CSU IT Masters May Newsletter

We hope you will enjoy this semester's newsletter and keeping up-to-date on the range of industry-relevant IT courses we deliver with Charles Sturt University. We had a fantastic first intake for our new Doctor of Information Technology and providing we can keep up the momentum, we are on track to have the largest number of Aussie IT Researchers of any university by the end of next year.

cheers,
Martin Hale
Adjunct Senior Lecturer - Charles Sturt University

Chief Executive Officer - IT Masters Pty Ltd

In this Edition: Why is CSU’s Doctorate different? Examples of IT Research topics Microsoft Research goes to the front of the class Complimentary tickets to CeBIT Who says Craig never leaves his Computer? The best kept secret around: SAGE-AU Are you eligible? How much credit would you qualify for?

Why is CSU’s Doctorate different? I am sure there are people in world who get more excited about IT Research than Tanveer Zia who is the Course Coordinator for Doctor of Information Technology, but I just haven’t met them yet. Tanveer had the following to say about what makes CSU’s Doctor of IT unique: “ The traditional doctoral education in Australia is primarily research oriented with little or no connection with the industry. Charles Sturt University (CSU) has identified the need for an outcome oriented professional doctorate and has restructured its Doctor of Information Technology (DIT) course to make it practical and industry-driven. Students in this course bring strong industry connection through their work experience and conduct practice-based research, solving the real issues faced by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry. They demonstrate how they have impacted professional practice as well as how they have affected the deeper and broader understanding of the pract ice through research. This provides students an opportunity to put their practice through research. Given that most students hold senior level positions in their respective organisations, they can easily drive change as result of their research outcomes. Another salient feature of the DIT is that the students report their findings in form of publications while they progress in the course. Thus the solutions to a particular industry problem are widely disseminated in form of white papers, technical reports, refereed papers and finally in a thesis.” If you would like to discuss potential research topics or any other facet of research, email Tanveer on tzia@csu.edu.au Back to top

Examples of IT Research topics Following are some examples of the type of practice-based research being carried out by the DIT students: A Senior IT Specialist in Sydney has started investigating why Australian organisations are slow to adopt Cloud Computing and the underlying security issues which may be of concern to Australian consumers. A Business Analyst who works for a ministerial organisation (having previously worked on projects in a larger university) is developing taxonomy of elements to deliver national curriculum in order to streamline the online delivery of teaching resources. A student with vast work experience at a major IT vendor has identified the security threats involved with the deployment of Cloud Computing and started an investigation of security technologies offered by Cloud service providers to determine the level of security being offered. A computer professional based in a small regional town in WA who works for an organisation which deals with the elderly people, has identified the infrastructure threats to National Broadband Network which will be used for online education for elderly in that small regional town. A technology support officer working in a regional high school in NSW has identified the project management weaknesses in Department of Education and wants to propose and test adoption of project management frameworks that can be aligned with the Department’s strategic goals. Back to top

Microsoft Research goes to the front of the class Microsoft have been fantastic in providing support for the establishment of the Doctorate. Ms Pip Marlow Managing Director, Microsoft Australia Dear Pip, We are writing to you to express our gratitude for the assistance that your CSS Community Program Manager (MVP) – Ms Roseanne Stamell – has been in getting research in Microsoft platforms established at Charles Sturt University. With over 1000 IT professionals currently enrolled in our MBA (Computing) and other IT Master degrees, Charles Sturt University is the largest provider of postgraduate IT courses to Australian IT professionals. Our focus over the next 3 years is to leverage our success to also become the largest provider of IT Research doctorates in Australia. A number of students approached us to focus their research on Microsoft technologies and platforms but in the past, we have had to reject these applicants because we do not have supervisors with the required deep knowledge of Microsoft technologies or platforms that the students are wishing to research. We discussed the matter with Roseanne late last year and Roseanne reached out to your MVP community and asked for volunteers to assist our Principal Supervisors as Co Supervisors providing expert input on the Microsoft technologies that are being researched. We received a fantastic response from your MVP community and we are now getting close to the point that we can accept doctoral applicants no matter what Microsoft platform they wish to incorporate in their research. We will shortly be advising our 3,400 IT alumni of this and in the years to come we look forward to sharing the results of what we believe will be a significant amount of Microsoft focused research. Can you please pass on our sincere thanks to Roseanne Sincerely, Tanveer A Zia, PhD Course Coordinator for Doctor of Information Technology Back to top

Complimentary tickets to CeBIT We will be at Booth number J19 at CeBIT and would love to catch up if you are visiting Australia’s largest technology show.  You can save yourself the $99 Admission fee by registering at http://mycebit.com.au/csu Back to top

Who says Craig never leaves his Computer? In the past, I have featured the incredible mix of activities that our senior industry based lecturer in Cyber Security undertakes, including: • Working for 23 years in the Cyber Security industry, including 13 years in Digital Forensics. • Appearing on over 20 occasions as an Digital Forensics expert witness in Cyber Security lawsuits Authoring over 100 publications on Cyber Security including the official study guide for the Computer Hacking Forensic Investigation certification Holding nearly 100 industry certifications, sitting on the SANS Technology Institute board and beta testing for the GIAC Cyber Security industry Certifications. One of our readers responded about the last item on Craig with 'I bet he never leaves his computer' so I have included a picture to prove this is not true. Craig is currently running series of public Webinars on Cyber Security with his most recent one being: Webinar: What to Do When Your Network is Hacked Making sure you optimise the ability of criminal and forensic investigates to gather evidence The Incident handling process Case Studies Key factors that hackers look for when selecting targets Attack trends Accessing your vulnerability Preparation Identification Containment Eradication Recovery Lessons Learned Register to download the recording: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/939395402 Back to top

The best kept secret around: SAGE-AU Six months ago our Network Manager joined the Systems Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and the following is his feedback: 'The SAGE-AU mailing lists are an invaluable resource for any systems administrator. The discussions contain a wealth of information and expertise, and the response to any issues I have posted has been quick, accurate and really addressed the question. I estimate that we covered the full cost of my annual membership with the time saved from the very first posting I made.' SAGE-AU is not for profit, volunteer based, organisation but it does take some dollars to run and the organisation is currently looking for more members. If you are supporting a Network I urge you to become member and also visit us at the Charles Sturt University Booth at the SAGE-AU Annual conference http://conference.sage-au.org.au/ Back to top

How much credit would you qualify for? Are you eligible? Fill out the online form at http://www.itmasters.edu.au/AmIEligible.aspx and we will get back to you with answers to these and any other questions you may have. Back to top

You really think you can delete it?

In a recent article on CSO it has been suggested that we simply delete data.

In principle this seems good.

In practice it reminds me of the idea that you can use a pair of pliers as a firewall. Yes, the system is cut-off, but it is also not much of an ecommerce platform either.

We are moving to a world of big data. Storage is becoming less and less expensive each day. In a few years, we will have a world where each and every phone call is recorded and stored for all time. A world where video glasses record lives and conversations.

It is not even what WE manage that is at stake, it is all the copies. We have emails saved in many places. BYO means that we have staff copies, home copies and far far more.

 

Really now, this delete it and we will be OK idea is too silly. It is not thinking of the coming issue and is thought stuck in the past. We have to manage data, we cannot delete data.

 

We are already in a world where we cannot expect to be able to delete data. What we need to do is to start finding a means to create and protect data. Unstructured text and image searches will help, saying we can be safe if we hit the magical delete key is ridiculous.

 

Right now, with backup tapes, offline storage and home users, I doubt that there is not some copy of these files we think are deleted looming to haunt us.

 

If you think you can delete data. You have already lost the battle and are soon to lose the war.

 

Manage data. Forget deleting!