History Sniffing and Browser Tracking / What about Mobile Browsers?

While the original history sniffing research presented at CCS10  did not look at mobile browsers, the UC San Diego computer scientists say that is something they are looking into now. 

“In general, the mobile browsers and mobile sites seem to be way behind in security,” said computer science professor Hovav Shacham from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. 

The UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering history sniffing press release is here. 

A few more details on the History Sniffing / Browser History / JavaScript story from UC San Diego

Another tidbit on the history sniffing story from the computer scientists here at UC San Diego:

The UC San Diego computer scientists added their new JavaScript information flow engine to the Chrome browser, but the approach could be implemented in other browsers. The history-sniffing detection tool currently adds an additional 60 to 70 percent to total page loading time over a fast network – fast enough to be a useful research tool but too slow for consumer use.

Read the UC San Diego history sniffing press release.

The Forbes story is below: 

History Sniffing: How YouPorn Checks What Other Porn Sites You’ve Visited and Ad Networks Test The Quality of Their Data

FICO, UC San Diego Announce Winners of International Predictive Analytics Competition

SAN DIEGO, Nov 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- FICO , the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) today announced the winners of the seventh annual UCSD-FICO Data Mining Contest. Participants from six countries on four continents were among the winners who developed predictive analytics to determine which consumers were most likely to shop online.

This year, contestants were given anonymous data for more than 130,000 consumers. The data included no personally identifiable information. Based on that data, competitors built models to predict which consumers were most likely to buy products online. Participants were judged on how accurately they were able to predict future purchases.

The competition was divided into two categories -- one category utilized raw data, and one category utilized transformed data -- and each category had a Graduate and Undergraduate division. The top three finishers in each category and each division shared $10,000 in cash prizes.

"Students around the world look forward to the UCSD-FICO Data Mining Contest each year as an opportunity to put the skills they've learned in the classroom to use in a rigorous real-world competition," said professor Charles Elkan of UC San Diego Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) within the Jacobs School of Engineering.

"It's been exciting to see the growth of this competition since its inception, with over 140 participants from six continents competing this year. We are proud of all the students who participated, and we appreciate FICO's ongoing commitment to developing and encouraging the next generation of innovators in predictive analytics," said Elkan.   (Read the full press release here.)

CRCA event / Jeremy Douglass introduces Get Lamp

Get Lamp is a documentary film about text-based computer games. In the late 1970s, Adventure and Zork broke ground in the early computer game genre that is still being created today as "interactive fiction”. CRCA’s own video game scholar and postdoctoral researcher, Jeremy Douglass, who appears in the film, will introduce a screening with comments on connections to his research.

For more information about Jeremy’s work: http://jeremydouglass.com/
For more information about Get Lamp: Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzOPVe7Usms and Film: http://www.getlamp.com/

For more information about CRCA : http://crca.ucsd.edu

When?
Text Adventures featuring Yra van Dijk and Jeremy Douglass
Thursday 9th December 2010, 5pm-7pm,  followed by a reception
Calit2 Auditorium, First Floor, Atkinson Hall
UCSD Voigt Drive, La Jolla

$1000 Elevator Pitch Competition / UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge

December 3 at 5 PM is the deadline for submitting a pitch for the $1000 Elevator Pitch Competition sponsored by the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge.

Eligibility Requirements (partial). Full details here.

Each team must consist of at least one full time student, post-doctoral trainee, or recent graduate from either UCSD or the other Torrey Pines Mesa Research Institutions (The Salk Institute, Burnham Institute, Scripps Research Institute, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography).  Recent graduates must have received their UCSD degree after August 15^th in the year the current Challenge begins.

The Student/post-doc must be an active, contributing team member who is the founder or co-founder of the team, and, together with all other student/post doc team members, hold in the aggregate at least 20% of the ownership interest in the company which is the subject of such team’s submission in the competition.

Tonight: Science to Idea to Company

Learn how laboratory projects are turned into commercial ventures. The event is Dec 1, 2010: "Understanding Tech Transfer"

Where: Rady School of Management, UC San Diego
When: Dec 1, 6 to 7:30 pm

RSVP

Valley of the Khans Project in San Diego Business Journal

Luke Barrington, a UC San Diego electrical engineering PhD candidate and Albert Yu-Min Lin, who earned his undergrad and graduate degrees from the Jacobs School, are in a recent San Diego Business Journal article that describes the “Field Expedition: Mongolia — Valley of the Khans Project” that Lin is leading. The article also discusses the San Diego firm -- Digitaria Interactive Inc. -- that helped build the online experience that is so crucial to this National Geographic project that enables people from around the world to help in their exploration from their computers. Learn how you can participate here.