HackPSU is a student-run hackathon held at Penn State University. Hackers
from universities all along the East Coast and Midwest will come together
to hack on web, mobile, and hardware applications for the 24-hour
competition. Students get the opportunity to show off their skills, meet
other students and connect with startups for jobs or internships.

If you have no prior knowledge, do not fear. This is a great chance to
learn something new & have a shot at winning awesome prizes while doing so.

*Sign up & see more details at http://hackpsu.eventbrite.com/*
Judges include Steve Huffman, co-founder of Reddit, David Rusenko, founder
of Weebly, and Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv

There will be tons of free food!
*Prizes include:*
1st place- free trip to CA to tour the hottest start-ups in the valley,
meet the founders and VCs, hear interesting talks and of course attend some
awesome parties and networking events along with 100 other top hackers from
around the country.
2nd place - $1000
3rd place - $500
An Xbox, Surface and iPad Mini will also be given away.



Hey ACM!      We'll be holding a hackathon preparation meeting Wednesday night at 7
p.m. in 222 IST.  With HackPSU this weekend and HackPrinceton the weekend after
that, we want to go over some tips and tricks for success at hackathons.  We'll
discuss how to come up with feasible project ideas, which platforms work well for
hackathons, and look at some example projects from previous events.  Pizza will be
served.      SEI Investments will also be at Wednesday's meeting to give a short
presentation about their company and job opportunities.  Like many companies, SEI is
on campus this week for Spring Career Days.  The technical career day is this
Thursday, March 21, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center.  If you're
looking for a summer/fall internship or co-op, be sure to attend.

The evidence, from Mandiant -- APT1: Exposing One of China's Cyber Espionage Units (PDF, 76 pages)

From the NY Times, Jan. 31, Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months

Storing Digital Data in DNA
Wall Street Journal (01/24/13) Gautam Naik

Researchers seeking a biological solution to the world's ever-growing amount of
digital information have successfully encoded audio and text on fragments of DNA,
and later retrieved them with 99.99 percent accuracy.  The researchers note that DNA
could sit in a storage device for thousands of years without degrading.  Scientists
at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute
held an experiment in which they downloaded various audio and textual content onto a
computer and represented it as computer code.  A program then converted the code
into letters corresponding to DNA's four chemical bases, and segmented the code
string into about 150,000 fragments and indexed them.  A lab machine used the
information to generate DNA that was then fed into a sequencing machine, which read
back the DNA fragments as the letters A,C,G, and T.  The next step involved software
reassembling the DNA fragments in the proper order, converting them back to 1s and
0s that were interpreted as the original content file, which could be played back. 
The next challenge for DNA data storage is making the process more commercial and
affordable.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539304578259883507543150.html


MIT Scientists Achieve Molecular Data Storage Breakthrough
TPM Idea Lab (01/23/13) Carl Franzen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a method for
storing data on individual molecules at room temperature, which could lead to a
1,000-fold improvement in storage density.  The method was demonstrated on a type of
"supramolecule," which was created by binding graphene molecules to zinc atoms. 
"Each molecule is around one nanometer in dimension and hence this will let us
achieve storage as high as 1,000 terabytes per square inch," says MIT's Jagadeesh
Moodera.  The researchers were able to get the molecules to store binary data by
placing them between two electrodes, which were used to change the conductivity of
the molecules between two states, representing the 1 and 0 of binary code.  "The
idea here is to be able to have more and more information available in your portable
pocket device," says MIT's Karthik Raman.  "Hence if such a work can make it to
technology, with the existing size of our portable device we can store 1,000 times
more information in the form of documents or music or high quality video files." 
The researchers believe their work could eventually lead to quantum computing and
quantum bit memory.
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/mit-scientists-achieve-molecular-data-storage-near-room-temperature.php

• Monday, Jan. 7, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
  
• Tuesday, Jan. 8, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
  
• Wednesday, Jan. 9, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
  
• Thursday, Jan. 10, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
  
• Saturday, Jan. 12, 9:00 - 10:30 am
  
• Saturday, Jan. 12, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm

• Your initial password is your nine-digit PSU student ID number followed by Cse.  Your password from Fall Semester is probably still valid, if you had one.  The PSU CSE Dept. password is not the same as your PSU Access Account password.
• If you get the message "Account Locked", this condition lasts for 15 minutes.  It is designed to slow down automated password-guessing attacks.
• If you tried to start Firefox from a terminal window with the command  firefox  (a reasonable choice) but you got a response like "Command not found", then try the command  /opt/csw/bin/firefox  instead.  The problem is with the search mechanism for finding programs, and is easily fixed by running the command  new_dots  or  /opt/cse/bin/new_dots  when you are logged in, and in your home directory.  When you login the next time, the command  firefox  should work without complaint.

• http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/canonical-unveils-ubuntu-phone-os-that-doubles-as-a-full-pc/
  
• http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/ubuntu-operating-system-for-smartphones-unveiled.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
•