Portland State University Fourth Avenue Building (FAB)

"Planning and Sustainability Commission Hearing on the Draft 2035 Comprehensive Plan

Public testimony is welcome at this meeting about the draft Comprehensive Plan."

Kevin P. Dyer presents:

P0wning DPI with Format-Transforming Encryption

Deep packet inspection (DPI) technologies provide much-needed visibility and control of network traffic using port- independent protocol identification (PIPI), where a network flow is labeled with its application-layer protocol based on packet contents. In many cases PIPI can be used for good. As one example, it allows network administrators to elevate priority of time-sensitive (e.g., VoIP) data streams. In other cases PIPI can be used for harm, nation-states employ PIPI to block censorship circumvention tools such as Tor. There are many ways to perform PIPI, however, at the core of nearly all modern PIPI systems are regular expressions --- an expressive tool to compactly specify sets of strings.

In this talk, Kevin reviews the state-of-the-art research on the capabilities of state-level DPI, then presents a novel cryptographic primitive called format-transforming encryption (FTE.) An FTE scheme, intuitively, extends conventional symmetric encryption with the ability to transform the ciphertext into a user-defined format using regular expressions. An FTE-based record layer will be presented that can encrypt arbitrary TCP traffic and coerce modern DPI systems into misclassifying any data stream as a target protocol (e.g., HTTP, SMB, RSTP, etc.) of the user's choosing. What's more, this work is not only theoretical in nature --- an open-source FTE prototype is publicly available and has had success in subverting modern DPI systems, including the Great Firewall of China.

PSU is kindly providing coffee, tea, and cookies for us.

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Kevin P. Dyer is a PhD student at Portland State University. His research focuses on building protocols that are resistant to traffic-analysis attacks and discriminatory routing policies.. Previously, Kevin worked as a software engineer in telecommunications security, web security and network security. He holds an MSc in the Mathematics of Cryptography and Communications from Royal Holloway, University of London, and a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from Santa Clara University.

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The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a 501c3 not-for-profit worldwide charitable organization focused on improving the security of application software. To sign up for future meeting notes and to discuss security topics with local gurus, sign up on the OWASP Portland mailing list:

 https://lists.owasp.org/mailman/listinfo/owasp-portland

Meetings are free and open to the public.

Discussion of all things related to the Smalltalk programming language and environment. Open to all interested.

Expected to include several short presentations

Discussion of all things related to the Smalltalk programming language and environment. Open to all interested.

Expected to include several short presentations, and a discussion of trait composition as applied to classes.

Title: Skolkovo, ARCCN, Software Defined Networking and OpenFlow

Speaker: Dr. Carolyn Turbyfill, Director of Engineering, ARCCN

Location: FAB 86-01

Time: 10:15am

Abstract: What is Skolkovo? The goal of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre is "to concentrate international intellectual capital, thereby stimulating the development of break-through projects and technologies." [1] Companies engaged in innovative development are selected to become project participants and are provided with developmental assistance by the Skolkovo Foundation and its partners. The Applied Research Center for Computer Networks (ARCCN) is a non-profit organization within the Skolkovo project focused on creating enabling technologies for the next generation of computer technology. ARCCN’s vision is to develop a world class Russian center specializing in Software Defined Networking (SDN). SDN implements the control plane of network switches and routers in software running on separate servers, "to commoditize network hardware and provide a standard-based application development platform taking much of the features and functionality that exist inside custom proprietary software and driving it into an open SDN space." OpenFlow is an example of SDN. "OpenFlow offers a standard-based Application Programming Interface or API that links an Ethernet switch and a controller. This offers a model in which layer 2 Ethernet switches are low-cost merchant silicon based devices where flows are directed by a centralized controller(s)."[2] ARCCN is building collaborative relationships with international academic, research and commercial organizations.

[1] http://www.sk.ru/en/Model.aspx [2] http://lippisreport.com/2012/02/lippis-report-187-software-defined-networking-needs-a-bigger-definition/

Bio: Dr. Turbyfill holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Her first research project in the field of Computer Science was the Wisconsin Benchmark that pioneered benchmarks by which relational database systems are measured today. She has advanced her career with milestones consisting of the first commercial implementations of leading edge products such as: the first firewall appliance, SunScreen SPF-100 and SKIP, one of the first commercial Virtual Private Networks (VPN); the first managed security service and the first round trip email marketing service. While at Sun Microsystems, she worked with CISSP, a coalition of companies, on changing export controls on encryption. As VP of Engineering at StackSafe, she led the team that developed the StackSafe Test Center, which was named the 2008 ITIL Innovation of the Year. In 2009 Dr. Turbyfill was inducted into the Women in Technology International's (WITI) Hall of Fame for her longstanding commitment to create opportunities for women in technology careers.

Double Feature! For this chapter meeting, we have two protocol-oriented talks at PSU. Basic refreshments will be provided.

Kevin P. Dyer presents:
What Encryption Leaks and Why Traffic Analysis Countermeasures Fail

As more applications become web-based, an increasing amount of client-server interactions are exposed to our networks and vulnerable to Traffic Analysis (TA) attacks. In one form, TA attacks exploit the lengths and timings of packets in a protocol's flow to infer sensitive information about communications. In the context of encrypted HTTP connections, such as HTTP over SSH, this means an adversary can determine which website a user is visiting. In the context of a specific web application, an adversary can determine user input by viewing only a few client-server interactions.

Recent advances in the application of Machine Learning tools demonstrate that TA attacks are possible despite industry-standard encryption such as TLS, SSH or IPSec. What is more, even if a protocol uses stronger countermeasures, such as fixed-length per-packet padding, this incurs significant overhead but only provides limited security benefit. These types of security vs. efficiency trade-offs are of immediate concern to security-aware applications such as Tor, and performance-sensitive application features such as Google Search Autocomplete.

In this talk, Kevin will address the state-of-the-art TA attacks and proposed countermeasures in the context of network and web application security. Most importantly, he will discuss open problems in this area and why a general-purpose TA countermeasure remains elusive.

Timothy D. Morgan presents:
HTTPS, Cookies, and Men-in-the-Middle: Why You Shouldn't Allow Marketing Departments to Design Your Security Protocols

Login session management in modern web applications is largely dominated by use of HTTP cookies. However, HTTP cookies were never designed for secure applications, which has led to a significant number of protocol security problems.

In this talk, Tim will start with a brief background on why HTTP cookies are a poorly-conceived mechanism to begin with, and continue with a discussion of how this impacts security. He will describe several lesser-known cookie-based session management problems that remain wide spread and allow for session hijacking through a variety of clever attacks.

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Kevin P. Dyer is a PhD student at Portland State University. His research focuses on building protocols that are resistant to Traffic Analysis attacks. Prior to his academic life, Kevin worked as an engineer on various projects in telecommunications security, web security and network security. Kevin holds an MSc in the Mathematics of Cryptography and Communications from Royal

Holloway, University of London, and a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from Santa Clara University.

Timothy D. Morgan is a consultant at Virtual Security Research, LLC (VSR). As an application security specialist and digital forensics researcher, Tim has been taking deep technical dives in security for over a decade. Tim resides in Oregon and works at VSR where he helps to secure his customers' environments through penetration testing, training, and forensics investigations. His past security research has culminated in the release of several responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities in popular software products. Tim also develops and maintains several open source digital forensics tools which implement novel data recovery algorithms.

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The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a 501c3 not-for-profit worldwide charitable organization focused on improving the security of application software. To sign up for future meeting notes and to discuss security topics with local gurus, sign up on the OWASP Portland mailing list: https://lists.owasp.org/mailman/listinfo/owasp-portland

Meetings are free and open to the public.

Do you like drones (aka UAVs)? Do you fly, build, drive or program something that could be considered a drone? Then join this group of enthusiasts and let's get together and share experiences, success stories, crashes and hacking projects we're all working on!

We have a broad definition of a drone - its basically a device that is either remotely controlled or completely autonomous. It can fly, drive or swim. It can carry things or take pictures and videos. You can control it by line of site, via video link or by programming in its route ahead of time.

Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is an educational aerospace project at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. We are a team of students, alumni, and local community members who have a love for learning through difficult, hands-on, cross-disciplinary engineering projects. Over the last decade we have been designing and building world class experimental rockets.

PSAS technical meetings are normally held every Tuesday at 7:00pm in the Fourth Avenue Building at PSU. We meet in room 86-01, the CS lecture and conference room on the lower level of FAB. Although there is typically a meeting every week, please do email us at [email protected] if you're new, just to make sure we're there.

Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is an educational aerospace project at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. We are a team of students, alumni, and local community members who have a love for learning through difficult, hands-on, cross-disciplinary engineering projects. Over the last decade we have been designing and building world class experimental rockets.

PSAS technical meetings are normally held every Tuesday at 7:00pm in the Fourth Avenue Building at PSU. We meet in room 86-01, the CS lecture and conference room on the lower level of FAB. Although there is typically a meeting every week, please do email us at [email protected] if you're new, just to make sure we're there.

HacPDX-II is an opportunity to join Portland Haskell hackers in building and improving Hackage libraries and tools. The project you hack on can be anything and need-not be pre-existing or general community tools.

Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is a volunteer group working on open source/open hardware amateur rockets. We build everything from the ground up, including rocket airframes, avionics hardware, Linux flight computer software, and communications systems.

Come early the first Tuesday of the month if you want to learn more or are thinking about joining the group. We are open to everyone no matter what your experience or interests. We are a public group and this is a public meeting!

http://psas.pdx.edu

The Oregon IEEE Education Society Chapter is planning two evening meetings over the next few weeks:

Date: Wednesday 10th November, 6-8pm Topic: Project Lead the Way (PLTW) & the University

Location:

ECE Department Conference Room (FAB-155)
4th Avenue Building (1900 SW 4th Avenue)
Portland State University

and (TBD) at OIT (Klamath Falls) and OSU, as required.

Both programs will be run using DimDim for remote site participation. DimDim is the Oregon IEEE Section's system for on-line meetings. For details of DimDim participation, contact [email protected].

Abstract:

PLTW is a national initiative to develop enthusiasm for engineering careers by experiential learning in middle and high school programs. There some impressive statistics of nationwide successes, with seven Oregon schools currently certified and more on the way. But what comes next? Can we as tertiary engineering educators maintain the momentum that PLTW creates, or will this new enthusiastic cohort be disappointed by their experience in university engineering programs.

The evening will first provide an introduction to PLTW .... what is it, and how is it developing nationwide and here in Oregon? (Claude Kansaku, OIT Klamath Falls)? This will be followed by examples of high school PLTW activities (Tom Thompson, ODE), some observations of PLTW alums at university (TBD), and general discussion of (a) how tertiary engineering programs can take advantage of these developments, and (b) keep these students interested.

Agenda: 6.00-6.30pm Refreshments and Social (pizza/soda) 6.30-8.00pm Technical program

Location: Room: ECE Department Conference Room FAB-155 Bldg: Portland State University 4th Avenue Building (1900 SW 4th Avenue) Portland, Oregon 97207

Small talk about all things Smalltalk, the object-oriented programming language and environment.

This month's program includes a presentation by Brian Rice about Slate's Haskell-based descendent Atomo, and what features he'll be drawing back into Slate, including Smalltalk-oriented pattern-matching. Also, Slate is gaining general assignment syntax in a non-abstraction-breaking way using Slate's macro facility.

Finally, and intriguingly, a student, Max OrHai, who has been working on Dave Ungar's parallel Squeak VM, has a nice demo.

The meeting is in room 086-01 of FAB, known to some directional signs as room 86-01. This room is under the plaza between the Engineering Building and the Fourth Avenue Building, you may enter through either lobby and go down the stairs.

The room will open slightly before 7:00. Building front doors are open, but in previous meetings at this location have been locked at 8:00PM.

Small talk about all things Smalltalk, the object-oriented programming language and environment.

This month's program includes a presentation by Andres Valloud on new work on VisualWorks garbage collection and memory policies.

The meeting is in room 086-01 of FAB, known to some directional signs as room 86-01. This room is under the plaza between the Engineering Building and the Fourth Avenue Building, you may enter through either lobby and go down the stairs.

The room will open slightly before 7:00. Building front doors are open, but in previous meetings at this location have been locked at 8:00PM.

CS conference room, FAB 086-01

Abstract: Although it is not necessarily the view taken by those who design them, modern computers are deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems, and it is both interesting and useful to treat them as such. In this talk, I will describe a nonlinear dynamics-based framework for modeling and analyzing computer systems. Using this framework, together with a custom measurement infrastructure, we have found strong indications of low-dimensional dynamics in the performance of a simple program running on a popular Intel microprocessor—including the first experimental evidence of chaotic dynamics in real computer hardware. These dynamics change completely when we run the same program on a different Intel microprocessor, or when we change that program slightly. All of this raises important issues about computer analysis and design. These engineered systems have grown so complex as to defy the analysis tools that are typically used by their designers: tools that assume linearity and stochasticity, and essentially ignore dynamics. The ideas and methods developed by the nonlinear dynamics community are a much better way to study, understand, and (ultimately) design modern computer systems.

This is joint work with Amer Diwan and Todd Mytkowicz.

Computer Science Department University of Colorado at Boulder Biography: Elizabeth Bradley did her undergraduate and graduate work at MIT, interrupted by a one-year leave of absence to row in the 1988 Olympic Games, and has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder since January of 1993. Her research interests include nonlinear dynamics, artificial intelligence, and control theory. She is the recipient of a NSF National Young Investigator award, a Packard Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, and the 1999 student-voted University of Colorado College of Engineering teaching award.

Host: Melanie Mitchell

Small talk about all things Smalltalk. This month's program includes the presentation

The Laws of Form and Computer Programming

by Andres Valloud. The meeting is in room 86-01 of FAB. Pizza at 6:30, presentations start at 7:00. Building front doors are locked at 8:00PM.

This session will survey a few PostgreSQL tuning parameters and their effects on the OLTP workload DBT-2.

--

PostgreSQL Portland Performance Practice Project (P5)

Sponsored by the Computer Science Department, Portland State University

This series will consist of 5 to 6 presentations aimed at PostgreSQL database users who wish to learn more about tuning their systems for performance. Attendees will learn how to generate and interpret operating system (Linux) and database statistics, and the effects of some system tuning techniques. This involves studying the well known Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) benchmark called TPC-C ( www.tpc.org ). TPC-C was developed by a committee, representing all major players in the database marketplace, to be representative of typical online enterprise databases. TPC-C consists of a precisely defined schema and 19 queries. We will review the schema and queries and demonstrate how each tuning technique affects their performance. We will use an open source package that the speaker has developed, called DBT-2, which many DBAs have found useful.

Mark Wong has an MS in Computer Science from OGI and several years of experience developing and executing various database systems benchmarks. Most relevant to this series are his years spent at the OSDL developing and using a fair-use derivative of the TPC-C benchmark to characterize system performance of open source software.

2nd THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH, BEGINNING JANUARY 8, 7:00 PM PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1900 SW 4th AVENUE, FOURTH AVENUE BUILDING – ROOM 86-01

PostgreSQL Portland Performance Practice Project (P5)

Sponsored by the Computer Science Department, Portland State University

This series will consist of 5 to 6 presentations aimed at PostgreSQL database users who wish to learn more about tuning their systems for performance. Attendees will learn how to generate and interpret operating system (Linux) and database statistics, and the effects of some system tuning techniques. This involves studying the well known Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) benchmark called TPC-C ( www.tpc.org ). TPC-C was developed by a committee, representing all major players in the database marketplace, to be representative of typical online enterprise databases. TPC-C consists of a precisely defined schema and 19 queries. We will review the schema and queries and demonstrate how each tuning technique affects their performance. We will use an open source package that the speaker has developed, called DBT-2, which many DBAs have found useful.

Mark Wong has an MS in Computer Science from OGI and several years of experience developing and executing various database systems benchmarks. Most relevant to this series are his years spent at the OSDL developing and using a fair-use derivative of the TPC-C benchmark to characterize system performance of open source software.

2nd THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH, BEGINNING JANUARY 8, 7:00 PM PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1900 SW 4th AVENUE, FOURTH AVENUE BUILDING – ROOM 86-01

Stephanie Forrest University of New Mexico

FAB 86-01

Abstract

A pressing challenge for computer science over the next decade is reducing the total cost of software. This includes the billions of dollars that are lost each year from software defects. The number of software defects far outstrips the resources available for repairing them, and most software is shipped with both known and unknown bugs. This problem arises because human programmers still develop, maintain, and repair computer programs largely by hand, despite many years of progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The talk will describe recent research that shows how evolutionary computation can be combined with program analysis methods to automatically repair bugs in off-the-shelf legacy C programs. Once a program fault is discovered, evolutionary algorithms are used to generate program variants until one is found that both retains required functionality and avoids the defect in question. Standard test cases are used to represent the fault and to encode program requirements. Once a successful variant is discovered, structural differencing algorithms and delta debugging methods are used to minimize its size. Initial results will be presented on a wide range of C programs, including security vulnerabilities such as integer overflow, denial of service, format string, and buffer overflow. Finally, the talk will describe how the automatic repair mechanism can be combined with anomaly intrusion detection to produce a closed-loop repair system.

Biography

Stephanie Forrest is Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science Department at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She is also an External Professor and has served on the Science Board and as Vice President of the Santa Fe Institute. Professor Forrest received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of Michigan (1982,1985) and a BA from St. John's College (1977). Before joining UNM in 1990 she worked for Teknowledge Inc. and was a Director's Fellow at the Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her research studies adaptive systems, including evolutionary computation, immunology, biological modeling, and computer security. In security, she is best known for her early work using system calls for anomaly intrusion detection and her more recent work on automated diversity. She was a recipient of the NSF Presidental Young Investigator's Award and has recently served on the NSF GENI Science Council, the NSF CISE Advisory Committee, and the UCLA CENS Advisory Board.

Sponsored by the Computer Science Department, Portland State University

This series will consist of 5 to 6 presentations aimed at PostgreSQL database users who wish to learn more about tuning their systems for performance. Attendees will learn how to generate and interpret operating system (Linux) and database statistics, and the effects of some system tuning techniques. This involves studying the well known Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) benchmark called TPC-C ( www.tpc.org ). TPC-C was developed by a committee, representing all major players in the database marketplace, to be representative of typical online enterprise databases. TPC-C consists of a precisely defined schema and 19 queries. We will review the schema and queries and demonstrate how each tuning technique affects their performance. We will use an open source package that the speaker has developed, called DBT-2, which many DBAs have found useful.

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1900 SW 4th AVENUE, FOURTH AVENUE BUILDING – ROOM 86-01

The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is a volunteer group working on open source/open hardware amateur rockets. We build everything from the ground up, including rocket airframes, avionics hardware, Linux flight computer software, and communications systems.

Our current focus is testing a new airframe and building a new avionics system. We hope to launch with airframe only this spring/summer in eastern Oregon, and launch with the full avionics stack at BALLS 18 in the Blackrock Desert of Nevada on October 2-4. http://www.balls17.com/

http://psas.pdx.edu

PSAS meets every Tuesday in the Computer Science lounge area of the Fourth Avenue Building. Enter at through the glass doors at the main entrance at SW 4th and SW Hall. Walk up to the guard station in front of you, then turn left and walk down the hallway. Continue past the PGE office (on your left) and the Microsoft Research lab (on your right), until you see a wall in front of you. Turn right and walk through the glass double doors to the CS lounge area. There will be wooden tables and white boards.

2nd THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH, BEGINNING JANUARY 8, 7:00 PM PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1900 SW 4th AVENUE, FOURTH AVENUE BUILDING – ROOM 86-01

See website for more details.

                          Rapid Discussions

                                  on

                              Any Topic

                                  by

                          Anyone & Everyone

  Instead of having a formal presentation, we will get together and
  discuss anything anyone wants to discuss in brief sessions of no 
  more than a few minutes each.  If we have enough people involved
  we can break into smaller groups to handle each topic.  

---

Agenda:

7:00 - 7:30 Business We will discuss the status of our ongoing projects including PLUG's monthly Advanced Topics meetings, PLUG's monthly hands on clinics, PLUG for Education, etc.

7:30 - 8:30 Presentation

See above

9:00 - ... Beer Jax Bar And Restaurant 826 SW 2nd Avenue Portland

PostgreSQL Portland Performance Practice Project (P5)

Sponsored by the Computer Science Department, Portland State University

This series will consist of 5 to 6 presentations aimed at PostgreSQL database users who wish to learn more about tuning their systems for performance. Attendees will learn how to generate and interpret operating system (Linux) and database statistics, and the effects of some system tuning techniques. This involves studying the well known Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) benchmark called TPC-C ( www.tpc.org ). TPC-C was developed by a committee, representing all major players in the database marketplace, to be representative of typical online enterprise databases. TPC-C consists of a precisely defined schema and 19 queries. We will review the schema and queries and demonstrate how each tuning technique affects their performance. We will use an open source package that the speaker has developed, called DBT-2, which many DBAs have found useful.

Mark Wong has an MS in Computer Science from OGI and several years of experience developing and executing various database systems benchmarks. Most relevant to this series are his years spent at the OSDL developing and using a fair-use derivative of the TPC-C benchmark to characterize system performance of open source software. He now works at HP StorageWorks on their NAS products.

2nd THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH, BEGINNING JANUARY 8, 7:00 PM PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY, 1900 SW 4th AVENUE, FOURTH AVENUE BUILDING – ROOM 86-01

David Mandel will discuss some of the thoughts he has on the role
of Open Source ideas in Agriculture and International Development
and maybe even on us locally.

*******************************************************************

    Agenda:

        7:00 - 7:30  Business
             We will discuss the status of our ongoing projects
             including PLUG's monthly Advanced Topics meetings,
             PLUG's monthly hands on clinics, PLUG for Education,
             etc.

        7:30 - 8:30  Presentation

             See above

        9:00 - ...  Beer
                            Jax Bar And Restaurant
                            826 SW 2nd Avenue
                            Portland
                            (Note:  We no longer use the Lucky Lab.)

This Friday's paper is: "Interactive Paper as a Reading Medium in Digital Libraries" by Moira C. Norrie, Beat Signer, and Nadir Weibel.

Jeremy Steinhauer will be the discussion leader.

You can get the paper from: http://www.globis.ethz.ch/script/publication/download?docid=528

Introductory meeting for people interested in PSAS (Portland State Aerospace Society).

Dr. Theodore Johnson AT&T Labs FRIDAY, Nov. 17, 2008, 10am FAB 86-01

Abstract

Data stream systems (DSMSs) have matured to the point that they can be used in a large-scale industrial setting. In this talk, I will discuss how a combination of a DSMS (the GS monitor) and a streaming warehouse (DataDepot) combine to enable very large scale network monitoring in a tier-1 Internet Service Provider. The talk will emphasize the scaling challenges we faced and how they were overcome. Biography

Theodore Johnson received a B.S. in Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University in 1986, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1990. From 1990 through 1996, Theodore was an assistant, then associate procesor in the Computer and Information Science department of the University of Florida. In 1996, Theodore joined the Database Reseach department of AT&T Labs - Research, where today he is a Lead Member of Technical Staff. His interests include building massive data stream systems, building massive data warehouses, and building silly and useless electromechanical gadgets.