Liudvikas Bukys

RIT launches computer security program:

In response to this emerging technological area, the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences is preparing a new master’s degree program in computing security and information assurance. The program will consist of a half dozen core courses dealing with technical, business, ethical and administrative aspects of security. Additionally, areas such as risk management and the cost of security will be analyzed.

While similar programs in computer security already exist at a handful of universities, the GCCIS program will differ by focusing on the complete spectrum of computing.

“Our program is unique in that it will be offered at the college level and utilize faculty from the computer science, software engineering and information technology departments,” explains Jorge Díaz-Herrera, GCCIS dean. “The cross-disciplinary nature of the program will qualify graduates for a wide range of computer security related careers in both the private and public sectors.”

To better hone the curriculum, three members of the GCCIS faculty recently took part in a month-long training session. Hans-Peter Bischof, associate professor of computer science; Stephanie Ludi, assistant professor of software engineering; and Luther Troell, associate professor of information technology, traveled to Carnegie Mellon University to present the college’s plan to a diverse group of experts. The resulting exchange of ideas offered some useful feedback.

The founder of Thawte, Mark Shuttleworth, has many
thoughts on open source development and its funding,
based on his experience as the sponsor of the SchoolTool project.

So the risk is that a well-funded open source team that is NOT lead by someone with a personal interest in shipping the project will get distracted by other shiny tech toys and fail to actually ship something focused and constructive. How are we dealing with that in the current round of work on SchoolTool? First, I’m personally watching and asking the core team to focus on actual functionality. They assure me that their engine work is “done”, and that they are currently working on a usable tool that can be tested by schools. Time will tell. And second, we will shortly have a second, collaborating team, that will I hope also bring much of the engineering work into a more public forum.

Time will tell. These are expensive ways to learn, but I feel that the experiment is very much worth doing. There are lots of tools I would like to see developed in the open source world that developers have not yet done for themselves, and which I would be prepared to fund. Perhaps other philanthropists are in a similar position. We need to learn how to do this effectively, and the only way to learn is to try.

He has recently issued
bounties for work he’s like to see happen with his SchoolTool project, with Python, and with Mozilla.

Bruce Perens whitepaper:
UserLinux: Repairing the Economic Paradigm of Enterprise Linux

Justin Mason:
How to link without PageRank

Linux Today: Debian Investigation Report After Server Compromises