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Boston Computation Club

Boston Computation Club

By Max von Hippel

The Boston Computation Club is a small seminar group focused on mathematical computer science, and computational mathematics. Its name is plagiarized from the London Computation Club. Boston Computation Club meetings occur roughly every other week, on weekends, around 5pm EDT (modulo speaker availability). The usual format is a 20m presentation followed by 40m of discussion. Some, but not all, meetings are posted on YouTube and in podcast form.
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03/03/23: Reversing UK Rail Tickets with eta

Boston Computation ClubMar 04, 2023

00:00
43:46
05/20/23: A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing, with Shriram Krishnamurthi

05/20/23: A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing, with Shriram Krishnamurthi

Shriram Krishnamurthi is a professor of Computer Science at Brown University, where he researches (among other things) programming languages, software engineering, formal methods, HCI, security, and networking.  Today Shriram joined us to discuss his joint project with Kathi Fisler, Benjamin S. Lerner, and Joe Gibbs Politz, titled "A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing".  The project is a new vision of what it means to teach introductory computing with data as a first-class object, in the form of tables.  This was a really excellent talk with a lively discussion touching on data quality, student motivation and engagement, pedagogy, data visualization, the nature of computation both essentially and in social context, incorrect assumptions programmers make (about names, interfaces, data, etc.), and much, much more.  We had a lot of fun with this one and we hope you enjoy it too!


By the way, you can watch the video version of this talk, HERE.

May 21, 202301:14:36
04/29/23: Q&A on the Philosophy of Games with Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen, in conversation with Wei Sun

04/29/23: Q&A on the Philosophy of Games with Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen, in conversation with Wei Sun

Christopher Ba Thi Nguyen is a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, and the author of Games: Agency as Art. Today he joined us to discuss his book, which covers the philosophy of all sorts of games: rock climbing, Dark Souls, judo, poker, dungeons and dragons, etc. The event took the form of an interview hosted by Wei Sun, a longtime group member who read Thi's book in detail and really vibed with it. This was one of the most engaged and dynamic conversations we've hosted and in contrast to other events which have had a heavily visual component, this one is mostly auditory, so should make a very good podcast-style experience. We're very grateful to Thi for joining us today and to Wei for hosting the event, and we hope you enjoy it post-hoc as much as we did live!


- The book: https://www.amazon.com/Games-Agency-As-Art-Thinking/dp/0190052082- Wei's blog: http://weiright.blogspot.com/2022/06/movie-review-everything-everywhere-all.html

- Wei's blog: http://weiright.blogspot.com/2022/06/movie-review-everything-everywhere-all.html

Apr 29, 202356:59
04/21/23: Quantity Calculus in Natural Language Semantics with Elizabeth Coppock

04/21/23: Quantity Calculus in Natural Language Semantics with Elizabeth Coppock

Elizabeth Coppock is a linguistics professor at BU. He research focuses on foundational topics in truth, reference, quantification, and measurement in natural language semantics, through the lens of specific empirical puzzles. Recently, one of our group members (Cheng Zhang) expressed interest in Elizabeth's work as it might relate to his own research in programming languages, so we reached out to Elizabeth and asked if she'd be willing to present to the seminar group. (This is one of my favorite things about running the group: when a group member expresses interest in some research paper, we can simply invite the lead author to give a presentation!). Elizabeth graciously agreed and gave one of the best presentations we've had in months, full of fascinating real-world examples of the often surprising ways that we use "per" in the English language, and the underlying mathematical complexity of said usage. This was an enormously fun talk and we really hope you enjoy it as much as we did! And thank you again to Elizabeth for presenting!

Apr 23, 202301:02:56
03/17/23: The Process, Challenges, Struggles & Joys of Creating "How to Design Programs" with Matthias Felleisen

03/17/23: The Process, Challenges, Struggles & Joys of Creating "How to Design Programs" with Matthias Felleisen

Matthias is a world-class scientist and highly influential computer programmer, and also the author of "How to Design Programs", a Computer Science 101 book which takes a fundamentally different approach than prior works. Today Matthias joined us to share his experience writing that book (and its many iterations), as well as his broader philosophy on how to instruct the next generation of thinkers and builders (not to mention, programmers). This was a highly instructive and somewhat philosophical talk and we really hope you enjoy it as much as we did! To learn more about Matthias, refer here: https://felleisen.org/matthias/

Mar 17, 202355:59
03/03/23: Reversing UK Rail Tickets with eta
Mar 04, 202343:46
02/13/23: Web3 is Going Just Great with Molly White

02/13/23: Web3 is Going Just Great with Molly White

Molly White is a Northeastern alum, a software engineer, and now, a web3 researcher (researching all the stuff that stinks about web3, to be clear).  Today Molly joined us to talk about her ongoing project and perhaps magnum opus, Web3 is Going Just Great (web3isgoingjustgreat.com), an ongoing history of all the grifts, thefts, hacks, and crashes in Web3/the broader blockchain ecosystem.  This was a fun one - perhaps even a controversial one - and we hope you enjoy it!

Feb 13, 202301:00:56
02/03/23: How to Give a Good Mathematical Presentation with Anthony Bonato

02/03/23: How to Give a Good Mathematical Presentation with Anthony Bonato

Anthony Bonato is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Toronto Metropolitan University. Anthony's research focuses on graph theory, with applications to real-world complex networks and pursuit-evasion games on graphs such as Cops and Robbers. However, today Anthony joined us not to present some groovy new results in graph theory, but rather, to discuss how one _might_ give such a presentation, with panache! This was a super fun event with a lively and engaged discussion and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

- Anthony's webpage: https://math.ryerson.ca/~abonato/

- Anthony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anthony_Bonato

- This talk in video form: https://youtu.be/ZmLoQDWEZgg

Feb 03, 202358:01
01/29/23: Implications of Model-Based Phil/Sci for ML with Mel Andrews

01/29/23: Implications of Model-Based Phil/Sci for ML with Mel Andrews

Mel Andrews is an instructor and doctoral student in the department of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati.  Their work focuses on the phenomena of cognition and life, comparing and contrasting the merits and explanatory scope of conceptual and formal models of life and mind, and exploring the implications of these considerations for science at large.  Today Mel joined us to talk about the philosophy of math in science and mathematical models in scientific reasoning.  How do models relate to the real world?  When can models tell us something about ... anything other than their own mathematical substance?  And perhaps most importantly, in the Q&A section, how can we build a formal mathematics for computer hacking 😉?  This was a super fun event and we are very thankful for Mel's time.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Jan 28, 202357:55
01/06/23: Q&A: AppSec from OWASP to Present with John Viega

01/06/23: Q&A: AppSec from OWASP to Present with John Viega

John Viega is the Executive Vice President of Products, Strategy, & Engineering at SilverSky, an Adjunct Professor at NYU Poly, former editor-in-chief for IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, co-developer of GCM (a mode of operation for block ciphers such as AES), and the original author of Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager.  He's also the founder of CrashOverride, a stealthy new security company which you should totally apply to work at!  Today he joined us to do an impromptu Q&A about his storied career as one of the people on the ground floor of cybersecurity, in its messy and exciting start.  This was a fun one and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Jan 06, 202358:34
12/03/22: Depths of Wikipedia with Annie Rauwerda

12/03/22: Depths of Wikipedia with Annie Rauwerda

Annie Rauwerda is an internet personality and polymath with a background in neuroscience and data science.  She is also the host and operator of Depths of Wikipedia, a phenomenally popular meme page, Depths of Wikipedia, which you can read about HERE on Wikipedia.  Annie is also herself a frequent Wikipedia editor and author.  Today she joined us to talk about how Wikipedia can be charming, funny, and informative, all at once.  She showed us a variety of charming examples of Wikipedia in all its niche internet glory, and then answered a metric ton of questions about Wikipedia, the internet, Stack Exchange, etc.  This was a super fun event and one we really enjoyed.  We hope you enjoy it too!

Dec 03, 202259:10
11/19/22: Nearly Optimal Property Preserving Hashing with LakYah Tyner
Nov 19, 202244:31
10/14/22: Cryptography with Quantum States with William Kretschmer

10/14/22: Cryptography with Quantum States with William Kretschmer

William Kretschmer is a PhD student at the University of Texas Austin, advised by Scott Aaronson.  He's one of these pseudo-celebrity-grad-students with lots of cool splashy results and we're stoked that he took the time to talk to us today.  The talk primarily covered the basics of quantum cryptography, much of which should be familiar to regular group members who attended our quantum cafe series with Billy, but also concluded with some groovy quantum crypto history (see: quantum cash) and a discussion of exciting recent results by William & co.  This is one of a series of cryptography related talks we're hosting this semester, and William started that series out with a bang!  We hope you enjoy!

Oct 14, 202201:00:47
06/19/22: Assessing Recycling, Displacement, and Environmental Impacts using an Economics-Informed Material System Model, with John Ryter
Jun 19, 202251:43
05/20/22: Hybrid Systems: Not Just For Cars Anymore! With Kimberly Ayers
May 20, 202257:02
05/13/22: The Generalized Star Height Problem with Jean-Eric Pin

05/13/22: The Generalized Star Height Problem with Jean-Eric Pin

Roughly four years ago, when I took second semester Abstract Algebra at the University of Arizona, my professor (Jay Taylor) generously offered to meet with me every week outside class to discuss algebraic topics in computer science.  We chose Dr. Pin's book, Varieties of Formal Languages.  Due to my own mathematical immaturity we worked through the material slowly, and didn't finish the text before I graduated.  Nevertheless, working through this material helped inspire me to pursue a PhD in formal methods - an endeavor I'm solidly halfway through at the time of writing.  All this is to say, Jean-Eric Pin is partially to blame for the fact that I am currently a sleepless PhD student at Northeastern University.  

Today Jean-Eric Pin joined us to discuss The Generalized Star Height Problem, an open problem in formal language theory which he and his colleagues have attempted to attack from all angles: algebraically, logically, topologically, etc.  It's one of those deeply enticing problems in math that's reasonably easy to explain yet apparently quite challenging to solve.  In this 2-hour talk, Jean-Eric Pin explains the problem starting with the most basic definitions, and then discusses some of the related results from those who wish to solve it.  It's a fascinating and very accessible talk, and we really hope you enjoy!

You can view a video version of the talk HERE.

May 13, 202201:52:20
05/07/22: Math Café #3: Prep for Dr. Pin's Talk with Max von Hippel

05/07/22: Math Café #3: Prep for Dr. Pin's Talk with Max von Hippel

Plagiarizing Wikipedia: "Jean-Éric Pin is a French mathematician and theoretical computer scientist known for his contributions to the algebraic automata theory and semigroup theory."  He will also be our featured guest in a week, presenting The Generalized Star Height Problem.  In advance of his talk, he requested that the audience familiarize themselves with some basic mathematical definitions, such as "monoid" and "completion of a metric space".  To which end, I prepared a presentation, went through some light-weight peer review with random friends from the PL group at Northeastern, and then delivered this talk.  This is a fun little review on various useful topics in math, and also, a good refresher if you intend to attend Dr. Pin's talk.  I hope you enjoy!

May 07, 202254:29
04/15/22: When Memory Guards are Crooked and Become Speculating Snitches with Andrea Mambretti

04/15/22: When Memory Guards are Crooked and Become Speculating Snitches with Andrea Mambretti

Andrea Mambretti is a system security researcher at IBM Research Europe, Zurich Laboratory.  He received his Ph.D. from Northeastern University, in the SecLab under the supervision of Engin Kirda.  Since 2011, he's participated in several CTF competitions (Ictf, Ructf, Defcon and others) with both the TowerOfHanoi and Shellphish teams.  (Audience members will surely fall into two partitions: those who are more impressed by Andrea's PhD, and those who are more impressed by his membership in Shellphish 😉).  Today, Andrea joined us to discuss some of his security research into ROP attacks, specifically attacks that exploit timing-based side-channels caused by speculative execution.  This research builds on the academic legacy of attacks like Spectre, but formalizes the relevant threat models and explores the full space of relevant attack varieties.  The talk was fun, technical, and exciting.  We concluded with a question-and-answer/discussion section, mostly centered on (a) attack realizability against differing architectures, and (b) mitigations/defenses.  This was a great talk, and we hope you enjoy it post-hoc!

ArXiV Andrea's homepage Andrea's twitter Video version of this talk
Apr 15, 202255:54
03/20/22: An Open Conversation on Web3 with the SpiceDAO
Mar 20, 202201:01:59
03/12/22: Live Coding: Making a Wordle Scraper and Solver with Jacob Denbeaux
Mar 12, 202201:03:53
03/05/22: Seize the Means of Computation: the Big Tech Disassembly Manual with Cory Doctorow

03/05/22: Seize the Means of Computation: the Big Tech Disassembly Manual with Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist.  In my circles, he's probably best known for his work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Boing Boing, but he's also a renowned science fiction author in his own right, an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and co-founder of the UK Open Rights Group.  In short: Cory is precisely the kind of polymath we love to engage with at the Boston Computation Club!  Today, Cory joined us to discuss Big Tech - what's wrong with it and how to fix (read: DISMANTLE) it.  The talk was engaging, exciting, elucidating - all that and a bag of chips.  We really enjoyed talking to Cory and we hope you enjoy the recording!  You can also view this talk in video form HERE.

Mar 06, 202201:14:42
02/17/22: Quantum Computing in Plato's Cave with Daniel Burgarth
Feb 17, 202201:04:23
02/06/22: Trojan Source Attacks with Nicholas Boucher

02/06/22: Trojan Source Attacks with Nicholas Boucher

Nicholas Boucher is a PhD student in computer science studying under Professor Ross Anderson at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory.  He is also one of the authors of Trojan Source Attacks, a paper (and CVE, and vulnerability class) which highlighted supply-chain vulnerabilities in open-source software (among other things) due to code that is different than it looks.  This is one of the most creative hacks we saw in 2021 and we were thrilled to have Nicholas tell us about it.  The presentation was great, as was the discussion, where we got into the difficulties of the disclosure process, the complexities of peer review (in tandem with ethical vulnerability disclosure), and future problems (🤖🔔🐍🧶are emojis kosher??).  We hope you enjoy!

Nicholas's homepage can be found HERE. You can read the Trojan Source Attacks paper HERE. You can see the video of this talk HERE.
Feb 07, 202201:04:49
01/08/22: Covert C2 Channels with Kai Bernardini
Jan 09, 202201:22:42
12/04/21: Feynman Integrals for a Mathematical Audience with Matthew von Hippel
Dec 04, 202158:51
12/03/21: Aesthetic and Organic Complexity with Tyler Hobbs & Bill Cresco, moderated by Anya & Joe
Dec 04, 202101:14:48
10/24/21: An Extensible and Modular Design and Implementation of Monte Carlo Tree Search for the JVM with Larkin Liu & Jun Tao Luo
Oct 24, 202101:06:17
10/15/21: Mathematical Programming Modulo Strings with Ankit Kumar
Oct 15, 202145:41
10/09/21: Types in PL Research vs Types in Julia with Julia Belyakova
Oct 10, 202101:07:18
09/12/21: More Category Theory for More Cybernetics with Matteo Capucci
Sep 12, 202101:16:38
08/28/21: Compilation Techniques for Reconfigurable Analog Devices with Sara Archour
Aug 28, 202101:01:49
07/30/21: Structural Attacks on Local Routing in Payment Channel Networks with Ben Weintraub
Jul 30, 202158:42
07/24/21: Linear Haskell with Artem Pelenitsyn
Jul 24, 202101:17:43
07/10/21: The Illogical Nature of Chemical Nomenclature [Biology Café #1]
Jul 10, 202101:02:55
06/13/21: Modeling Content and Context with Deep Relational Learning with Maria Leonor Pacheco
Jun 13, 202155:56
05/29/21: Homotopy Type Theory 101 with Carlo Angiuli
Jun 09, 202101:04:55