Monthly Archives: February 2012

The attack was part of a student project in the Computer Science Department and has attracted substantial interest in two scientific conferences; the students will be awarded the Technion Amdocs Prize

Alex Kirshon and Dima Gonikman, students in the Technion Computer Science Department, succeeded in hacking the OSPF routing protocol, the most common protocol on the internet. The attack was part of a student project in the Laboratory of Computer Communication and Networking and has attracted substantial interest in two scientific conferences it was presented in. Alex and Dima will be awarded the Technion Amdocs Prize for Best Project in Computer Science. Their supervisors were Gabi Nakibly and Itai Dabran.

Hundreds of thousands of routers work on the internet, linking the different networks. Each router is supposed to “know” all the other routers and to “talk” to them (obtain information about their neighbors and about networks connected to them). The incessant involvement of the routers in the transmission of this information encumbers them and diminishes their effectiveness. Hence, the internet is in fact split into autonomic systems that “talk” to each other. The routers in each such system “know” one another.

The most popular protocol for the transmission of information between routers in autonomic systems is OSPF. If it malfunctions, many messages will not reach their destination. Moreover, there is the concern that these messages will reach the attacker of the protocol. Accordingly, stringent security measures are in place for the protocols of network routers.

One of the important defenses is called “fight-back”. When it is implemented – when a router recognizes that another router has sent data in its name – it immediately issues a correction.

With help from their supervisors, Alex Kirshon and Dima Gonikman “targeted” this correction. They triggered a fight-back from a router on the network, but immediately before it was sent, they sent a fight-back with false data that was received by some of the other routers. When these routers received the fight-back of the compromised router, they rejected it because they supposedly already received a fight-back from it.

The “attacking” students also identified in advance which fight-back the attacked router will send, so that the other routers received it from them “without doubts or questions”. From the moment they received the “fake” fight-back, there are routers on the network that have incorrect routing tables.

Such an attack can disrupt the entire operation of the autonomic system, prevent messages from reaching their destination and unnecessarily create substantial traffic on the network.

Seven groups of students will receive the Amdocs Prize for Best Project in a ceremony that will take place in mid-March in the Technion Computer Science Department.

In The Picture: The attacked router and the mode of attack. Figure: Technion Spokesman

Huttenlocher – Former Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Computer Science Expert – Will Co-Lead Cornell NYC Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island with Cathy Dove; Technion Professor Craig Gotsman Will Be Founding Director of the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced that Professor Daniel P. Huttenlocher, Cornell University’s Dean of Computing and Information Sciences, has been named Cornell Vice Provost and founding Dean of the university’s historic tech campus, home of the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute. Cathy Dove, currently associate dean in Cornell’s College of Engineering, will co-lead the campus as Vice President, and Technion Professor Craig Gotsman will serve as the founding director of the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute. Mayor Bloomberg made the announcement at the headquarters of Tumblr, one of the City’s fastest-growing technology companies, was joined by Tumblr CEO David Karp, Dean Huttenlocher, Cathy Dove, New York City Economic President Seth Pinsky, Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne, Office of Media & Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver and representatives from Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Bitly and YouTube.

“New York City is quickly becoming the center of the digital universe, and today’s announcements will help us get there,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “With this fantastic leadership team in place, the tech campus will help us attract and develop more talent to energize our growing tech sector. And our social media platforms will give New Yorkers the information they need on the channels they want to use.”

“Dan Huttenlocher and Cathy Dove have employed their extensive knowledge and expertise, as well as their acknowledged leadership skills, during every step of the development and promotion of our proposal, and they continue to drive our effort to bring the new campus to fruition for the people of New York,” said Cornell University President David Skorton. “And the addition of Professor Craig Gotsman as director of the campus’s Techion-Cornell Innovation Institute brings added luster to this impressive team. Cornell, Technion and the city are very lucky to have such talented people leading our exciting new campus.”

Huttenlocher, Dove and Gotsman were instrumental in formulating and promoting the winning proposal and working with the city during the selection process for the new state-of-the-art graduate campus, to be operated in partnership with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Inaugural instruction will begin in off-site locations in the city in September of this year, with groundbreaking scheduled for 2015 and on-campus operations slated to begin in 2017. Huttenlocher and Dove will oversee the formation of the environmentally sustainable campus, whose operational costs are expected to exceed $2 billion over 30 years; the building of the campus’s expert faculty, planned to be about 280 strong in 30 years; its highly selective graduate student population, targeted at about 2,500 by 2043; as well as capital construction of the 2 million square-foot campus. The campus’s innovative academic “hub” concept, which Huttenlocher helped develop, will feature curriculum and research organized across multiple disciplines and directed toward particular sectors of New York City’s economy.

As dean, Huttenlocher will have overall responsibility for all programmatic aspects of the new campus, including responsibility for the academic quality and direction of the campus’s hubs and their evolution over time. He will develop strategic plans for the most effective ways of working with companies and early stage investors in New York City, and he will lead the campus’ faculty recruitment and entrepreneurial initiatives. He also will serve as a member of the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute Joint Governance Board and oversee the Tech Campus Advisory Committee. Huttenlocher will report to Cornell’s provost, work closely with Cornell’s deans, including Cornell Engineering Dean Lance Collins, and he will serve as a member of Cornell’s senior leadership team. He also will retain his post as Cornell’s CIS dean, until a new dean is appointed.

 As the Vice President for the new tech campus, Dove will be responsible for all development, outreach and operational aspects of the campus, including areas such as human resources, external and student relations, development and facilities, IT, marketing and communications, finances and outreach. She will serve as the campus’s lead on its facility construction team, oversee corporate relations, student services and lead community outreach and programming, including K-12 programs. She will report to Cornell’s provost, will lead the Operating Committee, and she will serve as a member of Cornell’s senior leadership team. Gotsman will lead the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute (TCII), a centerpiece of the Roosevelt Island campus, as its founding director. The TCII will confer dual Cornell/Technion Masters of Applied Sciences degrees, based on a curriculum with a unique emphasis on the application of sciences, entrepreneurship and management.

“Cornell and the Technion have outlined ambitious plans for a world-class applied sciences campus in the heart of New York City, and executing on those plans will require outstanding academic leaders like Daniel Huttenlocher, Cathy Dove and Craig Gotsman,” Deputy Mayor Steel said. “Congratulations to Presidents Skorton and Lavie and the entire Cornell and Technion communities on the selection of the NYC Tech leadership team.”

“With the selection of Cornell and the Technion, we were fortunate to find the perfect partners – two world-class institutions which together shared our vision of how to change the City’s economy forever,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation President Pinsky. “To fulfill this bold vision will require strong leadership, and there are no leaders better equipped for this challenge than Dan Huttenlocher, Cathy Dove and Craig Gotsman. With this team at the helm, the NYCTech campus will soon begin creating the new technologies and businesses that will ensure our place as the undisputed world capital of innovation.”

“We welcome the appointments of Professor Dan Huttenlocher and Cathy Dove, to which we add that of Technion Professor Craig Gotsman as Founding Director of the Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute,” said Peretz Lavie, President of the Technion. “We have complete faith that this team can and will efficiently and professionally promote the ambitious program we have planned for New York City.”

“This is an unprecedented opportunity to build a new kind of university campus, focused on technology commercialization rooted in the very best academic research, with educational programs that tie fundamentals to practice, and strong ties to the tech sector of the city’s economy,” said Huttenlocher. “We are already actively working towards identifying leased space for the start-up phase before we move to Roosevelt Island, gaining approvals for degree programs, involving local tech leaders in our planning, and preparing to hire world class faculty.”

“I am incredibly honored to be able to contribute to this game-changing enterprise that will have such a great impact on Cornell, the Technion and New York City,” said Dove. “It is especially meaningful to me as a Cornell alumna, who has always believed that Cornell should have a significant presence in New York City. I’m looking forward to working closely, not only with our faculty, staff and students, but with companies, alumni, our Technion partners and our New York City and Roosevelt Island neighbors. There is a lot of work to do, but I’m excited to be moving forward toward our shared goal.”

“The Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute will be dedicated to fulfilling Mayor Bloomberg’s far-reaching vision for the future of New York City as the high-tech capital of the world. The TCII will become a fertile breeding ground for engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs who will contribute to the city’s tech ecosystem, even before they graduate. The Technion is confident that its experience in building the Israeli high-tech sector will serve it well in New York City. Having a local partner as distinguished as Cornell University, can only guarantee a runaway success,” said Prof. Gotsman.

“Dan Huttenlocher’s leadership has taken Cornell’s Computing and Information Science department to new heights as one of the top programs in the world,” said Eric Grimson, chancellor of MIT. “Dan has a keen sense of how research and education can drive entrepreneurship and innovation, and I can think of no one better to lead the new tech campus going forward.”

 “Dan Huttenlocher is an inspired choice to lead the new tech campus as he has excelled in both the academic world and the entrepreneurial world,” said Jeff Hawkins, Founder of Numenta, Palm, and Handspring. “The Tech Campus’ mission is to train the engineers and innovators who will continue to fuel New York City’s rise as a global technology leader. Knowing Dan and his talents I can think of no one better suited to achieve that goal.”

“Dan is the rare academic leader who knows not only how to cultivate great engineers and innovators, but also understands both the social and technical sides of tech entrepreneurship from his own years of experience working in the tech sector,” said John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist of Xerox Corp and past Director of its Palo Alto Research Center said. “Dan is a brilliant choice to lead the new tech campus forward as its founding Dean, and I am confident that his students and New York City itself will benefit from his unique approach.”

“Dan Huttenlocher is the perfect choice to lead the new technology campus,” said Rob Cook, VP of Advanced Technology, Pixar (Emeritus). “Today’s engineers need both an excellent education in technology and the practical business skills to make a difference in the real world. Dan excels in both areas: he is a brilliant and innovative academic researcher and also a seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneur. I’m confident that with Dan as its founding dean, the campus will become renowned for producing technology leaders.”

In addition to his post as Cornell’s dean of CIS, Huttenlocher holds the John P. and Rilla Neafsey Chair in Computing, Information Science and Business. He has been on the faculty at Cornell since 1988, leaving at various times to work in industry, including at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center , where he founded the Image Understanding Group and served on the senior management team, and at Intelligent Markets, a small financial technologies firm where he served as Chief Technology Officer. While his academic interests are rooted in computer science, particularly computer vision, he has worked in a number of other domains including autonomous vehicles, competing in the DARPA Urban Challenge, and analysis of online social networks. He has taught in both the Department of Computer Science and the MBA program at Cornell, and he has been recognized on several occasions for his excellence in teaching, including as the New York State Professor of the year in 1993 by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and as a Stephen H. Weiss Fellow at Cornell in 1996. He has published a number of award winning scientific papers, was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation in 1990, and was honored as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2007. In 1998-99, Huttenlocher chaired the Cornell Task Force on Computing and Information Science, which led to the creation of CIS, for which he was Cornell’s second dean. In 2005-06, he also chaired Cornell’s Task Force on Wisdom in the Age of Digital Information. Huttenlocher currently serves on the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan and his master’s and doctorate at MIT.

Dove most recently was associate dean in the Cornell College of Engineering. Previously she served as Associate Dean for MBA Programs and Administration at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and also served as director of Financial Management Services for the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Throughout her tenure at Cornell, Dove has served on or led a number of institutional initiatives – most recently as co-chair of the university’s Budget Model Task Force. Prior to her arrival at Cornell, she served as Assistant Town Manager for Arlington, Mass.; as a financial analyst and marketing planner for Eli Lilly & Co.; and as a manager of Engineering Systems and Development for Anaren Inc.  She holds a B.S. from Georgetown University, an MBA from Cornell, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

Prof. Gotsman joined the Technion in 1992. As Associate Dean for External Relations, he founded and led the Computer Science faculty’s Industrial Affiliates Program, a successful platform for promoting academic-industrial cooperation. In this capacity he conceived and developed an “Industrial Project” course, which allows students to perform software projects offered and supervised by industrial experts; and the “Lapidim” study program, which identifies and nurtures the next generation of high-tech leaders. He has founded and ran two start-up companies, one based on technology he developed at the Technion, and has consulted for numerous Fortune 100 companies. Prof. Gotsman holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was a visiting professor at Harvard University and ETH Zurich, and a research scientist at MIT. He has published more than 150 papers in the professional literature and has been awarded five U.S. patents.

            Contact:          Stu Loeser/Julie Wood                                    (212) 788-2958

                                    Jonathan Rosen/Dan Levitan (Cornell)           (646) 452-5637

                                    Tova Kantrowitz (Technion)                           (212) 407-6340

The conference will be held this year on February 29th and on March 1st in Tel Aviv and in Technion City in Haifa

The 52nd Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences will be held this year on February 29 and March 1. As in the past, the first day of the conference will take place in Dan Panorama Tel Aviv Hotel and its second day will take place in the Technion City in Haifa. The conference program includes about 90 lectures, including invited lectures by world-renowned lecturers. The conference will discuss a wide variety of topics, from innovative manned and unmanned aircraft configurations through basic research studies on fluid mechanics, structure dynamics, missile navigation and guidance, and combustion, to spacecraft angular position control.

The conference will be opened by Prof. Dan Givoli of the Technion Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, chair of the conference organizing committee. Later, an invited lecture in memory of Prof. M. Hanin of Blessed Memory will be given by Prof. B. Zinn of the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, on smart combustors in aircraft engines. Another lecture will be given by Prof. D. Inman of the University of Michigan, USA, on smart materials for flight applications, and later, Mr. A. Brot of Israel Aerospace Industries will give a lecture on methods of ensuring the structural integrity of aircraft over time.

Prof. C. Amon of the University of Toronto, Canada will open the second day of the conference with her lecture on analyses of multi-scale thermal transport. Another lecture will be given by Prof. I. Kroo of Stanford University, USA, on future aircraft configurations, and will be followed by Mr. Moshe Attar of Israel Aerospace Industries who will lecture on considerations for FBW flight control systems design. The morning sessions will close with a panel on civil applications for umanned aircraft, chaired by B. Davidor of the Israel Civil Aviation Authority and with the participation of representatives of the leading Israeli industries in this field. The audience will be invited to ask questions.

The conference will be attended by world-renowned lecturers. Thus, for example, Prof. J. Ginsberg of the Georgia Institute of Technology will lecture on Aeroacoustics, and Prof. P. Friedmann of the University of Michigan will lecture on Aeroelasticity.

The conference will also host the student projects competition, which includes this year four teams who will present the annual final projects that sum up their studies, highlighting innovative themes and a systemic approach in aerospace engineering.

Reporters and photographers are invited

For additional details: Gila Ghilai, Chair of the Program Committee

Tel: 04-8292395   http://www.aeroconf.org.il

“The residents of New York City and its government are very excited about the planned applied science and engineering campus which Cornell and the Technion are partnering to establish”, said Christine Quinn, New York City council speaker, in her visit today to the Technion. “We have no doubt that this important venture, which will make our city the global high-tech capital, will inject new blood into it and improve all municipal aspects – from affordable housing to cafés and restaurants”.

Quinn, who in 2007 was ranked by the New York Post third in the list of the most influential women in New York, is a member of the Democratic Party, and is considered a leading candidate in the mayoral election that will end next year. She invests substantial resources in improving health care and in promoting affordable housing in New York. “We, as a municipality, cannot create entrepreneurial ventures, but we can and are committed to creating a suitable envelope for them: an efficient transportation system, personal security, housing, quality education and employment – without these, entrepreneurs and high-tech companies cannot be attracted to the city”.

Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie said to the guest that the future is in the interdisciplinary realm, and that this is the rational behind the new campus that will be set-up  on Roosevelt Island in New York. “It may be that Prof. Shechtman is the last scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize for research conducted by one person working alone in one laboratory,” said Prof. Lavie. “Nowadays, achieving significant scientific and engineering breakthroughs requires tremendous knowledge that the single scientist does not possess. In light of this, the new campus will be structured as interdisciplinary centers that will intercommunicate and overlap, rather than in the well-known university model of programs and faculties. With time this center will be surrounded by startup companies and extensions of large high-tech companies, just as such companies and extensions historically developed near the Technion. Intel is an example of a giant company that chose to establish here its first research center outside the US, and so whenever I hear the slogan ‘Intel Inside’ I say: Haifa Inside. Our innovative venture will build a bridge of friendship and cooperation between New York and Haifa”.

Landmark behind Time

The Technion’s historic building was designed by the renowned Jewish German architect, Alexander Baerwald. His design includes both oriental and European motives. It is built from sandstone quarried in Tantura and Atlit. The building was part of Baerwald’s plan of an open corridor leading directly to the bay. He also designed buildings that would line the road, of which some were built, indeed (e.g. the Hebrew Reali School). 

The building’s cornerstone was laid in 1912. The building’s construction was delayed during the First World War. The partially completed building was used, then, as a military hospital. In 1925 it became the home of Israel’s first institute of higher education – The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Until 1953, all the Technion Faculties were located there. By 1965, most of them have moved to the Technion new campus in Haifa’s Nave Shaanan. The Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning stayed in the historic Technion building until 1985. 

Timeline of the Century

New data about the traveling habits of Israeli residents, collected using cell phones, were revealed in a lecture given by the Head of the Transportation Research Institute at the Technion, Prof. Shlomo Bekhor of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in an “open day” at the Technion.  Prof. Bekhor, who is considered to be a pioneer in this research field, presented two projects he has participated in, that were carried out for the Ministry of Transport.

The first project attempts to provide a temporal and spatial description of traffic congestion in the road system, namely the times and locations in which heavy traffic can be expected, and the amount of time that is lost due to traffic congestion on the roads.  “In the Tel Aviv metropolis, 2,400 man-years are wasted on the road in one month, and that’s a huge number”, explains Prof. Bekhor. “If we can predict traffic volumes and the length of queues, we will have a significantly better ability to plan means of transportation, based on a statistical model, and in the future we will be able to explain travels and assist in urban planning”. The Ministry of Transport uses a travel database it has set up, the data for which was obtained using cell phones, to plan roads and additional means of transportation. The products of this method have allowed the creation of models for shortening travel also for 2030.

A second project identifies the point of origin and the destination of travels based on the recorded cell phone location data. Prof. Bekhor: “the information received for each sampled cell phone includes an identification number that is different from its line number, and its location at any time during its tracking in terms of the coordinates of the antenna providing coverage, which is usually the antenna closest to it. The cell phone location is recorded at a frequency of once every two hours in the absence of any movement or call, and whenever movement is discerned through change in the antenna providing coverage. A person can be identified as being at his home, when no movement is recorded for the phone during the night. No data can be obtained if the phone is turned off”. It should be noted, that the research focused on a work week, namely Sunday to Thursday, and the data were collected by private companies. Research conducted in the Technion by Ms. Iliel Blum, under Prof. Bekhor’s guidance, succeeds in identifying long-distance as well as short-distance travels, and to overcome the problems of “leaps” between adjacent antennas.

A method employed until recently, which used surveys, provided inaccurate results. Thus, for example, cell phone data showed that 28,000 people make their way from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem daily. The results of a survey conducted pointed to about half this true and accurate quantity. The reliance on similar surveys done in the past has had an adverse impact on current transportation planning.

Nonetheless, there are limitations that derive from the passive nature of the collection of such data, since the information collected anyway by the communications service providers is not designed for transportation uses, but rather for the orderly operation of the cell phone technology. One of the questions raised is the ethical question, which has to do with invasion of privacy. The Ministry of Transport received special permission to investigate travel habits using cell phones despite the fact that in many Western countries use of this method is avoided. Additional disadvantages are: lack of information about the travel goals, and non-familiarity with the characteristics of the traveler (whose data are not known to the cell phone company either, since it has only the details of the person billed, who could also be the user’s employer, parent, etc.). In addition, the means of transportation is also unclear.

Above: The stand of the Faculty of Materials Engineering, adorned with ties featuring the quasi–periodic crystals pattern, drew substantial attention following faculty member Prof. Dan Shechtman’s win of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Photo: Yoav Becher, Technion Spokesman

Technion scientists have developed a biological computer, composed entirely of DNA molecules and enzymes constructed on a gold-coated chip. This new computer represents a significant improvement over the original computer reported three years ago in a joint paper by Prof. Ehud Keinan of the Technion and a group from the Weizmann Institute of Science, which included Yaakov Benenson, Prof. Ehud Shapiro and Prof. Zvi Livneh. The Technion researchers succeeded in increasing the level of complexity of their computer. Whereas the original computer could accept up to 765 different programs, the new computer can accept as many as 1 billion programs. This increase represents a dramatic advance in terms of the potential mathematical operations and complexity of problems that may be solved using a biological computer. The results are published this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“An equally significant breakthrough is the incorporation of chips as an integral part of the computer”, explains Prof. Ehud Keinan, Dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Chemistry, who carried out this research together with graduate students Michal Soreni, Sivan Yogev, Elizaveta Kossoy, and Prof. Yuval Shoham, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. “The chip allows for automatic, real-time readout of the computation results, with no need to employ elaborate techniques of molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis and the use of radioactively labeled materials. Computation on a chip allows efficient parallel computation with many, geographically labeled input molecules. Such computers could have a variety of practical applications, including encryption of information. For example, it would be possible to encrypt images on a chip, whereby deciphering the images would be possible only by a person with access to a secret key comprised of several short DNA molecules and several enzymes.”

Prof. Keinan explains that a computer is, by definition, a machine made of four components: hardware, software, input and output. All of the currently known computers are electronic computers, namely, machines in which both input and output are electronic signals, the hardware is a complex composition of metallic and plastic components, wires, transistors, etc., and the software is a sequence of instructions given to the machine in the form of electronic signals. “In contrast to electronic computers, there are computing machines in which all four components are nothing but molecules,” says Prof. Keinan. “For example, all biological systems, and even entire living organisms, are such computers. Every one of us is a bio-molecular computer, that is, a machine in which all four components are molecules “talking” to one another in a logical manner. The hardware and software are complex biological molecules that activate one another to carry out some predetermined chemical work. The input is a molecule that undergoes specific, predetermined changes, following a specific set of rules (software) and the outcome of this chemical computation process, the output, is another well defined molecule.”

Over the past decade, bio-molecular computers have aroused much interest in the scientific community due to of their ability to carry out an enormous number of operations in parallel. A tiny drop of solution containing a large number of input molecules contains enormous computational power.