Dr. Cerf began his presentation by displaying global Internet statistics from 2012. As of last year, there were approximately 6.5 billion mobile devices and 1.5 billion PCs worldwide. Approximately 2.4 billion users worldwide are connected to the Internet, with the highest penetration rate among continents coming from North America (78.6% of the population is connected to the internet). Dr. Cerf also noted recent changes to the Internet such as the new Internet protocol (IPv6), internationalized domain names, domain name system security (DNSSEC), digitally signed address registration (RPKI), and sensor names.

The crux of the presentation centered around Dr. Cerf’s proposition that in the near future virtually every electronic device will become Internet enabled. Houses, apartments, and condos will become the central hub for connecting a plethora of Internet enabled devices. Dr. Cerf demonstrated that this theory is already becoming a demonstrable reality and provided examples of laptops embedded in surfboards, as well as Internet enabled pictures frames. The central housing unit that will manage these interconnected Internet enabled devices will be thought of as futuristic “Smart Homes.”

Dr. Cerf’s idea of Smart Homes raises a number of architectural and operational questions. For example, will there be multiple controllers or a single controller for the network? Will networks be wireless, wired, or mixed? How will devices interact with one another? Whatever the method, it is important that the network is controlled by responsible parties and that devices are suited for environmental conditions and able to interact with one another.

Other issues arise with respect to configuration and management. How will IP addresses be assigned and managed? How will auto-discovery and display capabilities be handled? Can web tools be used for configuration? What information should be available and how will data be controlled to prevent hijacking and accidental joining? A final set of challenges with Internet enabled devices connecting and sharing information across Smart Home networks relates to scaling issues, Border Gateway Protocol for OpenFlow networks, addressing, certificates/certification, trusted computing modules, inter-cloud protocols, and maintaining delay and disruption tolerant networking. The fundamental challenge seems to be finding the best way to promote diversity between devices while also maintaining uniformity.

Dr. Cerf then reverted back to recent changes to the Internet. Advances in Smart Grid technology for example include the formation of a Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) and a Smart Energy Profile which can be used for configuration, control, reporting, safety and security purposes. Micro Grids enhance the distribution of generated electrical power so as not to be focused in single areas, thus avoiding meltdowns. Telecommunication governance bodies such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA), and the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) have helped to address international issues of privacy and security. Peripheral international issues include assessing the legal meaning and weight of digital signatures, making decisions on intellectual property, and addressing the preservation of data and software. Dr. Cerf cited a previous World Conference on Information Technology event as the single biggest schism point in international governmental communication regarding IT. As a result of the conference, fifty-five countries, including the United States, withdrew their support and participation.

Dr. Cerf closed the presentation by shifting away from the short-term future to examine long-term possibilities, particularly the idea of an Interplanetary Internet. To begin, Dr. Cerf made it clear that we are already operating in an international interplanetary network, albeit with varying levels of success. The primary question now goes as follows: what can we do to provide better networking to spacefaring nations 25 years from now? In 1998, the U.S. landed a small rover on Mars. In 2004, two rovers landed on Mars but failed to transmit data back to Earth due to overheating. DARPA 100YSS is a long-term space engagement riddled with significant network challenges related to propulsion, navigation, and signal detection. To be sure, there is much work to be done and significant room for improvement in the realm of interplanetary connectivity.

Open communication is critical to technological innovation. HTML allowed people to share ideas and help one another solve problems. It is important that walls of communication are brought down to allow creativity and efficiency to flourish. I look forward to the day in which this approach is brought to bear on our everyday devices, to the extent that a person can check an app from a cellphone at work to make sure that the lights were turned off at home, run a dishwater a loved one may have forgotten to start before heading out that morning, or monitor the temperature of his or her household while on vacation with the press of a button. The internet still has a lot of growing up to do.

Dr. Davis shared that computer vision technology was initially motivated by the problems facing the postal service in sorting mail. Optical character recognition was developed for postal service applications to address problems of data segmentation, representation, character recognition, and matching. Through this technology postal services were able to automatically sort addresses and packages of all kinds. Computer vision technology enabled the recognition of cursive, characters, logos, stamps, text, and different forms of handwriting.

Successes in the field of computer vision were achieved in other industries as well. In medicine, the ability of retina scans to detect retina diseases allowed for the early detection and treatment of eye conditions. Computer vision systems succeeded in distinguishing weeds from grass, and in picking and sorting fruits from trees. Food inspection also experienced gains as vision technology enabled x-ray machines to scan potatoes and determine their level of spoilage and density prior to processing.

Since the 20th century many companies have launched and flourished by harnessing the technology of computer vision. VideoSurf, founded in 2006, applies face recognition technology to index movie characters and was acquired by Microsoft in 2011. Pittpatt (Pittsburg Pattern Recognition) develops face recognition software for images and video and was acquired by Google during the same year. Like.com, which allows users to recognize and “like” everyday consumer items via captured images, was also acquired by Google in 2010.

The U.S. Government has taken the greatest lead in adopting advanced computer vision technology. The Robotic Mule and BigDog Robot are both able to carry heavy military equipment while navigating through tumultuous terrain. Urban scale 3D mapping based on video or LIDAR (a combination of “light” and “radar”) allows the military to reconstruct 3D images with pinpoint accuracy. UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), WAMI (Wide Area Motion Imagery), and the VIRAT (Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool) program have all been utilized by the U.S. for military operations. A particularly interesting tool maintained by DARPA is the ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System). This imaging technology can identify objects as little as six inches long from nearly 20,000 feet in the air and has the ability to detect still and moving objects, as well as detect human actions across the range of a large city. The power of this camera is based on a 1.8 gigapixel sensor operating at 10 frames per second.

Despite such technological advances, on a broader scale computer vision technology has progressed more slowly, particularly with regard to image recognition. To address this issue machine learning applications, internet technology, and peer production systems have been leveraged. Peer production systems in particular have been effective in leveraging human intelligence to improve the capability of computer systems. Outstanding examples of peer production dataset collection systems include the ESP game, developed by Luis Von Ahn, LabelMe, developed by William T. Freeman, and Amazon’s Mechanical Terk.

While acknowledging that many challenges still exist within computer vision such as the capacity to accurately analyze scenery and to identify moving objects in rapidly changing environments, Dr. Davis remains optimistic about the future. He pointed to several consumer applications and advertising opportunities, novel smartphone applications such as Leafsnap, and the advent of Google Glass as progressive strides. Other noteworthy uses for computer vision technology include enabling families to remotely monitor their elderly parents while at home; the potential to map the landscape of a damaged area like Haiti or Japan after an earthquake; and the potential for measuring the calorie content of a plate of food simply by capturing its image.

It’s astounding to think that the visually impaired may very soon have access to technology only conceived in the character of Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I am excited to see this technology applied across sectors and disciplines to penetrate much needed markets in addition to the more traditional areas of research, defense, and commerce. For instance, in 2010 George Clooney helped to launch the Satellite Sentinel Project, a humanitarian effort using computer vision technology to effectively monitor and report on starvation and warfare in Sudan. This in indicative of just one of the many applications achievable through computer vision technology and of its truly unlimited potential to impact the world around us.

Mr. Janke explained that data is the customer, not users themselves. Today, very profitable firms exist solely on social information. These firms are responsible for packaging data for Facebook and for advising companies on how to maximize their use of Facebook. In the words of Mr. Janke’s good friend Dan Geer, “information wants to be free, but data wants to be expensive.” One may interpret this quote to mean that while individuals and firms wish to share their information for free, storing, interpreting and maximizing the use of data comes at a premium price.

Mr. Janke addressed the rapid modernization of firms toward incorporating social media into their standard set of policies and employee regulations. In many companies “Social” is now a part of IT, Legal, and PR departments. Many firms have Twitter policies and hire other companies to manage their bad reviews or tweets. Firms are increasingly concerned about reputation management and liability, and are creating restrictions regarding the use of social media within employment contracts. Social media law is becoming increasingly complex. For example, there is significant variation between firms regarding the use of social media during work hours, as well as the use of personal and professional emails and social networks.

Social media has many applications and can be used in a variety of situations. It has the potential to enable communication, such as when indicating the closure of a parking lot at the Pentagon or of an accident on I-395. Social media may also disable communication, as seen on certain online chat forums, which allow for secure communication between a user and a technician over an encrypted network so that the user’s information is never recorded. Given that social media may mean different things to different audiences, it is important to understand both the legal boundaries and the specific organizational context for ones intended use.

Mr. Janke’s presentation was very relevant for understanding the implications and boundaries of social media with respect to the workplace. I certainly feel that it is important to use social media intelligently, being mindful of the risks and opportunities involved when engaging social networks.

If you ever wanted to indulge in video games while maintaining a highbrow facade, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Art of Video Games exhibit is your dream come true.  The exhibit, housed on the third floor of the main building at 8^th and F Streets, N.W. in Washington, DC, seeks to illustrate how the design decisions for some of the most popular video games were made.

An online poll, held in 2011, determined the eighty video games that would be the focus of the exhibit.  The featured video games are categorized into five eras (Start, 8-bit, Bitwars, Transition, and Next Generation) and four genres (Action, Target, Adventure, and Tactics).  The exhibit includes conceptual renderings of video game characters, interactive stations for the twenty consoles the featured games were played on, and five stations were video games can be played, including Pac-man and Super Mario Bros.

Even if graphical user interfaces don’t interest you, anyone can appreciate the artistry involved in the creation of these video games.  The evolution of video games over the last forty years is astounding, though I’m a bit partial to Super NES’ SimCity.  The exhibit is open everyday from 11:30 AM to 7 PM through September 30.  It’s also camera-friendly.

On Wednesday, August 1, DC ACM hosted the presentation, “Cloud Computing: Where Are We on Security?” given by Dr. Harry J. Foxwell, an Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University, and Principal Consultant for Oracle Corporation.  During the presentation, held at Radio Free Asia in Washington, DC, Foxwell covered a number of the security concerns that should be considered before implementing, while administering, and before decommissioning a cloud or cloud component.

He began by defining a cloud using the definition provided by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (click here for details).  Foxwell then outlined the security risks involved with implementing a cloud solution and procedures to handle these risks.  According to Foxwell, many of the challenges that exist for a distributed system also exist for a cloud such as security governance, auditing and compliance, and access management.

However, unlike distributed systems, clouds introduce concerns associated with the handling of decoupled resources and the sanitization and the validation of resources.  To reduce the risks presented by cloud implementations, Foxwell suggested compartmentalizing cloud resources, attempting to encrypt and validate all data, and monitoring and logging all VM activity, among other security measures.

While some security risks can be circumvented, according to Foxwell, others have yet to be resolved, including how to handle resource cleanup as data can remain in hardware cache, and how to quickly and intently respond to an event in the cloud.  Lastly, Foxwell recommended Securing the Cloud By Vic Winkler as further reading.

Given how everything seems to find its way to the cloud these days, this presentation was topical and illuminating, but also concerning.  Among all of the cloud implementations that exist, you have to imagine that at least a few are just distributed systems that, as Foxwell put it, have been “cloudified” (transferred to a cloud without much forethought).

The slides from Foxwell’s presentation are available to members of the DC ACM meetup group.

The title of this presentation refers to the fact that until the recent release of the Web API component of the MVC 4 framework, HTTP was only partially implemented in .NET.  According to Michelotti, Microsoft released Web API, which fully implements RFC 2616 (the specification for the HTTP protocol), in response to the growth in the mobile computing market and the proliferation of web services.

The presentation covered a brief history of the MVC framework and how, with the inclusion of Web API, Microsoft is taking .NET in a more RESTful direction.  Michelotti also gave a very thorough explanation of REST and how some applications are deemed RESTful though they don’t comply with all the REST tenets.

Coding demos were interspersed throughout this presentation illustrating the features Web API provides including the use of filters and scaffolding.  Michelotti also performed unit testing on controllers, one of the many features of Web API that should make it easier to build HTTP services in .NET.  As an aside, he used Fiddler heavily, which is a pretty useful Visual Studio add-on for web debugging.

This presentation was dense with code, but organized and intelligible.  It was a fairly thorough introduction to the new features Web API provides.  It was clear from the presentation that Michelotti is experienced and well-informed.  A few times he was asked to go back to code he’d just written because he’d generated it so quickly.  Fortunately for everyone in attendance, he provided a link to his code and slides, which can be found here: https://github.com/smichelotti/WebAPI-presentation/tree/master/docs.

There may come a day when the data source for a web application isn’t a database by default, and the message of this presentation was plan for that day.  This talk, given May 9 during DC PHP Developers’ May meeting at Fathom Creative’s office in DC, was useful to developers of applications large and small.  The presenter was Brandon Savage, a software developer for Mozilla.  Savage pulled from his experience working on Socorro, Mozilla’s web application for handling crash data for applications like Firefox and Thunderbird, to illustrate the importance of building web application data layers thoughtfully and with the future in mind.

According to Savage, creating a scalable data layer can be achieved by doing four things while planning and coding a web application: separating code for data usage from code for data retrieval, organizing the code into components based on the actions the code performs, building applications to be “storage agnostic”, and choosing the correct type of data source from the start.  While all of these steps may be particularly pertinent to an application with terabytes of data, like Socorro, all applications can benefit from this type of forethought.

It could be argued that the presentation needed a few more code samples, but seeing as Savage’s guidance can’t be implemented in a formulaic manner, additional code snippets may have been pointless.  Overall, this was a laid-back meeting, no doubt aided by the abundance of beer.  Also, a small aside, Fathom Creative’s office is beautiful and worth seeing in person.

Savage’s slides are available online: http://www.slideshare.net/brandonsavage/data-abstraction-for-large-web-applications

This book is, among other things, an illustration in prose of the adage “it takes one to know one”.  It is through the writing of Poulsen, a noteworthy ex-hacker himself, that you gain a clear understanding of how and why Max Vision (born Max Butler) became the infamous hacker who stole 1.8 million credit card numbers resulting in $86.4 million in damages.  Poulsen, now a news editor for Wired.com, is most famous for being the phreaker who hacked into the phone lines of a Los Angeles radio station during a Porsche giveaway to ensure he’d be the winning caller.  So when Poulsen describes the thrill and satisfaction Max felt when he exploited a BIND vulnerability to create back doors into government and military machines in 1998, the feeling is palpable.

Living vicariously through a notorious hacker, who becomes a carder (one who participates in credit card fraud), leaves you dealing with the same moral ambiguity Max himself struggles with as he oscillates between black hat and white hat activities.  If you enjoy observing his exploits, you can’t easily condemn his actions without feeling hypocritical.  Poulsen plays with this uncertainty throughout the book.  At times, he suddenly confronts you with your ambivalence after allowing it to quietly build as the plot unfolds, such as when Max hacks into a point of sale system at a pizzeria in his mother’s neighborhood.  Your reaction, disappointment in this case, reveals that you are rooting for him.  You give him the benefit of the doubt until he crosses your hastily drawn line.  To the last page, it is unclear whether Poulsen wants you to pity Max or fear him.  Consequently, you’re left doing a little bit of both.

At 266 pages, this book is a quick read that is not only well researched (there are 20 pages of notes) but also thoroughly engrossing.  Even if you are aware of Max Vision and his crimes, Poulsen’s storytelling will captivate you.  Additionally, the manner that he describes the everyday life of a hacker will enrich your understanding of the threats facing the technology we maintain, create, and utilize.  His examination of magnetic stripe vulnerabilities is particularly striking.  This book will educate and entertain, but it will also leave many questioning the notion of security.

That may sound straightforward enough, but they also covered deploying a Node app to Heroku (a cloud platform as a service), leveraging the Express framework to build a web server, implementing Twitter Oauth for authentication, storing data in a MongoDB database, using the Jade template engine to render HTML, using CoffeeScript to decrease the amount of JavaScript code needed, and using Mocha for Node testing.  They finished their presentation by discussing when Node should be used and best practices for its use, including the use of a module pattern to prevent banana code.

As a Node newbie with sufficient JavaScript skills, this was definitely immersion style learning for me.  It’s a credit to both Troy and Seth, particularly the organization and clarity of their demo, that I was able to understand their process.  With more than forty attendees, this event was well-attended, and worthwhile, even considering the post-presentation research required to fully appreciate the frameworks and technologies used.