Spartan Daily, March 4, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 28https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9824/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 4, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 28https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9824/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 4, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 28https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9824/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, March 4, 2003

Volume 120, Issue 28https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/9824/thumbnail.jp

Reimaginging Learning: A Big Bet on the Future of American Education

Today's young people are the most diverse, connected generation in history and have incredible aspirations for themselves. Educators all over the country are reimagining learning to better meet this generation's needs, rethinking classrooms and schools so they work better for students. It's an exciting time for innovation in education.At the same time, big bets are an increasingly popular concept in philanthropy. Several articles and papers in the last year have encouraged donors to consider them as a way of creating meaningful change, including in education. Big bets are usually defined as large grants to a specific issue or an individual organization.We're proposing something different.We've been working with partners across the country who are pursuing a common vision: reimagining learning with a broad set of outcomes in mind, so that every student finishes high school with an abundance of choices and the freedom to pursue them. Philanthropists have an opportunity to make a big bet on this shared vision.Most schools weren't designed with this vision in mind. But right now, all over the country, teams of educators are working to change this. They are partnering with families to create schools that speak to their hopes and honor their strengths. These schools prioritize rigorous academics and help students develop critical thinking skills, set important goals and create plans to reach them, and develop the mindsets and habits they need to take charge of their futures.Through deep engagement with our partners, we've thought concretely about how these ideas might spread and where existing momentum and early evidence might shine a light on a path forward. In September 2015, with our partners Summit Public Schools and Transcend, we released a paper entitled Dissatisfied Yet Optimistic (DYO), which made the case for reimagining learning. This new companion piece explores what it might take to strengthen and accelerate the momentum created by the early pioneers who are designing schools consistent with the ideas in DYO.What follows is a big idea for how $4 billion in philanthropy over 10 years could dramatically improve the performance of our schools by focusing on this emerging vision for how schools could produce much better and broader outcomes for students

I Am Fine but You Are Not: Optimistic Bias and Illusion of Control on Information Security

Information security is a critically important issue in current networked business and work environments. While there is extensive publicity on the increasing incidents of numerous information security breaches and their serious consequences, recent surveys and research on information security repeatedly identify the low levels of user and managerial awareness as a key obstacle to achieving a good information security posture. The main motivation of our research emanates from this contradicting phenomenon: increased vulnerability to information security breaches yet the low level of user and managerial awareness on information security threats. In this research, we study this dissonance by addressing a cognitive bias, optimistic bias, that is, the tendency of people to believe that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to others and that positive events are more likely to happen to them than others. Using a survey, we find that users demonstrate optimistic bias in their risk perceptions associated with information security. This self-serving bias is also found to be related to a perception of controllability with information security threats. These results have practical implications for designing security awareness programs by suggesting that risk communication and management efforts are likely to fail unless they consider this bias

Fair exchange in e-commerce and certified e-mail, new scenarios and protocols

We are witnessing a steady growth in the use of Internet in the electronic commerce field. This rise is promoting the migration from traditional processes and applications (paper based) to an electronic model. But the security of electronic transactions continues to pose an impediment to its implementation. Traditionally, most business transactions were conducted in person. Signing a contract required the meeting of all interested parties, the postman delivered certified mail in hand, and when paying for goods or services both customer and provider were present. When all parties are physically present, a transaction does not require a complex protocol. The participants acknowledge the presence of the other parties as assurance that they will receive their parts, whether a signature on a contract, or a receipt, etc. But with e-commerce growing in importance as sales and business channel, all these transactions have moved to its digital counterpart. Therefore we have digital signature of contracts, certified delivery of messages and electronic payment systems. With electronic transactions, the physical presence is not required,moreover, most of the times it is even impossible. The participants in a transaction can be thousands of kilometers away from each other, and they may not even be human participants, they can be machines. Thus, the security that the transaction will be executed without incident is not assured per se, we need additional security measures. To address this problem, fair exchange protocols were developed. In a fair exchange every party involved has an item that wants to exchange, but none of the participants is willing to give his item away unless he has an assurance he will receive the corresponding item from the other participants. Fair exchange has many applications, like digital signature of contracts, where the items to be exchanged are signatures on contracts, certified delivery of messages, where we exchange a message for evidence of receipt, or a payment process, where we exchange a payment (e-cash, e-check, visa, etc.) for digital goods or a receipt. The objective of this dissertation is the study of the fair exchange problem. In particular, it presents two new scenarios for digital contracting, the Atomic Multi- Two Party (AM2P) and the Agent Mediated Scenario (AMS), and proposes one optimistic contract signing protocol for each one. Moreover, it studies the efficiency of Multi-Party Contract Signing (MPCS) protocols from their architecture point of view, presenting a new lower bound for each architecture, in terms of minimum number of transactions needed. Regarding Certified Electronic Mail (CEM), this dissertation presents two optimistic CEMprotocols designed to be deployed on thecurrent e-mail infrastructure, therefore they assume the participation of multiple Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs). In one case, the protocol assumes untrusted MTAs whereas in the other one it assumes each User Agent (UA) trusts his own MTA. Regarding payment systems, this dissertation presents a secure and efficient electronic bearer bank check scheme allowing the electronic checks to be transferred fairly and anonymously.L’ús d’Internet en l’àmbit del comerç electrònic està experimentant un creixement estable. Aquest increment d’ús està promovent lamigració de processos tradicionals i aplicacions (basades en paper) cap a un model electrònic. Però la seguretat de les transaccions electròniques continua impedint la seva implantació. Tradicionalment, la majoria de les transaccions s’han dut a terme en persona. La firma d’un contracte requeria la presència de tots els firmants, el carter entrega les cartes certificades enmà, i quan es paga per un bé o servei ambdós venedor i comprador hi són presents. Quan totes les parts hi són presents, les transaccions no requereixen un protocol complex. Els participants assumeixen la presència de les altres parts com assegurança que rebran el que esperen d’elles, ja sigui la firma d’un contracte, un rebut d’entrega o un pagament. Però amb el creixement del comerç electrònic com a canal de venda i negoci, totes aquestes transaccions s’hanmogut al seu equivalent en el món electrònic. Així doncs tenim firma electrònica de contractes, enviament certificat de missatges, sistemes de pagament electrònic, etc. En les transaccions electròniques la presència física no és necessària, de fet, la majoria de vegades és fins it tot impossible. Els participants poden estar separats permilers de kilòmetres, i no és necessari que siguin humans, podrien sermàquines. Llavors, la seguretat de que la transacció s’executarà correctament no està assegurada per se, necessitem proporcionar mesures de seguretat addicionals. Per solucionar aquest problema, es van desenvolupar els protocols d’intercanvi equitatiu. En un intercanvi equitatiu totes les parts involucrades tenen un objecte que volen intercanviar, però cap de les parts implicades vol donar el seu objecte si no té la seguretat que rebrà els objectes de les altres parts. L’intercanvi equitatiu té multitud d’aplicacions, com la firma electrònica de contractes, on els elements a intercanviar son firmes de contractes, enviament certificat demissatges, on s’intercanvien unmissatge per una evidència de recepció, o un procés de pagament, on intercanviemun pagament (e-cash, visa, e-xec, etc.) per bens digitals o per un rebut. L’objectiu d’aquesta tesi és estudiar el problema de l’intercanvi equitatiu. En particular, la tesi presenta dos nous escenaris per a la firma electrònica de contractes, l’escenari multi-two party atòmic i l’escenari amb agents intermediaris, i proposa un protocol optimista per a cada un d’ells. A més, presenta un estudi de l’eficiència dels protocols de firma electrònica multi-part (Multi-Party Contract Signing (MPCS) protocols) des del punt de vista de la seva arquitectura, presentant una nova fita per a cada una, en termes de mínim nombre de transaccions necessàries. Pel que fa al correu electrònic certificat, aquesta tesi presenta dos protocols optimistes dissenyats per a ser desplegats damunt l’infraestructura actual de correu electrònic, per tant assumeix la participació demúltiples agents de transferència de correu. Un dels protocols assumeix que cap dels agents de transferència de correu participants és de confiança,mentre que l’altre assumeix que cada usuari confia en el seu propi agent. Pel que fa a sistemes de pagament, la tesi presenta un esquema de xec bancari al portador, eficient i segur, que garanteix que la transferència dels xecs es fa demanera anònima i equitativa