Teraflop Troubles: The Power of Graphics Processing Units May Threaten the World’s Password Security System
Georgia Tech Research Institute (08/10/10) Englehardt, Kirk J.; Toon, John
Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) computer scientists are studying whether desktop computers with graphics processing units (GPUs) are so powerful that they compromise password protection. "Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate--and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase," says GTRI's Richard Boyd. Modern GPUs are so fast because they are designed as parallel computers. When given a problem, GPUs divide the task among multiple processing units and tackle different parts of the problem simultaneously. Software programs designed to break passwords are freely available on the Internet, and these programs, combined with the availability of GPUs, mean it is only a matter of time before the password threat will be immediate, the researchers say. GTRI's Joshua L. Davis says the best password is an entire sentence that includes numbers or symbols, because it is both long and complex and yet easy to remember.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Blog: Teraflop Troubles: The Power of Graphics Processing Units May Threaten the World's Password Security System
Monday, August 9, 2010
Blog: In a Video Game, Tackling the Complexities of Protein Folding
In a Video Game, Tackling the Complexities of Protein Folding
New York Times (08/09/10) Markoff, John
Foldit is a free online game from University of Washington researchers in which thousands of volunteer gamers bested a computer program in determining how proteins fold into their three-dimensional shapes. The researchers say the success of the Foldit gamers reflects how nonscientists can collaborate to devise new algorithms and strategies that are distinct from conventional software solutions to the challenge of protein folding. Foldit starts with a series of tutorials in which the player controls protein-like structures on a computer display. As structures are tweaked in the game, a score is estimated based on how well the protein is folded. Gamers are provided with a set of controls that enable them to manipulate the backbone and the amino acid side shapes of a specific protein into a more efficient configuration. The researchers note that the Foldit players outperformed the software tools in areas that include pattern recognition.
Blog: HP Researcher Claims to Crack Compsci Complexity Conundrum
HP Researcher Claims to Crack Compsci Complexity Conundrum
IDG News Service (08/09/10) Jackson, Joab
Hewlett-Packard researcher Vinay Deolalikar claims to have solved the computer science problem widely known as P versus NP. In an email to a group of math professors, Deolalikar said he was announcing proof that polynomial time (P) is not equal to nondeterministic polynomial time (NP), which may mean certain problems can only be solved by brute force searching, if solutions can be found at all. Deolalikar said he pieced together principles from multiple areas within mathematics. "The major effort in constructing this proof was uncovering a chain of conceptual links between various fields and viewing them through a common lens," Deolalikar wrote. No one who is familiar with the problem has said Deolalikar has solved it thus far, considering the amount of checking that needs to be done on his solution. The Clay Mathematics Institute has promised to pay $1 million to the person who solves the problem. The P versus NP problem involves "determining whether questions exist whose answer can be quickly checked, but which require an impossibly long time to solve by any direct procedure," according to the institute.
Blog: New Paradigm for Scientific Publication and Peer Review
New Paradigm for Scientific Publication and Peer Review
ICT Results (08/09/10)
A European research project aims to replace scientific papers and peer reviews with a process inspired by social networking. The LiquidPublication project seeks to revolutionize how scientists share their work and evaluate contributions from others. The current scientific publication paradigm leads to wasted time, a heavy load for peer reviewers, and too many papers that recycle already published research or dribble out results a bit at a time, says project leader Fabio Casati. The researchers are developing a new way to share scientific knowledge, which they call liquid publication. The method takes advantage of the Web's ability to speed communication, facilitate data storage, search and retrieve data, and foster communities of interest to replace traditional peer reviews and paper publications. "If we can make scientists' work even 10 percent more efficient, it will give a great benefit to the community," Casati says. He says liquid publication could reduce the number of multiple papers that just report incremental new results. Instead, the researchers want to see incremental changes clearly identified by versions. They also suggest replacing peer reviews with the assessment that is implicitly given by the relevant community while editing and reading liquid journals.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Blog: Virtual Walkers Lead the Way for Robots
Virtual Walkers Lead the Way for Robots
New Scientist (08/06/10) Campbell, MacGregor
Researchers are studying ways to use simulated physics and evolution to give robots and virtual characters more realistic gaits. Simulated evolution, a process developed by NaturalMotion, begins with a population of virtual skeletons controlled by a network of virtual nerves. Each skeleton has a slightly different network, affecting its ability to walk. Those that can walk furthest are declared "most fit" and are used to spawn the next generation, in which a subset of the nerves are slightly altered. Over several generations the skeletons automatically evolve into better walkers. Meanwhile, University of British Columbia researcher Michiel van de Panne and University of Toronto researcher Martin de Lasa have developed overarching controllers, instead of animating a character by controlling each joint independently. The controllers create rules that specify how the character should behave, and the individual joints move to obey them. In the researchers' model, once the path of the swinging foot is specified by the controller, the angles between various joints in the leg and hip are automatically calculated. The researchers want to apply their work for use in humanoid robots.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Blog: Speech Recognition Systems Must Get Smarter, Professor Says
Speech Recognition Systems Must Get Smarter, Professor Says
IDG News Service (08/05/10) Jackson, Joab
Most modern computerized speech-recognition systems can understand what a human says up to 98 percent of the time, yet people still get frustrated using automated phone help-desk systems, says University of Rochester professor James Allen. He says the key to making speech-recognition systems less frustrating to use is giving them a deeper understanding of language and making them more interactive. Allen has been researching ways to make these systems more life-like in the way they interact with humans. The goal is to be able to "talk to a machine the same way we can talk to a person," he says. A program designed by Allen and his team, called Plow, can learn how to carry out common tasks on a computer. "This is a system that allows you to essentially use dialog to train your system how to do things for you," he says. Another program designed by Allen and his research team, called Cardiac, mimics the questions a nurse asks a patient with heart disease. The system determines what information was provided and what is still needed. However, Allen says better two-communications between users and computers is still needed.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Blog: Team Releases Tools for Secure Cloud Computing
Team Releases Tools for Secure Cloud Computing
UT Dallas News (08/02/10) Moore, David
University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) researchers have released software tools designed to facilitate cloud computing. "In order to use electricity, we do not maintain electricity generators at home, instead we get the electricity on demand from the grid when we need it," says UTD Cyber Security Research Center director Bhavani Thuraisingham. He says the cloud computing model works on a similar principle. Research shows that the biggest hurdle to broad adoption of cloud computing is concern about the security of sensitive data, so security has been one of the UTD team's focal points. "In building a cloud, we are using a number of open source tools, including Apache's Hadoop distributed file system, Google's Mapreduce, and the University of Cambridge's XEN Virtual Machine monitor," Thuraisingham says. He says the tools provide the infrastructure for security features. UTD's tools provide secure query processing capabilities and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. The system's framework consists of a network layer, an infrastructure layer, a storage layer, and a data layer.