Final Year Project Brainstorming

Brian Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu
Mon May 25 06:47:53 UTC 2009


An interesting and always relevant topic is passwords. Within your lifetime
you will see a paradigm shift in passwords. What will it be? Will there be
an arms race between those who wish to steal your identity and those who
develop new authentication mechanisms? Why is it that biometric solutions
haven't taken off so far? The answer is that they decrease the usability of
the device without increasing the benefit to the user. Users like weak
passwords because they are easy to remember and they can use the same
password for all their applications. They are not aware of the ever
increasing threat of identity theft and any awareness effort is likely to
fail. How can you help users have safer computer experiences, perhaps
restricting yourself to the online domain only, without them noticing?
Another timely topic is captcha's. It's very likely that between now and
your senior year every single currently existing captcha will be cracked.
Captcha's are a very interesting case because they are a weak example of a
turing test. They are meant to test that the person passing the test is
indeed human. This topic is a perfect juxtaposition of security, usability
and artificial intelligence research. Perhaps the most secure captcha is
also the most usable. What is it? Design it.


On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 12:11 AM, Choon Ming <choonming2002 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Tence,
>
> I am required to create a new system based on my my major not just
> informational ( e.g. a secure method to transfer files etc)
>
>
> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 3:07 AM, Tence T. George <tence at ieee.org> wrote:
>
>> Well do you have to any heavy duty programming or is it informational?
>>
>> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Dave Scott <dscott91 at columbus.rr.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Wade Smart wrote:
>>>
>>>> Choon Ming wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Karl,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the quick reply. I've thought of that but I still need to
>>>>> come up
>>>>> with a real-life scenario where Ubuntu's security is better than Vista
>>>>> in
>>>>> order for me to develop the system.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  I think a project that contrasts the security of Ubuntu and Windows
>>>>> Vista will be interesting.
>>>>>
>>>>> karl
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 20090524 0900 GMT-5
>>>>
>>>> Real life project...
>>>>
>>>> A school in Arkansas was granted new licenses from Microsoft to move
>>>> from a few NT machines, lots of 98 machines and a few 2000 machines to
>>>> Vista. The computers were very old so they were told they would have to
>>>> purchase new computers. The school does not have any IT person. The teachers
>>>> all pretty much maintain their own systems (to what degree I do not know).
>>>> Their systems have zero security now (for the most part). One of "perks" for
>>>> doing all of this is they will be granted broadband internet access. They
>>>> want to move to a browser based grade book.
>>>>
>>>> If you want to think about real world stuff, take the everyday small
>>>> things that people have to deal with.
>>>>
>>>> Instead of purchasing computers that meet Vista requirements, spend that
>>>> money to get new computers at a lower cost, install ubuntu, and secure the
>>>> whole network from the ground up. Figure the cost of IT person for Vista vs
>>>> Ubuntu - the steps to secure the network from the kids, the internet,
>>>> keeping the grades safe.. now here is a real life project.
>>>>
>>>> Wade
>>>>
>>>>
>>> State of Ohio standardized on Macintosh computers in the late 1980's. The
>>> cost of the single IT person to maintain the security on all those machines
>>> was much less than the cost of the entire team that was deployed to manage
>>> security when we switched to PC's running Windows 95. Why did we switch? Our
>>> director's Mac failed and Apple refused to come out to repair it. In
>>> response to that refusal our Acquisitions Management group killed a quarter
>>> million dollar PO in the pipeline for Apple's early all in one, the 5200,
>>> and two months later everyone had PC's with Win95 on their desks. Does that
>>> experience give you any ideas for your senior project?
>>> Dave
>>>
>>> --
>>> David E. Scott              614-457-1037
>>> dscott91 at Columbus.rr.com    Software Development
>>> Website:  http://home.roadrunner.com/~davescott/<http://home.roadrunner.com/%7Edavescott/>
>>>
>>> When "Life Comes at You Fast", "What's Your Policy?"
>>>
>>> No virus found in this outgoing message.
>>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
>>> Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.37/2131 - Release Date:
>>> 05/24/09 07:09:00
>>>
>>> --
>>> ubuntu-users mailing list
>>> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> ubuntu-users mailing list
>> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Choon Ming
>
> --
> ubuntu-users mailing list
> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20090525/1af22c1a/attachment.html>


More information about the ubuntu-users mailing list