parks are closed, the National Institutes of Health can no longer answer its medical hotline, the Justice department has suspended many civil cases, companies can’t check the legal status of their employees with E-Verify, and the Gateway National Recreation Area in Sandy Hook, NJ had to furlough their poison ivy-eating goats. Other interesting furloughed workers include aviation safety inspectors, food inspectors and auto recall inspectors (so many inspectors).

8. Is the whole government shut down?

“No. There are three big categories that don’t. Some programs don’t require annual appropriations.

That group, which includes Social Security, Medicare and other so-called entitlements, continue without interruption. The second group entails functions ‘necessary to protect life or property.’ Law enforcement, the military, intelligence agencies and foreign embassies all will stay open. Finally, some programs have other sources of money that will allow them to function for a while. Courts, for example, can spend money they have collected through fines and fees, funds that would allow them to keep functioning for a while.” -The Los Angeles Times

9. I’m so confused. Can you make this more simple?

“There are two types of mommies and daddies who work for the federal government and might be affected by the shutdown: non-essential and essential workers.

Essential workers are like the ice cream in a ice cream sundae; non-essential workers are like the toppings — great to have but not the most important ingredients. The toppings people will be told to stay home from work and may be grumpy because it’s unclear whether they will get paid; many may act like your uncle when he’s had too much ‘silly juice.’ The ice cream people, like the President and members of Congress, will still go to work.” -TIME Swampland

10. How long will the shutdown last?

“Both Republicans and Democrats will be watching to see which side gets blamed for the impasse. Whichever side is losing the battle for public opinion will eventually decide the price has gotten too high and will offer concessions. In the Clinton administration, there were two government shutdowns. One lasted five days, the other, which affected only part of the government, went on for three weeks.”  -The Los Angeles Times

11. What will this do to the economy?

“The total economic impact is likely to be at least 10 times greater than the simple calculation of wages lost by federal workers, said Brian Kessler, economist with Moody’s Analytics. His firm estimates that a three to four week shutdown will cost the economy about $55 billion. That would mean that the economic impact from a month-long shutdown would be roughly equal to the combined disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, not counting the property damage that accompanied those storms.” -CNNMoney

How do you feel about the shutdown? Who is to blame? How much longer until there is a congressional compromise? Let us know your thoughts!