Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science – position available

December 23rd, 2013

A full-time non-continuing faculty position for two years beginning Fall 2014.  For the full job posting visit http://new.oberlin.edu/home/jobs/index.dot  FAC14-22

Fall 2013 Class Demos

December 16th, 2013

Wearable Electronics Demos – Wednesday the 18th, 6pm – 7pm in King 235

Interested in electronics and wearable art? The Soft Circuits Seminar has been spending all semester playing with LEDs, arduinos, soldering irons and more. Come see what they’ve made this Wednesday at 6pm! Students will be showing off their wearable electronic art pieces. Snacks will be provided.

2013 Wearable Electronics final projects

Click here to see the projects!

Human Computer Interaction Demos – Friday the 20th, 9am – 11am in King 201

Featuring websites for co-opers, adventure seekers, free food lovers, scientists and more. The HCI students have spent all semester working on how to make programs easy for people to use and understand. Come see what they’ve made! Snacks provided.

2013-2014 CS T-shirt design contest

December 10th, 2013

Don’t forget to get your T-Shirt designs ready!2013-2014 CS T-shirt Contest

CSMC Presents "Python Night"

November 26th, 2013

Python logo
Peter F. and Dan B. will be hosting Python Night on Tuesday, December 3rd at 7pm.

Come an learn new tricks for programming in Python including:

  • list comprehensions
  • higher-order functions (+ map, filter, reduce)
  • sets and other useful data structures
  • with statements/context managers
  • decorators
  • the power of the python syntax
Now with Pizza!  RSVP via the form sent out by CSMC.  See you there!

 

Automated Identification of Text Message Author

November 12th, 2013

Matt Kretchmar, Denison University

Matt Kretchmar

On Thursday, November 14 there will be a talk by Dr. Matt Kretchmar of Denison University entitled Automated Identification of Text Message Authors: Was that really you who sent that text message?

Reception with light refreshments at 4:00pm in King 225, talk to follow at 4:30pm in King 239

Abstract: This talk is about the application of machine learning techniques to the problem of classifying authors of text messages. We use kernel-based support vector machines to build an automated classifier that uses statistical idiosyncrasies to distinguish one sender from others.

The talk is aimed at general undergraduate students in both mathematics and computer science.

CSCI MAJORS – Winter Term Informational Meeting

October 30th, 2013

Thursday, Nov. 7     12:15 p.m.  KING 327
Have a great idea for a Winter Term project, and want to recruit people?  Have no idea what to do for Winter Term, but think you might like it to involve Computer Science somehow?  We’ll be having an organizational meeting at 12:15 on Thursday Nov 7th, to allow people to come together and talk about what they would like to do for Winter Term, and see if any project groups coalesce.  
Deadline to register for Winter Term 2014 is Friday, Dec. 6

Opportunities for Machine Learning in Ecological Science and Ecosystem Management

October 30th, 2013

Wednesday, November 6 NOON King 237

Thomas G. Dietterich of Oregon State University will present:

Opportunities for Machine Learning in Ecological Science and Ecosystem Management
How can computer science address the many challenges of managing the
earth's ecosystems sustainably?  Viewed as a control problem, ecosystem
management is challenging for two reasons. First, we lack good models
of the function and structure of the earth's ecosystems.
Second, it is difficult to compute optimal management policies because ecosystems
exhibit complex spatio-temporal interactions at multiple scales.

This talk will discuss some of the many challenges and opportunities
for machine learning research in computational sustainability. These
include sensor placement, data interpretation, model fitting,
computing robust optimal policies, and finally executing those
policies successfully.  I'll provide examples from current work
and discuss open problems in each of these areas.

All of these sustainability problems involve spatial modeling and
optimization, and all of them can be usefully conceived in terms of
facilitating or preventing flows along edges in spatial networks. For
example, encouraging the recovery of endangered species involves
creating a network of suitable habitat and encouraging spread along
the edges of the network. Conversely, preventing the spread of
diseases, invasive species, and pollutants involves preventing flow
along edges of networks.  Addressing these problems will require
advances in several areas of machine learning and optimization.

Study Abroad In Budapest

October 28th, 2013

Information Session for CSCI Majors  Thursday, Oct. 31

12:15-1:15 King 327  Food and Drinks Provided

Have your questions answered by Staff and Faculty FROM AIT.

For more information about the program visit www.ait-budapest.com

 

 

 

2013 Muskingum University Programming Contest

October 1st, 2013

On Oct 5, 2013,  3 teams of Oberlin students competed at the 5th annual Muskingum University programming contest. Team “Albino Squirrels” (Jenny Ward ’14 and Nathan Klein ’16) took third place out of 15 teams from 6 institutions. Team “Uberlin” (Eli Stein ’14, Amanda Strominger ’15, Scott Hulver ’16) and “O(bees)” (Peter Fogg ’14, Oren Shoham ’14, Devon Wells ’14) also put in a strong showing.

iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED- RSVP required

September 30th, 2013

Monday Oct 7 Noon King 239  

Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED

Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED Modern computers contain a surprising number of processors distinct from the CPUs, each dedicated to a specific task. These processors along with their perhipherals form embedded systems inside standard desktop and laptop systems which are frequently overlooked when evaluating the security of computer systems. In this talk, I’ll describe a security analysis of one such embeddedsystem: the Apple iSight webcam. The iSight contains, as a privacy feature, an indicator LED which provides a visual cue that the camera is turned on. I’ll describe how the hardware that controls the LED can be bypassed, enabling video to be captured without any indication to the user. I’ll also show how the iSight can be leveraged by malware to break out of a Virtual Machine sandbox.

Stephen Checkoway, is an Assistant Research Professor in the Johns
Hopkins University Department of Computer Science and a member of the
Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute where he
teaches courses on computer security and software vulnerabilities. His
work includes security analyses of automotive emedded systems and
computer voting systems as well as offensive and defensive computer
security research. Checkoway earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics
and computer sciences from the University of Washington in 2005 and a
Ph.D. in computer science in 2012 from the University of California,
San Diego.

RSVP in the CSCI office King 223 for Pizza lunch