CSC News

Graduate students place first, second in computer science student research competition

Two Computer Science graduate students placed first and second in the Association of Computing Machinery Student Research Competition held at the ACM Conference for Computer Science Educators in Norfolk, Virginia on March 5. The competition was sponsored by Microsoft Research.

Nachiappan Nagappan won first place in the graduate category. His research focuses on software reliability estimation using internal code metrics. His technique utilizes the testing effort carried out on programs to make an empirical estimation of software reliability. Using statistical models, this technique provides an early indication of software reliability, feedback to developers on the thoroughness of their testing effort, and helps identify fault-prone components in the software.

Nachiappan is advised by Dr. Laurie A. Williams, assistant professor of computer science, and his research is funded by an IBM Eclipse Innovation Award

Xinyuan Wang won second place in the graduate category. His research focuses on computer and network security; in particular, tracing of attackers' traffic through the Internet.

Hackers use proxies and stepping stones to conceal the origin of their attacks. Tracing traffic through proxies can be accomplished by correlating incoming and outgoing flows based on their timing characteristics. Xinyuan has shown how to embed a watermark in packet timing for purposes of improving traceability.

He is advised by Dr. Douglas Reeves, professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering, with funding provided by the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA).