a research mentor’s perspective dr. susan gerhart, associate professor of computer science and...
TRANSCRIPT
A Research Mentor’s Perspective
Dr. Susan Gerhart, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering
[email protected] http://pr.erau.edu/~gerharts
Assistant: Kelley Harbin, junior CS major
What did we do?
• 4 teams, 3-5 students each
• 2 topics– Viruses and Worms – intruder programs– Stegonography – messages in images
• 5 sessions, Fri./Sat. morning
• Developed websites
• Final presentations
Why Computer Security?
• Fascinates students• Fact of everyday life• Outreach for ERAU NSF Grant
– Cryptography (NSA style security)– Buffer overflow (causes intrusions)– Bioterrorism defense in transportation
• http://nsfsecurity.pr.erau.edu• U.S. needs “security corps” to protect
websites
Research Progression
1. Topic intro, team formation, library session
2. Framework/terms: vulnerabilities in an office: eavesdropping, networks, many dimensions
3. Interview Q&A with a security expert, Dr. Matt Jaffe, CS prof, former Hughes
4. Setting up a website to present results
5. Exchanged presentations with bioterrorism groups
Building a website
• Used ERAU server space, e.g. http://pr.erau.edu/~ubteam2
• Learned Mozilla Composer, a WYSYWYG HTML editor
• I uploaded (another tool, SSH) to website
• Students went nuts with images and colors
• 1steg..htm 1VirusWorms.htm 2VirusWorm.htm
Presentations/Results
• No programming, mostly writing• Who’s the audience on the web?• Define terms, concepts• Explain in own words, how worms work,
images hide info• Tell do’s and do not’s – whom to trust• History and future trends – 10 years ahead• Asking questions of other presenters
What did students learn?
• Lots of security websites • Security is a field of study, future career?• Technology concepts: images, networks• Skills for building web pages• Teamwork and group writing hard
What did I learn?
• Students very comfortable with computing
• Hard to get across security framework, need more than office vulnerability tour
• Stegonography needed more background
• Security expert went over heads
• Website creation was doable, some preferred PPT to HTML, worth it?
• Bioterrorism exchange good dry run