SPICE Participates in Luddy Hall Pathfinder Educators’ Open House


The School of Informatics Computing and Engineering (SICE) at Indiana University hosted an event to showcase SICE’s educational opportunities and offerings to teachers in the Pathfinders program. Visiting educators took the opportunity to explore Luddy Hall‘s new facilities and learn more about SICE.

Security and Privacy in Informatics Computing and Engineering (SPICE) teams presented on the first, second, and third floors on topics of security and privacy. In addition to our SPICE teams, the SICE’s Intelligent System Engineering (ISE) teams demonstrated their new labs and capabilities on the fourth floor, while SICE’s Undergraduate Recruitment team  shared SICE’s educational offerings on the first floor, and Collaborative Technology’s Manager, Dave Cooley, demonstrated Luddy Hall’s advanced classroom technologies on the lower level.

Pathfinders is a program by Infosys Foundation USA. Pathfinders 2018 was hosted on the Indiana University Bloomington campus July 15th-20th. Their program is expansive and an estimated 300 educators from the program joined us for the Luddy open house.

Of the several SPICE presenters, Joshua Streiff, the project manager of the IoT House, presented information about the school’s education efforts in Capture the Flag (CTF) education for middle and high school students and educators. Running a live CTF game demonstration, he led attendees through sample questions and solutions while explaining the importance of the cybersecurity education as a skillset all students should be given access to.

Cyberdefense education is not the domain of just a small set of highly specialized students and teachers.  It is for anyone who can problem solve and think creatively. It forces students to find solutions, but even more than that it forces them to find the pathways to solutions.  They have the entire internet to help them solve the kinds of real world problems that cyberdefenders encounter daily and wrestle with in a hands on, project based educational model.

Sanchari Das, a PhD Student, presented her research on the Yubico Smart Plug, WhatsApp Indian Users, and Grifting. Her work on online safety and privacy includes research study participants from all over the world and deals with concerns for all levels of users of Facebook, WhatsApp, and other online tools.

Olivia Kenny, an Undergraduate Researcher, presented on the IoT House, IoT device vulnerabilities, and undergraduate outreach by SPICE. Olivia enjoyed getting to meet educators, stating that:

I was happy to see teachers interested in technology and happy to see that they were eager to learn more. I think it’s great that these teachers want to bring information about technology back into their classrooms. I was glad to be able to introduce them to certain aspects of IoT devices and security risks.

Professor Raquel Hill and her research team were on hand to present on mobile application security.  Dr. Hill’s work focusses not only directly on mobile application security but also addresses the nexus between online information sharing and the use of that information by employers in the hiring process.

SPICE was eager to engage with educators and the Pathfiders program and partner with SICE for the open house. Outreach is important as a vital element in the future of security and privacy in informatics.