Media Tips

How can we better detect earthquakes?

Jacobo Bielak, professor of civil and environmental engineering, Carnegie Mellon.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Jacobo Bielak was awarded $1.6 million over the next four years from the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) PetaApps program to develop earthquake computer simulations that play an important role in reducing seismic risk for large urban coastal cities. The new research will give Bielak and his team the opportunity to integrate the ground motion of  large sedimentary basins like the Los Angeles area with a variety of large databases, such as entire building inventories, to study the impacts of  large magnitude earthquakes on buildings, transportation systems and other important underground infrastructures.
 
Contact: Jacobo Bielak, 412.268.2958


What kind of consumer education is Carnegie Mellon CyLab spearheading?

Dena Haritos Tsamitis, director of the Information Networking Institute, Carnegie Mellon.

Carnegie Mellon CyLab has created The MySecureCyberspace Portal. The portal (www.mysecurecyberspace.com) provides users of all ages with the tactical countermeasures to stay cybersafe and to better understand the privacy issues related to cybersecurity threats. The portal provides customized information to users.

Contact: Dena Haritos Tsamitis, 412.268.3297
 

What is being done to thwart Internet eavesdropping?

Adrian Perrig, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and public policy, and David Andersen, assistant professor of computer science, Carnegie Mellon.

The growth of shared Wi-Fi and other wireless computer networks has increased the risk of eavesdropping on Internet communications, but researchers at the College of  Engineering and Computer Science have developed a low-cost system that can thwart these “Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. The system, called Perspectives, also can protect against attacks related to a recently disclosed software flaw in the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet phone book used to route messages between computers.
 
Contacts: Adrian Perrig, 412.268.2242 or
David Andersen, 412.268.3064

What is the future of mobile device technologies?

Priya Narasimhan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science.
 
Carnegie Mellon recently launched a new research center to study business organizations and technical issues related to mobility in managing systems found in cell phones, home appliances and building infrastructures. The Mobility Research Center, which involves students and faculty from both Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley campuses, will develop underlying technologies that will ensure the privacy, security and reliability of sensitive and valuable information.

Contact: Priya Narasimhan, 412.268.8801

Contact: Chriss Swaney, 412.268.5776