Young alumni help secure campus network
Originally, says Dan Peebles ’07, he and then-fellow senior Cory Cornelius,
both computer science majors, were
to scan Dartmouth’s network for vulnerabilities as part of the Department of Computer Services’
security project. The task was a big one, but, as Peebles and Cornelius soon
realized, the biggest challenge was that no tool existed to manage a scan of
that magnitude and so, rather than attempt to manage the scan data manually,
they decided to build a tool that would do it for them.
Dan Peebles '07 and Cory Cornelius '07
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“We were amassing lots of data, but with no structure,” explains Peebles.
“Everyone realized there were shortcomings in that we were getting unstructured
data and we were expected to make the inferences. Instead, we decided to try
and tell the system how the whole thing works and have it do more of the
work.”
The result was a tool Peebles and Cornelius helped develop in collaboration
with computing services staff and engineering postdoctoral fellows and graduate
students. The creation, dubbed “Achilles,” is a collaborative network
assessment tool, built to evaluate network vulnerabilities. “It doesn’t do the
scanning for you,” says Peebles, “but it takes existing scans and processes
them and compartmentalizes them into places you’d expect them to be.”
Looking ahead, Cornelius envisions an even more sophisticated Achilles, one
that could “integrate the scanning technology into Achilles so that you could
scan the network and assess the vulnerabilities with the push of one button,
but that’s for the future.”
“Having students work on this project was a win-win,” says David Bucciero,
director of technical services. “It was a valuable learning opportunity for the
students and a cost-saving measure for the College. What they did was really
impressive.” Bucciero adds that he’s never heard of another college where
undergraduates were entrusted with this level of responsibility for the
network. “When tech companies heard about the tool these students helped
develop, they were very interested.”
For now, however, Dartmouth is hanging on to its two tech wizards; both
joined the Peter Kiewit Computing Services staff after graduation.
By GENEVIEVE HAAS
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