neat workaround for broken harddrive

So, I'm anofficial blogger for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing ... and my laptop hard drive dies. Read errors. Sense errors. Oh, joy. It is a brand new laptop - this being my first real use of it (other than installing Solaris on it, configuring VPN and verifying the system worked).  Jim Hughes, a chief technologist at Sun, had the brilliant suggestion of using the OpenSolaris Live CD we included in all of the bags for everyone here at the Grace Hopper conference. Lo and behold, after an extended boot time, it worked! I'm online again. I can't access my Sun account, since my VPN keys are on the dead hard drive, but I can blog... it's something.  The extended boot time is caused by the Live CD attempting to mount all devices, which includes a dodgey hard drive...

I guess I can facebook too... ;-)

Laptop died!!!!!!

OH NOOOOOO! My harddrive in my brand new laptop just died... disk read error. Awesome. This entry is coming from the cyber cafe - I'll have to see if I can find a laptop to borrow for the other sessions I'm blogging, but I won't be logging into work anymore!

GH08: Future Mobile Technology Empowering Users: Understands, Guides, Decides

This session from Mary Smiley, from Intel's Emerging Technology group, was presenting on new micro technologies that enable all of us to "live large".

Some of the technology she covered were sensors, like the one in the iPhone or iPod Touch that can tell when you tip or shake the device. Some more advanced sensors that seem to be in the pipeline would be able to judge your mood from your body temperature, recognize your voice to determine more quickly if your phone might be stolen, and just check how healthy you are.

Some of their research leverage the Polar heart rate monitor straps and the mobile devices that measure activity to get an overall picture of their health. Clearly their are privacy implications for this, where you would not necessarily want to share all of this information with just anyone, and apparently those are being addressed.

Valerie Fenwick 

GHC08: Fighting Crime using Gunshot Location Systems

This is a very interesting talk on the ShotSpotter technology by Elecia White and Sarah Newman. This technology has been installed in several major cities, helping to solve crimes when the shooter can be pinpointed quickly.  In one example, a sniper shot someone from a roof, and actually stayed on the roof, relaxing and smoking a cigarette - thinking he was out of the expected shooting area.  But, the ShotSpotter technology had pinpointed him and the police were able to make an arrest.

Of course, this technology needs to attempt to differentiate between firecrackers, hammers, backfiring cars and gunshots. The technology takes a first pass at guessing what it was hearing (and gives a level of confidence), but then asks the police dispatcher to make a judgment call on whether police action is required or not.

They find this gets faster and better reporting than actually relying on people calling 911 (as there is a longer delay before they call and only about 50% of gun crimes are called in).  The system isn't perfect, but seems that it can definitely help!

Valerie Fenwick

A great start!

What an adventure getting here to the Grace Hopper Women in Computing Conference, with busy shuttles and lots of hustling around.  I'm glad I'm here and have been able to reconnect with women I met last year at the conference, mostly from Sun and from Purdue.

The  poster session was outstanding, as usual, though they seemed closer together or something, so it was sometimes difficult to move down the aisle.  I saw a lot of interesting research on learning techniques and new ways to get students inspired to explore computer science as a career.  I was happy to see a few posters from Purdue's CERIAS lab as well.

Travel is exhausting, though, so I'm off to bed now! Busy day ahead tomorrow!

Valerie Fenwick 

a few more days....

Wow, it's just a few more days until this years Grace Hopper Women in Computing conference in Denver, CO! I am so excited!  Now just have to get my schedule straight for the week!

Cell phone insecurity....

Phone hacking (aka Phreaking) is no longer just in the domain of the highly skilled and technically motivated that it was in the early 1990s. No longer do you need to get components from Radio Shack and modify them to do nefarious tasks.  You can simply buy a Cellular Seizure Investigation Stick (aka CSI Stick), and learn everything you could ever want to know from someones cell phone.  This type of stuff has been possible for a long time, and it's why my general security talk I give to high school students involves telling them to NEVER leave a cell phone unattended and unsecured, unless they don't mind someone eavesdropping on their future calls, getting access to all text messages and photos, etc.  This just makes it easier.