Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Jo Atlee receives the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award in Computer Science

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.

Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Jo Atlee has been named a recipient of the 2023 CS-Can | Info-Can’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Computer Science.

CS-Can | Info-Can is a non-profit professional society dedicated to representing all aspects of computer science and the interests of the discipline across Canada. Over the past decade, their Lifetime Achievement Awards recognize current or former faculty members of Canadian universities who have made outstanding and sustained contributions to computer science research, teaching, and service.

“Congratulations to Jo Atlee on receiving such a recognition,” said Raouf Boutaba, University Professor and Director of the Cheriton School of Computer Science. “This honour is greatly deserved as Jo is an internationally renowned researcher in software engineering. She is also recognized nationally as a leading advocate for opportunities for women in computer science. Several of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives, such as the Women in Computer Science (WiCS), have flourished because of her persistence and willingness to push limits.”

The 2023 awards will be presented on November 11, 2024, at the CS-Can|Info-Can Annual Awards Gala, as part of the group’s conference, which is held at York University this year.

“I am deeply honoured to receive this award. I have been fortunate at Waterloo to have the opportunity and freedom to pivot between leadership roles in research, education, and service and then return to the role of 'plain old professor.' I have enjoyed all these roles, but I particularly enjoy working and interacting with students. I am especially grateful to my husband, who has been an amazing supporter and cheerleader throughout my career.”

Read the full story on the School of Computer Science website.

GSPA has moved to the East Campus

A message from Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA).

The Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (GSPA) team has temporarily relocated to East Campus 2 (EC2), fourth floor – and will not be in Needles Hall (NH) for the foreseeable future. GSPA is joining the Registrar’s Office colleagues who recently moved to EC2.

The NH second-floor space will receive a facelift to accommodate a more fluid workspace for both units. GSPA staff will continue to be available through the same communication channels as before: see details on the GSPA website.

For students, The Centre remains the primary point of contact. We encourage you to connect with your GSPA colleagues via email or Microsoft Teams.

Peace and Conflict Studies offers new academic plan on restorative justice, course on abolition

The Department of Peace and Conflict Studies is offering a new academic plan on Restorative Justice for University of Waterloo students as well as a special topic course on prison and police abolition.

“Restorative Justice (RJ) is one answer to the question of ‘what is justice,’” says Johonna McCants-Turner, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College in an article by Jiho Mercer originally published on the Peace and Conflict Studies website. “RJ tells us that justice is about meeting needs and responding to the impacts of harm. Whether that harm involves events that have just occurred, or that happened many years ago, Restorative Justice provides an answer to what is justice, and that answer is healing,” she said. 

"Restorative justice as a philosophy “emphasizes healing and accountability to repair harm and injury, build healthy relationships, and create thriving communities,” writes Professor McCants-Turner."

Students pursuing the new RJ diploma or specialization "will explore different remedial approaches to current problems in the criminal legal system, study the philosophy and historical roots of restorative justice, and apply anti-racist and decolonial lenses to understand the dynamics of power in the justice system."

"The RJ Specialization is open to all Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) Major students looking to pursue an in-depth study of alternative, non-conventional responses to societal harms and injustices, as well as solutions to harms experienced by individuals or groups in schools, faith communities, or social settings. The RJ Diploma is available to all University of Waterloo students enrolled in a degree program or any non- or post-degree academic plan."

Read the full article on the PACS website.

Additionally, Peace and Conflict Studies is offering a New Special Topic Course entitled PACS 301: Special Topics in Peace and Conflict Studies I, “Prison and Police Abolition as Moral Imagination.”

“Ideas about what's right and wrong, good and bad, what's true, and what's beautiful often come from religious sources,” says the course topic description. “How have moral perspectives and values from religion contributed to policing and incarceration in Canada and the U.S., and their especially deadly impacts on Black and Indigenous lives? How can anti-racist, decolonial, and feminist approaches to moral imagination enable the potential abolition of policing and prisons, and the creation of a new society in which safety is not premised on violence? Examining these questions, this interdisciplinary peace and conflict studies course integrates insights from Black studies, liberation theologies, gender studies, contemporary anti-violence movements, and other sites of emancipatory knowledge production.”

Students must be in level 2A or higher to be eligible for this course. For more information about the course, watch a YouTube Video featuring Dr. McCants-Turner, who will be teaching the course. For further information, email Dr. McCants-Turner.

Meet the students that broke the vending machine story

By Regina Ashna Singh. This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in Waterloo News.

“It won’t get any bigger than this,” says River Stanley, a fourth-year University of Waterloo student in the Computer Science program, as they reminisce about the story they uncovered with three fellow undergraduates that would go on to make national and international headlines. 

What started as a walk home led to the discovery of a breach in human privacy and security on campus, and soon after, a resolution. Twenty-nine smart vending machines, manufactured by Invenda Group and operated by Adaria Vending Services Limited, were removed across the University’s grounds in March 2024 due to concerns over the use of pin-hole cameras and user data collection unbeknownst to students and Waterloo’s administration.  

Lucas Di Pietro, a third-year Waterloo student in the Mechatronics Engineering program, also known as SquidKid47 on Reddit, was heading back to his place when he came across one of the MARS-owned snack-dispensers in the Modern Languages (ML) building on campus and noticed an error message on the screen that read:

“Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognition.App – Application Error.”   

According to Di Pietro, the pop-up clearly implied that facial recognition technology was being used. However, it was not disclosed prior to users engaging with the machines or bystanders. 

He immediately took to the 96,000-member unofficial University of Waterloo subreddit group to expose this unruly surveillance and posted a photo of the now infamous error message. 

“I think anyone who saw that [error message] and really looked into it, and saw facial recognition app has crashed would think ‘What facial recognition? And what is it being used for?’”, Di Pietro says. 

But Di Pietro is only one of four key players responsible for bringing this issue to light - dreadfuldreadnought and firstie, who both prefer to remain anonymous, were also instrumental in breaking the case that drew worldwide attention across the media. 

Second-year Waterloo student in the Gender and Social Justice program and Reddit user dreadfuldreadnought was seemingly the first to locate and point out the pin-hole cameras on the machines by commenting on SquidKid47’s Reddit thread, which sparked even more discussion in the forum. 

“After seeing the [SquidKid47] post, I wanted to see if I could find the camera, so I went and checked out the one in ML. I used a trick I learned on 4chan to find hidden cameras in Airbnbs, which is to turn the surrounding lights off and shine your phone flashlight at suspected pinholes. If you see a reflection, it's quite possibly [that it is] a camera,” dreadfuldreadnought says.  

“When I found a suspected camera pinhole, top right of the machines, I went around to check other machines to see if they had the same suspicious hole. They did. So I did some additional testing, like taping the hole up and seeing if the machine still detected me walking towards it. What I saw convinced me that it was indeed a camera.” 

firstie, a member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI) and first-year student in the Faculty of Mathematics, also learned about the situation from SquidKid47’s Reddit post. “… I did some more research on the machines, primarily finding sales brochures from the manufacturer that explained just how much personal data the machines were able to collect from customers.”  

Read the rest of the article on Waterloo News

Wednesday's notes

Yesterday's Board of Governors meeting, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in NH 3407, did not go ahead due to security concerns. "Today, at the University’s regularly scheduled Board of Governors meeting, a sit-in and demonstration by protesters who have set up an encampment on the University's main campus resulted in 20 staff and Board members being cornered in the Senate room," President Goel wrote in a message to the campus community yesterday afternoon. "To ensure everyone’s safety, we requested the assistance of Waterloo Regional Police Service. "

"Today’s action crossed the line from protest to intimidating behaviour and harassment of individuals," the president's memo continued. "This limits our ability to have further constructive dialogue."

The Secretariat reports that the Board of Governors meeting has been postponed to another day.

Food Truck Wednesdays continue today in the Arts Quad with food trucks from Conestoga College.

Waterloo Photos will be unavailable June 25 and 26 for scheduled maintenance from 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, June 25 until 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 26 while the system is upgraded. If you have questions contact Natasha Jennings.

Employers hosting Employer Information Sessions this week and next week include CC&L and Mappedin. Make sure to register through WaterlooWorks and check the calendar for any updates.