Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Breaking Weak 1024-Bit Rsa Keys Using Cuda, Kerry Scharfglass, Darrin Weng, Joseph White, Christopher Lupo

Computer Science and Software Engineering

An exploit involving the greatest common divisor (GCD) of RSA moduli was recently discovered [1]. This paper presents a tool that can efficiently and completely compare a large number of 1024-bit RSA public keys, and identify any keys that are susceptible to this weakness. NVIDIA's graphics processing units (GPU) and the CUDA massively-parallel programming model are powerful tools that can be used to accelerate this tool. Our method using CUDA has a measured performance speedup of 27.5 compared to a sequential CPU implementation, making it a more practical method to compare large sets of keys. A computation for finding GCDs …

Pyroprinting Sensitivity Analysis On The Gpu, Douglas Brandt, Aldrin Montana, Bob Somers, Alex Dekhtyar, Christopher Lupo, Michael Black, Anya Goodman, Christopher Kitts

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Microbial Source Tracking (MST) is a field in which microbial strains are identified and associated with a specific host source (e.g., human, canine, avian, etc). Identifying the hosts of microbial strains lies at the heart of many studies of bacterial contamination in the environment. Being able to determine which host species is responsible, e.g., for fecal contamination of a creek, allows the parties involved to develop specific measures for addressing the contamination. The paper presents an in-silico study to investigate the sensitivity of the pyroprinting method. Given a collection of possible DNA sequences that can be found in the sequenced …

Building Semantic Corpus From Wordnet, Lubomir Stanchev

Computer Science and Software Engineering

We propose a novel methodology for extracting semantic similarity knowledge from semi-structured sources, such as WordNet. Unlike existing approaches that only explore the structured information (e.g., the hypernym relationship in WordNet), we present a framework that allows us to utilize all available information, including natural language descriptions. Our approach constructs a semantic corpus. It is represented using a graph that models the relationship between phrases using numbers. The data in the semantic corpus can be used to measure the similarity between phrases, the similarity between documents, or to perform a semantic search in a set of documents that uses the …

On Teaching Arrays With Test-Driven Learning In Webide, Michael Hilton, David S. Janzen

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Test-driven development (TDD) has been shown to reduce defects and to lead to better code, but can it help beginning students learn basic programming topics, specifically arrays? We performed a controlled experiment where we taught arrays to two CS0 classes, one using WebIDE, an intelligent tutoring system that enforced the use of Test-Driven Learning (TDL) methods, and one using more traditional static methods and a development environment that instructed, but did not enforce the use of TDD. Students who used the TDL approach with WebIDE performed significantly better in assessments and had significantly higher opinions of their experiences than students …

Tacky Golf, Robert Crosby

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This project implements a simple miniature golf game in 3d for the iPhone. Using a modular approach the game engine was written in several modules to handle its various functions and for cross platform potability. Four major modules are described in detail about their design choices and how they work. Ultimately the game and its engine are intended to be sold on the Apple App store and to be used for future games and applications on the iPhone.

Outage Detection Via Real-Time Social Stream Analysis: Leveraging The Power Of Online Complaints, Eriq Augustine, Caitlin Cushing, Alex Dekhtyar, Kevin Mcentee, Kimberly Paterson, Matt Tognetti

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Over the past couple of years, Netflix has significantly expanded its online streaming offerings, which now encompass multiple delivery platforms and thousands of titles available for instant view. This paper documents the design and development of an outage detection system for the online services provided by Netflix. Unlike other internal quality control measures used at Netflix, this system uses only publicly available information: the tweets, or Twitter posts, that mention the word “Netflix,” and has been developed and deployed externally, on servers independent of the Netflix infrastructure. This paper discussed the system and provides assessment of the accuracy of its …

Zen Cart Shopper, Michael Mcmahon

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Zen Cart is a popular e-commerce tool for building a shopping cart web site. A typical Zen Cart store is not well suited for the small touch screens commonly found on today’s smart phones. Zen Cart Shopper is a solution for Android systems which employs web scraping techniques to display a store’s content in a smart phone friendly interface. This report describes the design and implementation of the Zen Cart Shopper app for Android.

An Algorithm For Quantum Circuit Optimization, Raymond Garwei Wong

Computer Science and Software Engineering

In the past 20 years, many researchers shifted their focus to developing computers based on quantum mechanical phenomenon as current computers started to plateau in performance. Some problems such as integer factorization have been shown to perform much more efficiently on a quantum computer than on its classical counterpart. However, quantum computers will continue to remain the object of theoretical research unless it can be physically manifested, and quantum circuit optimization hopes to be a useful aid in turning the theory into a reality. My project looks at a possible approach to solving the issue of circuit optimization by incorporating …

Improving First-Year Success And Retention Through Interest-Based Cs0 Courses, Michael Haungs, Christopher Clark, John Clements, David Janzen

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Many computer science programs suffer from low student retention rates. At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, academic performance and retention rates among first year computer science students are among the lowest on campus.

In order to remedy this, we have developed a new CS0 course featuring different "tracks" that students can choose from (e.g. robotics, gaming, music, mobile apps). This allows students to learn the basics of programming, teamwork, and college-level study in a domain that is of personal interest. In addition, the course relies on classic Project-based Learning (PBL) approaches as well as a focus on both academic and …

Cross Teaching Parallelism And Ray Tracing: A Project-Based Approach To Teaching Applied Parallel Computing, Chris Lupo, Zoë J. Wood, Christine Victorino

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Massively parallel Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware has become increasingly powerful, available and affordable. Software tools have also advanced to the point that programmers can write general purpose parallel programs that take advantage of the large number of compute cores available in the hardware. With literally hundreds of compute cores available on a single device, program performance can increase by orders of magnitude. We believe that introducing students to the concepts of parallel programming for massively parallel hardware is of increasing importance in an undergraduate computer science curriculum. Furthermore, we believe that students learn best when given projects that reflect …

Run Your Research: On The Effectiveness Of Lightweight Mechanization, Casey Klein, John Clements, Christos Dimoulas, Carl Eastlund, Matthias Felleisen, Matthew Flatt, Jay A. Mccarthy, Jon Rafkind, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, Robert Bruce Findler

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Formal models serve in many roles in the programming language community. In its primary role, a model communicates the idea of a language design; the architecture of a language tool; or the essence of a program analysis. No matter which role it plays, however, a faulty model doesn't serve its purpose.

One way to eliminate flaws from a model is to write it down in a mechanized formal language. It is then possible to state theorems about the model, to prove them, and to check the proofs. Over the past nine years, PLT has developed and explored a lightweight version …