'Agile software testing' - A practical view of testing in a large scale agile development environment

Jon Tilt and Richard Coppen, IBM (20 May 2010)

Richard and Jon, Test architects from IBM's Hursley development laboratory, discuss the testing challenges facing agile software engineers, especially in large scale development projects.

Jon Tilt FBCS CITP, Chief Test Architect, IBM WebSphere MQ & ESB Development
Richard Coppen MBCS CITP, Test Architect, Ilog Development Integration

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FLYSAFE Initiatives for the Integration of Meteorological Data

Andrew Mirza, Met Office (20 April 2010)

Current projections for air passenger density indicate that it will double or triple world-wide within the next 20 years; this necessarily will require a higher air traffic density to support such movements. With the existing on-board and on-ground systems, this could lead to a proportionate increase in aircraft accidents. Despite the fact that air accidents are rare, any increase would be perceived as unacceptable by society. Therefore new systems and solutions must be found to maintain the number of accidents at its current low level thus factors that effect aircraft movements must be improved to enable the continuation of the safe conduct of flight within a higher air traffic density. Weather is one factor that causes disruption in air traffic flow.

Weather phenomena can evolve at rapid rates, over a wide spatial extent when compared to other factors that may affect the safe conduct of a flight. The impact of weather on air traffic management may cause a reduction in traffic flow rate at airports with consequent delays in departures, arrivals and diversions or cancellations. The effects of these are inconveniences to passengers; misplaced assets and increased costs through extra consumption of fuel affecting profitability for airline operations; and the environmental impact from noise and pollution.

Current air traffic planning assumes that fair weather conditions will predominate so the occurrence of adverse weather places extra demand on air traffic controllers as the effects on traffic flow are realised. The recovery time back toward an orderly traffic flow can take several days. Thus, within the spectrum of aeronautical information, forecast meteorological data or weather information is an important component for the efficient and effective management of air traffic in the future.

This presentation will describe the outcome of the weather component of the FLYSAFE project. How developments from the FLYSAFE project could be applied to air traffic management and for integration of weather information into automated decision support tools. FLYSAFE developments are placed into the wider context of developments occurring elsewhere within the aviation sector, where the drive is toward more automation of air traffic management.

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Mobile Phone Security: Key Challenges for 2010 and Beyond

Alan Goode, Goode Intelligence (09 March 2010)

How we use the mobile has dramatically changed over the last two years and its use means that it has become an always-connected mini computer with data at its centre. Business has become more mobile and is demanding more and more phone-based data-centric functionality - this can conflict with current infosec policy and practice that restricts its use to functions such as email and voice.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Digital Forensics for the Corporation

Dr John Haggerty, Lecturer in Information Systems Security, University of Salford (10 February 2010)

In recent years, the field of digital forensics has risen in prominence outside law enforcement due to the widespread use of technology by organisations. Digital forensics for the support of legal investigations is well established and procedures in this field are widely understood. However, this is not the case for the organisational or business environment. Companies may be faced with a variety of instances where in-house misuse of computing equipment may have occurred including fraud, money laundering, accessing or distributing pornography, harassment, industrial spying, or identity theft amongst others. This presentation provides an overview of the employment of digital forensics within the organisation. In particular, the organisational and legal issues of conducting digital investigations are discussed together with an overview of current practice. The presentation concludes with a discussion of future challenges and issues that affect digital forensics investigations.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Social Media, Community Building and the Law

James Barisic MBCS, Solicitor (26 January 2010)

James Barisic, IT Solicitor at Everys Solicitors, co-host of the PhotoLegal podcast and BCS Member, explores the legal and practical issues of community building using social media. Using tools such as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, James will illustrate how organisations can build communities online and the legal issues surrounding the use of such sites.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Why IT is paramount to the safety of Air Traffic Control

Trevor Arnold, NATS (25 November 2009)

NATS is responsible for providing air traffic control (ATC) services to aircraft flying in UK airspace, the eastern part of the North Atlantic and 15 of the UK's biggest airports.
Safety is NATS' first and foremost priority and IT plays a key role in ensuring that NATS can provide this service in an efficient and cost-effective way.
This talk will explore the role IT plays in the challenging environment of ATC and detail the potential implications of these systems failing.

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Towards Online Safety 3.0

Ken Corish, Education Advisor at Plymouth City Council (13 October 2009)

The online-safety messages most people are getting are still pretty much one-size-fits-all and focused largely on adult-to-child crime, rather than on what the growing bodies of both Net-safety and social-media research have found. It very often fails to recognize youth agency: young people as participants, stakeholders, and leaders in an increasingly participatory environment online and offline. Though its aim is certainly positive, its message is still negative and lacks context. Much of it is largely irrelevant to young people.
This talk will review the opportunities we have as educators and parents to build youth enrichment and empowerment. To protect and enable young people through digital literacy and citizenship and focussing on recent research from the USA and current examples from work in the South West.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Knowledge Management - an alternative view

Frank Land, (28 May 2009)

No further details available.

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The Second World War code breaking centre at Bletchley Park

John Gallehawk, Bletchley Park Trust (13 May 2009)

John will discuss the events leading to the setting-up of Bletchley Park in 1939 as the Government Code and Cipher School and its operation during the war. The presentation will include a virtual tour around the Park, as the Museum exists today on the site in many of the original buildings. Ending with a demonstration of the German Enigma cipher machine.

John retired in 1994 from Government Statistical Service and then became a volunteer with Bletchley Park Trust as a Guide and in the Archives, John is also involved with the Educational side of the Museum activities.

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How not to get bits in your beer - a look at how automation has changed our brewing heritage

Tim Machin, (10 March 2009)

Tim will review the recent history of the use of process automation within the brewing industry. He will follow the development of control systems from the 1960's to the present day and focus on the technical and management challenges faced together with their solutions
Tim has spent most of his career refereeing between hardware manufacturers, control system suppliers and the demands of brewers. During this period of rapid technological change he has helped to develop the industry approach to process automation whilst maintaining a healthy interest in the end product.

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Robotics Research At The University Of Plymouth: From Babies To Humanoid Robots

Angelo Cangelosi, Guido Bugmann and Phil Culverhouse, University of Plymouth (13 January 2009)

The latest developments in robotics research strategically focus on the design of humanoid robots that takes direct inspiration from our knowledge of human development (recent news article). For example, by studying how human children acquire language through interaction with their peers and parents, we can design autonomous robots that are capable of developing their own behaviour and linguistic capabilities through imitation and learning. This approach is commonly referred to as "cognitive robotics" or "developmental robotics". During the presentation we will provide an overview of current cognitive robotics projects at the School of Computing, Communications and Electronics (Computer Science and Informatics research). These include the €6.25 Million project "ITALK: Integration and Transfer of Action and Language Knowledge in Robots" (funded by the European Commission), the projects on "Virtual Research Centre for Personal Robotics" and on "VALUE: Vision, Action, and Language Unified by Embodiment" (funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), and the latest project on the development of the Plymouth University humanoid robot "Bunny Robot". The presentation of ongoing results and robotics experiments will demonstrate how such a cognitive robotics approach can help us overcome current limitations and challenges in personal robotics research.

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Wireless Networking - A pratical approach from Netgear

Neil Smart, VAR Pre Sales Consultant, UKI, Netgear (11 November 2008)

NETGEAR RangeMaxT NEXT generation wireless routers and adapters provide MAXIMUM wireless coverage and bandwidth, enabling you and your household to simultaneously connect to more brilliant online services than ever before.
Imagine connecting to the Internet from anywhere in the house, without a cable. Then imagine everyone in the house connecting at the same time, and doing different things - all at the same time:
Watch HD TV in the living room, browse the Internet in the study, play online games in the den, download MP3s from the dining room - all at the same time, all on a rock steady wireless signal that can cover the whole house.
That's what NETGEAR RangeMaxT NEXT wireless networking is capable off, no more frustrating interruptions or freezes.
Presentation notes in PDF format.

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Agile Business Analysis

Dot Tudor, DSDM Consortium (21 October 2008)

Dot will introduce the subject of “Agile” and discuss the process of Agile Business Analysis. This is an approach focused on delivering projects on time and in budget, whilst focusing on the business need and on delivering to the right level of quality. It breaks away from the “one big requirements specification” and "one big delivery" and the traditional divide between the end user and developer and brings in an incremental and iterative approach. The analysis and development of a solution in this Agile way is driven by business need and business value throughout the project and enables users a degree of mind-changing and learning as they evolve their requirements towards the best solution.
Presentation notes in PDF format.

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Run silent, run deep: today's threat landscape

David Emm, Senior Technology Consultant, Kaspersky Lab (13 May 2008)

Today's viruses, worms and Trojans are no longer isolated acts of hi-tech vandalism. In the last four years we've seen the increasing criminalization of the Internet, with malicious code being tailored specifically for the criminal underground to make money illegally. So-called 'bot' networks made up of Trojans are used to steal confidential data, to launch Distributed-Denial-of-Service attacks, to distribute spam or to download still more malicious code from remote web sites. With this has also come a shift in tactics from the writers of malicious code. We've seen a decline in the number of global epidemics as malware authors move away from the use of mass attacks on victims worldwide to low-key, localised attacks that make fewer headlines but more money.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Health Informatics (HI): what's all the fuss about?

Dr Max Hughes, (29 April 2008)

Max Hughes is a doctor working in mental health in the South West. His initial involvement with HI began in 2003, when he first became involved with intranet development. Since then, his interests include supporting other clinical staff in the effective use of healthcare information systems as well as looking at the ways Information Technologies can drive Quality Improvement in Healthcare.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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ProBlogging: Money, Metrics and Mentalism in the Long-Tail world of the Web

Dr Michael Evans, University of Reading (17 March 2008)

ProBlogging is the art of writing professional blogs to a wide web audience for profit. Thanks largely to innovations in the online advertising business, professionally written blogs can now earn significant income if implemented correctly.
This presentation will focus on the evolution of Dr. Evans's own ProBlog, MobileMentalism.com, which, over the past two years, has gained a readership of over 160,000 unique visitors per month, and which generates an extremely healthy profit. The presentation will discuss the various components of ProBlogging, showing how it is a fascinating blend of art and science, craft and technology, and will give an insight into the underlying dynamics of the Web that makes ProBlogging both possible and successful.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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Turning IT Security Inside Out

Jon Collins, Freeform Dynamics (12 February 2008)

The IT security industry has typically wanted us to focus on the threat of hackers, spammers and other undesirables from distant countries that want to break through the corporate firewall and wreak all kinds of havoc. But just how accurate a picture is this – or rather, how closely should we be scrutinising the actions of ourselves and our colleagues, to protect against not just malicious acts but also the potential for accidental damage? Against a background of organisations looking to remove, rather than build up their perimeters to enable better interworking with suppliers and customers, this presentation considers how to balance the risks of outsider damage whilst mitigating the threats from within.
Presentation notes in PDF format.
Watch the presentation from our streaming server.

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The impact of IT on the Marine Navigator

Andrew Eccleston PhD FRMetS CMet MNI FHEA , School of Earth, Ocean and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth (16th January 2008)

Andrew Eccleston is a member of academic staff at the University of Plymouth where he teaches students who are aiming for a career at sea, either as Merchant Navy deck officers or in the professional yachting industry.
Andrew was himself a Merchant Navy navigator and first came to Plymouth to study in 1970. In those days crossing an ocean required the use of astro navigation and radars were relatively crude devices that needed a separate manual plotting process to establish whether there was a risk of collision with another vessel.
Teaching at the University now involves the use of a multi-ship simulation system which incorporates electronic charts, GPS and automated radar plotting aids. As with many other complex safety-critical operational scenarios, Marine Navigation has been transformed by the introduction of computer-based technologies.
Andrew's talk will highlight some of the key navigation systems which have changed in recent years and look to future developments. Most of Andrew's professional life between serving at sea and coming back to teach at the University has been spent working with systems that process weather information and deliver services for media and aviation. The integration of weather information with marine navigation systems is a particular area of interest and will be demonstrated in the talk.
Presentation notes in PDF format (5.5MB).

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The State of Spyware: Protect Your Network from Evolving Spyware Trends

Colin Smith, Regional Account Manager, Europe, Webroot Software (13th November 2007)

Colin Smith will present current research on the evolution of spyware, reveal infection data from spyware audits, and explain current spyware trends, threats and propagation strategies. This session will also explain how spyware writers take advantage of security flaws and make users a vulnerable target and offer best practices to protect networks and systems from spyware attacks.
Presentation notes in PDF format (10MB)

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The Future of Security

David Lacey (David Lacey Consulting Limited) (8th May 2007)

The business environment of the future will be very different from today’s. Boundaries between organisations and between personal and business computing will dissolve. Everyone and everything will be linked to the Internet. In order to survive these radical changes, organisations must embrace the uncertainty and the new risks this environment creates. David Lacey, formerly Chief Information Security Officer for leading organizations such as Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Royal Mail Group, will explain the emerging trends in IT Security and outline his own vision for how Business, IT and Security will evolve over the next fifteen years.
Presentation notes in PDF format (1MB)

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From e-world to real world, the work of the CEOP centre

Maggie Brennan (Research Development and Strategy Advisor) and Mark Cameron (Digital Evidence Recovery Team), Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (26th April 2007)

The presentation opens with a description of the concept of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, its structure and current programmes of work, reviewing progress to date in each of the areas. The education programme, most wanted website, victim identification initiative, training programme, international strategy (G8 and VGT) will also be discussed. Finally the role and functions of research in the centre, key themes of research interest and the outreach strategy used to engage the research community are presented.
Presentation notes in PDF format (2MB)

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Security Research at the University of Plymouth

(13th March 2007)

Personal Privacy: I’ve got nothing to hide!
Mrs Shirley Atkinson, Network Research Group, University of Plymouth.
The explosion in the use of the Internet and the growth of the volume of available data has made collecting personal information about an individual easier than ever before. This exacerbates problems for vulnerable individual's that stem from the abuse of gathered information. Abuse and harm of individuals, through grooming, harassment and bullying, coexist with identity theft as examples of criminal behaviours, aggravated by the ready availability of personal information.
The Semantic Web is a proposed evolution of the Internet where data is made available in prescribed formats. Computers automatically gather, combine and reason providing a more context aware, more relevant experience for the end user. However, when considered in the context of an unobstructed exchange of personal data, there is potential to create privacy problems for vulnerable individuals.
This presentation introduces briefly the motivation for the research, some key findings and outlines how the Semantic Web is to be incorporated into a potential technological solution designed to benefit vulnerable groups, rather than compound their problems.
Presentation notes in PDF format (1MB)

Enhancing user authentication for mobile devices
Miss Sevasti Karatzouni, Network Research Group, University of Plymouth.
The evolution of mobile networks has brought a new range of services for mobile subscribers. In parallel with this, devices such as cellphones and PDAs are becoming more sophisticated tools; with data processing, storage and communication capabilities getting closer to the functionality of desktop computers. As such, the information that can be accessed and stored in such devices is becoming more and more sensitive. Current PIN-based authentication has proven to be an insufficient, inconvenient, and often unpopular approach. This research is seeking to devise to a more robust and flexible authentication mechanism for mobile handsets, which can provide security using a multi-level and multi-factor authentication approach. This presentation mainly focuses upon provide the findings from a focus group that took place as part of the early research, in order to assess the views and attitudes of mobile users towards the security of their devices.
Presentation notes in PDF format (2MB)

Intrusion Detection Systems: Facts, Challenges and Futures
Miss Gina Tjhai, Network Research Group, University of Plymouth.
Intrusion Detection System plays a vital role as a last defence against computer attacks. However, due to the sheer size and complexity of intrusions, along with the continuing growth of network computing, IDS technology is deemed to be far from perfect. As IT infrastructure becomes larger and more complicated, IDS systems tend to generate a large number of false alarms, which can overwhelm human operators. This talk will provide an introduction to the technology, its benefits, and the challenges faced by IDS systems. Relevant research in this area is addressing novel techniques to enhance IDS performance. Looking through the existing research of IDS system, which is then followed by the prospective approaches of new IDS technology, this will give us a brief overview on how a better IDS system could be developed, with a higher detection possibility and lower false alarm rate.
Presentation notes in PDF format (150KB)

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Professionalism in IT - What it is and how we get it

Charles Hughes, former BCS President (20th February 2007)

The BCS is leading a major programme to create the ‘Profession of the 21st Century’
Exploiting the full potential of IT is now critical to both individual enterprises and national economies. Meeting that challenge demands much greater corporate and individual professionalism. It also requires an IT profession with stronger business competences, capable as acting not just as technical solution provider but also as business transformation partner. Charles will explain the importance of the BCS Professionalism in IT programme and how it will transform the industry.
Presentation notes in PDF format (1.7MB)

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Peer-to-Peer Networks: Facts, Controversies and their Future

Dr Nikos Antonopoulos, University of Surrey (14th November 2006)
Peer-to-Peer networks have certainly generated plenty of controversy. On the one hand they have been hailed as the next evolutionary step of the Internet while they have also received significant criticism in terms of the nature of the applications they are being designed to support. Is this a technology we should be keeping an eye on and consider including in University Computing programmes or is it something we should dismiss as a platform for illegal file and content sharing? This talk will provide a gentle introduction to the technology, challenges and innovations P2P networks have brought into Computer Science in general and Distributed Systems in particular. Significant research over the past five years has started yielding numerous different P2P systems. Going through their principles of operation, popular myths and the scientific facts surrounding them we'll try to understand what the future holds for P2P computing and whether there is any potential for such systems to provide the basis for useful (and legal) high performance applications.
Presentation notes in PDF format (1.6MB)

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Life, the World and Information Security in a Global Bank

James McKeogh, Information Risk Management, Barclays Wealth Management (10th October 2006)
Providing a consistent and appropriate level of security and risk control in an ever changing, re-strategising and permanently evolving institution can really take its toll. Finding the balance between pragmatic and SarbOx Compliant, is it more art or science? How can a Security Professional, really hope to add benefit while showing true ROI on what they are doing? Is it really possible to please all of the people some of the time? An insight into the real world problems and needs of an industry that likes to be ahead of the game without putting its neck out.

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Future Internet (and AGM)

Andy Press, Eclipse Internet (9th May 2006)
Details to follow
AGM minutes available here.

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Soft Buildings

Mike Phillips, iDAT, University of Plymouth (14th March 2006)
Buildings are solid, monolithic, static structures of steel, stone and glass. Buildings are at their most dynamic during the phases of construction and ossify from the point of completion. They occupy a different timescale to the rest of us, unlike the Mayfly that enacts its lifespan in the space of a day, or our three score and ten, buildings emerge from a long gestation to face the elements for periods that can span a thousand years. Or they used to - increasingly the contemporary built environment ebbs and flows, generating a dynamically changing landscape as buildings are designed, constructed and demolished in the time it used to take to construct a model. This state of flux is enhanced by the addition of surveillance systems, telematic communication networks and environmental monitoring and control technologies. All these factors provide a new tangible dimensionality to contemporary architecture.
Arch-OS is an 'Operating System' that harnesses these new architectural, technological and social dimensions. Arch-OS, 'software for buildings', has been developed to manifest the social, technological and environmental life of a building and provide a living laboratory for cultivating transdisciplinary knowledge. Arch-OS buildings will be permanently in a state of flux. By feeding on the diverse forms of dynamic data that are generated by a building, its environment and its occupants, Arch-OS transforms the architects drawings, the brick, steel, glass and fiber-optic infrastructure into a living breathing environment. Arch-OS provides users of buildings with a spatial and temporal consciousness, essentially re-programming human activity through a heightened social, architectural awareness. Arch-OS combines a rich mix of the physical and virtual into a new dynamic architecture, an 'intelligent' entity, that interacts, responds and anticipates: Arch-OS is a nervous system for multidimensional buildings.
'Soft Buildings' explores some of the 'dimensions' made manifest by Arch-OS. Specifically the generation of new kinds of social space, a new kind of model, generated by a soft building.

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Project Management for eBusiness

John Carroll, Carroll Consultants (17th January 2006)
This presentation set out the results of a study to establish which elements of project management methodology and processes are considered critical to the success of an eBusiness project. 26 projects were analysed by demographics, project size, criticality of processes and methodologies used. The data was further analysed to identify the processes and methodologies that had a correlation to project success. The presentation covered the 10 most critical and 5 most beneficial processes, the most popular and most successful methodologies and explored some other popular hypotheses.
Presentation notes in PDF format (97KB)

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At the Crossroads of Evolutionary Computation and Music

Prof Eduardo Miranda, University of Plymouth (13th December 2005)

Evolutionary Computation (EC) may have varied applications in Music. This paper introduces three approaches to using EC in Music (namely, engineering, creative and musicological approaches) and discusses examples of representative systems that have been developed within the last decade, with emphasis on more recent and innovative works. We begin by reviewing engineering applications of EC in Music Technology such as Genetic Algorithms and Cellular Automata sound synthesis, followed by an introduction to applications where EC has been used to generate musical compositions. Next, we briefly introduce our ongoing research into EC models to study the evolution of music in surrogate worlds.

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Data/IP over Satellite Communications

Mr Des Prouse (NLGD5), Head of Technology & Service Development, BT Wholesale – Radio, Subsea & Satellite Communications (8th November 2005)
The aim of this presentation is to give an introduction to the technology and terms associated with computer networking via commercial satellite communications systems. A tutorial approach will be used to show how data transmission methods have evolved over 35 years in the satellite field from 2.4 Kbit/s voice-band-data to 155Mbit/s Internet backbone connectivity. Some current example services will be briefly described to show how designers cope with the issues of using the Internet Protocol (IP) over a geostationary satellite communications link.
Presentation notes in PDF format (2.54MB)

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The Ten Commandments of Information Security Culture

Prof Rossouw von Solms, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa (11th October 2005)
Presentation notes in PDF format (544KB)

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Software Asset Management: An Information Security Perspective

Prof Reinhardt Botha, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa (11th October 2005)

Presentation notes in PDF format (356KB)

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BCS Project Evening 2005 (26th April)

Philip Symmonds, Project Management System (446KB),
Christos Makedonas, Dolce Musica Music School Website and Intranet Site System (2.6MB),
Tew Kar Leong, Generic Calculator Constructor (1.2MB),
Martin Wilson, Data Retrieval and Manipulation in a Retail Environment (155KB).

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Attitudes to e-Government

Dr Andy Phippen, University of Plymouth (12th April 2005)
Presentation notes in pdf format (85 KB)

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From Virtual Communities to Virtual Enterprises: A Business Perspective

Dr Brendan D'Cruz, Northampton Business School (12th April 2005)
Presentation notes in pdf format (169 KB)

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Computer Forensics - Corporate Negligence

Dr Andy Jones, BT Security Research Centre (1st March 2005)
Presentation notes in pdf format (187 KB)

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Who is to blame for IT Project failures?

Phil Davis (10th January 2005)
Presentation notes in pdf format (18 KB)

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Responding to the threat

Graeme Pinkney, Symantec Managed Security Services (December 2004)
Presentation notes in pdf format (7.6 MB)

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Bot Wars I: The attack of the parasitic clones

Jeremy Ward, Symantec (October 2004)
Presentation notes in pdf format (1.5 MB)

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The Threat Landscape and Security Trends

Jeremy Ward, Symantec (July 2004)
Presentation notes in pdf format (2.3 MB)