The Exchanges

Q Are people also doing Other majors in addition to computer science? Like, is it sort of becoming where computer science is like the new, like English, where everyone does English and something else, or is it, is it like that?

A They're computer science majors, so they're primarily, uh, doing computer science, but we did just start a new, a new effort called computer science plus X. So computer science is kind of slowly taking over the world, right? I mean, software is everywhere these days. You can't do English without software. You can't do music without software. You can't do literature, everything. Is involving software these days. So our computer science is kind of, um, expanding, and so we just launched this new effort called Computer Science Plus X, CS Plus X, where students can be computer science majors, but they can, they would also major in another discipline. So one of my undergrad students, for example, does computer science plus Slavic studies. Um, so just to show you that it's kind of, ah, an interaction of computer science with lots and lots of different areas around campus.

AI assessment note: “we just launched this new effort called Computer Science Plus X, CS Plus X”

Q You mentioned that you're teaching this new course. Are you, Also, I've noticed that you've taught a couple of MOOCs on applied crypto, um, or computer science MOOCs. Can you tell us, share some of your thoughts on, on A, why you did that, and then B, like your thoughts on the evolution of education?

A Oh, I have to say, the MOOCs are a big deal at Stanford, and they've, they've actually played an important part in my life. Um, so I really enjoy teaching. This is why I'm a professor. I really, really like teaching, especially teaching at Stanford is a lot of fun, lots of smart students, so, um, obviously, it's a pleasure to teach, to teach them. Um, what I've done, though, is I've taken my, uh, on-campus applied crypto class, and I've actually made it into an, um, I sat down, recorded it, and I made it available to the public. So anyone who wants to can, uh, sign up for the class. Um, it's available off of my homepage. You can easily find it and sign up. Uh, the class repeats every three months, and you can just sign up and take it. It's free. You get, um, a statement of accomplishment once you're done with it. And in fact, lots of people have taken it. So there's something like 600,000 people have signed up, uh, for this class. And, uh, it's been really rewarding for me. First of all, I would have to teach at Stanford for about 2000 years to reach 600,000 people. I have to say, I kind of think of this class as a MOOC. It's not a replacement. It's definitely not a replacement for on-campus classes. I, I now I've come to realize this MOOC is basically like a 21st century textbook. So if you take the, the, the MOOC online, you should be, it's almost the same as actually reading…

AI assessment note: “I now I've come to realize this MOOC is basically like a 21st century textbook.”

Q You, you say you couldn't believe that. Is that because the political environment has changed for obvious reasons with the Snowden revelations and everything that came down after that, or is that just unusual for other reasons?

A I think Snowden might be actually a small part of it. I think the bigger issue is that more and more of our lives are going online, and as more of our data is available on computers, it's obviously, obviously also available to be, to be hacked and stolen, and so computer security is gonna become part of our daily lives these days. Every time there's a breach, people lose a lot of personal information, and so the public focus and public interest in computer security has just exploded, ah, over the last couple of years, and the prediction is that it's only gonna get even, ah, more interesting And, you know, it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

AI assessment note: “I think Snowden might be actually a small part of it. I think the bigger issue”

Q Why, why will it get more interesting? Is it because of the, the devices and computing moving into everything or other?

A Yeah, the more we, we are more and more reliant on computers. There are more and more devices that we all, um, possess and own. Uh, we're moving into this environment where, uh, you know, we're internet of things where we're going to be covered with sensors that measure all sorts of, uh, information about us and all that information is being sent to the cloud. As long as that, the more information about us is being collected in a central location, the more likely or potentially Um, bigger targets that, uh, that, uh, that repository becomes. And again, every time there's a data breach, more and more information is being revealed, um, and the public really pays attention. So the, the, you know, that has real impact on, on, uh, the public's perception and the public's privacy. And so, um, there's just a lot, a tremendous amount of interest in computer security, and it's gonna grow over time.

AI assessment note: “the more information about us is being collected in a central location, the more likely”

Q for years, like with these backup, you know, qubit idea. I mean, these backup ideas for quantum cryptography and all these other things. Clearly a lot of security research is about anticipating attacks and not even just anticipating attacks, but what types of attacks are going to happen because the world is continually evolving. So how does that play out in your work and what you do with your students?

A Yeah, I have to say that kind of, uh, uh, uh, anticipating, um, anticipating what, what attackers are going to do is actually a, uh, quite an important area of research and computer security in general. One of the things we try to do with my group is again, anticipate kind of what attacks are going to come that we haven't seen yet. And of course, once we do identify an attack that we haven't seen yet, we do a lot, we work hard to try and make sure that it doesn't happen and we, uh, propose ways to fix it. I'll give you maybe a couple of examples. So one thing that we did a while, a few months ago, um, was, uh, look at the security of password managers. Yeah. So speaking of user, user authentication, we were kind of curious about how secure are password managers that are embedded in browsers? Well, um, so again, in the, in the vein of, uh, anticipating attacks, it turned out, well, there are actually quite generic attacks that could be applied to these password managers and extract passwords Uh, without the user's knowledge or consent. So that was kind of, ah, troubling, and again, it's in the, ah, vein of not, ah, ah, you know, putting your hand in the, your head in the sand. The goal is to kind of understand what, how vulnerable are our systems, how secure are they, are they, are there places, are there, ah, parts of our systems that can be improved. Um, and so looking at pass…

AI assessment note: “One of the things we try to do with my group is again, anticipate”

Q Why, why will it get more interesting? Is it because of the, the devices and computing moving into everything or other?

A Yeah, the more we, we are more and more reliant on computers. There are more and more devices that we all, um, possess and own. Uh, we're moving into this environment where, uh, you know, we're internet of things where we're going to be covered with sensors that measure all sorts of, uh, information about us and all that information is being sent to the cloud. As long as that, the more information about us is being collected in a central location, the more likely or potentially Um, bigger targets that, uh, that, uh, that repository becomes. And again, every time there's a data breach, more and more information is being revealed, um, and the public really pays attention. So the, the, you know, that has real impact on, on, uh, the public's perception and the public's privacy. And so, um, there's just a lot, a tremendous amount of interest in computer security, and it's gonna grow over time.

AI assessment note: “we're internet of things where we're going to be covered with sensors”

Q So what are some of the other, um, shifts that you've seen besides that?

A Yeah, so within computer science, I can say that, ah, computer security is definitely something that a lot of students are, are fascinated and interested by. And just to give one example, Mike, our computer security class, the one that I teach, is an elective class, and it's also been growing tremendously. Just this last, last, ah, time I taught it, it had, had over 300 students. So, it's a lot of fun. These are brilliant students, really smart, and they're a lot of fun to teach. Um, and so you can imagine that That, uh, you know, being, having an elective class that that's big, uh, is kind of really showing where the, the level of interest that students have in the topic.

AI assessment note: “within computer science, I can say that, ah, computer security is definitely something”

Q So what are some of the other, um, shifts that you've seen besides that?

A Yeah, so within computer science, I can say that, ah, computer security is definitely something that a lot of students are, are fascinated and interested by. And just to give one example, Mike, our computer security class, the one that I teach, is an elective class, and it's also been growing tremendously. Just this last, last, ah, time I taught it, it had, had over 300 students. So, it's a lot of fun. These are brilliant students, really smart, and they're a lot of fun to teach. Um, and so you can imagine that That, uh, you know, being, having an elective class that that's big, uh, is kind of really showing where the, the level of interest that students have in the topic.

AI assessment note: “computer security is definitely something that a lot of students are, are fascinated and interested by”

Q Are people also doing Other majors in addition to computer science? Like, is it sort of becoming where computer science is like the new, like English, where everyone does English and something else, or is it, is it like that?

A They're computer science majors, so they're primarily, uh, doing computer science, but we did just start a new, a new effort called computer science plus X. So computer science is kind of slowly taking over the world, right? I mean, software is everywhere these days. You can't do English without software. You can't do music without software. You can't do literature, everything. Is involving software these days. So our computer science is kind of, um, expanding, and so we just launched this new effort called Computer Science Plus X, CS Plus X, where students can be computer science majors, but they can, they would also major in another discipline. So one of my undergrad students, for example, does computer science plus Slavic studies. Um, so just to show you that it's kind of, ah, an interaction of computer science with lots and lots of different areas around campus.

AI assessment note: “we just launched this new effort called Computer Science Plus X”

Q Right. So how likely is that New York Times headline though?

A Well, the answer is that building a quantum computer is actually quite challenging, and the reason is, ah, I mentioned electrons before. Well, you can imagine, um, each quantum computer, it's called a qubit, needs to kind of do its operation, but it can't do its operation on its own. It's got to interact with other qubits. Well, the difficulty in building these quantum computers is you need to have qubits interacting with one, with one another, but not interacting with the environment. And so building many, many Bits that interact with one another, but not with anything, anything else, uh, has turned out to be quite an engineering challenge. But I do have to say that there's been really quite remarkable progress in the last couple of years in making that happen. It's not clear, um, how fast those, those things can actually be realized, but it looks like there is actually a path now towards building quantum computers. Uh, so at some point I would, I would speculate, I don't know, I wouldn't bet anyone on it, but I would speculate that in my lifetime, We'll probably see some sort of a, of operating quantum computer.

AI assessment note: “I would speculate that in my lifetime, We'll probably see”

Q Right. So how likely is that New York Times headline though?

A Well, the answer is that building a quantum computer is actually quite challenging, and the reason is, ah, I mentioned electrons before. Well, you can imagine, um, each quantum computer, it's called a qubit, needs to kind of do its operation, but it can't do its operation on its own. It's got to interact with other qubits. Well, the difficulty in building these quantum computers is you need to have qubits interacting with one, with one another, but not interacting with the environment. And so building many, many Bits that interact with one another, but not with anything, anything else, uh, has turned out to be quite an engineering challenge. But I do have to say that there's been really quite remarkable progress in the last couple of years in making that happen. It's not clear, um, how fast those, those things can actually be realized, but it looks like there is actually a path now towards building quantum computers. Uh, so at some point I would, I would speculate, I don't know, I wouldn't bet anyone on it, but I would speculate that in my lifetime, We'll probably see some sort of a, of operating quantum computer.

AI assessment note: “I would speculate that in my lifetime, We'll probably see some sort of”

Q Are they all watching the MOOC, um, on their phones? Because not everyone has computers in foreign countries.

A Yeah, they can watch it however they want. They can watch it on their laptop. They, if they have a slow internet connection, They can download the videos overnight and then watch them the following day. They can watch them on their tablets. They can watch them on their phone. They can watch however, however they want. So the platform is actually very general. And I should say that, um, it's not like sitting in a movie theater and watching a movie passively. These MOOCs basically, at least my lectures, they pause every minute or two and ask the students questions. It's more of a Socratic way of learning where, you know, let's develop this material. And by the way, what do you think about this topic? And then the student has to answer. And then we continue based on the student's answer. So that, ah, kind of the, the, it's more, it really is kind of an interactive experience, ah, as the, as the course evolves.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, they can watch it however they want.”

Q a little bit more though, because, you know, we've been hearing about quantum cryptography and quantum computing as this potential holy grail, um, for years. Why is it really far away? Are the enabling conditions at all changing that can make it possible? I feel like we're seeing a resurgence again of interest in, in advances that show that they might be more possible to build than they have before.

A Absolutely. So before I answer that, actually, let me just make a quick comment here, which is to say that Even if tomorrow we found someone, you know, open up the New York Times and it says, you know, first quantum computer built, don't panic. Yeah, there's no reason to panic. It's not the end of the world. Do not panic. Do not panic. Yeah, do not panic. Not the end of the world. It turns out the crypto community is not sitting on its, ah, on its hands. We've actually been hard at work in building, ah, backup cryptographic primitives such that even if somebody builds a quantum computer tomorrow, all we would have to do is switch out the primitives that we have today, move to these new primitives, And we're back on the horse. Yeah, we're back in business. And as far as we know, um, quantum computers will not be able to break those new primitives.

AI assessment note: “before I answer that, actually, let me just make a quick comment here”

Q a little bit more though, because, you know, we've been hearing about quantum cryptography and quantum computing as this potential holy grail, um, for years. Why is it really far away? Are the enabling conditions at all changing that can make it possible? I feel like we're seeing a resurgence again of interest in, in advances that show that they might be more possible to build than they have before.

A Absolutely. So before I answer that, actually, let me just make a quick comment here, which is to say that Even if tomorrow we found someone, you know, open up the New York Times and it says, you know, first quantum computer built, don't panic. Yeah, there's no reason to panic. It's not the end of the world. Do not panic. Do not panic. Yeah, do not panic. Not the end of the world. It turns out the crypto community is not sitting on its, ah, on its hands. We've actually been hard at work in building, ah, backup cryptographic primitives such that even if somebody builds a quantum computer tomorrow, all we would have to do is switch out the primitives that we have today, move to these new primitives, And we're back on the horse. Yeah, we're back in business. And as far as we know, um, quantum computers will not be able to break those new primitives.

AI assessment note: “before I answer that, actually, let me just make a quick comment here”