Footnotes to Accompany Blog

(1)

My oral history in the Babbage Institute archives, taken by Jeffrey Yost in November 2013.

 

(2)

In the 1990s to mid 2000s, a Purdue "center" was a research group focused primarily within a School or College and drawing faculty from several departments. An "institute" was a research group that drew faculty from across several Colleges or Schools.

 

(3)

Jeff is currently the provost at Kansas University.

 

(4)

Carla is now Carla is now dean of Computer & Information Sciences at Northeastern University, and Clay is a professor at Georgetown Univeristy, and director of their Institute for Information Assurance.

 

(5)

CERIAS did not play a direct role in all of that research funding, although we certainly can claim to have been involved in at least an indirect role in all of it. Most of it has not formally flowed through or been credited to CERIAS -- the university's method of calculating F&A cost return and "bragging rights" means that department heads and deans have traditionally been very jealous of sharing credit for research.

 

(6)

There are days when I realize I am no longer in my 20s, although I don't feel much older than that mentally (some would say 8....). And yes, I've had some recent physical challenges, but I don't think I'm particularly impaired. And as far as age goes, I turn 59 this week -- which is not that old for an academic.

 

(7)

I ran for ACM VP in 2012. It was after I had been nominated that I found out I was largely intended as a placeholder -- in the history of ACM, only once has a male ever been elected to office when opposed by a female candidate. The current VP is doing a fine job, btw, so I guess all's well that ends well.

 

(8)

Over the years, I've learned over 30 programming languages, written 3 compilers, and 2 operating systems. I used to be pretty good, too, at everything from quick hacks in Perl and APL to major systems in assembler and microcode.

True story: as a first year grad student, everyone in my compilers class had to write a compiler for a reduced version of Pascal. We had to write the scanner, parser, symbol table, code generator, and optimizer. We could do it in any language we wanted. Rich LeBlanc, our instructor, was certain I was going to crash and burn because I was writing in macro assembler. Despite his dire warnings, I was the only student in the class of about 25 to get it 100% -- plus some extra credit. I wouldn't recommend that approach to anyone, but I also believe that good coding is a function of skill and discipline, not simply of the tools. I guess you should hire me as a programmer at your own risk, however.

 

(9)

I've received what may be the top 3 honors in information security: the National Computer Systems Security Award, the (ISC)² Harold F. Tipton Lifetime Achievement Award, and named to the Cyber Security Hall of Fame. No one else has done that. I'm also the only person to be named as a Fellow of all of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, ISSA, and (ICS)²...among other things. I guess there is something to be said for focus. :-) For you young'uns out there: focus on doing what is right, not that you'll be recognized for it. Doing the right thing is the reward, and recognition may well follow. If it doesn't, you still have the satisfaction of having done the right thing.

 

(10)

COAST was a CS-only research group, which was the seed for CERIAS. It has been in "mothballs" for the last 15 years, but I may resurrect it if I return to a Purdue faculty position.

 

(11)

To be clear, the majority of my colleagues in CS are wonderful, and over a dozen have been stalwarts with CERIAS. However, a few have been quite jealous of our success and rather selfish in their reaction to it (although polite in public). They have helped block strategic hires over the years, creation of new courses, and in obtaining university recognition for associated faculty (and thus, the department). It is a tremendous frustration for several of us, and university administrators have refused to confront the situation. However, I hear this happens many other places, too.