Week 3 [19-25.11.18] Distributed Systems

Hello everyone,

I would like to present an article about "A Thorough Introduction to Distributed Systems".
The author explains what is distributed computing, scaling database. He also gives what they are
Distributed System Categories. 
After reading the article please answer the questions:

1. What is a distributed computing?
2. What that has to do scaling database with distributed computing?
3. How can distributed computing develop science? Give an example.

4. Have you participated in or continue to participate in a project using distributed systems? 
   If so, please tell about it.
   
   
   Distributed Systems

    

Week 3 [19-25.11.18] Digital archeology

I'd like to present You a paper about digital archeology: "Entombed: An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game"

Authors analyse old Atari 2600 game. They interview identified authors, with emphasis on maze generator used in game ("... it came upon him when he was drunk and whacked out of his brain, he coded it up in assembly overnight before he passed out, but now could not for the life of him remember how the algorithm worked"). After reverse-engineering the game image, they spot a bug in pseudo-random number generator (PRNG). PRNGs implementations with identical bug are then found out in 5 other Atari 2600 games, 3 by the same publisher, suggesting code re-use. As authors state, this work is already close to the gray area of copyright law.

And back to our times: there are games you can no longer get, like the list on https://www.thegamer.com/15-amazing-games-you-cant-play-anymore/ . Most of those are not available due to licences expiration. Such games, distributed via online stores as downloads on platforms implementing strong DRMs, are most probably lost for future generations.

1. Do You think it is a problem? Should we treat games as other artifacts of our culture and preserve, or more like low-end, volatile entertainment not worth second look?
   
2. Do you think we could learn anything from studies of old software artifacts? Or is the field today so different there is no connection?
   
3. What should we value more: rights of publishers, who want to control distribution of their products (possibly with intention to issue re-editions on new platforms) or efforts of digital librarians who attempt to save old hardware and software from oblivion?

For those interested, Gamasutra magazine published a 3-part series on game preservation a few years back: [Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis, Part 1]  [Part 2]  [Part 3]

Week 3 [19-25.11.18] Human error in privacy incidents

Hello everyone,

I would like to present you two articles about the impact of human on the IT security:

https://iapp.org/news/a/data-indicates-human-error-prevailing-cause-of-breaches-incidents/

and

https://iapp.org/news/a/full-disclosure-benchmarking-data-reveals-the-human-error-in-privacy-incidents/

Presented articles were prepared by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). It is a non-profit member association which provides a forum for privacy professionals to share best practices, track trends, advance privacy management issues, standardize the designations for privacy professionals and provide education and guidance on opportunities in the field of information privacy.

According to the most popular cybersecurity reports there are still many attacks that exploit human weaknesses (for interested: a report of Cisco company: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/security-reports.html#~download-the-report).

Such incidents can be divided into three categories: intentional (malicious), intentional (not malicious) and unintentional (inadvertent). The most common (more than 96%) are inadvertent incidents. In general, they result from human error or other accidental actions.

Questions are:

1. Have you or your friends met phishing or malware attacks? What were the consequences?
2. Do you agree that human is the weakest link in IT security? Why?
3. Does the raising of cyber-threats awareness among computer users or employees really make sense? Why?
4. Has the implementation of the RODO (GDPR) helped you somehow?

Week 2 (05-11.11.18) BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains

BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains

Please read the paper available from below link:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.08632.pdf
You can also find it's summary on the YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IsIGp1IezE

What is your opinion about the idea of Brain-to-Brain Interface? Do you think that we dispose enough amount of knowledge about our brains and we have methods to do it properly?

Probably you have also heard about Neuralink, which is a company founded by Elon Musk and eight others, reported to be developing implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The founder says he will soon announce a Neuralink product that can make anyone superhuman by connecting their brains to a computer. He also says that Neuralink increases the data rate between the brain and computers and will give humans a better shot at competing with AI.

Do you think that eventually, Brain-Computer Interfaces would be as accurate and fast, as traditional input devices, such as mouse and keyboard? Or maybe it would be utterly incomparable to them?

Week 2 (05-11.11.18) Crowdsourcing Rare Events: Using Curiosity to Draw Participants into Science and Early Warning Systems

I wish to present  a paper about the topic of crowdsourcing from a slightly different perspective. Usually crowdsourcing use money or other specific benefits to encourage people to take part in the process. This time authors presents a curiosty driven crowdsourcing to collect the data about aurora borealis. They created website and mobile app which allows participants to
participate in developing an early warning system through space weather and the beauty of the aurora boreali. They described the innovation of a crowdsourced early warning system that uses
aurora sightings to nowcast solar activity. They used social media data as well.  A time series comparison of the global strength of the aurora was strongly correlated with the number of tweets related to auroral sightings. That is, gathering and processing social media data can enable a near real-time indicator of auroral activity. They showed that highly motived citizens that document the rare activity as aurora can have large impact of other citizen awarness. This research can be extended for other events.

Article: http://ww.w.iscram.org/legacy/ISCRAM2014/papers/p28.pdf


1. For which other purposes this kind of application can be used for?
2. Do you now any other interesting ways of encouraging people to get involved into crowdsourcing?
3. Have you ever participate in such kind of activity?
4. Do you use crowdsourcing in your research?

Week 2 (05-11.11.18) Post-quantum cryptography

In recent years, there has been a substantial amount of research on quantum computers – machines that exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to solve mathematical problems that are difficult or intractable for conventional computers.
Post-quantum cryptography refers to cryptographic algorithms that are thought to be secure against an attack by a quantum computer. As of 2018, this is not true for the most popular public-key algorithms, which can be efficiently broken by a sufficiently strong hypothetical quantum computer.  If large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will be able to break many of the public-key cryptosystems currently in use. 

The problem with currently popular algorithms is that their security relies on one of three hard mathematical problems: the integer factorization problem, the discrete logarithm problem or the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem. This would seriously compromise the confidentiality and integrity of digital communications on the Internet and elsewhere.  

The goal of post-quantum cryptography is to develop cryptographic systems that are secure against both quantum and classical computers, and can interoperate with existing communications protocols and networks. This Internal Report shares the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s current understanding about the status of quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography, and outlines NIST’s initial plan to move forward in this space. The report also recognizes the challenge of moving to new cryptographic infrastructures and therefore emphasizes the need for agencies to focus on crypto agility.

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2016/NIST.IR.8105.pdf

1. Could you propose other approach than symmetrical keys?

2. How companies should shift from classical security approach to post quantum?

3. If you know any interesting links, resources related to this topic please share with us.

4. What other acpects of modern IT could be affected by quantum computing?

Week 2 [05-11.11.18] The New Era of Innovation in E-commerce

The New Era of Innovation in E-commerce 

Dear all,

I would like to introduce to you a quite uncommon topic on this blog - internet marketing and e-commerce trends. 

Nowadays, the absence of a company or brand on the Internet is unacceptable. Internet advertisement gives a lot more opportunities and brings better results than traditional equivalents. The use of many IT tools has completely changed the image of online trading. Today, companies have access to big data, tools collecting opinions about them on the Internet, CRM software, various monetization models, affiliate links and many more. The articles presented by me describes trends and tools used in e-commerce. But more importantly indicate the possible trends and tools that can be used in the near future. Already today we can notice huge changes. Even today we can use additional forms of payments (BLIK, Google Pay, MasterPass, Visa Checkout, PayPal) but also many FinTechs are working on newer methods, eg direct card to card payments. 

Big Data helps with differentiating pricing strategies at the customer-product level and optimizing pricing using big data are becoming more achievable. At the same time Big Data is revolutionising how companies attain greater customer responsiveness and gain greater customer insights. 

The marketing has also changed a lot, often instead of advertising with the participation of celebrities and actors, companies choose "Internet influencers”. Internet users trust the recommendations of real people much more than they trust advertising and promotion of brands in every guise. According to some studies, the ROI of blog posts of influencers is 11 times greater than the ROI of advertising banners after 12 months. 

QUESTIONS TO ANSWEAR:

1. Do you think that the professional look of the website is still very important for brands or social media accounts and engagement with posting there is more important?
2. How do you see the future of traditional advertising?
3. Will influencer marketing sooner or later end with the same failure as creating fictitious purchased reviews in forums?
4. Will Big Data become the absolute basis for any, even the smallest e-commerce enterprise?

ARTICLE:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Prem_Kumar8/publication/308038039_E-Commerce_Trends_and_Future_Analytics_Tools/links/584c3b4b08aecb6bd8c2e30e/E-Commerce-Trends-and-Future-Analytics-Tools.pdf