BCS Lincolnshire
Branch Past Events
20th
May 2008: Free Software / Open
Source: The enabler for Social Inclusion?
Eddie Bleasdale
Eddie Bleasdale has been working in the area of
Unix and now Linux / Free Software since the early 1980's. He was
responsible for the development of a range of Unix computers that were
manufactured by BT. For the European Commission he was responsible for the
development of the Open Source Migration Guidelines. See: http://www.netproject.com/docs/migoss/v1.0/
This presentation
addresses the issues using technology to enable Social Inclusion. It
considers the following questions: How can the UK Government / the European
Commission achieve their objectives of providing care in the community? Can
this be achieved using existing mainstream technology? Does the Free
/ Open Source community offer both the technology and the support to
provide the public with secure, reliable computing that, with use, gains
the trust of the users?
Joint meeting with OSS-SG
The above event was preceded by
the AGM of the Lincolnshire Branch
Click here for the chair’s
AGM report.
22nd April 2008: Virtual
Business: From Virtual Communities to Virtual Worlds
Dr Brendan D’Cruz, Business School, University of East London
This presentation
considers the evolution of virtual business activities beyond
virtual communities into virtual enterprises and then into virtual
worlds. Interactive virtual environments such as Second Life and
social networking technologies of Web 2.0 such as MySpace,
Facebook and others have attracted much recent
media interest. However, the business opportunities and commercial
potential of these technologies still has some way to go before they
become acceptable alternatives to mainstream business. Or do they? A
whole range of embryonic opportunities have emerged on the
Internet, and this presentation will consider empirical
research into some specific contexts such as English Premier
League football, online vs. offline protest groups, and
religious worship in cyberspace.
Dr. Brendan D'Cruz is Principal Lecturer and Field
Leader: Finance, Economics and Accounting at the Business School, University of East London. He has a background in
e-business, information systems and project management, and has been
active with the BCS for many years including as Chair
of the BCS Northampton Branch (2004-2007),
and more recently as a General Member of the BCS project management specialist
interest group (PROMS-G).
To view slides from this event
click here.
Saturday 5th April
2008: Trip to Bletchley Park (all day 8:30 to 19:00 approx)
Bletchley Park
National Codes Centre
Bletchley Park was the centre of the Allied
cryptanalysis and code breaking efforts during the Second World War. The
most notable achievement was the breaking of the German Enigma cipher which
is said to have brought the war to an end. It was home to a number of
famous mathematicians and cryptanalysts including Alan Turing - the father of modern Computer Science.
4th March 2008: A Model to Tackle the Ageing and Degrading of Software
Systems
Dr Andrea Capiluppi, MBCS
Accumulated
changes on a software system are not uniformly distributed: some elements
are changed more often than others. For optimal impact, the limited time
and effort for complexity control, called anti-regressive work, should be
applied to the elements of the system which are frequently changed and are
complex. Based on this, we propose a maintenance guidance model (MGM) which
is
tested against real-world data. MGM takes into account several dimensions
of complexity: size, structural complexity and coupling. Results show that
maintainers of the eight open source systems studied tend, in general, to
prioritize their anti-regressive work in line with the predictions given by
our MGM, even though, divergences also exist. MGM offers a history-based
alternative to existing approaches to the identification of elements for
anti-regressive work, most of which use static code characteristics only.
19th February 2008: Life after Lincoln- Building Your IT Career (& Continuing Your BCS
Membership)
(13:00 to 14:00 followed by
refreshments)
Mrs Mary Clarkson, Chair Leicester BCS; Ms Maria Morgan, BCS Membership Adviser
Special meeting for all DCI students
The computing
degree you are doing in Lincoln is the starting point of your IT
career. It provides a strong foundation on which to build throughout your
working life, growing new skills and widening your expertise. Mary Clarkson will talk about ways to develop
your career in the changing world of information technology. She will give
some pointers on getting that first job. BCS membership is one way to prove
your credentials, and Marie Morgan will be on hand to explain
graduate membership.
To view slides from this session click here
19th February 2008: The wider aspects of information systems and the use
of a soft systems approach to understanding them
(18:30 for 19:00 start)
Dr Sue Howell, Open University.
Click here for slides from this event
17th January 2008: The Gopher Game: A social, mobile, locative game with
user generated content and peer review.
more…
Dr
Duncan Rowland, Department of Computing & Informatics, University of Lincoln.
13th December 2007: Christmas Party
(17:30 start)
Informal Christmas Party
and Computer Quiz with prizes
20th November 2007: CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) for
Software Engineering Organisations
Pewter Lawrence, Global Director Process Definition, Deployment and Assessment, CSC
25th October 2007 (15:00 for 15:30 start): ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) Version 3 –
The future of Best Practice in IT Service Management
Stuart Wright, Pro-Attivo IT Service Management
Consultancy
11th October 2007: An Introduction to Installing/using GNU/Linux for
beginners
Lincolnshire Linux User
Group members
This
is a joint meeting with the Lincolnshire Linux User Group (www.lincs.lug.org.uk) and with BCS Open Source Specialist Group (ossg.bcs.org).
Click here for slides from this event.
27th September 2007: Cyber Security, eCrime, eFraud and eTerror
Professor John Walker, Visiting Professor of Science & Technology at the School of Informatics, Nottingham.
On 27th
September 2007, Professor John Walker, Visiting Professor of Science
& Technology at the School of Informatics, Nottingham Trent University, visited the university to lecture
British Computer Society members including staff and students on the topic
of Cyber Security, eCrime, eFraud
and eTerror. At the start of his talk, he
quipped: “it's not that bad, it's worse” referring to current state of
internet security.
He emphasized the
inter-relation of internet based criminal activities and other conventional
criminal activities making this a labyrinth for the naïve user who once in,
may find it's not easy to leave. Countering Terrorist Funding has brought a
new perspective to cyber crime as many terrorist organisations are using
the internet to raise funds through crime and this means that crime
agencies are having to devote specialist policing and investigation units
to this aspect of internet crime. Monitoring of internet traffic and
activities can offer a partial solution, but to quote Professor Walker: “It's all about the radar and how
low you fly.” In the U.K. the Serious and Organised Crime
Agency (SOCA) has been doing work behind the scenes, but only a small part
of this is reported to the public, e.g. the Titan rain attack on Whitehall from China in early September 2007. So-called
“cyber warriors” attacking internet root servers are a real threat. What is
reported is only the tip of the ice berg, as companies don't report and so
end-users never know know about attacks and
break-ins to their data. Here Professor Walker mentioned that there is a move to
introduce into the U.K. a law similar to that now found in
California which requires companies to
disclose to the public any loss of computer data.
As we move to
Everything over IP (EoIP): voice, TV, etc, the
economic impact of cyber crime and terrorist becomes greater. Currently no
one has complete control over the internet . Professor Walker discussed a number of real life
case studies ranging from phishing to more sophisticated
forms of malware and crookware,
in the latter case, he explained how he had recently fallen victim to a
case of crookware. He discussed remedies to the
current situation, both technical and social, citing the importance of
raising awareness.
In the course of
preparing this presentation, he coined the phrase “design flawing” as a
form of cyber misbehaviour where designers of systems deliberately insert
flaws ensure that users will continue to subscribe to their maintenance
service or will not be able to use the system except in a restricted way.
This point led to come interesting discussions after the talk as some
members of the audience felt this was poor design rather than criminal
activity. On the topic of viruses and anti-virus (AV) solutions, Professor Walker's opinion was that AV is dead and
as it stands today, it must change or die. He noted that the patch and fix
culture has just drawn the hackers into a cycle of insecurity as they
respond to the patches with new security breaches.
His concluding
remark was that “Security is a big issue, costing millions, impacting high
numbers, but it is not today understood or considered a threat of magnitude
commensurate with the impact.”
This talk was
followed by a lively discussion. Slides from Professor Walker's talk came be found here.
Notes by Cornelia Boldyreff
16 October 2007
24 May 2007: New Giants of Asia – China vs India (Opportunities and threats in the software industry)
Dr John McManus
In recent times,
both China and India have been variously described as
‘emerging superpowers’, ‘transitioning economies to watch’, and the like.
Both countries are witnessing unprecedented inflow of foreign direct
investment. Both China and India have achieved remarkable GDP
growth rates in the last few years. And, while China’s prominence on the global
landscape can primarily be attributed to its manufacturing industry, India has emerged on the world map
because of its superior software capability and a growing software services
industry. Increasingly we are seeing a convergence, with China achieving a rapid growth in its
software industry and India in the manufacturing sector. China and India have assumed such critical
dimensions that these days every boardroom meeting invariably includes a
discussion on China and India strategy. This presentation will
attempt to present the structure and dynamics of the software industries in
China and India and what implications China and India hold for the global software
industry, and how they can strengthen their growing dominance.
Click here for slides from this
event.
The above event was preceded by
the AGM of the Lincolnshire Branch
Click here for the AGM report.
29 March 2007: Wit nor wisdom – effective process
modelling for business
Dr
Jon
Holt
Consider
the analogy of a magician performing a card trick - the process is easy to
follow but impossible to replicate from the audience's point of view. To
replicate such a magic trick it is necessary to understand several
different views of the trick, rather than simply looking at it from the
audience's point of view. A full understanding will require some degree of
domain knowledge concerning magic and sleight-of-hand, and insight into the
hidden complexities behind the trick and a knowledge of the
miscommunication devices employed by magicians. The challenge, therefore,
is in creating an accurate and concise model of a process - a task that is
plagued with complexity and difficulty as the understanding is often-buried
processes and communication trails that exist but are not visible. more…
10 March 2007: Bletchley Park Visit
Bletchley Park National Codes
Centre by coach from the university - all day
Bletchley Park was the centre of the Allied
cryptanalysis and code breaking efforts during the Second World War. The
most notable achievement was the breaking of the German Enigma cipher which
is said to have brought the war to an end. It was home to a number of
famous mathematicians and cryptanalysts including Alan Turing - the father of modern Computer
Science.
Click here for photos from the Bletchley park
visit.
22 February 2007: Go for IT:
getting more women into IT and keeping them there
Dr Sue Black FBCS,
Head of the Department of Information and Software Systems at the University
of Westminster in London and
Founder and Chair of BCSWomen,
Dr Sue Black is currently Head of the
Department of Information and Software Systems at the University of Westminster in London. Sue left school at 16 and went to
work for the local council in a job that she says she could have done when
she was five years old. She soon moved on to another job, and then
another.....How did she get to where she is today? All will be revealed…
This talk presents a personal
view of Sue's career, of the BCSWomen egroup,
which Sue set up in 2001, of the reasons for the lack of women in IT, what
we can all do to encourage women into IT and just as importantly keep them
there. Discusses the poor decisions that have led to the current situation.
Click here for the slides from this event
18 January 2007: Dog-human interaction and what we can learn from this
in building future interfaces to computer systems
Dr Shaun Lawson
MBCS, Senior Lecturer
in the Department of Computing and Informatics, University
of Lincoln
This talk discusses the innovative inter-disciplinary
approach being taken at the University of Lincoln, and funded by Microsoft
Research, to develop natural human-computer, and particularly
human-robotic, interfaces that are informed by analyses of social human-dog
interactions. The dog Canis familiaris is already ubiquitous in human society
and there is evidence which suggests that not only has the dog evolved
unique abilities to accurately understand human behaviour, but that humans
have co-evolved to adapt accordingly. Furthermore, dogs are frequently used
in human-interactive scenarios very similar to those being predicted as
being important for advanced robotic systems in the future. In this talk, Dr Lawson argues
that by incorporating analyses of social human-dog interactions into the fundamental
design of interactive robotic-systems we can construct solid building
blocks for creating interfaces to future robots which are naturalistic,
unobtrusive and implicit.
13 December 2006: Christmas Party
At the Barge on
the Brayford at 7:30 p.m.
16 November 2006: "The National Programme for IT in the NHS - NHS
Connecting for Health. How can we
create success from perceived failure?"
Professor
Gerry
McSorley,
Director, Centre for Health Improvement and Leadership in Lincoln, University
of Lincoln.
Click here to view the slides from Gerry McSorley’s talk, or here
to download a copy.
19 October 2006: “Bletchley Park: Code breaking and Colossus”
Tony Sale - the original founder and curator of the Bletchley
Park
Museum.
21 September
2006 "ID cards: from Holy Grail to
Poisoned Chalice in three easy steps"
Simon Davies,
Visiting Fellow in the Department of Information Systems at the LSE and Director of Privacy International.
Simon Davies, Director of Privacy International and Fellow of
London School of Economics (LSE) spoke to the Lincolnshire Sub-branch of
the British Computing Society Thursday evening Sept 21, 2006, at 7:00 pm in the
EMMTEC conference hall on the Brayford
campus. His topic, "UK ID card
system - what it is and what it is not" was a behind-the-scenes look
at the political and technical wranglings of this
highly charged issue. Mr. Davies' ebullient style and description of the involved
players (including Mr. Blair) gave the audience a feel for just how important this
topic is, both to the nation and to each individual.
What the ID card system is not:
It is not an ID card.
The average UK citizen will not (necessarily) carry around with them
a plastic laminate credit card sized item in their wallet to be waved at a
magical scanner anytime one wishes to prove identity. The proposed system is based on
biometrics, thereby requiring the UK citizen to prove their identity with biological
identifiers - fingerprints, for example.
What the ID card system is:
a. A unification
of all identities into a national database, based on biometric and other
data (fingerprints, iris scans, driver's license),
b. Allocation of
a number, based on all existing numbers assigned to a person (national
registry number, tax id number, etc). In theory, this aggregation of
personal information will provide a singular, unique pinpoint for each
individual.
c. A unification
of all sectors, public and private.
The information will be made available not just to the government
sector, but to private institutions as well.
The government's objectives for such an extensive
identification system, as presented by Mr. | 
