applied research
news & events :: tech centre insight newsletter, june 02
NewsInternet Engineering Lab at BCIT Declares War on Hackers
A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report issued May 6 outlines the present dangers of destruction of information or infrastructure and the manipulation of information for political, economic or military purposes. Such computer-based threats are defined as Information Operations (IO). According to the CSIS report, extremists, criminal groups and governments are acquiring IO expertise as quickly as technological change occurs. CSIS points to an incident in Australia in 2001 in which a man was found guilty of using wireless technology to hack into computers at a sewage plant. Sewage was released into local water systems as a result of the hacker's activities. The past 10 years have seen a major increase in the use of computer networks to transfer information from the plant floor to supervisory and business computer systems. Ethernet and TCP/IP are used in industry for both process control and business networks. The mixture brings real risks. Eric Byres, a professional engineer and research team leader of the IEL at BCIT says hacking is a growth industry. "The hackers are getting progressively more clever. It's a game to most of them, but they may do something that is life-threatening by mistake. As they develop their technologies and publish them and brag about them, people with malicious intent now suddenly have all of these tools." Meanwhile Byres notes that the industrial world continues to take advantage of improvements in the IT world. "You see Windows NT being used for operator consoles. You see Ethernet and TCP/IP being used as the plant floor network, rather than a proprietary network. Suddenly the same viruses, hacking tools and techniques that work really well on the Internet, work equally well on the plant floor," he says. "My feeling with industry is that it was mostly busy running around doing other things. Security didn't get on the radar screen. In most plants there's nobody looking after the plant floor security. If a hacker gets in to your boiler, maybe he'll boil the thing to the moon and kill a few people on the way." Byres says hackers are particularly targeting the oil and gas industry. BCIT's IEL has just completed a major (approximately $100,000) project for an Alberta-based petroleum company. The task was to look at whether the process system was secure. "We came up with a series of recommendations. They did a very good job up front but there were nine little holes, back doors that people could get through," Byres says. A current project involves another oil and gas company that uses a wireless network at a large plant for its process control systems. "They're very concerned about somebody using wireless to hack in and shut them down, or do something disruptive." The National Institute of Standards and Testing, an American government agency, visited BCIT two weeks ago to see the work being done at the IEL. "We're considered to be one of the top five such facilities in North America right now. They're considering contracting out for us to do industrial security research for the U.S. government," he says. The IEL maintains a worldwide database to track hacker activity and how it affects industrial process. The database, a unique resource, is being sold to clients such as Oakridge National Labs (nuclear research labs based in the US). The IEL is a one-of-a-kind facility in Canada for next generation Internet testing. It is backed by Canada's federally funded, high-speed Internet research group, CANARIE, Canada Foundation of Innovation, and is sponsored by Spirent Communications and Empowered Networks. The IEL is part of a lab consortium in North America for advanced Internet research. North Carolina State University, San Diego Computing Centre and Ohio State University are partnered with BCIT's Internet Engineering Lab. [top]
Xillix is currently developing its third generation system to exploit this phenomenon in the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract. This technology raises numerous intellectual property issues. One of Xillix's goals is to expand the company's patent portfolio. Bruno Jaggi, faculty member of the Biomedical Engineering program and former employee of Xillix, is working with the company's R&D personnel to do just that. To date, his efforts have resulted in numerous international patents on Endoscopic Fluorescence Imaging of Diseased Tissue, of which he is a co-inventor. Recently, Xillix broadened its association with BCIT by contracting the Technology Centre to oversee its FDA-compliant Quality Assurance System, with a particular focus on design controls. Researchers at the Technology Centre are also establishing manufacturing processes and procedures in accordance with regulatory standards for the companies third generation system. The project involves everything from parts and component sourcing to actual manufacturing and quality assurance checks. [top] Internet Data Expert, Dr. K.C. Claffy at BCIT's Internet Engineering Lab Internet data expert Dr. K.C. Claffy was a guest lecturer at the BC Institute of Technology (BCIT) on Wednesday, May 8th. Claffy presented examples of Internet measurements that shed light on common Internet myths to an audience of IT professionals, from industry and academia, in BCIT's Internet Engineering Lab (IEL). Claffy is a well-known Internet expert, famous for her research on collection, analysis and visualization of wide-area Internet data on topology, workload, performance, and routing. She is also the founder and principal investigator of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center in California. The technical lecture was organized by the BCIT Technology Centre and sponsored by Spirent Communications, Empowered Networks, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, BCNET, and British Columbia Technology Industries Association. [top] BCIT Researcher Wins Prestigious National AMTEC Award
Peter won this award for his work on Spinal Precautions: Minimizing the Risk of Further Spinal or Neurological Injury, a highly visual and interactive computer-based training program that provides effective and efficient training for health care professionals. The program was developed for the Rick Hansen Institute and is distributed free of charge on CD-ROM and the web at: http://www.bcit.ca/appliedresearch/gait/projects/spinal.shtml.
AMTEC is Canada's national association of researchers, media producers, educational and media professionals dedicated to researching, developing, supporting, and deploying educational technologies which promote innovation in learning and teaching. From the Spinal Precautions instructional program. [top] New GAIT Director Broadens BCIT Network
Paul has extensive management experience in research and development in the information technology sector. Prior to joining BCIT, he was manager of university programs for PMC-Sierra Inc., where he implemented and managed PMC-Sierra sponsored university research programs and engineering educational courses. Paul's role over the next two years will be to oversee current contracts, secure new research initiatives with industry clients and government programs in collaboration with other educational institutes, and further develop GAIT's relationship with BCIT educational programs. [top] BCIT's Bachelor of Technology (BTech) Program
BTech is an advanced, degree completion program in Computing Systems Technology. Students in the program already hold a diploma in Computer Systems or the equivalent, and take on challenging projects to complement their advanced undergraduate study. Project Disciplines Include:
Project Time-frame: July to September For detailed information, visit BCIT's Group for Advanced Information Technology (GAIT) or contact: Amardeep Gill [top] ViewsA Role for Polytechnic Institutions in Canada's Innovation Strategy In recent years, the BCIT Technology Centre has developed new niche areas of research, added key expertise to its growing research teams, and developed a reputation throughout the province for conducting research and development with an applied focus. These accomplishments are evidence of BCIT's commitment to linking education and industry through applied research and development, a key component of the Institute's continuing success as one of North America's premier polytechnic institutions. Through its new Innovation Strategy, the Government of Canada also demonstrated its commitment to research by increasing funding for federal granting agencies in 2001. These funds, which are largely directed at basic research, are strengthening the universities, stemming the "brain drain," and stimulating innovation. University researchers are making breakthroughs in technology leading to the intellectual property (IP) required for a growing high technology sector. However, there are still substantial gaps in the spectrum from basic research to commercialization of resulting technology. Industry is often not prepared to put its resources into university IP until it is further developed. Applied research and development is needed to bring the technology to a point where industry can assess its value. But applied research tends not to lead to new IP or academic publications, and hence may be of less interest to university researchers who are under considerable pressure to publish in scholarly journals. BCIT and other polytechnic institutions are uniquely positioned to fill these gaps. Applied research conducted at BCIT can validate the usefulness of basic research for industry, and applied research results can often be transferred immediately into useful products and services. Polytechnic institutions have the capability to enhance and build the capacity of Canadian companies to commercialize the technology being developed by our world class university researchers. The federal government needs to harness this resource and fill the gap in its innovation strategy. Nancy Paris-Seeley [top] Automation: What is it, where is it and why do we need it?
Automatic control systems, or automation, refer to the application of machines and computers to perform repetitive, routine and/or mechanical operations. Wherever mass production takes place, or large quantities of material(s) must be processed, automatic machines are a natural fit. Automation techniques are also applied where monitoring or quality control is required over long periods of time. Highly repetitive tasks, the monitoring of highly infrequent events or anomalies, or the high levels of scrutiny required for long periods of time are tasks that are not well suited to human activities. The human mind and body are designed to be responsive, reactive and continually processing and evaluating constantly changing information; it is not well suited to deal with repetitive activities or maintain intense, narrowly focused concentration for prolonged periods of time. By automating these types of functions an operation becomes faster, more efficient and in many cases ensures the highest levels of quality in the products being manufactured. From measuring and sorting tree seedlings in a BC nursery to evaluating customer specifications for photovoltaic (solar) cells being manufactured in China, the BCIT Technology Centre has a long history of developing automated systems. In virtually every instance, automating creates a tremendous return on the initial implementation investment. Often, new or upgraded systems pay for themselves within a year of implementation and, in some cases, within a few weeks. But production cost savings are just one of the many benefits. Automation also offers improved quality and consistency, security, safety and employee well-being. To automate or not? The answer seems clear... almost automatic. Glenn Pellegrin [top] Reusing Disposable Medical Devices
The United States Food and Drug Association (FDA) decided not to ban the practice of reprocessing devices even though they admit to having insufficient information on the safety of reused devices. Instead they drafted a policy that requires reprocessed single use devices to have the same level of patient safety as the original unused devices (www.fda.gov/cdrh/reuse/index.shtml) and adopted an approach of educating hospitals on how to maintain a manufacturing level of device safety compliance. The FDA also instituted substantial fines and liabilities for non-compliance. In Canada, the Heath Protection & Food Branch (HPFB) does not regulate the reprocessing of single-use devices. The HPFB position is that sterilization of medical devices is the responsibility of the hospital, leaving individual hospitals to determine the safety of reusing single-use devices. MEDEC, a trade organization of over 100 Canadian device manufacturers and distributors, has issued a position paper opposing the reuse of single use devices (www.medec.org/docs/REUSE-2004-ENG.pdf), but there are as yet no regulations preventing it. This raises some serious questions:
The HPFB has a responsibility to ensure the devices being used on Canadians are safe and used as the manufacturer intended. If they pass that responsibility on to individual hospitals in Canada, then perhaps patients should be given the option of choosing less expensive reprocessed devices or new devices. Ryan Kanigan [top] Single use devices such as surgical drills, coronary catheters and surgical staplers are often reused several times before being thrown away, without patient consent or knowledge. New Projects this QuarterAutomation & electronicsProject: Room Measurement System Project: Manufacturing Processes and Procedures Project: Remotely Controlled Movie Lights [top] Health technologyProject: Prosthetics Outcomes Project: Medication Cart Project: Pelvic Tracker [top] Information technologyProject: Network Traffic Shaping Project: BSB & SCP Testing Project: USB Security Camera Project: Reaction Kinetics - Virtual Lab Project: Emergency Assessment and Management of Individuals With a Spinal Injury Project: Workplace Injury Management: Using New Technology to Deliver Physician Education (Web-based Training for "Physicians" Component) Project: Test of Spoken English Administered Via Computer [top] PhotovoltaicsProject: Photovoltaic Systems Refresher Course Project: Strategies for Alternative Energy Use and Redistribution at the Building Envelope Project: Bedford Energy Centre BIPV Curtain Wall Project: Photovoltaic Fountain Project: PV Kiosk [top] New Staff this QuarterCraig Tokuno [top] The next edition of The Tech Centre INSIGHT is scheduled for distribution in October 2002. If you know someone who would be interested in receiving The Tech Centre INSIGHT you can direct them to the subscription form on our web site at: www.bcit.ca/appliedresearch/news/newsletters/ If you would prefer not to receive future editions, please reply to this e-mail with "unsubscribe" in the subject field. |
Industrial companies and government agencies seeking to thwart hackers bent on disrupting IT networks are coming to B.C. Institute of Technology's Internet Engineering Lab (IEL) for security solutions.
Early detection of cancer can mean the difference between life and death. Since its inception in 1988, Xillix Technologies Inc. has developed innovative technologies to allow physicians to see cancer earlier. Its core technology is based on tissue fluorescence imaging. When tissue is exposed to a specific wavelength of light, healthy tissue fluoresces differently than cancerous or pre-cancerous tissue. This allows for early detection and localization.
The 
The award was presented at the AMTEC 2002 conference in Regina, Saskatchewan from May 29 to June 1, 2002.
Paul Thiel recently joined the BCIT Technology Centre as Director of the Centre's Group for Advanced Information Technology (GAIT). Paul replaces Michael Hrybyk, who has taken a two-year leave to be the full-time president and CEO of BCNET. 
BCIT’s Computer Systems Technology department invites you to sponsor projects for its Industry Sponsored Student Projects program. If you have advanced computing projects including software development, proof-of-concept, engineering or R&D, then sponsoring a BCIT industry project may provide the solution.
The fact is, our society has come to rely increasingly on automation. Automatic control systems have become an integral part of many of our business, manufacturing, production and even home operations. Automatic controls are found in everything from beverage processing operations to pharmaceutical production, from automotive assembly lines to saw mills and from building automation systems to security enhancement. 
There is increasing public awareness that many hospitals in North America have been re-using medical devices intended for one-time or throw away use. These devices, although designed to be disposed of after only one use, are being cleaned or re-sterilized and used again. Single use devices such as surgical drills, coronary catheters and surgical staplers are often re-used several times before being thrown away, without patient consent or knowledge. At present, there are no non-voluntary standards to specifically address issues such as how many times a particular device can be re-sterilized, or how re-sterilization effects the life span of a single-use device. In addition, given that it is often cheaper to re-sterilize a single use device than buy a new one there is little economic incentive for hospitals to buy new devices.
