Join us for this online event; your opportunity to participate in a discussion with leading computer security expert Dr. Eugene Spafford, PhD. professor of computer science at Purdue University, a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee 2003-2005, an advisor to the National Science Foundation (NSF), and an advisor to over a dozen other government agencies and major corporations.
Dr. Spafford will start with an initial presentation on how the very definition of computer security is poorly defined and not easily measurable. After that first presentation topic, we will present questions gathered earlier for the speaker to answer.
We will collect questions for Dr Spafford's second part of the meeting from the Zoom Chat functionality during the first part of the meeting during his initial presentation, so please come prepared to the meeting with those questions about computer security. Extra questions might be further collected during the second part of the meeting as we go along.
This should be an event of interest to everyone interested in computer security. Possible items of discussion might include access control systems, authentication, malware, viruses, authorization, firewalls, internet security, NAT and TCP and UDP hole punching, intrusion detection systems, mobile secure gateway are but a few of the areas that may be of interest.
This will be a virtual meeting on Zoom. The link to this Zoom meeting will be emailed one hour before the meeting to those that have RSVP'd Yes on our Meetup.com copy of this meeting annoucement.
There will NOT be a in-person Meeting after the Meeting planned for this presentation, due to the State of Illinois Covid-19 virus direction for Social Distancing for groups. However expect there to be time for a virtual Meeting After the Meeting.
Eugene Spafford, nicknamed Spaf, is an American professor of computer science at Purdue University and a leading computer security expert. At Purdue, Spafford has a joint appointment as a professor of computer science and as professor of electrical and computer engineering, where he has served on the faculty since 1987.
He is also a professor of philosophy, and a professor of communication. He is also Executive Director of Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), and was the founder and director of COAST Laboratory, which preceded CERIAS.
Spaf has a list of honors and awards too long to list here however it should be mentioned that he has been elected to the National Cybersecurity Hall of Fame[, IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award and the Association for Computer Machinery’s President's Award.
In the early days of the Internet in 1990 "Spaf" founded Yucks digest, “a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous.”
Oddly, Spaf was born many years ago on, of all days, his birthday. He was the first child for his poor but proud parents, and his arrival changed their lives forever: although they continued to be poor, they were never proud again.
After some time, many dreary experiences, and repeated electroshock therapy, Spaf obtained degrees in math, computer science, and beer (the latter was an honorary degree, bestowed by peers) from Georgia Tech. It wasn’t so much the work he did as it was his ability to annoy his committee to the point of getting him out the door in 1986. He spent the next year engaged in activities that he now describes as “a postdoc…nothing more, and certainly nothing involving explosives” in a low voice accompanied by furtive glances over his shoulder.
At Purdue since 1987, Professor Spafford is still unclear when the statute of limitations runs out for his “postdoc.” However, after 33 years in Indiana, he is beginning to relax about possibly visiting several Southern states and Central American countries again, and he no longer giggles nervously when people mention “grits” or “kudzu.”
Spaf, as he is known to his students and therapists, is a professor of Computer Sciences at Purdue University. He is also the founder and Executive Director Emeritus of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security(CERIAS). He has done lots of things related to computing, cybersecurity, computing ethics, and education during his career but with advancing age, he remembers only about half of them. Some people with a history of drug use and/or head injuries think what he has done is kinda cool, but none of it has resulted in wealth or humanoid groupies, so how important can it be? Despite that, Spaf continues his futile pursuits to make the world a better place, and this (thankfully) keeps him from messing up anything of importance.
For more information about UniForum Chicago contact info@uniforum.chi.il.us.