DAVID MALAN: Welcome to Computer Science E-1.
My name is David Malan. And it was about
seven years ago when I first uttered those
words. It was February of 1999, when I took
over this
course.
And back then, there were no streaming videos,
really, certainly not in the popularity that
they are
today. There was no podcast. There was no
Distance Ed. There was VHS.
So back in the day, we used to film these
lectures on VHS so that students, not abroad
and so forth,
could watch them, but so that our own students��if
they missed a lecture or wanted to catch up��
they could actually review the tape. And it
was kept down the hallway in the library.
The funny thing back then is we didn't throw
many resources into these VHS tapes, and we
would
have the teaching fellows rotate through each
week. And each week film one of the lectures.
And,
back then, it was mostly my friends who were
teaching fellows for the course, since I was
an
undergraduate at the time.
And we have a lot of videos where the camera
is doing a really nice job during part of
the lecture.
And then, "zhump," when the TF, or cameraman,
would fall asleep.
So, Chris Mehl has done a much better job
in recent years of filming us. But I thought,
if you'll
indulge me down this walk down Memory Lane,
I thought I'd give you a few seconds of what
this
class was like in 1999. Here we go.
>>DAVID MALAN [on video]: All right, let's
stop it repeating there. Let me just tweak
this
microphone for a moment. Can everyone in here
in the back hear me all right?
>>Students in video: Yes.
>>DAVID MALAN [on video]: Any need for more?
Okay.
Welcome to Computer Science E-1, "Introduction
to Personal Computers and the Internet." My
name is David Malan, and I will be your instructor
for this semester.
Some of you may recall a woman's name, Laura
Knobel-Piehl, on the original course catalogue.
She
has since moved to Minnesota, and I've been
asked to take over the course in her stead.
But I
promise this semester you will have a fantastic
time. And by the semester's end will walk
away with a
firm grasp of both what computers are as well
as what the Internet is.
Before we begin, let me take a quick survey
of people. How many people here actually have
a
computer at home, if you could raise your
hands?
That's fantastic because it will make our
lives easier.
How many people��and it's okay to raise
your hand to this one��have never actually
used a
computer before? There's no shame in this.
Okay, that's fantastic. This course will be...
DAVID MALAN: Everything was fantastic back
then, apparently. And I don't think I was
ever as
nervous as I was that week. I probably didn't
eat for days before that class. Because I
was still... I
was a senior at the time. And as that guy
said, Laura Knobel-Piehl��who was the
original architect
of this course, a boss of mine at FAS Computer
Services, whom I worked for as an undergrad��had
invented this course, probably in 1997, or
so.
And before this, at Harvard Extension, at
least, there really was no introductory course,
no survey
course. There really was no entry point for
folks who either wanted to pursue somewhat
technical
academic programs, or even just wanted to
get some more savvy for their own personal
edification.
So this course really is the result of her
vision, way back when. And she moved, unexpectedly,
partway through the year. And a gentleman
took over for about a semester or so, Bill
Barthelmy,
who was the second instructor for this course.
And he too did a wonderful job bringing the
course closer to what it now is today. And
it was in the
spring of 1999 that he decided to step down
and focus on his full-time job at FAS Computer
Services.
And they tapped me, this little old Harvard
undergrad, who, uh... At the time, we kept
it very quiet
as to the fact that, not only was I the youngest
kid in the room, I was also the only one without
a
degree, at the time.
That's why you see me dressing in suits, and
I even had suspenders on under that suit,
at the time. I
wore glasses. I did everything I could to
come across as something far older than I
was. And I
bought myself a few years.
And these days now, you know, this is... Dawne
was surprised to see me tonight, because I
think I've
let myself go since, with jeans and t-shirts
in class, and so forth. So I thought I'd spice
it up a little
bit tonight.
The point, though, is that this is the eleventh
time that I've taught this course. And it's
been
wonderful.
This is the last time that I'll teach this
course. So this is the final E-1 lecture that
I will ever give. And
for me, that's why I've probably not been
nervous in this class since the first lecture
of this year. I'm
always nervous the first lecture, since I
don't know anyone in the room, really. And
that's kind of
intimidating seeing all these fresh faces
staring... literally staring down at you in
this lecture hall. But
then, fortunately, by Lecture 2, I realized
that you all are pretty much okay.
But tonight what I'd like to do with us is,
one, take a look back at where we, this semester,
started
the course; take a look forward as to where
you might go academically, just with technology
in the
future; certainly say a few thank yous to
those who have helped out in the class; and
also just give
you a sense of what you yourselves have been
a part of, particularly with respect to the
course's
podcasts.
So, without further ado, we have over the
years, tried a number of experiments in this
class.
Oh, and there are a lot of little things tonight
that I've tried to intersperse that really
make sense only
to me. This, for instance, was the very first
song that was played in E-1 at that first
lecture. So I
thought it would be apropos for me, at least,
to hear it again.
But, with that said, we've tried a number
of experiments in this class. The one of which
you are
probably most familiar with is this guy, the
Podcast that we've been dabbling in for the
past year or
two.
Note, on screen: slide #2
And that's been one of the fun things about
this course, is, over the past several years,
we've tried a
number of tools, techniques, ideas with which
to familiarize our own students with technology
and
computers; make them more a part of the course,
so that I'm not just some talking head at
the front
of the course. But rather, the students themselves
and, beyond just Workshops and Sections, are
actually engaging, either intellectually or
hands-on with some of these technologies.
We tried, for instance, way back when, when
the course had a different Website, a sort
of... You
know that the course Website now has that
Resources page, with links. Those are, pretty
much these
days, links sanctioned by us.
Well, there was a time where students themselves
could post to that Web page links that they
liked
to frequent; post a little description for
them, so that their fellow students could
see what kinds of
links other people were making use of.
And you have to realize, too, back in 1999��though
it would be cute to say that there was no
Internet back then, and there were no computers��there
certainly were. But certainly not to the
extent that there are today.
And there were certainly several hands that
first night in '99 that went up, that said,
"I don't even
own a computer." We had a couple of people
who had never used a computer. And we had
people
certainly who'd never used the Internet. And
it really was a different audience.
And the course has had to change over the
years, such that these days, pretty much all
of you came
into this course with some savvy with computers;
maybe a bit of a fear factor. Maybe you weren't
quite the type who could problem-solve technical
problems on your own. But odds are, you were
using a computer nonetheless eight hours a
day at work; or at night at home; or you had
some basic
skills. So the course has certainly adapted
over the years.
Well, that one experiment, where students
could post their own links to the Website:
absolute
failure. No one ever did it.
So we put it aside and we tried something
else. We had a course listserv for a number
of years. A
listserv is just an email list. We put all
the students on it and we invited them to
talk with one
another; post questions; post answers; discuss
things on the listserv. That, too, a complete
failure.
Never really worked.
We tried using a listserv last year, in a
last-ditch effort to breathe some life into
it, requiring that
students, for those movie reviews: If they
wanted to get extra credit on a problem set,
they'd have to
share their thumbs-up or thumbs-down not only
with us, but with the class, on the listserv.
The only
emails that ever went out on the listserv
were movie reviews. So it didn't really speak
to its academic
value. So we scrapped that.
We, for several years, used a system called
the Personal Response System, PRS, which essentially
are
these little infrared-based remote controls,
which we fondly called "clickers." These were
not so
much a failure. We don't use them terribly
much these days.
But imagine, if you will, an experiment in
which all of you had these little remote controls
in your
hands. On these controls is a keypad, from
one to nine, and zero, and a couple of other
buttons.
And we used these for a number of semesters
to engage students in Q&A, sort of anonymous
Q&A,
such that if I posed a question in multiple-choice
form, we could survey the students by way
of these
clickers, and they would buzz in with answer
1, or 2, or 3, or 4. And then we had some
neat
graphing software that would show us how many
students guessed A, or 1; how many students
guessed 2; how many students guessed 3. And
it was always fun, of course, because though
it was
anonymized, we could always make fun of the
students who, you know, were in the wrong
bucket
on the screen.
And that was sort of an attempt to get students
to be a little less hesitant to answer questions,
right?
Raising your hand, especially if you feel
like you know less than everyone else in the
room, is kind of
a scary thing, especially if you're wrong,
and, you know, I make light of that, after
the fact.
So we used these clickers. And those worked
well. I am not convinced they have particularly
pedagogical value, as much as they have entertainment
and sort of fun value. But nonetheless, we
used those for quite a while. And usually��we
didn't do it this year��we used to, even
that project,
we began to use just to vote for mousepads
every year. So you would buzz in for your
mousepad
choice. But this year, we did it the old-fashioned
way on paper-pencil.
So the short of it is, this class, not only
in having students acquainted with a whole
bunch of
material, we've also tried to experiment with
a lot of technologies. And the most current
of which,
and daresay the most successful of which for
our own students and beyond, we think, has
been this
podcast.
So it was around Fall 2005, in September,
when podcasts really were just starting to
catch on. This is
just over a year ago. They'd sort of existed
under that name or others for quite some time,
perhaps. I
mean, at the end of the day, what's a podcast?
It's just like a feed of MP3s; now movies,
PDFs,
right? It was just a marketing term, really.
It was just a buzzword around something you
could have
been doing for years.
But it began to gain traction. And this term,
"podcast," sort of came my way. And, you know,
truth
be told, I think said to Rei, in last August
maybe, last September 2005, you know, "Hey,
Rei, let's
podcast E-1 this year."
Then I think, five minutes later, after I'd
finished talking with Rei, I went on Google
and looked up
what a podcast was. And Wikipedia gave a very
nice definition of what it was I had just
committed
us to.
At the time we were only podcasting in audio.
So I had, in addition to these wires, yet
another
device, an MP3 recorder, that was recording
everything I said. We used it in some sections
and
workshops. And we posted that material on
the Web, and in iTunes, and the podcasts for
students
in the course to download.
And it was also just publicly accessible,
if anyone else wanted to sort of see what
this class was up to.
Well, around last October or November, Apple
released the video iPod, and we quickly went
back
and redigitized all of our videos in QuickTime
format, using an MPEG-4 codec, so that we
could
also distribute the videos of the course as
well.
That landed me for a while in the Provost's
Office, because we had a nice little discussion
with the
powers that be as to what it meant to be podcasting
courses at Harvard Extension School, or at
Harvard, in general. And everything certainly
worked out for the best in the end.
But it certainly raised a whole bunch of issues
that even other universities are continuing
to consider
and discuss, as to exactly, one, what the
value of technology like this is, opening
a university's
doors��whether this one, or Harvard Extension
or any other school��to the public at
large, as well
as to its own students. And also, two, just,
you know, maybe they should be doing this
in first place.
And I've sort of come around to thinking,
with these kinds of technologies��especially
when we
have so much information being uttered in
classrooms like this, and others, at this
school and
others��that it perhaps could be one of
the most significant things for universities
to start doing: to
start opening their doors virtually to the
world; not only in the U.S., but other countries,
and just
making available, at relatively low cost,
what is already being produced in some of
this country's,
certainly, dominant universities.
I think it's a powerful thing. And for that
reason alone, I think it's been exciting to
sort of be
pushing the envelope, or getting ourselves
in trouble at times, just to see exactly where
something
like this might go.
With that said, I thought it would be fun
to reveal to you some of what you've been
yourselves
involved with, and what your past semesters'
student body were involved with.
This podcast again was launched in September
of 2005. To give you a sense of what logs
suggest
subscribership has been to this podcast��certainly
not just among our own students, but in the
world at large��this is a chart showing
the number of downloads, so far as we can
tell from logs that
we've maintained, as to how many times each
lecture or workshop was downloaded in either
MP3 or
QuickTime format.
And you'll see that Lecture 1, for instance,
last year, logs suggest was downloaded over
a twelve-
month period over 10,000 times. Things like
Lectures 3 and 4, and Workshop 4 and 8, sort
of
average out, or, sort of reach equilibrium
at about 8,000. So we actually suspect that
last year's
podcasts had, again, not just in our own walls,
but a subscribership: 6,000 to 10,000 people
who
tuned into the class that you folks have been
tuning in to, in this particular year, which
was quite
remarkable.
Because certainly at the time, we had no expectation
as to really there being any benefits or any
interest in the outside public. For us, for
Rei and I, when we discussed this way back
when, the value
was just in letting students��if they
missed a class or wanted to review a class��be
able to review
that class, or watch it, or listen to it for
the first time without, honestly, the��you
know, it's all
relative��but the inconvenience of having
to sit down at their computer and watch a
streaming
video, or listen to a streaming audiocast,
right?
We've come a long way from VHS. And just putting
this stuff online was a huge marginal gain,
probably, for students, in terms of convenience.
Well, when you start to get used to things
like iPods and wireless Internet access, it
actually
becomes, I think, a virtual tether if, to
engage in this kind of material, you have
to be physically
online, or you have to be streaming on a relatively
slow connection the data.
And so really what this podcast was for us
was just a marginal change, a marginal improvement,
perhaps, on the media that we were providing
our own students with already, so that they
could
listen on the subway to their MP�� I mean,
frankly, it's a whole other question as to
why you'd want
to be listening to computer science on an
iPod in the first place. So let me disclaim
that, all right?
You know, I'm not sure I would watch myself
on an iPod, or on iTunes, or whatnot, so that
much I
concede.
I think the value is in the technology, not
so much the guy in the technology.
But with that said, it simply gives students
options. And it gives them another angle,
another means
of access to courses' content like this.
Numbers we also looked at last year, between
'05 and '06, were where people were coming
from.
Most subscribers appear to be coming from
the United States��just over half.
Note, on screen: slide #4
But we had folks from Germany, Australia,
Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and then
a whole
bunch of other countries, who made up a smaller
percentage. But there were over fifty countries
represented in the logs, so far as we could
tell.
This year, as we mentioned a few months ago,
we had some serious bandwidth problems. Fall
semester '06 began, and we crippled the Extension
School's server, and were nicely asked to
leave
the Extension School's server.
So we turned to outside resources. And when
we began looking at the logs��this is
November '06,
so just a few months ago; and December '06,
just a month ago��we had experienced downloads
on
the order of just shy of 4 terabytes [4 TB]
in November, and over 5 TB of data were downloaded
from the podcast in December.
Note, on screen: slide #5
Now, you have to consider that these videos
themselves are large. So they're 200 MB to
300 MB. So
these numbers, while big, you sort of have
to divide by 10 or 100 to get a sense of the
magnitude.
But even so, when you consider how many individual
people were downloading the content, it
seems again to be in the thousands. And I'll
show you a couple of numbers in just a moment.
This, I thought, is less related to the podcasts;
more just fun with logs, as we suggested in
our
"Security" Lecture. I looked at the key phrases
that people have apparently been typing in
to Google,
and Yahoo, and so forth, to find E-1, or find
its podcast, or at least content like it.
Note, on screen: slide #6
And apparently, and perhaps not surprising,
if you type in "lecture" and "Internet," somewhere
along the way E-1's podcast will come up in
your favorite search engine. Also our log
suggested that
people had found us via "Harvard lecture."
Seems reasonable as well.
So "police dog training" apparently leads
to Computer Science E-1's podcasts. So go
figure.
"Harvard Extension School Problem Set 4".
I daresay that was one of you, looking for
your
Problem Set 4, given how specific it was.
"Upgrading a PC" similarly leads to us.
And, no joke��and mind you, this is the
censored version of what I'm showing you��apparently
for
"great sex" you could come to Computer Science
E-1. Apparently we've got some videos floating
around that maybe I'm not aware of.
But those are among the search terms that
apparently lead to E-1's podcast.
So what have the specific downloads been like?
Note, on screen: slide #7
Well, here's a graph of just the last three
weeks of November '06, so just a month or
two ago. And
Eugenia's Workshop 8 currently, according
to logs, has the distinction of being the
most popular
content downloaded in November, with about
2,200 people downloading that particular content.
And again, you have to take some of these
numbers with a grain of salt, because we can
only infer
from the logs. But that seems to be a reasonable
lower bound on the number of times these were
downloaded.
Dan's Workshop 10 was clocked in around 1,600
or 1,700 downloads. And I hope these two are
beaming that they completely trounced David
Malan's lectures, which were the three least
popular
downloads in November of '06. But there we
have Lectures 8, 7, and 9.
And to look in December, had similar results.
Note, on screen: slide #8
Eugenia was hot in December as well, with
her Workshop 11, with over 3,000 downloads.
The TFs'
Review�� There's a pattern here, right?
The TFs' Review 2 came in just shy of 3,000
downloads in
December '06 alone. And then whoever it was
doing Lectures 12, 11, 10, and 1 was in last
place in
December as well. So that's great.
And it's sort of... what's amazing, to be
honest, is just these numbers��the fact
that, as a side effect
of our interest in just engaging our own students
in, you know, tetherless iPods, and iTunes,
and so
forth, for the course's content��that
it's had this sort of effect, or this fringe
benefit of others tuning
in as well, and finding their way not only
to this class, and asking us, "Hey, how can
I enroll next
semester?" but also just to Extension, and
some of the other courses that have begun
this
experiment as well.
Finally, just to make sure these guys are
properly recognized for their popularity on
YouTube, where
some of these videos have been as well: Dan's
Video of the Week, from Volume 4, "TCP/IP,"
has
had over a thousand download on YouTube alone.
Dan's Volume 2: "Browser Wars" has clocked
in over 1,000 downloads, and then Rei's "Installing
Windows XP" similarly popular on YouTube,
as well.
So, it's remarkable. And we share these, not
so much to... more out of, certainly... more
out of
amazement as to what has happened with this
experiment, than certainly out of pride, or
anything
like that.
So we hope we offer these just as data to
sort of offer you a sense of what you, yourselves
have been
involved with, or the project that you have
involved with.
So none of this, certainly, would have been
possible without these four folks today.
Note, on screen: slide #10
And what we're about to do is going to sound
like we're winding down to a thank you and
good
night. But there's more to come, right? We
clearly have something to do here tonight.
And we've a
retrospective as well.
But I wanted to take a moment, before we go
on too long to recognize these four faces,
who look
much prettier in person, right? I blew up
very small JPEGs. And you know, from your
Multimedia
Lecture, why they look so bad on the screen
at this resolution, because it's only, like,
46 pixels
across, and I blew it up.
But also listed here on the board are teaching
fellows past, who have been involved with
the course
since February of 1999. And if you would indulge
me with a round of applause for these four.
If you would take a...
I'll say a quick word about each of them,
if I may.
Rei Diaz has been involved with this course
now for several years. And it was two years
ago that,
midsemester, Rei took on the gargantuan task
of filling in for a few teaching fellows,
who were no
longer able to continue with the course. And
so we had holes in the schedule of two sections.
So Rei
stepped up and literally began teaching three
sections simultaneously. And I wish I hadn't
used the
moniker back then. But he was presented with,
back then, a plastic Superman doll, which
sort of
captured the fact that he really was a Superman
that semester. And he's certainly done an
outstanding job since, as the continued Head
Teaching Fellow.
Eugenia has been with us this year. And she
is the result of several months... We started,
honestly,
recruiting for teaching fellows months ago,
right? Because it's much easier to do this
over a period
of time, and sort of ideally have your pick
of folks. And we posted to various sites locally
at
Harvard, at MIT, craigslist; really anywhere
we could think of where we might reach out
to some
technical folks. And Eugenia was the result
of several months' search, and we've been
thrilled,
certainly, that she said yes to our offer.
And has both been teaching and learning, we
think, along the
way with us. So thank you for that as well.
Dan Armendariz has been with the course for
a couple of semesters now. Dan and I met at
MIT,
where we were both EMTs, emergency medical
technicians, riding ambulances and such, though
we
never together rode the ambulance. That makes
it sound much sexier than it really was. We
met
because, at the time of being EMTs, which
is factually correct, I was also the Webmaster
for MIT's
Emergency Medical Services, and Dan was the
guy who took over the Website for MIT-EMS.
It's
not nearly as cool when you say you met because
of a Website. But we were officially at the
time
EMTs.
He's been with the course for two years now.
And is certainly our unofficial and official
Mac guy,
and the guy, as you've seen during lecture,
I'll turn to and ask questions of when I don't
know the
answer. And he too has been fantastic to have
on the team for the past couple of years.
Finally, Chris Thayer hasn't officially been
on the team, but has sort of become on the
team over the
past several months. Chris is a former student.
So she was part of Fall 2005, and all of that.
She has
this semester volunteered way more hours than
probably any of us have put into the course
ourselves in helping with our video productions.
So the "Video of the Week" project that we
took on��with the support of the University,
producing
some sixty Videos of the Week that will continue
to remain available after the course's end,
if you
haven't even had time to dabble in that content��has
certainly been furthered along with hours
and
hundreds of emails that I've gotten at 2 a.m.
and 3 a.m., from Chris, who originally was
just
volunteering her own time, just to help out
with this video project. And so much of the
videos that
you've seen this semester would not have been
possible without her as well.
So if you'll indulge me once more. Just a
round of applause for these four.
Thank you so much.
This is going to sound like the Academy Awards,
for just a moment.
Note, on screen: slide #11
But Chris Mehl, who's the man you never see
in front of the camera, but is always behind
the
camera, has been wonderful to work with, over
the past few years, right? When we finally
got rid of
the sleeping teaching fellows and started
using professionals to film the course, the
videos have been
fantastic. And of all the videographers we've
worked with at Extension, Chris is awesome.
Honestly,
this man here, we personally request him via
email each semester. Because, not only does
he just
film the lectures, which is one thing��and
he doesn't fall asleep, which is also to his
credit��he
really, if you watch the videos, and maybe
I'm talking to the wrong crowd tonight, given
that you're
physically here, but he really gets into it.
And does a really nice job, I think, of capturing
what's going
on down here, when Dawne is up volunteering
some evening; capturing what's on the screen,
and
just really giving a good video experience.
And we hope you've appreciated that as well.
Behind the scenes, Kriss Barnhart is the woman
who does our post-production, who takes the
videotapes that Chris makes each week; puts
them into machines, and does her magic, and
out
comes some real videos, and the synchronization
of slides, and so forth. So she too��and
I'm
hoping she actually watches these videos,
and doesn't just fast-forward through us,
because she'll too
get this thank you from us.
A few other people, if I may, and then I got
some juicy stuff for you here tonight.
Note, on screen: slide #12
If you haven't seen Wired magazine, by way
of author Jeff Howe was kind enough to make
mention
of E-1 and its podcast in its December issue.
And we're very grateful, certainly, for the
comments
and the attention that he further brought
to E-1's podcast.
Victor Cajiao, who was our guest lecturer,
if you will, when we did that Skype demonstration.
Note, on screen: slide #13
And he had that huge face beaming down at
you on this twenty-foot screen via videoconference.
Victor is a fellow who's had his own podcasts
for a while. Currently most germane to the
course is
his "Typical Mac User Podcast," in which he
takes questions and gives answers, and generally
just
talks about what it's like to be a Mac user,
converting to be a Mac user. And early on,
last year, he
was wonderful in just drumming up attention
for E-1's podcasts, and really helping us
get the
podcast out there. And for that we are certainly
grateful.
Finally, in the commercial end, Jake Fisher,
at Switchpod.com.
Switchpod is a startup; started a couple of
years ago. And I��don't quote me on this,
but from my
own research, Jake, I believe, is 16 or 17
years now. He was one of these crazy kids
who starts a
company in his parents' home, or dorm room;
sells it to another company, and what you
have here
is Switchpod.com, which has been generous
enough to host our podcast, gratis, for the
past several
months, and help us sort of deal with the
thousands of downloads that you've seen. And
it was
Victor who referred us to Jake, so we too
are grateful to Jake.
Here's where I'll wave my hand and not bore
you with the Academy-type speech, but there's
a whole
bunch of people who have been instrumental
in making this course possible, from 1999
until now.
And thank you again for indulging me in this.
Thank you to all of them. This is most of
them. I'm
sure I forgot one or more people. But the
beauty of the Internet, and PDFs, and podcasts
is that I'll
just go change the document, when I realize
I've forgotten someone, and put them back
in
retroactively.
Finally, literally, finally, Dr. Henry Leitner.
So this effectively my boss. He was one of
my CS professors, as an undergrad. Henry Leitner,
he's
one of the deans at Harvard Extension School.
And is really one of those people��I don��t
know if
you all have found one of these people in
your life; I was sort of surprised that it
happened to me
already��that really influences you, and
gives you your chance, and takes risks on
you. And I'm sure
it was kind of a crazy thing at the time,
when he quietly had some kid filling in for
Bill Barthelmy,
when he stepped down, to take over E-1. But
he took a chance on me. And for eleven semesters
since, I've been lucky enough to continue
to be brought on for this course.
And it is to Henry that I am eternally grateful.
He's one of those guys, where�� you know,
I started
off as an undergrad as a gov major��which
maybe is fitting, if people who like to hear
themselves
talk, as we apparently are doing tonight��but
eventually changed to computer science. And
it was��
the only reason, I think, that I ended up
involved with E-1, or even teaching in general,
was because
I ran for student government, at Harvard,
and lost, and lost really badly.
And I remember all too vividly the elections
debate��one of these debates where it
was me and a
bunch of other sophomores or juniors, you
know, all dressed up like this in some Harvardesque
lecture hall, and debating each other over,
like, the quality of food in the dining hall,
and why there
are no parties on campus, and these kinds
of things��and I did horribly. Like, it
was embarrassing
how poorly I spoke, and how poorly I presented
myself. And I don��t know if this is the
typical
solution, but I decided to fix this by teaching!
So, I was an awful speaker, so I decided,
if I started pursuing teaching fellows' roles��I
was one of
the TFs for E-1, when Bill taught it, in 1998,
in the Fall thereof. And I sort of used that
as the
motivation to get in to all this.
So it's sort of funny, I think, just to look
back on little incidents like that, where
you make one
relatively simple decision, or mistake, even,
and it kind of influences things along the
way. But none
of this would have happened without Henry.
So thank you for indulging me in these past
many minutes of retrospectives.
And now, welcome to Computer Science E-1.
This is Lecture 14, "Exciting Conclusion."
So, over the past several months, we have
looked at a
whole range of topics. And bear in mind, that
one of the first pictures you saw, upon arriving
at
Lecture 1, or downloading Lecture 1, was a
PDF containing a picture of a hack at MIT.
Does anyone remember what this picture of
an MIT hack was? Yeah?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Water thingy"?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Water fountain, yes! So, years
ago, as MIT is popular for, one of their hacks
was
to have some clever kids connect a fire hose��working,
as I understand it��to a water fountain.
And
then tacked on the wall just above this, recall,
was a sign along the lines of "Getting an
education at
MIT is like drinking water from a fire hose."
And we've sort of usurped the idea, the spirit
of that hack, and tried to warn you, on page
2 or so of
the Syllabus, that there's just a huge amount
of content in this particular course.
And it is certainly our expectation and our
understanding that if some of that went this
way, that was
to be expected. And certainly, by course's
end here��even if you didn't get 100 on
Exam 1 or 2;
even if you're thinking, "MIT hack: What was
that?"��that's okay. It wasn't all supposed
to go down.
But what hopefully you'll exit this course
with is just��even if it��s a marginal
bit more confidence
that, heck, if you don't know the answer to
something; if you're not sure how something
works��
you know a half a dozen Websites you can go
check; you know half a dozen people you can
go ask;
you know half a dozen tricks, Internet keyword
searches, and so forth, that you can use to
solve
those problems or those questions on your
own.
Among the things we did in Lecture 1 was focus
on hardware.
We didn��t really talk about these, but
these are sort of toys that I have in my apartment
that are
germane to hardware, including this newest,
sexiest of telephones, the BlackBerry Pearl.
And I offer
this, one, as just a...
Originally, this slide contained binary numbers.
And we were going to do a little exercise
in what
were these binary numbers. Do you remember
the binary numbers we did with light bulbs,
and there
were five rows, and then we spelled out "9-0-2-1-0,"
and then I played the 90210... We've done
that
too many times. I think it wasn't funny the
first time either, perhaps.
So, Hardware: What's the relevance of this
stuff? It's the omnipresence of it. We talk
in this course,
early on, certainly, about hardware at its
most basic level: bits. And we talk about
registers, and
CPUs. And ultimately we spend more time talking
about laptops, and desktops.
But the fact of the matter is, and this is
not a surprise, computers and technology,
and the sort of
stuff we explore in this course really is
all around these days, such that the cell
phones we all have,
most likely in this lecture hall, are little
computers. For years have your cars had computers
in them.
The TiVo is just a Linux box, with a sexy
interface on top of it that let's you save
TV shows as
they're broadcast. The Slingbox, which we've
used before lecture a lot, is just a little
computer that
uses some type of multimedia codec to take
a video feed, quickly wrap it up in, like,
some MPEG-
like codec, and then stream it out on the
Internet.
So already here we have the notion of an operating
system, meaning Linux, and hardware. We have
the notion of streaming. We have the notion
of MPEG-like compression. We have the notion
of��
how can we tie this in��wireless Internet
connectivity, and just the fact that it is
a little computer.
And I won't ask that you indulge me in playing
with this phone. But it really is the coolest
thing. You
can get Google maps on this. You can look
up the Internet. I'll be sitting at dinner
lately, and if
some random question comes up, I'm the geek
at the table who's like, "I'll answer this,"
and then
type into Wikipedia, or Google, some question,
and we get the answer immediately on demand.
But the point is that pretty much everything
we talk about in this course still applies
to all of this
hardware. Inside of all of these devices are
bits in some form; are registers; are pieces
of memory:
flash memory, ROM. All of that continues to
be present in even today's most advanced devices.
Just released yesterday was the Apple iPhone.
And if you didn't see the announcement already,
go to apple.com after class, or pull up CNN,
or
MSNBC. Everybody's talking about this thing.
This is a new cell phone that'll be out in
June or so of
this year. It is entirely touch-based. So
there are very few buttons on this thing,
and pretty much the
whole menu interface that Steve Jobs demo'd
yesterday at Macworld, is about showing you
what you
can do on this particular screen.
And there's some neat little effects. And
what this really is, is sort of a nice marriage
between good
hardware, fast hardware, and increasingly
well designed software, the aim of which is
to just make
these things easier to use.
The point Steve Jobs made yesterday in the
keynote, that some of us were watching tonight
before
class, was that, you know, even just to call...
it is hard... My mom hates it when I use her
in examples.
But this is the last time I'll do it.
For me to pick out a cell phone, even, for
someone like my mother, who just wants a phone
to make
calls; doesn��t need anything fancy; just
wants to be able to make calls and receive
calls, it's really hard
to go into a place like Verizon, T-Mobile,
any of these guys, and pick a simple phone.
Even I
sometimes get frustrated, more so with my
last phone��to do simple tasks is very
hard. And I think
this is largely a function, not so much of
the fact that my mom's not a computer science
major; the
fact that you might not be a computer science
major. It's because the computer science majors
who
designed the things did it poorly.
And so hopefully one of the takeaways you'll
get from this course is that, if you are struggling
with
something technological, it is daresay as
much if not more the fault of someone else,
honestly, than
it is of you. And hopefully you'll walk away
with a sense that that is in fact true.
Testament to this notion of increasingly well
designed software: Google Earth I think is
a brilliant
example of something that's pretty easy to
use, it's certainly pretty to use, and it
really seems to do a
lot.
Even if right now it seems to be more of a
novelty��sort of a fun way of taking a
virtual vacation��
already people are developing applications
that use Google Earth. For instance, I think
I saw
something recently, like a "Where in the World
is Carmen Sandiego"-like game running on top
of
Google Earth. And what better way to sort
of allow a kid or an adult to explore the
world than to
literally make accessible all of that information
in what's really a nice interface.
And so what Google is certainly good at, besides
search, I think is presenting some really
novel and
really appreciated interfaces. Google Maps,
right? We've had MapQuest, we've had Yahoo!
Maps for
years. Google Maps, I think, is the best.
And it's the most recent one. You wouldn't
have thought,
perhaps, that this is a market that you should
bother entering, since people already do this.
But you
can click and drag, and you can scroll, you
can look at the satellite imagery.
And it's these marginal improvements that
I think people are finally beginning to appreciate,
as
technology becomes the domain, not so much
of geeks like us but of everybody, that you
really have
to appreciate that you don't need to be, or
shouldn't need to be, a technophile to make
a phone call,
or to look something up on the Internet.
Well, Lecture 3, recall, was...
we call it "Software," but we really just
put a DVD in the drive and hit Play, which
is kind of a
copout when it comes to talking about software.
But software is sort of laced throughout the
course,
anyway, that it doesn't bother us so much.
What I did insert into this, "Our Conclusion,"
is some of the all-too-familiar indicators
of what it
means to use software. So this is the famed
what?
>>STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Blue Screen of Death, right?
If you ever see this on your Windows PC, it
doesn't
mean that you messed up. It means that someone
at Microsoft, or someone who wrote the software,
or drivers that are installed on your computer
messed up, and pretty much crashed the computer,
and crashed it hard.
A few years ago, Exam 1��I forget if I
said this already, in October. But Exam 1
fell on Halloween.
And so we offered students five points of
extra credit if you show up, however socially
awkwardly,
at your exam, dressed up in costume. So one
of the winners that year dressed as a Blue
Screen of
Death. The man came in with a cardboard box
on his head, painted blue, with some text
on it, and
he was a Blue Screen of Death. And he did
very well, I think, on the exam.
Also familiar, or also funny, certainly, are
error messages, like this.
These are all real. These are not Photoshopped
images. This, too, is when someone makes a
mistake,
and prompts you with, clearly, a complete
lack of messages.
Here's an error.
[audience laughter]
Again, this is an example of what we call
a bug, right? Not so much your fault, but
someone else's.
This is a classic.
[audience laughter]
Right? This is one of those situations that
maybe you stumbled across, when writing your
Scratch
programs, or PBJ programs. You know, if you
don't think through all the scenarios, something's
going to break. And this is an error in logic,
certainly.
Blue Screen of Death: Not so good when your
billboard is running Windows.
All right, that is perhaps the biggest and
saddest advertisement of Windows you might
see on the
side of a building: alt.tv had a computer
clearly crash.
Perhaps a little more discomforting is when
you see it in an airport, when those little
Arrival/Departure computers are clearly running
Windows at this particular airport.
It's not necessarily a good thing.
Those ticket machines you'll see at Greyhound
or Amtrak. The machines, even...
ATM machines? Most likely not, hopefully not.
But a lot of these terminals that don't look
like
Windows actually are Windows. Even Bloomberg
has a version of Bloomberg that runs on
Windows. It's just when it's full-screen,
you don't know that it��s Windows underneath
the hood. Not
saying it's good, not saying it's bad. Just
saying that it's funny when things like that
come your way.
And this.
This is doctored. Someone made this, to be
cute. All right, PC users among you will know
that Ctrl-
Alt-Delete reboots your computer. What better
peripheral to have than one that does so terribly
easily?
Well, on "The Internet" was our Lecture 4.
This is a clip from Slashdot, from December
of this year. I thought it was relevant, since
the title
was "Spam Volume Jumps 35% in November." This
is a remarkable problem. We mentioned spam
in 1999. And, yeah, you'd get spam once in
a while. But spam did not constitute some
eight or nine
out of ten emails on the Internet, which is
a gargantuan and scary problem; an expensive
problem,
certainly.
I mean, how many of you have ever just changed
email addresses to avoid spam? Anyone? All
right,
so a few of you. So that's certainly not an
ideal solution. And as the world moves toward
relying on
email ever more, hopefully we will soon see
better technological solutions to this.
But does anyone know why this is such a problem
in the first place? Like, what is the fundamental...
If someone at the water cooler tomorrow said,
"Hey, you just finished taking E-1. What's
with
spam? Why is it such a problem?"
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Excellent! So, one, it's a cheap
form of communication. Sending a million emails
doesn��t really cost much more than sending
one email, if you ignore bandwidth, and so
forth,
especially if these spams are being sent,
not just from your own computer��which
is very easy to
shut you down, if you're sending spams from
home.
[0:40:10]
Where is a lot of spam coming from these days?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: So bots and zombie machines.
So some of you, if you have spyware installed
on
your computer, or just malicious software,
among the things this software tends to do
these days is
not just pepper you with ads, and banner ads,
and so forth. But it's to use your computer
as a
computing resource, and churn out spam.
In fact, if you ever run, like, the Netstat
command at your command prompt, which we didn't
do so
much this semester. But it's one of those
esoteric commands you can type and just see
what's going
on behind the scenes on your computer. If
you see connections originating... If you
see a lot of
Internet connections, and you've got no Web
browsers open, odds are it's because you have
a little
SMTP server running on your computer��SMTP
referring, of course, to outgoing mail��then
your
computer, unbeknownst to you, is just churning
out spam. And the beauty of that approach
for
spammers is what, if they're using you, or
these so-called botnets, to deliver their
spam?
STUDENT: It's free.
DAVID MALAN: It's free. They're not paying
for the Internet access. They're not paying
for the
CPU cycles.
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Right, they won't get shut down,
right? Imagine if you, the unsuspecting, fairly
nontechnical person at home gets shut down
by Comcast, as does everyone in your neighborhood,
because, as Dell's survey a year or two indicated,
that a huge percent, a majority of computers,
according to their numbers, were infected
with some form of spyware, the solution is
not just to
turn everyone's computer off. It's too large
of a problem.
And it's a brilliant approach these spammers
have taken to using fairly interesting algorithms,
and
distributed network-type approaches to just
sending you junk mail: to random addresses,
to specific
addresses. And ultimately this is the result
of the Internet really is being used these
days��email, the
Web��for stuff it wasn��t intended
for, right?
When email was invented, there was no notion
of authenticating the origin. There was no
protection
against whose address you could put in the
"From" line of an email. In fact, all of you
could go
home tonight, and type into the appropriate
configuration screen of your email program
that you are
David Malan, at malan@post.harvard.edu, and
send emails as though you were me, right?
Sign it
DJM. Who's going to know the difference, frankly?
And that is testament to the fact that email
just
wasn't designed to sort of prevent this kind
of problem that we're facing. And so a lot
of the
solutions that have been offered, including
the software you might run on your computer,
the stuff
your ISP uses: it's patching the symptoms.
But it would really require some much more
clever, or really a fundamental redesign of
the way
things tend to work right now to really get
this right.
But we're sort of stuck with the way things
are. And we can only make incremental improvements.
So this was just an article about how spam
was increasing evermore. Just a few months
ago, the
numbers here is that, according to IronPort
Systems, on average in October 2005, there
were 31
billion spams sent a day.
In November�� Oh, let's see. On average,
yes. So there were 31 billion spams sent per
day on
average between October '05 and October '06.
In November '06, though, according to these
numbers, they saw 85 billion spams sent.
That is huge. It is a huge problem and, unfortunately
the course is the over. We'll have to see
how
they figure that one out.
Also on "The Internet," we talked about this.
And this image I did steal from our original
lecture, because most of you have something
set up like
this at home. And hopefully, too, one of the
takeaways from a course like is that, if nothing
else, you
at some point took our suggestion of unplugging
all the cables from your computer, or maybe
a
coworker's computer, and then just plugging
everything back together. That alone can be
sort of
empowering for some people.
This we offer, though, is just very representative
of the type of stuff that hopefully, after
this course,
you'd be comfortable setting up. And turning
on security with these routers, right?
Little pop quiz: What type of encryption,
ideally, should you be using on your wireless
router, if you
care about the privacy of your data, and such?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Yeah, so WPA. In contrast to
WEP, which some routers still only come with,
which simply is not secure; all too easily
broken.
We had a little surprise in Lecture 6, where
we had a few students pitted against a few
teaching
fellows.
That was meant to just reinforce, recall,
some of the material from that first exam.
"Multimedia," in Lecture 7.
So what the heck is this? So this is a screen
shot from a wonderful hardware site. If you've
at all
gotten a taste now for what cool hardware
is like, and like to learn about this stuff,
Engadget.com is
a wonderful site that even I've just into
this year. That, um�� It will make sense
in a moment.
This was a recent post. It's essentially a
blog about the latest and greatest in computer
hardware.
And the Nintendo Wii, which you may have heard
about just shy of Christmastime, was as talked
about as the PlayStation 3. The Nintendo Wii,
though, is cool because, rather than use those
sort of
old-school controllers that have Up, Down,
Left, Right, A, B; and the newer controllers
that have
that plus sixteen other buttons, whose patterns
you have to memorize to use.
So the Wii uses a controller that, ironically,
has Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, but at least
I'm capable
of remembering Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B.
But if you want to move something on the screen,
you don't necessarily use Up, Down, Left,
Right,
A, B. You just point. And point here when
you want to point here on the screen; point
down when
you want to point there on the screen. If
you want to play tennis, you don��t hold
the keys and then
hit the Left key, when you want the player
to hit the ball to the left; or the Right
key when you want
the player to hit to the right.
With the Nintendo Wii, you go like this. And
when the ball is coming to your backhand,
you go like
this. And when you want to serve, you throw
the ball up and hit it like this because this
controller
has a bunch of accelerometers, as they're
called, inside. And these things��Apple's
iPhone has
accelerometers. And if you saw the keynote,
Apple's iPhone is able to detect, if you're
looking at the
phone��this is not an iPhone, this is
a stand-in��it can detect if you're looking
at your phone like
this, or if you're holding it like this.
And if you're holding it like this, it shows
the screen, or the photo, or the video as
you would expect.
And if you turn it this way, it immediately
rotates the image, too, so that you can watch,
like, a wide-
screen news clip, or a movie, even, or whatever
you happen to have on your iPod.
So Nintendo uses the same type of hardware
to detect if my hand is going up; if it's
going left, right;
if it's twisted this way, twisted that way,
and the effect is remarkably powerful.
And one of the things we did promise tonight
is that we would demonstrate this little toy.
This is Dan's Nintendo Wii. And I should fess
up that, though in that solicitation last
night, or that
teaser email last night about how Dan stayed
up for some ten hours in the parking lot of
a Circuit
City to get himself and his siblings one of
these Wiis, so there was also someone else
present that
night for ten hours.
And I'm loathe to admit it, because, honestly,
I never thought I would be, shall we say,
"one of those
people." But it was a fun experience nonetheless.
We did footraces around 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
to stay
warm, because this was in the midst of December.
We became friendly with people we don't really
know by name, because we knew them by "that
guy's number one; that guy's number two."
I think
we were three and four in line. And number
five was a cool guy. He was there overnight
getting a
Wii for his kids. I think number ten was a
woman with her two daughters, who were camped
out on,
like, a chair outside of Circuit City. Until
finally, they, too, went into their cars for
a bit.
But it was this wonderful, if nothing else,
I mean, certainly a geek story. But a wonderful
sociological
experience, where you have a whole bunch of
people going into this. And, mind you, this
was
coming on the heels of those stories where
people are getting mugged, and attacked on
line for
PlayStation 3s, right? Sony's release of their
hardware didn't go so well. Wii was much more
civil.
But here were... We showed up at, what, 10
pm, and it was already dark, right? The employees,
the
manager said goodbye to us on her way out
of the store. And there we were getting settled
in for,
like, a ten-hour nap outside of Circuit City.
And what was funny was, this was one of these
main,
like, strip-mall type areas in New Hamp...
We were in New Hampshire, of all places, too.
Literally
next door was a Best Buy, where there were
twenty-four other "such people," waiting for
Best Buy
to open. Apparently down the road there was
a Target, where you had people camped out
there as
well.
It was quite the place to be on Saturday night.
But the result is that we did it for you.
And we have
this Nintendo Wii to demonstrate. And we thought,
one, it's certainly fun. But, two, I think
it really
speaks in the spirit of a lot of the things
Apple has been doing, and other companies;
really where
technology is going. And better user interfaces,
and better experiences.
I mean, the fact of the matter is, these game
consoles today��and I make myself sound
old, when I
say this��like, I can't deal with fourteen
or some-odd buttons on these controllers.
Because the
game, then becomes a project of memorization��like,
what keys do I have to hit if I want to punch
the guy this way, as opposed to that way.
Whereas something like this, the computer
has become
much more intuitive. And that's precisely
in the spirit that this iPhone was released.
Now, what about this picture? So, I think
these people should be embarrassed that they're
bringing a
lawsuit against Nintendo for having hurt themselves
supposedly using the Nintendo Wii, for
smacking people with these. I've seen pictures
of these things lodged in people's expensive
TVs, true
or not. Frankly, I think it's great that Sony's
getting all the more attention for these things.
We promise you a safe experience here. We
thought we'd take a five-minute fun break.
Pit a couple
of people against each other, and hopefully
it won't turn out quite like this.
But let me give you our little plug for the
Nintendo Wii. And since it is Dan's, let me
give controller
number one to him.
[Nintendo Wii music playing]
And maybe we'll, uh... We won't ask you to...
[0:50:07]
If it might be of interest, allow me to challenge
Dan to a match of tennis, a few points in
tennis
here? We're going to come up to the crowd.
And notice, both he and I have these controllers
in our
hands.
You know, as with most things, though we like
to spin this as... though we like to spin
this as a bit
academic, this is also a nice excuse for Dan
and I to play this on a twenty-foot screen.
Okay, so I'm going to pick, uh... So, notice,
as I move left, right, my right hand moves.
So this is, uh,
pun intended, wiijm.
I should probably go over there, then, huh?
All right, we're getting a bit of feedback
for some reason. But we'll ignore that for
now.
All right. All right, maybe I'll go up here.
All right. So you're number one.
[Dan says something inaudible]
What? Well, let's just do the one.
All right, so we have two players on a side.
So, I'm officially�� before we begin.
Don't psyche me
out here. So before we begin, I'm controlling
the right-hand side of the screen; Dan, the
left. But
you're seeing the same image, just from different
sides of the court.
Because I'm just one person, if I, for instance,
move my arm, notice that both of my guys are
swinging. So the idea is that, if the ball
is closest to the guy at the net and I swing,
he'll hit it. The
computer figures out that I want him to hit
it. Or if I wait, it'll come to the back of
the court, and
the back guy will hit it, as well.
So we've got our safety straps on. All right.
Notice, Dan's going to swing. And you can't
see this on
film. But in a moment, Dan is literally going
to throw his arm up, and then serve, and then
I'm going
to ace him back.
[Wii audio: crowd cheering, rackets hitting
tennis balls]
Wii announcer: Fifteen, love.
DAVID MALAN: We will be editing the video
at that point. All right.
[Wii crowd cheers]
Wii announcer: Fifteen all.
DAVID MALAN: Those of you watching the video,
Dan just flailed his arms to the side and
missed
that shot.
[Wii crowd cheers]
Wii announcer: Fifteen, thirty.
DAVID MALAN: So at this point, Dan is losing
by one point.
Wii announcer: Fifteen, forty.
DAVID MALAN: The funny thing is, Dan and I
joked for a while that the wager for this
would be:
If I lose, I quit. But looks like I might
be back in '07.
Wii announcer: Match point.
DAVID MALAN: Oh!
Wii announcer: The right team wins!
DAVID MALAN: Now since you've indulged us,
let me yield my controller, and ask who in
the
crowd would like to take on Dan for a game.
[Wii music plays]
DAVID MALAN: Dawne, you've been volunteered.
Would you like to come over? All right!
It's a good question: Have there been any
experiments to compute how many calories people
burn
doing this. I did see an article recently
which was... thank you... kind of funny that��it
was on CNN,
or something, too��where the article said
that, like, these physical computer games
help kids lose
weight, which is sort of a nice rationalization,
perhaps, but, I don't know. I will admit that
when
preparing for tonight's lecture, I broke a
sweat several times playing tennis here.
[Dan talking with Dawne]
DAVID MALAN: So Dan has prepped Dawne. Dawne
is filling in for wiijm, on the right.
Wii announcer: Fifteen, love.
DAVID MALAN: Dan hit it a little hard back,
but...
Wii announcer: Thirty, love.
Wii crowd: Wow!
Wii announcer: Forty, love. Match point.
DAVID MALAN: Okay, comeback time for Dawne.
Wii announcer: The left team wins!
DAVID MALAN: I think I heard rematch? Rematch?
One rematch? All right.
All right, so in this final rematch, we have
Dawne versus Dangerous D.
Wii announcer: Fifteen, love.
Fifteen all.
DAVID MALAN: All right, it's tied. Fifteen
all.
Wii announcer: Thirty, fifteen.
DAVID MALAN: Close. Thirty, fifteen. Dan slightly
in the lead.
And, oh! Nice!
Wii announcer: Thirty all!
DAVID MALAN: Thirty all! Nice!
Wii announcer: Forty, thirty. Match point!
DAVID MALAN: For the game.
Wii announcer: The left team wins!
DAVID MALAN: So close! A round of applause,
though, if we could for Dawne!
Dan has kindly offered to, when we conclude,
which will be early tonight, that we'll leave
it set up.
We can have some more folks give it a shot.
So thank you to Dan. I'm going to get yelled
at for having beaten him, because we did have
sort of
an unofficial wager. But ten thousand people
just saw that, so�� let's just leave it
at that!
So in Lecture 8, after "Multimedia," we looked
at "Security." This is a clip also from Slashdot,
which
is another one of these wonderful Websites,
if you like to be up on everything current
in technology
and geekdom.
This article is about a "Vista Zero-Day Exploit
For Sale." So, one, Vista is referring to
Microsoft's
latest operating system, which you may or
may not end up having on your computer soon,
as well. A
zero-day exploit: What does this mean? We
didn��t really spend time on this. But
you see it a lot.
Zero-day exploit? It refers to the amount
of time that... usually refers to the amount
of time after a
bug's discovery that it takes for someone
else��a bad guy��to figure out how
to take advantage of
that bug, and wage havoc on a computer.
So, in other words, someone discovers, hey,
there's this potential bug in Microsoft Vista,
at 7 a.m.
Well, if by 12 pm, someone's figured out how
to use that bug to crash the system, or take
it over,
that's an exploit. And because it happens
so fast, it's a zero-day exploit. That's pretty
much the
simplest explanation.
So perhaps unbeknownst to you, there is supposedly
this whole black market, when it comes to
bugs
and software, especially software that's as
omnipresent as Windows, such that, besides
just there
being opportunities for spam, there are opportunities
in taking people's computers over to use them
to just cover your tracks, and wage malicious
attacks; or denial-of-service attacks against
Websites;
try to steal personal information by taking
over people's computers.
So attacking the bugs in something like an
operating system is perhaps the best way at
getting at
that. What this particular article is about
is�� it says the following:
"Underground hackers are hawking a zero-day
exploit for Windows Vista at $50,000 a pop,
according to computer security researchers
at Trend Micro. The Vista exploit, which has
not been
independently verified, was just one of many
zero-days available for sale at an auction-style
marketplace, infiltrated by the antivirus
vendor. Prices for exploits for unpatched
code execution
flaws are in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.
Bots and Trojan downloads that typically hijack
Windows
machines for use in botnets were being sold
for about $5,000."
So reportedly there is this underground market,
such that, if you're going to make more than
$50,000 off of spam; if you're going to make
$50,000 or more off of some scam, getting...
you know,
emailing a million people and having just
0.01 percent of those people send you their
life savings,
some of these things can be worth it.
So just be aware, certainly, that these kinds
of stories are all over the place today. But
they're not so
much cause, I think, for paranoia.
I mean, the fact of the matter is that practicing��and
we sort of make light of it��"safe computing"
is really the best you can do. And the measures
that we've certainly proposed in our "Security"
Lectures were things, like, you know, don't
check your bank account in some Internet kiosk
at an
airport, or at some Internet caf�� elsewhere.
You know, anything that's particularly sensitive,
at least
just use your own computer. And even then,
on your own computer, just be aware of the
possible
threats. Run some antivirus software, or run
some antispyware software.
But at the end of the day, truth be told,
you can only do so much these days. So you
just have to be
aware of what's going on with your computer.
And, for instance, if you notice all of a
sudden your computer's gotten deathly slow.
Well, maybe it's
running something behind the scenes that you
don't know about.
[01:00:04]
So maybe it's time to use that, not as cause
for concern that, "I need more RAM," but maybe
if this
is a differential from the previous day, maybe
something is on there that I don't know about.
Investigate on your own by any of the techniques
that we've discussed so far.
This is sort of in that same spirit.
Professor Eugene Spafford, of Purdue: "The
only truly secure system is one that is powered
off, cast
in a block of concrete, and sealed in a lead-lined
room with armed guards��and even then
I have my
doubts."
This is a famous quote that's sort of been
altered and butchered over the years, and
taken up by
other people. But it is pretty much fact,
right? Say, only if the thing's not on the
Internet, and not
turned on, and not plugged in, and not accessible
is it really secure. So it's all about relative
risks.
And hopefully in this course, and through
some of the sections and workshops you'll
walk away
with some ideas as to at least what reasonable
measures you can take for yourself.
CHRIS MEHL: David, I have to switch. Shall
I just do it on the fly?
DAVID MALAN: Yeah, let's just proceed. So...
[01:01:02]
DAVID MALAN: Wii gyms? I don't know. I mean,
they already have ergonomic machines, right,
where you can pretend to row, when you see,
like, a guy, you know, going on water in front
of you,
right? I've seen something like that, but...
I don't know.
The point, though, I suppose, is that it's
possible now.
Apparently we're back. And, so "Website Development"
was our Lecture 10.
So, recall, we dabbled with this whole "Malan
Rouge" idea. But really the takeaway, hopefully,
from
that lecture was, and in your ongoing Final
Projects��if you don't mind being reminded��is
relatively how easy it is and how cheap it
is to get a Website up and running.
How pretty it looks really is a function of
your own design abilities, or maybe how much
you want
to pay someone else to design it for you.
But the fact of the matter is, it is relatively
easy to do these
days. And those Web hosts are sort of innumerable
on the Internet. And DreamHost is the one
we've been using. There are certainly others
that we've recommended. But it's hard to go
wrong
to��certainly for relatively small sites
that don��t need to deal with a lot of
traffic.
If you're thinking of launching some company
whose Website will be its main focus, then
you want
to do a bit more background checks as to the
quality of the service. And, honestly, if
you're trying to
run a major Internet company with a twenty-dollar
Web-hosting account, that's probably not the
right path to go down.
But certainly for the personal-type Websites��malanrouge��that
we discussed in this class, more
than sufficient. And you can pay even less
than the twenty dollars a month that we're
paying if it's
really just for your own personal use, and
for email and such.
Apparently it's "Peanut Butter Jelly Time,"
which means that we have one of these Internet
forwards
that I got a long time ago.
Don't remember where it came from. But it's
our introduction to this demonstration.
Oh, this is not... there we go.
[onscreen animation]: There you go, there
you go, there you go. Peanut butter jelly...
peanut butter
jelly...
DAVID MALAN: I don't know what this is or
why someone made it, but it is "Peanut Butter
Jelly
Time." You'll recall that, for your Problem
Set 8, one of the programs you had to write
was that for
making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich��something
that could be passed to a robot, who could
execute it, verbatim, literally making no
assumptions.
So what we thought we would do is take a moment
to just grade a couple of your Problem Sets
right
now. If the teaching fellows wouldn't mind
coming down.
[animation]: Peanut butter jelly... peanut
butter jelly...
DAVID MALAN: I just so happen to have dropped
by Star Market before class. And it appears,
per
that Problem Set, that we have some jelly,
we even have some strawberry jelly. A couple
more over
there. We have some peanut butter.
[animation]: Peanut butter jelly... peanut
butter jelly...
DAVID MALAN: And, because we're going to do
a nice tie-in with the class afterward, we
got
whole bunches of bread, so that after class
you're all going to get a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich,
if you want.
We got split-top wheat bread, how about, for
Rei. We've got country-style twelve-grain
for Eugenia.
We've got old-fashioned country 100 percent
stone ground wheat for Dan. And we got white
bread
for Chris. Oh, white bread for Dan, all right!
So let me turn down the audio here.
What I did was took��and we apologize
in advance, if you see your Problem Set on
the board. It's
anonymized. And we do this... we do this because
we love and we care.
[audience laughter]
Don't assume you're going to get a good grade
or bad grade just because we happen to pick,
for
instance, this one!
So, what I thought we'd do is, since the screen's
behind you guys, I'll recite these lines,
one at a time.
And the task at hand for these guys is literally,
while grading this in their minds, execute
only what
they are told to do, making no assumptions.
Let's see what happens!
Take one, from one of Computer Science E-1's
Fall 2006 students.
First step:
"Locate jars of peanut butter and jelly, a
loaf of bread, and a knife."
Done. Excellent! One point so far.
"If customer orders a special sandwich
If only jelly is requested then
Dip knife into jelly and spread across bread."
So we're going to need, I guess, someone to
play the roll of the customer. What kind of
sandwich...
Dawne, you're staff. What kind of sandwich
would you like?
[Dawne's reply inaudible]
DAVID MALAN: Oh, split-top wheat, all right.
So we'll take a specific request. So the request
is for
a regular sandwich. So let's skip down to
the "Else" block. Sounds like only Rei is
on the table right
now.
"If customer orders a regular sandwich
Dip knife into peanut butter and spread across
bread..."
[Rei bangs on jar lid]
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: No, peanut butter.
[laughter]
Little bug.
Okay, "Dip knife into peanut butter and spread
across bread..."
[Rei bangs on jar lid]
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: You're glad this isn't your Problem
Set, already, aren't you?!
All right, Step 2:
"Dip knife into jelly and spread across bread.
"
REI DIAZ: We'll do this one nicely.
[jar pops open]
[laughter continues]
DAVID MALAN: And all that remains, apparently,
is to
"Add another piece of bread..."
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: "...and give it to server."
Okay, so not so good. Shall we try again?
Uh, let's try again. How about, let's do another
one?
Note, on screen: slide #36
So this one here was from another student.
Take two. Yeah, so...
[laughter]
EUGENIA KIM: Whoa!
DAVID MALAN: Yeah, so this... let's just...
this is an A-quality work, let's say. This
was... perhaps
has the distinction of being the longest program
ever. It's a good two-pager. I think there
are several
hundred lines. It did well. So let's do another
take.
Take two. Hey, you know this'll be good. So
take two... Well, let's involve all four of
them now.
"Locate jars of peanut butter and jelly, a
loaf of bread, and a knife, then"
"open bag of bread and remove two slices"
[laughter]
"remove lid from peanut butter jar and jelly
jar"
[laughter]
"then if peanut butter or jelly are empty"...
They're not, so "else"...
Wait a minute.
"else give up"
[laughter]
I think that's a real bug!
Okay, let's debug. We're going to skip that
line.
Step 7:
"using knife spread peanut butter on one slice
of bread"...
[laughter]
You got ten thousand people wondering right
now, "Why are... ? What?"
"place��"
"using knife spread jelly on top of peanut
butter"...
CHRIS MEHL: Rei, the towel's are blocking
your wizardry.
[banging, clanging]
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: Maybe we'll go out after class!
[laughter]
"then place second slice of bread on top of
first"...
[laughter]
This last one's mean.
"then..."
[laughter]
"eat"
[laughter]
EUGENIA KIM: Eat what?
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: How many other... ? [to Dan]
You brought prophylactic gloves tonight!
DAN ARMENDARIZ: What?
DAVID MALAN: It's the EMT thing.
[laughter]
Okay, excellent!
[applause]
All right, let's try... If our volunteers
could restore things to their original state,
as best as possible,
let's try one final take. Right? Because if
you all find this so funny, let's see how
well you can do.
Because, as I recall, the baby changing? Not
so good!
So...
[01:10:06]
Okay, so to the audience, Dawne, and team,
Step 1 from you is
"Locate jars of peanut butter and jelly, a
loaf of bread, and a knife."
Now, from someone in the audience, what's
Step 2 going to be?
STUDENT: Unscrew the lid of the peanut butter
and take off any cap.
DAVID MALAN: "Unscrew the lid of the peanut
butter and take off any cap."
That's funny. We've made three sandwiches
and we're still not at that point over here.
All right, Step 3?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Ooo, riding her coattails. "Unscrew
jelly lid and remove any cap."
All right, Step 4? Good job so far.
STUDENT: Open the bag of bread��
DAVID MALAN: "Open the bag of bread..."
STUDENT: ��untwisting the tie��
DAVID MALAN: "��untwisting the tie..."
[laughter]
STUDENT: Take out two slices��
DAVID MALAN: "Take out two slices..."
STUDENT: ��from the opening��
DAVID MALAN: "��from the opening..."
STUDENT: ��of the bag.
DAVID MALAN: "��of the bag."
STUDENT: Place them on the plate.
DAVID MALAN: "Place them on the plate."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "If it's a heel, discard it."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: That's fair. "And if it's flat..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Place them flat on ... plate."
Okay, next step?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Take the knife..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...blade-side first..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "��blade-side up..."
STUDENT: ��and scoop out a teaspoon of
peanut butter.
DAVID MALAN: "...and scoop out a..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...teaspoon of peanut butter."
STUDENT: Put on one slice of bread��
DAVID MALAN: "Put on one slice of bread..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...flat..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Spread the peanut butter over
the top of a..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...evenly on the flat side of
the bread. "
STUDENT: If it does not completely cover bread,
scoop out more until covered��
DAVID MALAN: "If it does not completely cover
bread, scoop out more until covered..."
STUDENT: Peanut butter.
DAVID MALAN: "Peanut butter."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...approximately one-eighth-inch
thin . . ."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...evenly and pretty."
[laughter]
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: What's that?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "You can draw a design, if you
wish."
Almost there. What's next?
STUDENT: With the other side of�� with
the other piece of bread��
DAVID MALAN: "With the other piece of bread..."
STUDENT: ��do the same with jelly.
DAVID MALAN: "��do the..." You're punting.
"...do the same with jelly."
[laughter]
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Sure!
STUDENT: One particular broken robot.
DAVID MALAN: Sure, uh��
[laughter]
[whispers] Eugenia!
Yes?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Take second piece of bread from
underneath top piece..."
STUDENT: So there would have to be an if statement.
DAVID MALAN: Ah, so if what?
STUDENT: If bread is stacked on top of each
other.
DAVID MALAN: "So if bread is stacked on top
of each other..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Take what?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Naked piece"?! "Take the naked
piece of bread..."
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: This is why "great sex" and other
such terms lead to E-1's Website.
[laughter]
Computer Science E-1: Understanding Computers
and the Internet
Harvard Extension School
DAVID MALAN: Okay, next?
STUDENT: Does that look like one-eighth-inch
thin?
DAVID MALAN: Uh-oh, you're being reprimanded.
Next? Take us home. Almost there.
STUDENT: Scoop out more jelly.
DAVID MALAN: "Scoop out more jelly��"
STUDENT: Spread thinly��
DAVID MALAN: "Spread thinly..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...on bread. And pretty..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...evenly��"
STUDENT: Repeat the same as with the peanut
butter��
DAVID MALAN: "Repeat the same as with the
peanut butter..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...on a different slice of bread..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...join jelly side and peanut
butter side flat together..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...so that the pieces of the
bread line up..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...evenly and pretty..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...lightly pushed together��"
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "Match edges��"
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: So I need one more volunteer,
clearly. No? What do you think?
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Oh, they got you. "Eat the sandwich,
if you wish."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: Oh, you can... No, this'll be
good. "Slice in half..."
[laughter]
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...gently..."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: "...with knife."
STUDENT: [inaudible response]
DAVID MALAN: This guy's work's looking pretty
good right now, isn't it?!
[laughter]
DAVID MALAN: All right! Well, that was great!
All right! Whoo!
[applause]
Thank you to our volunteers.
PBJs and Wii at our conclusion here.
All right, so, um . . .
Oh, let's all stay down here.
All right, Lecture 12... That's fine.
Lecture 12 was "Pictionary," recall, which
was meant to just reinforce some of the topics
from, of
course, Exam 2. And it was our first attempt.
Clearly it didn't work so well, since I was
asking all of
the terms that you'd been quizzed on. Made
it a little easy. Didn't need that sixty-second
timer. But
it's an ongoing process here in E-1.
Lecture 13, just last week, was a film, for
those of you who attended locally, on Startup.com.
If you did not catch that, I would certainly
recommend checking it out, from Netflix, your
local
store, or whatnot. It really is a fascinating
documentary, at least in my opinion.
What I did offer here is not a screenshot
of Startup.com. It was just to put the idea
out there; maybe
no particular claim.
But this is a news story from just October
of '06. And you probably know that Google
spent an
enormous amount, $1.6 billion, to buy YouTube,
which is, of course, this video file-sharing
Website.
And I offer this just as food for thought,
if only because friends of mine and I certainly
have
discussions of late about a lot of the attention
that companies like Google are getting��and
YouTube, and Facebook, and a lot of these
sites that are all the rage; you know, numbers
one, two,
three on the Internet, and so forth��and
yet, other than Google, don't seem to make
a whole ton of
money.
YouTube, in particular: $1.6 billion for a
site that effectively is free. It's got some
ads, and so forth.
But I offer this as food for thought as to
whether what happened just five, six, seven
years ago in the
so-called "dot-com craze," if its lessons
are sort of being quickly forgotten. And perhaps
I'll be
proved wrong, come a couple of years from
now, if Google's investments and such do pay
off.
But Google, in particular, is a company that,
by all means, is printing money when it comes
to
"Search". But they have dozens of other projects��Google
Maps, and Earth, and so forth��none of
which has obvious or necessarily intentional
revenue streams. And I think it'll be very
interesting just
to watch, as sort of a technological society,
just how long, sort of, companies can keep
that up. And
just how long the world, the outsiders value
companies like Google, at $500 a share, or
more, or less.
It's sort of an interesting thing. And I think
it'll be interesting to see what the sort
of takeaways are
in another five years' time��if we're
sort of forgetting some of the lessons we
learned a few years
ago, when it comes to valuations of companies,
and actual products, and revenue; or if, perhaps,
this
is something completely different altogether.
So, time will tell.
Computer Science E-1: Understanding Computers
and the Internet
Harvard Extension School
So, the "Exciting Conclusion" is where we're
at, here at Lecture 14.
So, Computer Science E-1, "Understanding Computers
and the Internet," was all about this thing,
ultimately.
And again, do take away, if nothing else,
reassurance that not all of this had to go
down the first
time. Know that the course's lectures, and
workshops, and Videos of the Week, a lot of
the
handouts will remain online for a while��certainly
on the course's Website, and in iTunes, but
also,
as you've seen, on Google Video, and on YouTube,
as well.
So if you've missed anything, don't feel that
tonight, or two weeks' time from now, was
sort of your
last chance. A lot of this content��especially
the content that the teaching fellows have
put so many
hours into this year, to make possible; the
Videos of the Week, in particular��will
long outlive this
course, we hope, and certainly outlive this
semester.
[01:20:01]
So, Fall 2006's mousepad, right? After we
announce this, do feel free to come down and
mingle, say
hello, grab a sandwich, make a... can we do
that? Make a sandwich. All right, we have
some things
left over.
We'll turn back on the Wii, and perhaps Dan
will take a rematch against anyone else here,
as well as
the other teaching fellows.
The winner of Fall 2006's mousepad, which
we have in this box over here��one for
each of you.
Note, on screen: slide #43
And for distance students, we will mail these
out to you. For the other ten thousand of
you, um...
not going to have enough. But that is okay.
The winner of this year's Fall 2006 mousepad,
which rings in the end of this semester for
us, is...
[audience sighs]
That's some Photoshop work.
The winner is... this!
Computer Science E-1: Understanding Computers
and the Internet
Harvard Extension School
And how fitting that "I Survived E-1" is imprinted
on it.
So congratulations to Danielle.
So thank you very much. Congratulations! You
did indeed survive Computer Science E-1. We
look
forward to seeing your final projects, and
certainly at some point in the future.
So farewell. Come on down for some snacks.
[end]
[01:21:12]
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