CPSC 115-01: due Monday, October 25
CPSC 115-02: due Tuesday, October 26
This homework assignment concerns Barbara Liskov and her work. Liskov is
Institute Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the recipient of the 2009 Alan
M. Turing Award.
1. About Barbara Liskov
First, read the following article about Liskov. To access this proprietary
article, you must be on the Trinity network (or have your own subscription).
Based on what you learned from this article, answer each of the following
questions separately in complete English sentences. Keep your answers
in one page.
What is the greatest joy Liskov experienced in her career?
What are her main contributions for which she received the Turing Award?
What is the ARPANET? What is the language Argus?
To her, what was it like to develop a computer language?
What is her advice to those wishing to pursue a career in research?
2. Security of online information
Next, watch the following short video clip.
B. Liskov,
Security of
online information,
Computing Research That Changed the World: Reflections and Perspectives,
Computing Research Association, Washington, D.C.,
Mar. 25, 2009.
Based on what you learned from this video clip, answer each of the following
questions separately in complete English sentences. Keep your answers
in one to two pages.
In the near future, all information will be stored online and
accessible from everywhere. What are the three additional objectives
addressed in Liskov's vision (besides information being stored online and
accessible from everywhere)?
What is the first scenario she presents? What are her four wishes in
this scenario?
What is the second scenario she presents? What are her three wishes in
this scenario?
What is the biggest challenge common to these two scenarios?
What does she mean by highly-scalable storage? What does he mean
by a highly-scalable access speed?
What are the two “hugely” important issues of security? What
are the two “other” aspects of security?
What is wrong with having just one server? What is replication?
What is the main goal of replication protocols?
What is a Benign failure? What is the ordering solution?
What are the three issues that arise from this?
What is a Byzantine failure? What are the two main causes for this
type of failures? What is her solution? Any difference from her solution
to Benign failures?
How important is this research? What does this research mean to you? Did
you think that a popular website such as
http://www.nytimes.com/ was
hosted by a single server? Does a commercial e-mail service such as Gmail
keep a single user's e-mail messages in one server? Do you think Liskov
deserves the Turing Award (which is the most prestigious award in computer
science)? Keep in mind though that, to make it accessible to everyone, she
presented her research in very simple terms, but this research is
technically very complex.
