CMSC 150 - Fall 2017 - **the lifetime of a variable**

The Anonymity of Location Services The advent of the cell phone and subsequently the smartphone has put a world of knowledge at our fingertips. Recipes, maps, music and much more are just a few clicks away, whenever we want them, wherever we want them. This is great for productivity and connectivity, but herein lies the danger to our privacy. Location services drive much of the functionality and enhance the user's experience on many of today's most popular apps, specifically social media applications. Apps encourage "checking in" and "tagging" people and locations attached to posts, and users often accept the risk of sharing their information because of " hyperbolic discounting" , where people focus on the immediate benefit and discount future risk. (3) Some users chose to disable location services, an option that should t heoretically make a user's location private, but recent studies show that this might be a false sense of security.

WannaCry Ransomware Terms ASLR- address space layout randomization: diversifying memory locations for an application TASR- timely address space randomization: randomization occurring alongside input-output pairs The Threat Modern IT specialists are constantly on the defense against hackers and are often at a disadvantage due to the arsenal of tools at the disposal of their rivals. Hackers just need to find a single solution to crack into a network or a device, while the good guys have to anticipate and protect against a plethora of vulnerabilities. (1) It has been estimated that malware attacks cost companies an average of $2.5 million and that in the United States the average cyber crime costs companies $21.22 million. (2) With the prevalence and severity of such crimes on the rise, the job of defending against such attacks has also become a top priority for both public and private industry alike. IT specialists have traditionally fallen back on a technique called ran

NSA Headquarters Quantum- not just a buzz word Traditional computing encodes information with the use of bits, that is a series of ones and zeroes. The quickly emerging field of quantum computing makes use of quantum bits, differing in nature from binary bits in that they can be ones and zeroes simultaneously. Quantum processors are still in development, but because of their massive computing potential both private industry and governments around the world are racing to champion the technology. Applications in computer science Math and science fields would probably be the most obvious benefactors of a breakthrough in quantum computing, by enabling faster computations and more intricate modeling. A lesser known, yet equally exciting application is known as quantum metrology. By measuring small gravitational changes, this technology would enable self contained navigational systems for use in autonomous vehicles of all sorts, without the need for traditional GPS. (1) What

T he internet of things, or IoT, is getting a lot of attention with the exploding popularity of smart home devices and general connectedness of the world in general, but what exactly is it and how safe is it? What is IoT IoT can be summarized as the network of devices equipped with electronics, sensors, software and connectivity that allows them to send information to, and receive information from other IoT devices. The super popular Nest home thermostat for example, is on the IoT because it senses temperature in the home, adjusts settings on your A/C or heating units, and relays this information via the internet to your mobile device. Beyond the home it utilizes information on weather conditions and forecasts from weather stations in the area. Now example this small scale application of the IoT on an enormous scale. The thermostat is now controlling the heating and cooling in laboratories at the CDC. Any unwanted variation in temperature could have potentially disastrous