SPECIAL 95TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
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THE EMORY WHEEL The South’s Most Independent Collegiate Newspaper
Vol. 95
No. 44
April 18, 2014
Technology
Emory warns students of ‘Heartbleed Bug’ BY BRANDON FUHR Senior Staff Writer Emory has the necessary safeguards in place to block attempted exploits of the nationwide Heartbleed Bug, a weakness in the cryptographic software that protects usernames and passwords, according to an April 14 information security email sent to all students. The bug is a serious vulnerability because it allows for unauthorized users to gain access to sensitive data, including user login information and passwords, according to the email. The bug specifically affects OpenSSL, a security component used on many platforms and websites. Specifically, Emory OpenSSL is a component to a system that ensures the safety of usernames and passwords. According to the email, the bug was announced on Monday, April 7 and a fixed version of OpenSSL was released at the same time. Organizations worldwide have changed their software to accommodate the loophole. On Tuesday, Emory had all the necessary protocols in place to alert Emory systems of attempts to compromise Emory’s network. Since then, no known attempts have been made to gain access into the network infrastructure. By Wednesday, Emory had “preventative safeguards” in place to block attempts to
compromise Emory’s systems, according to the April 14 information security email. Derek Spransy, senior information security specialist, wrote in an email to the Wheel that he could not share any additional details beyond what was said in the email sent to community members. He added that the community will be alerted via email if there are additional updates. According to the email, Emory Information Security is focusing on some systems at a higher risk in an ongoing effort to reduce any potential vulnerability. The email also states that it is important that Emory community members protect themselves from the vulnerability. Some of the actions the email suggests to take are to change passwords logged into since April 7 and to change passwords again in three to four weeks. The email also stated that it is important to make sure all operating systems, browsers and other applications are up to date to ensure that personal computers are protected. It is not necessary to change Emory passwords, according to the email. Emory Information Security will be continuing to evaluate the community’s exposure to the issue and ensures that the community will be aware if further action needs to be taken. — Contact Brandon Fuhr at brandon.spencer.fuhr@emory.edu
PHOTO BY MICHAEL FIER (STAFF) Edward Goodwin Scruggs Conducting Chair Richard Prior ( LEFT) shook the hand of College senior Thomas Sandlin (RIGHT) after the Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus performance of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
Health sciences
NIH awards Emory $3.6M research grant BY LYDIA O’NEAL Senior Staff Writer A branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a contract of $3.6 million to Emory’s Influenza Pathogenesis and Immunology Research Center (IPIRC), a program dedicated to investigating and preventing the spread of
influenza, according to IPIRC Director Walter Orenstein. In an April 9 press release, the NIH announced its renewed financial awards to the five centers dedicated to flu research under the NIH branch known as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Emory’s IPIRC, one of the five NIAID centers known colloqui-
Feature story
Decoding Emory’s Hackathon
College senior Christal Wang ( LEFT) and Georgia Institute of Technology sophomore Kush Patel (RIGHT) worked on
PHOTO BY JENNA K INGSLEY
their app, PhotoSinc, Saturday night at the Emory Hackathon.
BY JENNA KINGSLEY Student Life Editor It’s 11 p.m. in the Math and Science building’s biggest lecture hall. But instead of the silent, deserted place it is most Saturday nights, the room is alive with a quiet energy. Students working in hushed tones are scattered all about the giant space. In the middle of the room, three young men type furiously on their keyboards, surrounded by a mountain of empty water bottles and Coke cans. In the front of the room, someone laughs as a fellow group member writes an equation on an alreadycrowded whiteboard. In the corner, a student bangs his hands on his laptop and consults his team with frustration. “You see?” he says. “It works when I move my hand over the sensor. But on the monitor, it’s reverse! Did you see that?” The focus, laughter and frustration all are directed at one event: Emory Hackathon 2014, a 32 hour competition to build an app, or hack, with a team and showcase the creation to win a multitude of prizes. This year’s hackathon was hosted throughout the Math and Science building from April 12 at 10 a.m. until April 13 at 5 p.m. The event was co-hosted by Microsoft, who offered over $5000 in prizes for skilled coders and beginners and boasted more than 200 in total attendance. But what is a hackathon? And what is it that’s being hacked? At events like Emory Hackathon, there’s no actual “hacking” in the mainstream sense of the word. The goal is never to hack into another account or get through the firewall of a government database. Rather, a hackathon is an event where computer programmers come together to work intensively on software products and programs. It’s a combination of the words “hack” and “marathon,” hence the need for computer prowess and
coding stamina. College hackathons started gaining popularity in the spring of 2009, when a hackathon at the University of Pennsylvania, PennApps, was born. Since then, hackathons have grown in quantity and attendance on campuses around the nation. Many hackathons offer big prizes for the most innovative creations. PennApps has since grown to host over 2500 hackers and offer upwards of $30,000 in rewards. Emory Hackathon, only in its second year, cannot yet boast those types of numbers. But it is growing, and quickly. Last year, Emory Hackathon was a small event with around 50 participants. This year, over 200 students participated. While some participants were Emory students, many came from neighboring schools like Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) or Georgia State University. Hackers came from five different states, and their education backgrounds ranged from high school to medical school. “Hackathons are the biggest thing to happen to CS (computer science) in a long time,” College senior and lead organizer for the event Tom Mou said. Mou, along with many others from the Emory Robotics and Computer Engineering Club, dedicated many months to planning this year’s event. The team spent much of their time obtaining sponsors, planning logistics and even hosted coding workshops for beginners in preparation for the competition. Mou stressed the importance of gaining sponsors for events like this on campus. Continued on page 10
ally as the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS), could potentially receive $26.7 million over the next seven years of the contract’s duration, depending on the center’s year-by-year research-based financial needs during that period, Orenstein said. Orienstein, a School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health professor, added that the last seven-year sum, given to the IPIRC in April 2007, totaled $32.8 million. “I am very satisfied with the contract,” Orenstein said, adding that it will help Emory and its IPIRC subcontractor, the University of Georgia, to “answer some of the key questions about influenza, which should help in reducing the substantial global health burden influenza viruses exact each year.” This year’s award marks the first donation since the establishment of the five CEIRS centers in 2007, according to Orenstein, who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) before he became director and principal investigator of the IPIRC in 2011. Emory Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Richard Compans, who is now co-principal investigator at the IPIRC, served as Orenstein’s predecessor from 2007, when the IPIRC was established, to 2011. According to a panel review of the centers conducted by NIAID in October 2011, the CEIRS program grew out of a 2006 NIAID panel on influenza research, which aimed to identify knowledge gaps concerning the virus. The latter panel found that progress was needed in the areas of influenza vaccines, animalhuman transmission and laboratory analysis, among others. In March 2007, NIAID created six centers, two of which left the group since then and one, based at Johns Hopkins University, will
enter and was just given its first NIAID contract, according to the press release. Each center tackles a facet of influenza described in the press release and can change its specific focus over time. IPIRC plans to look at strains of the flu carried by swine and poultry, as well as the responses of pregnant women to the virus. The University of Rochester’s CEIRS center plans to study how the human immune system reacts to infection and vaccination. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City will examine the range of animals capable of carrying the virus.
“Of greatest concern at the moment is an influenza A virus termed ‘H7N9.”’ -Walter Orenstein IPIRC Director Immediately following the 2009 H1N1 influenza, or “swine flu” pandemic, the CEIRS network quickly characterized the virus and tested possible vaccines, according to the press release. “Of the greatest concern at the moment is an influenza A virus termed ‘H7N9,’” Orenstein said, adding that it has led to 286 human cases since the end of December. But Orenstein said there’s no need to pull out the hand sanitizer yet; the virus hasn’t left mainland China and appears to have difficulty spreading from infected birds to humans and from humans to other humans, so the strain doesn’t pose much of a threat.
— Contact Lydia O’Neal at lmoneal@emory.edu
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