Home
Meetings
Seminars
The Real Times
What is GBC/ACM?
This page was last updated on
Sunday, 26-May-2002 17:36:29 PDT
Past GBC/ACM Meetings for 1998-1999
Walter Jones
Vice President, Engineering
Maker Communications, Inc., Framingham, Mass.
Thursday, June 17, 1999
6:30 pm Refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Cambridge
Dr. Stephen T. Kent of BBN, GTE, and CyberTrust
Thursday, May 20, 1999
6:30 pm Refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Cambridge
Charles Lamb of Sun
Thursday, April 15, 1999
6:30 pm Refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Cambridge
Panel Discussion
6:15 pm Refreshments, 6:30 pm presentation.
Thursday, March 25, 1999
Marcam Corp., Newton
Joint meeting with IEEE/CS
Jim Belfiore
Netscape Communications, Inc.
6:30 refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
Thursday, February 18, 1999
BBN (GTE Internetworking), Cambridge
Benson Margulies
Basis Technology
6:30 refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
Thursday, January 21, 1999
BBN (GTE Internetworking), Cambridge
Lawrence C. Stewart and G. Winfield Treese
Open Market, Inc.
6:30 refreshments, 7:00 pm presentation.
Thursday, December 17, 1998
BBN (GTE Internetworking), Cambridge
Else-Marie Ostling, President, BIRKA Group, Inc.
6:30 pm
Thursday, November 19, 1998
BBN, Cambridge
Note: Joint Meeting with IEEE Computer Society
Jeremy Allaire, Allaire Corp.
Thursday, September 24, 1998
Hynes Convention Center
Return to GBC/ACM Home Page.
See past GBC/ACM Meetings
for the 1997-1998 season.
See past GBC/ACM Meetings
for the 1996-1997 season.
Meeting Details
June, 1999 Meeting
Subject
High Speed Communications Processors and Applications
Speaker
Walter Jones
Vice President, Engineering
Maker Communications, Inc., Framingham, Mass.
Date
Thursday, June 17, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 pm with informal discussion and light refreshments.
Presentation begins at 7:00 pm.
Location
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Fawcett Street, Cambridge
See below for directions.
Meeting Overview
Maker Communications develops network processor chips and software applications
that use them. The environment is optimized for supporting applications
such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) segmentation and reassembly (SAR),
traffic classification, queuing and traffic shaping . These tasks are partitioned
across parallel processors including a RISC core with an instruction set
designed specifically for communications processing as well as multiple,
internal co-processors. The result is technology that performs parallel
operations specific to communications traffic processing in order to keep
up with the explosive bandwidth growth on the Internet.
Our ability to keep up with the WAN wire speed while continuing to broaden
our functionality at the same time is attributable to several factors:
riding the leading edge of the semiconductor technology curves through
the use of tools and design techniques, such as ASIC's, for getting to
market quickly; understanding and learning from the evolution and architectural
advances in microprocessors; and continually coming up with innovative
ways to partition network applications into parallel subtasks and execute
these subtasks in parallel in a processor. This presentation gives a short
summary of the advances in the first two technologies as background while
spending the remainder of the time describing how we apply parallel processing
techniques to broaden our capabilities in networking applications.
Speaker Biography
Walt has over 20 years experience in the communications and computer systems
industry. Prior to joining Maker, he was VP of R&D at Videoserver Corporation
where he led the development of network bridges for video and audio conferencing.
Previously, he was at Stratus Computer where he led the development of
fault tolerant clusters. Walt was also VP of Engineering at a startup called
Coral Networks that was eventually bought by Bay Networks, where he managed
the development of multi-protocol routers. In addition, he worked in architecture
and central processor design while at Prime Computer. Walt holds a BSEE
from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and an MSEE from Northeastern
University. Walt's interests are in the area of network processor architecture
with particular focus on the hardware/software interactions and tradeoffs
needed to achieve high performance.
Election of New GBC/ACM Officers
The GBC/ACM will hold its annual election at its June 17 meeting. The Nominating
Committee unanimously voted to present the following slate:
-
President: Jim Ganino
-
Vice-President: Jim Byrd
-
Secretary: Ed Bristol
-
Treasurer: Stephanie Collins
May, 1999 Meeting
Subject
The Mao Zedong Approach to Public Key Infrastructures
Speaker
Dr. Stephen T. Kent
Chief Scientist--Information Security, BBN Technologies
Director, Security Practice Center, GTE Internetworking
Chief Technical Officer, CyberTrust
Date
Thursday, May 20, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 pm with informal discussion and light refreshments.
Presentation begins at 7:00 pm.
Location
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Fawcett Street, Cambridge
See below for directions.
Meeting Overview
Some popular models of public key infrastructure (PKI) embody a notion
that only a few certificates will be issued to each user to represent that
user in interactions with many different applications (services). Generic,
public CAs like those operated by VeriSign adopt this notion. However,
operating a public CA service of this sort requires balancing liability
concerns, acceptable cost models, levels of authentication assurance, and
name space issues. It is not clear that this model scales well or that
it does a good job of addressing the needs of both subscribers and relying
parties.
Another approach to PKIs is motivated by the observation that individuals
have many existing relationships with various organizations. This approach
leverages the existing databases maintained by organizations to track employees,
customers, members, etc. Certificates issued by organizations not for general
use, but focused on a specific application context, avoid many of the problems
facing generic, public CAs. For example, liability can be well understood
because the certificate is bounded in its use. The level of assurance for
authentication is determined solely by the issuer, in the context of the
application, and the issuer's database provides data associated with the
subject that may be used to support on-line registration with fairly high
levels of assurance. Naming problems disappear because each subject is
already assigned a unique name in the issuer's database.
Speaker Biography
In his role as Chief Scientist, Dr. Kent provides oversees information
security activities within BBN Technology, and works with government and
commercial clients, consulting on system security architecture issues.
In this capacity he has acted as system architect in the design and development
of several network security systems for the Department of Defense and served
as principal investigator on a number of network security R&D projects
for almost 20 years. As Director of the SPC, Dr. Kent monitors all security
related aspects of the service offerings of GTE Internetworking Services.
He reports to the President of GTE Internetworking and coordinates with
engineering, operations, and marketing to ensure the security quality of
offerings. As CTO for CyberTrust Solutions, Dr. Kent provides strategic
direction for this certification authority business, reporting to the General
Manager of CyberTrust.
Over the last 20 years, Dr. Kent's R&D activities have included
the design and development of user authentication and access control systems,
network layer encryption and access control systems, secure transport layer
protocols secure e-mail technology, multi-level secure (X.500) directory
systems, public-key certification authority systems, and key recovery (key
escrow) systems. His most recent work focuses on public- key certification
infrastructures for government and commercial applications, security for
Internet routing, and security for mobile computing. The author of two
book chapters and numerous technical papers on network security, Dr. Kent
has served as a referee, panelist and session chair for a number of conferences.
Since 1977 he has lectured on the topic of network security on behalf of
government agencies, universities, and private companies throughout the
United States, Europe, Australia, and the Far East.
Dr. Kent received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Loyola University
of New Orleans, and the S.M., E.E., and Ph.D. degrees in computer science
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the ACM,
a member of the Internet Society and of Sigma Xi.
April, 1999 Meeting
Subject
Jini
Speaker
Charles Lamb
Sun
Date
Thursday, April 15, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 pm with informal discussion and light refreshments.
Presentation begins at 7:00 pm.
Location
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Fawcett Street, Cambridge
See below for directions.
Meeting Overview
The Jini technology is designed to make it easy to deploy and use services
in a network. When you plug in a device it just works--no drivers to install.
This talk will cover the Jini architecture, what it does, and how it
does it. More information is available at
http://www.sun.com/jini/.
Speaker Biography
Charles Lamb is one of the key developers at Sun's Burlington Research
Labs.
GBC/ACM Meetings for the 1998-1999 season.
See past GBC/ACM Meetings
for the 1997-1998 season.
See past GBC/ACM Meetings
for the 1996-1997 season.
March, 1999 Meeting
Subject
Panel Discussion:
Usability Experts Discuss Web Design
or
Why Do Good People Create Bad Web Sites?
Joint Meeting with IEEE Computer Society
Panel Members
-
Elizabeth Bayle, Bayle Collaborations
-
Matt Belge, Vision & Logic
-
Ron Perkins, Design Perspectives
-
Tim Shea, Vivid Interface
Date
Thursday, March 25, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:15 PM with coffee. Presentation begins at 6:30 PM.
Location
Marcam Corporation, 95 Wells Avenue, Newton
See below for directions.
Meeting Overview
The web is presenting us with an explosion of information, economic opportunity,
and modes of communication few people could have conceived of just five
years ago. However, for this opportunity to be fully realized, web sites
must be designed with the end user in mind. Will users be able to find
the information they seek? Will they have the confidence to complete the
transactions you would like them to complete? Will they find the site useful
enough, compelling enough, to keep coming back?
This panel discussion brings together four software usability experts
who have considerable experience working on issues such as these. They
will show you examples of good and bad web design, and explain the underlying
usability principles that can be applied to achieve superior results. They
will share with us real life situations and practical, useful techniques
to create better focused, more enjoyable, and more useful web sites.
One common problem encountered in web site design relates to navigation
systems - simple mechanisms for helping users find their way around. The
panel will discuss navigation systems that work, as well as some that have
confused users. Another common problem involves knowing whether or not
your real live users are able to accomplish what they want to accomplish
at your site. The panel will present success stories where companies found
out for certain what the real issues were for their users. To conclude,
the panel will discuss how visual design and information hierarchies help
create well focused web sites.
The panel will also seek questions from the audience. Join us for what
promises to be a lively and informative evening!
Directions to Marcam
Marcam Corporation
95 Wells Avenue
Newton, MA
Take Route 128 to the Highland Avenue, Needham exit (the Muzi Ford exit).
Turn left at the first light onto Hunting Road. Turn left at the first
light onto Kendrick Street. Cross over 128, turn right at the first light
onto Wells Avenue. Go about 0.2 miles to Marcam Corporation on the right
side of the road at 95 Wells Avenue. Enter the building at 85 Wells Avenue,
in the middle of the back of the building, as this is the closest entrance
to the auditorium.
Additional Materials
Download slides.
Uncompress this ZIP format file into a separate directory.
February, 1999 Meeting
Subject
E-Commerce, E-Business...E-Gads!
A discussion of current and future
Internet commerce technologies and markets
Speaker
Jim Belfiore
Netscape Communications, Inc.
Date
Thursday, February 18, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 PM with refreshments. Presentation begins at 7:00
PM.
Location
GTE Internetworking, formerly Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge.
See below for details.
Meeting Overview
In the early 1990's, the unconventional thinking was that the Internet
would lose its status as a tool of academia and become a commercial sales
and commerce channel that eclipsed the conventional marketplace.
In 1999, we're well passed the point of no return towards that once unconventional
day. What lies ahead? What technologies will advance the accessibility
of e-commerce? How will businesses need to change to leverage these technologies?
What markets might emerge, or disappear as the desktop becomes the primary
point-of-sale for a majority of consumers and businesses? Our speaker
will present one view of the current e-commerce technology and business
landscape,
and lead the audience in an open forum about issues concerning these
technologies.
Speaker Biography
Jim Belfiore is a Project Executive for Netscape Professional Services,
where he leads consulting engagements at financial, state, and corporate
institutions throughout New England and New York. Jim has been very
active in Internet technology throughout his career. Before joining Netscape,
Jim had been responsible for the architecture, design, and deployment of
major Internet services for News Corporation including TV Guide and FOX
News, as well as large-scale subscription and payment services for British
Telecom and News
International. Jim has spoken numerous times for GBC/ACM on Internet
technologies and futures.
January, 1999 Meeting
Subject
Code Inspections
Speaker
Benson Margulies
Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer
Basis Technology
Date
Thursday, January 21, 1999
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 PM with refreshments. Presentation begins at 7:00
PM. LocationGTE Internetworking, formerly Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN)
in Cambridge.
See below for details.
Meeting Overview
Code inspection is often discussed as a software quality or software process
technique. Many people think of it as part of a large, bureaucratic process
in which code passes through many steps and many hands before it sees the
light of day. Developers, and even managers, often think of it as a waste
of time imposed on them by some "quality process" (e.g. ISO-9000) rather
than as an effective tool for solving or preventing problems.
Performance problems present themselves as fire drills. You have a choice.
You and your development group can join the Keystone Kops, or you can stop,
take a deep breath, and apply an organized process to the problem. Code
inspection, combined with an appropriate methodology for gathering data
and performing experiments, can be a powerful part of that process. In
that process, you and your group can learn to treat performance as a central
part of the product's quality, and apply those lessons to solving problems
before they escape to the field and come back around to bite you.
Speaker Biography
Benson Margulies is the Vice President and CTO of Basis
Technology. He has been in the engineering and engineering management
trenches of software development for many years. His experience ranges
from secure operating system development on Multics to Object Oriented
Database design and implementation at Object Design to model-based SQL
access for the Web.
December, 1998 Meeting
Subject
Designing Systems for Internet Commerce
Speakers
Lawrence C. Stewart and
G. Winfield Treese
Open Market, Inc.
Date
Thursday, December 17, 1998
Time
Meeting starts at 6:30 PM with refreshments. Presentation begins at 7:00
PM. LocationGTE Internetworking, formerly Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN)
in Cambridge.
See below for details.
Meeting Overview
Internet commerce is no longer advanced technology for visionaries: it
is a necessary part of almost any business strategy. As a consequence,
systems for Internet commerce must meet a wide range of requirements for
marketing, sales, and customer service, yet also meet the security and
technology challenges of the Internet. This talk will touch on Internet
business strategy, then discuss some of the architectural, security, and
transaction processing requirements of Internet commerce.
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Lawrence Stewart is Chief Scientist and one of the founders of Open
Market, Inc., a Massachusetts software company focused on Internet Commerce.
He has been responsible for the company's product architecture and technology
since the company began operations in 1994.
G. Winfield Treese is Corporate Systems Architect at Open Market, Inc.,
and one of its first employees. He has worked on a broad range of Open
Market's products, with a special focus on security for commerce applications.
He is also chair of the IETF Working Group on Transport Layer Security
(TLS) and the 8th USENIX Security Symposium.
Stewart and Treese are co-authors of the book
Designing
Systems for Internet Commerce.
More information about Open Market can be found at
http://www.openmarket.com/.
November, 1998 Meeting
Subject
Practical UML -- A Process to Make It Work
Speaker
Else-Marie Ostling
President
BIRKA Group, Inc.
Date
Thursday, November 24, 1998
Time
6:30 pm
Location
GTE Internetworking (formerly BBN), Cambridge MA
See below for directions.
Meeting Overview
Now that UML (Unified Markup Language) has been selected as the industry
standard for object and component modeling, how do we make use of it? This
is what many designers/developers ask themselves today. Having struggled
along for years without a modeling standard, many in the object/component
field are now questioning if UML is really the answer. Reading the UML
spec, or the plethora of books on the subject, does not seem to alleviate
this problem. The missing piece in this puzzle is a process. A process
that tells us where to start, what parts of UML to use when, and more importantly
what deliverables to produce along the way to ensure that we build a robust
design/architecture for our application. This is why many authors, including
the creators of UML, are currently focusing on puting something in print
about a process. For example, the authors of UML (Booth, Jacobson and Rumbaugh)
are adding the finishing touches to The Unified Process, which will be
released by the end of the year.
This talk will cover an introduction to UML -- what it is and what it
is not. It also will present a practical process that defines how the UML
notations can be used and extended, to successfully design and implement
component-based business applications. A common problem when embarking
on your first UML project is to use an all or nothing approach to it. In
this talk we will also discuss the benefits of each notation, what it can
be used for, when it is appropriate to use, and when it can be left out.
The talk will also provide an overview of the design and development tools
available in the marketplace today that support UML.
Speaker Biography
Ms. Else-Marie Ostling is President and Chief Technologist at BIRKA Group,
Inc., where some of her responsibilities include development of the Practical
UML (TM) process, BIRKA's process for software development, as well as
providing mentoring, training and strategic technology consulting to the
company's customers. Ms. Ostling specializes in mentoring and knowledge
transfer of object-oriented modeling, architecture, and application development,
and has worked with a wide variety of client organizations in the United
States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. She has over 15 years of experience in
methods and process development, with an emphasis on object technology.
Ms. Ostling is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars all over
the world. A few of the previous positions held by Ms. Ostling include
Vice President of Customer Services at Riverton Software Corporation, Vice
President of Professional Services at Objectory Corporation (now Rational
Corporation), and Regional Manager of Implementation Services at Index
Technology Corporation. Ms. Ostling holds a BS degree in Computer Science
(with a major in Methodology) from Upsala University in Sweden.
September, 1998 Meeting
Subject
XML and Distributed Web Applications
Speaker
Jeremy Allaire
Vice-President of Technology
Allaire Corporation
Date
Thursday, September 24, 1998
Time
7:30 - 8:30 pm
Location
Room 110, Hynes Convention Center, Boston MA
Note: The meeting will not be held in the usual
location in Cambridge. The meeting will be held in conjunction with the
Web'98 Conference. If you are not registered for the conference, bring
a copy of this announcement and mention code BASOI31 to gain admission
to the meeting area and exhibits.
Meeting Overview
The Web is rapidly moving into its next phase as a computing platform.
Shifting from an isolated model where Web browsers and Web application
servers are islands of data, to a rich distributed model where every node
on the network becomes a leverage point for every other node. Driven
by the requirements of the new Internet Economy, XML will play a central
in forming the glue between disparate systems and nodes on this network.
Jeremy will discuss this emerging landscape, and provide insight into an
XML-based model that Allaire is developing for
building distributed Web applications across any Web language or platform.
Speaker Biography
Jeremy Allaire is a principal & director of technology strategy at
Allaire Corp. As VP of Technology, Jeremy spearheads the company's
future product direction and is responsible for establishing key strategic
partnerships within the Internet industry.
Jeremy has been a regular author and analyst on Internet technologies
for the past seven years.
Additional Information on Meetings
Unless noted otherwise, all GBC/ACM meetings are held in the Newman Auditorium
at GTE Internetworking (formerly Bolt Beranek and Newman), 70 Fawcett Street,
Cambridge, MA.
The meeting is free and open to the public. No reservations are required.
Everyone is invited for light refreshments and informal discussion from
6:30 to 7:00 PM. The formal part of the meeting will start at 7:00 PM.
Directions to Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN)
Recorded directions: (617) 873-4567
Driving
From Route 128, Lexington: Take Route 2 inbound. The four-lane highway
narrows to two lanes near Route 16. At the traffic light bear right onto
Alewife Brook Parkway. Proceed past shopping centers to the Fresh Pond
Rotary. Take the first right onto Concord Avenue. Fawcett Street is one
block down Concord Avenue, on the right.
From the Mass. Pike: Take the Pike inbound to the Cambridge/Allston
exit. Exit onto the Cambridge offramp and take Cambridge Street. Turn left
onto either Storrow or Memorial Drive. (Storrow Drive is on the Boston
side of the Charles River and Memorial Drive is on the Cambridge side.)
Follow the Storrow and Memorial Drive directions below.
From Storrow and Memorial Drives: Take Storrow or Memorial Drive west;
follow signs to Routes 2, 3, 16. Remain on Route 2. The road will become
narrow and winding. This is the Fresh Pond Parkway. You will pass several
car dealerships and Fresh Pond Seafood on your right. At the first rotary,
take the third right onto Concord Avenue. You will then come to a second
rotary (the Fresh pond Rotary). Continue straight through this rotary (stay
on Concord Avenue). Fawcett Street is one block down Concord Avenue, on
the
right.
Once on Fawcett Street, 70 Fawcett Street (the BBN building containing
Newman Auditorium) is on the right side of Fawcett Street, about 1/2 block
from Concord Avenue. Park in the lot on the right side of the street; the
lot is immediately before, and adjacent to, the 70 Fawcett Street building.
If full, park in the lot across Fawcett Street.
Via Public Transit
Take the T to Harvard Square. From Harvard Square take the Concord Ave./Belmont
Center bus. Get off at Fawcett Street.