So, what did this guy do?

How do metrics applications handle these spammers?

What can be done to prevent Twitter manipulation?

At the National Science Foundation sponsored Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) combined (The Mid Pacific Center for ICT and The National Center for ICT ) winter conference last month held at the City College of San Francisco, I had the opportunity to interview three key members of the Cisco Systems Packet Tracer Team - Dennis Frezzo, Isaac Majerowicz and Mark Chen.

Packet Tracer is a network simulator used by hundreds of thousands of Cisco Networking Academy students around the world. Recently, Packet Tracer version 5.1 was released - here's so info from an FAQ on the product found on the Packet Tracer website:

• Provides a realistic simulation and visualization learning environment that supplements classroom equipment
• Enables multiuser, real-time collaboration and competition for dynamic learning  
• Enables authoring and localization of structured learning activities such as labs,  demonstrations, quizzes, exams, and games
• Empowers students to explore concepts, conduct experiments, and test their understanding
• Allows students and teachers to design, build, configure, and troubleshoot networks using  virtual equipment  
• Supports a variety of teaching and learning tasks such as lectures, group and individual  labs, homework, and competitions  
• Supports integration with external applications through an API to enhance the functionality  of Packet Tracer in areas such as curriculum and assessment delivery, games, accessibility,  and interfacing with real equipment. 
  

In the interview, the team describes the Packet Tracer product. Part 1 and part 2 of the interview are shown below:

I'm really excited about version 5.1 - especially when you consider the user base. The ability to integrate Packet Tracer 5.1 with external applications will provide some innovative academic and training solutions. You can find out more about the Cisco Network Academy and Packet Tracer here.

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center is a recently funded National Science Foundation (NSF) – Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Regional Center hosted by City College of San Francisco (CCSF). MPICT's mission is to coordinate, promote and improve the quality and availability of ICT education in a region consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. Current Regional Partners include: Ohlone College , Santa Rosa Junior College , Cabrillo College and Foothill College.

We've had a great relationship with Pierre, James and CCSF and were fortunate to get them on camera to talk about MPICT at the 2008 SAME-TEC Conference.

MPICT is off to a great start under the leadership and direction of Pierre and James. Contact them for more information at www.mpict.org

German graduate students Erik Tews and Martin Beck have discovered an exploitable hole in WPA, a popular wireless encryption protocol. This week, Tews will present a paper on the topic at the PacSec conference in Tokyo. In this podcast Mike Qaissaunee and I discuss wireless network security and this newly discovered WPA hole.

Here's a list of questions asked during the podcast:

Where is the information for this podcast coming from?

Why is this important?

So, we've now got a security issue with WPA encryption! Before we get to WPA - can you give us a little background on wireless encryption?

So, the first attempt was WEP. Most devices still support it - why should we not use it?

So, that's not good. What did the IEEE do?

What else did the 802.11i group do - what was the second solution?

So, let me make sure I understand. Older wireless devices can be updated to support WPA which includes TKIP. Now, I've heard of WPA2 - what is that?

So, the new products support both but old products only support WPA. I think I've got it! What did Tews and Beck actually crack?

So the problem is with old devices that only support WPA and TKIP and not WPA and AES?

What is the problem with TKIP?

Now, didn't WEP use checksums this way?

The ars technica piece mentioned short packets are ideal - especially ARP broadcasts. Why?

Let me see if I understand, an attacker sniffs a packet, makes minor modifications to affect the checksum, and checks the results by sending the packet back to the access point.

So it is not something we should be worried about?

What can we do to protect our networks?

Can you describe rekeying?

Now, I've heard of this - you need to be careful. You don't want to enable rapid rekeying unless ALL of your clients support IEEE 802.1x and an authentication method (e.g. EAP-TLS) that supports key distribution.

So, let's get to the point here - WPA really is not broken?

Listen to get the answers!

On Oct 1, 2008 Nart Villeneuve and the Information Warfare Monitor released an interesting joint report titled BREACHING TRUST: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China’s TOM-Skype platform. Villeneuve is CTO of psiphon inc and the psiphon research fellow at the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. In this podcast we discuss the report, confidentiality and security issues with TOM-Skype, the Chinese version of Skype

Mike: Gordon, Can you tell us a little more about this report?

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics. The author, Nart Villeneuve's research focuses on International Internet censorship and the evasion tactics used to bypass Internet filtering systems.

Other Questions:

How about some background on Skype in China?

How about some details from the report?

You said these are publically accessible servers - can others besides the Chinese access these servers?

Can you review the major findings from the report?

What kinds of questions has the report raised?

How does the report say the sensorship actually works?

How about some detail on those servers?

The report claims it may be possbile to map users social networks using the logged information. Can you explain?

How has Skype responded?

Bio-Link is an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Center for Biotechnology that originated in late 1998 with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The Center is located on the campus of City College of San Francisco with office space at the University of California, San Francisco. Regional Bio-Link Centers across the country are located in Seattle, WA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Austin, TX; Madison, WI; Graham, NC; and Portsmouth, NH. 

At the SAME-TEC conference this past July, I had the opportunity to interview Bio-Link Director Dr Elaine Johnson. In the interview Elaine discusses the work the Bio-Link Center and Regional Centers are doing to bring students the knowledge and skills essential to the field as well as the ability to continue with more advanced education in math, science and engineering.

My undergraduate background is in Microbiology so I've always had an interest in biotechnology and related fields. If you are faculty and considering starting a biotechnology program or maybe a student thinking about a biotechnology career, you will find her interview very interesting.

Elaine and her Center's work are outstanding! You can get more information on Elaine and Bio-Link here.

Earlier this month I wrote about how the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies
(NCTT, focusing on information and communications technologies) collaborated with sister NSF Advanced Technology Education Centers of Excellence Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC, focusing on semi-conductor, automated manufacturing and electronics) and OP-TEC (focusing on optics and photonics) to sponsor the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, Texas.

SAME-TEC has a long history, starting in 1994 with the vision of David Hata at Portland Community College and continuing to grow and evolve under the leadership and direction of Mike Lesiecki and his team at MATEC. This year the conference had over 350 attendees.

At the conference we did a number of video interviews and John Reynolds, our multimedia specialist, has been hard at work editing them. We've now got another one posted - an interview with David Hata - the Godfather of SAME-TEC. David discusses the original grant he wrote to the National Science Foundation to launch SAME-TEC and the evolution of the conference.

The OP-TEC Advanced Technological Education Center was launched in August 2006 with funding from the National Science Foundation. Under the direction of Dan Hull, the Center engages a consortium of two-year colleges, high schools, universities, national laboratories, industry partners, and professional societies. The participating entities have committed to join forces in creating a secondary-to-postsecondary “pipeline” of highly qualified and strongly motivated students and empowering community colleges to meet the urgent need for technicians in optics and photonics.

OP-TEC serves two types of one- and two-year postsecondary programs:

1. Those devoted to lasers, optics, and photonics technology; and
2. Those devoted to technologies that are enabled by optics and photonics.

OP-TEC is building support through curriculum, instructional materials, assessment, faculty development, recruiting, and support for institutional reform. OP-TEC will serve as a national clearinghouse for teaching materials; encourage more schools and colleges to offer programs, courses, and career information; and help high school teachers and community and technical college faculty members develop programs and labs to teach technical content.

The project has four goals:

1. Serve as a national resource center for optics and photonics education and training.
2. Create, assemble, align, and distribute coordinated curriculum materials designed to support optics, laser, and photonics education in high schools, two-year colleges, and retraining of adult workers.
3. Support established and new photonics education programs in high schools, community and technical colleges, universities, and professional societies.
4. Provide education and training for administrators, counselors, high school teachers, and community college faculty members to prepare them to:

OP-TEC is establishing a national infrastructure for developing and supporting widely disseminated educational programs in cutting-edge, high-demand technologies that require photonics. That infrastructure encompasses both the secondary and postsecondary levels and will involve collaboration between educators and industry personnel.

Dan and his team are doing excellent work. In July I had the chance to interview him (on his birthday!) at the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, TX.

You can get more information on the OP-TEC National Center located in Waco, TX here.

This is a series of  interviews Dan Greenwood, Brookdale Community College's Instructional Designer, recorded with Mike.  This is part of Dan's Project Emit (Engaging Methods in Teaching) podcast.  You can find Dan's podcast at http://www.brookdalecc.edu/pages/613.asp

Here are descriptions for the interviews, which we've combined as one podcast. 

Links mentioned in the podcast:

http://www.slideshare.net

Bunker Hill Community College Professor Paula Velluto has received National Science Foundation funding to create a model computer forensics program.

The project is a regional collaboration of Middlesex Community College, Bristol Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, Northern Essex Community College and the University of Massachusetts Boston to meet the regional need of law enforcement for trained computer forensics (CF) technicians. The programs uniquely combine the disciplines of Information Technology and Criminal Justice and are tailored to the needs of each institution.

The CFATE NSF project focuses on achieving three goals:
I've know Paula for many years and have always been so impressed with her technical knowledge, experience, vision and (especially) the way she works with her students. Paula is one of the best and last month I had the opportunity to interview her at the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, TX.

You can get more information on the CFATE rogram at Bunker Hill Community College here. The project website at CFATE.ORG will also be up shortly.