Be Venturesome
Although it is natural to describe a project that you know can be done,
some of the course should be directed to inquiry. Whether that is in
book reading or in web search, the hope is that you'll come up with
something on a problem noone has yet solved. You can put some of that in
as part of what your project can accomplish.
In issues like the year 2000 and computer security there are real needs.
There are simple but necessary items that customers can't do on their
own. For example, posting the filtering programs to the CS 190 site so
email and other files can rapidly be converted to readable html. Other
things are needed - one student who wrote such a program mentioned the
pipe that would run its output through vi - to make those pieces of code
into parts of a project. Likewise, there's a big bundle of money
available for anyone who addresses realistic Y2K or computer-security
issues. One is discussed below.
A Reuters News Item
Friday April 18 11:58 AM EDT
Many Firms Not Checking Computer Security--Survey
ATLANTA - Nearly 40 percent of risk managers surveyed by Price
Waterhouse said their company performs comprehensive computer checks
only occasionally or not at all.
About 18 percent of the risk managers, surveyed at the Risk and
Insurance Management Society conference here, said their companies
perform such computer security checks annually and another 31 percent
said their companies check computer security twice a year or more.
In response to a separate question, about 20 percent of the respondents
said their company had been a victim of white collar crime, the theft of
funds or resources of $100,000 or more, over the past year.
Close to 60 percent of the risk managers said the preparation of claims
using in-house staff had either an extremely disruptive or somewhat
disruptive impact on normal job duties.
More than 60 percent of the respondents said they would consider
retaining law firms for the preparation of an insurance claim.
Copyright, Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved