Dear Readers,
The recent announcements of severe bugs in car infotainment systems and Microsoft's SharePoint servers are unsettling. Are these the detritus of "move fast and break things", or is it just too hard to keep major security bugs out of production software? And if self-driving cars and "move it all to the cloud" are in our immediate future, then are we moving into a hacker's paradise where everything is hackable (maybe it is already)? Can AI rescue us from our own incompetence? Or will it magnify our failings? I offer the question as food for thought for those find other, more immediate, thoughts to be even more unsettling.
An upheaval in funds and funding rules is causing havoc in some academic circles in the US. Mathematicians are finding that travel funds are scarce, for example. I expect to see hitchhikers with signs asking for lifts to a conferences. I hope AI can learn to do proofs without hallucinations before the last mathematician turns out the lights.
For security researchers with money, the options for summer conferencing are ample. Check our calendar in this issue.
DRAM Hammer Song
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer your memory,
I'd hammer on your server, all over DRAM.
I'd hammer out data, I'd hammer out crypto,
I'd hammer out the meaning of your secrets,
All over DRAM.
Well I've got a hammer, and I've got a cell,
I've mapped out your server and all your DRAM.
It's the hammer of errors, it the cell of ciphertext,
It's a song about the bytes between the AI and the crypto,
All over DRAM.
(with apologies to Lee Hays)
,
Hilarie Orman