Ransomware that makes you WannaCry
The Internet was attacked on Friday, May 12, 2017, by a fast-spreading piece of malware that asks infected users to pay up if they want to see their data again. It has already affected 200,000 victims…
Author Archives: Ray Klump
Online Privacy: Same Unicorn, But More Menacing
President Trump signed the congressional repeal of online privacy rules that had been put forth by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama Administration. In the short term, that amounts practically…
Historic Yahoo Breach Traced to Russian Hackers
An historically large online data breach against Yahoo! that exposed the data of over half a billion of its customers has been traced to a team of Russian hackers. The perpetrators carried out the breach…
Privacy and the Nature of Cake in an Encrypted World
James Comey stated the obvious today. He suggested, “There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America.” Does this shock anyone? Does this even disappoint anyone? It doesn’t shock or disappoint me. And I’m…
Computers to Planes: You’re Grounded
Airline disruptions have been in the news a lot over the past few years. Failures in information technology services have caused a number of these problems. These incidents make very clear the dependence of modern…
Computer Science Cyber Defense Group Takes Third Place at State Competition
The Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences took home the Third Place trophy at the State of Illinois Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (IL-CCDC) on Saturday, February 18. The eight students who represented Lewis Computer Science…
Iteration versus Recursion in the Context of Simulating America’s Return to Greatness
Iteration and recursion are two ways to repeat a set of instructions. Iteration involves using loops to control the repetition. Loops can be either counter-controlled or sentinel-controlled. Counter-controlled loops repeat a set of statements a…
Avenging the Revenge of the Nerds
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, manage. American voters, or at least the Electoral College members, have placed their faith in the seasoned acumen of the businessman (and the occasional business woman). They celebrate…
This Is Not the Time to Be a Luddite
Donald Trump correctly claimed “No computer is safe.” He then went on to espouse the virtues of delivering important messages by courier and talking up his knowledge of cyber security, saying “I know a lot…
Will Hacks Mellow Yellow Journalism?
In retrospect, perhaps it was naive to think that after arguably the most acerbic and bizarre presidential race in our nation’s history, controversies would cease and a peaceful, uncontested transfer of power would bring an…