Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Interesting links about my Fulbright

Here are some links that pertain to my recently concluded Fulbright grant:

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Food and more food

A few days before we left Malta, we frantically tried to catch up with Maltese food tasting. We finally realized that we have been missing the best local gastronomy: fried-rabbit. We were very glad to have tried it and to not wonder how it really taste like. Indeed, it was very good!

A few blocks from our flat is, perhaps, the best cafe in Malta. The place, called Busy Bee, is located on the Msida waterfront. We ate in that place almost everyday and spent roughly about $5 per person. The specials change every day so we get a variety of meals to choose from. The place even has a wide selection of gelatos. We would end up eating our gelatos while walking back home!

We got used to having Maltese bread dipped in olive oil and garlic everyday. I have been in so many places around the globe but have not tasted a bread as good as that bread in Malta. It is crunchy on the outside but soft inside. The french bread is the closest comparison but would not taste as good.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Digital Forensics Lecture at the US Embassy

I gave a lecture on Digital Forensics at the US Embassy to 10 Malta Police officers -
two Inspectors, 6 Sergeants and 2 Constables today at 3:00pm. The talk lasted for about 90 minutes and went quite well. Currently, the Malta Police Department has only 3 officers handling cyberCrimes and will most likely expand in the future. I have been informed that a number of computer security workshops hosted by the US Embassy are in the works.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Opera Across the Atlantic


Nimfa and I took the kids to the Manoel Theatre last night to watch the Opera Across the Atlantic. The performances of all the 8 opera singers from Italy, South America, and USA were excellent. Although we didn't understand what they were singing (in Italian), we enjoyed every minute of it.

Legal Frameworks for ICT Workshop

Last Friday, May 25, I delivered two lectures at the Legal Frameworks for Information and Communication Technology Workshop held in the Victoria Hotel at Sliema. The two-week workshop was organized by the Commonwealth Network of
Information Technology for Development and supported by the Malta Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I managed to establish some informal network with a number of participants from South America, the Carribean, UK, and Cyprus and hope to pursue future collaborations in the near future. My two lectures covered US regulations on computer privacy and security and digital forensics.

APT Reports and Demo

May 24, Thursday was the due date for the APT Project report and implementation demo. I am very satisfied with the quality of work that the students managed to deliver. A few went over and beyond what was required. I started reading some of the reports and noticed, at least the ones that I have read, that the students write concisely and clearly.

Monday, May 28 is the start of the three-week final exam period. I would state that this is a rather long stress enduring period for students :).

The project presentation date for my APT students is June 18. Each student is allocated 10 minutes to talk about his/her project. After that, they'll bash the beaches of Malta!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Experimental Emails-Skip

Excusez-moi for this posting. I am doing some experimental work on SPAM agents.

Sample email addresses:

jaysu@jsu.edu

emsees_AT_jsu_DOT_edu

sfran777 (add the domain name jsu DOT edu)


I'll let you know what this is all about in the future.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Digital Forensics Lecture

I delivered a lecture titled "Digital Forensics" yesterday at MCAST. I had the largest number of attendees from both MCAST and UoM. The conference facility at the Commerce and Business Department in Paola is really nice. It is equipped with a state-of-the-art audio visual system and a wireless microphone. I felt very comfortable moving around during the lecture.

I have announced the start of the digital forensic challenge competition after the lecture and it appears that I have stimulated an overwhelming interest. The winner will receive a security book from me. Hopefully in a few days, I may be able to solicit additional prizes from generous donors. For a complete competition information, view my website at

http://mcis.jsu.edu/faculty/gfrancia/MaltaLectureAPT

Friday is another volleyball day. I look forward to it!

The butcher, the grocer, and the veggie man

After doing business with those three merchants, they came to know me by face. Last week I finally managed to know them personally. The butcher (Joseph) visited the Florida during his honeymoon and was not pleased with the coldness of the people that he encountered. I tried to explain to him that that attitude in prevalent in any big city in the USA. The grocer barely talks. Most of the answers I got are yes, no, and goodbye :(. The veggie man drives around the neighborhood with his truck full of fresh produce, bottled water, and eggs (they don't refrigerate eggs so we make sure that we cook them thoroughly). We buy bottled water (6-pack of 1.5L bottle) every week because tap water is not drinkable. It cost me LM1 and a lot of muscle strain hauling the water to our 3rd floor flat. During our first three weeks, we were boiling water for our coffee and tasted some hint of saltiness. I didn't realize that the water is not fit for drinking nor cooking until a student started describing their water filtration system. It really didn't hurt us except for a slight elevation in blood pressure ;). I guess the rule is "When in doubt...ask a native"

Thursday, April 26, 2007

APT at UoM

My APT students are progressing very well. I had several one-on-one sessions this week for clarification, technical advisement, and progress report. At UoM, I noticed that most students are very proficient in programming and problem solving. This type of student preparation makes it much easier to offer a number of APT courses in a semester's time. CS students at JSU should take notice :)

The CS program in UoM is concentrated mostly on the technical side. Students do not take courses on literature, history, ethics, music, foreign languages and art. Although the computer laboratories are decently equipped, a good number of students tend to bring their own laptops to school.

I really like the idea of an APT (Applied Practical Task) course. It is either a group project or an individual task. Third year students take 3 APTs in the Spring semester--two individual APTs and one group APT. The completion of these APTs is everything for the entire semester--i.e. no other class work. I will try to emulate a similar setup for our CS499 (Special Topics is CS) course at JSU when I get back.

Gozo

We finally made to the sister island of Malta--Gozo. It is quite an amazing place to visit. The churches and museum are magnificent! We didn't get to the Prehistoric temples of Ggantija which are documented to be the oldest free-standing structure in the world (about 3600 BC). It is older than the Pyramids of Egypt (2500BC), the Acropolis (600BC), and the Hanging gardens of Babylon (605BC). We'll make sure that we get there next time.

Homer alluded to the island of Gozo in his Odyssey as the island of Calypso. Here are some pictures.








MCAST Security Projects

This week, I have completed the description and testing of four Computer Security projects for MCAST. These are hands-on laboratory projects that cover system reconnaissance, packet capture and analysis, Log monitoring, penetration testing, vulnerability analysis, and web and system hacking. The instructors are scheduled to be trained on these projects in May. A digital forensics laboratory exercise is currently under development.

Now for the not so serious stuff. I started playing volleyball with MCAST instructors every Friday afternoon. It is quite a stress buster plus a great way to burn flab that started to build up due to lots of pastizzi and cheese. I'll show a picture of a pastizzi next time and you'll agree that it is quite enticing. Here is a picture of my volleyball buddies!