
Naval Academy to name its cyber building after Grace Hopper - okket
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/federal-workplace/bs-md-naval-academy-cybersecurity-grace-hopper-20160908-story.html
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tmzt
I am very happy to hear that such an important will be named for such an
instrumental woman. I did a paper on the woman in history who most inspired me
for a contest in middle school on Ada Lovelace. Had I known of Rear Adm. Grace
Hopper at the time I would have chosen her instead. I learned about her from
my comp sci textbook and was amazed she wasn't covered in more general sources
where her story would have more of an opportunity to reach young women.

I am however, not happy to see the dumbing down of America's relationship with
technology, the careful manipulation of language to strip meaning and
understanding from the words we use.

We are in the middle of a struggle, between disclosure of exploits and
retaining them for tactical or strategic advantage, where information can be
"shared" by a private company with a government, but under a veil of secrecy.
Where we talk about defensive capabilities, but fall victim to the most basic
attacks on our network infrastructure, due to a lack of coordination within
government. We buy hardware with a name brand badge but an operating system
with 14+ year old vulnerabilities. But at the same time endeavor to place
privately owned networks under government protection for critical
infrastructure protection.

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AstroJetson
She was a great mind and could explain simple concepts, but also go nose to
nose with some of the best. She was very strict but very polite. Every time I
saw her she would take time for questions, and would stay late to get as many
in as possible.

Big fan, we need more of her today.

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raymondh
I'm glad to see her so honored. For those who have never seen or heard her in
action, here is a two minute dose of the Admiral:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8)

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donw
For those that don't know: she wrote the first compiler.

~~~
andrewflnr
IIRC the first compiler was for FORTRAN, and I don't think she was involved in
that.

Edit: Wikipedia says I'm wrong. TIL.

~~~
andars
They are referencing
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_System).

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skrebbel
This is great, but they're missing a great opportunity by renaming a "the
cyber building" anything other than "the cyber building".

I mean, have you ever been in a cyber building? I wish we had a cyber building
at work.

~~~
chrisseaton
'Cyber' is the internationally accepted term within that field. It may sound a
bit 90s to you, but it's become the widely adopted standard.

I understand the term comes from the Greek for 'helmsman', and is used to mean
governing systems, such as the systems that govern our infrastructure and
businesses, and then cyber operations are presumably attacks or the defence of
these systems.

So they are neither ignorant of etymology nor wider industrial understanding
of the term. I don't know why people have a problem with it therefore.

~~~
skrebbel
I wasn't suggestion ignorance. In fact, you're reading sarcasm where there is
none - I think it's a cool name.

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officemonkey
Grace Hopper and Hyman Rickover might be the two greatest minds the Navy ever
produced.

~~~
nickpsecurity
They're way up there but have you read on the Naval Research Laboratory? They
have some smart people. Several people that helped invent and develop INFOSEC
ended up over there at CHACS as an example. Myers wrote the definitive
reference on subversion threat as well. Tor got developed by some others.

I think Grace Hopper has more impact than those via compilers and COBOL. Still
worth considering NRL if we're measuring Navy's brains. Might be something
great in there.

~~~
officemonkey
Oh, I don't think they're not super-bright people at NRL, but Rickover
invented the nuclear navy _and_ nuclear power. The culture he invented has
created an extremely safe power industry that has had essentially two major
accidents world-wide in 60 years (I don't count Cernobyl because the Soviets
caused that accident, not the Rickover-quality-psychos.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I didn't know he was the one behind that. Yeah, that's amazing on another
level. :)

------
mentos
"It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission" -Grace
Hopper

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sargun
Can anyone tell me what a Rear Admiral is?

~~~
nickff
A one-star or two-star admiral.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_admiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_admiral)

~~~
Y201K
To help sargun out more, Hopper was an O-7, where naval officer's ranks go
from O-1 (ensign) to O-10 (admiral). This rank -- along with O-8 (rear admiral
(upper half)) -- was previously called "commodore," and in some other
countries still is, as in Commodore Matthew Perry.

e: What was previously commodore was split into the current two rear admiral
ranks.

~~~
delinka
Nit: although the 'pedia says rear admiral outranks commodore, in the U.S.
Navy the rank is equivalent to commodore in other navies.

~~~
icegreentea
Thats because the US Navy has two rear admiral ranks. The lower rear admiral
is a 1 star officer and is equivalent to commodores in other navys. The upper
rear admiral is a 2 star officer is equivalent to "normal" rear admirals in
most other navies.

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maxerickson
The Rear Admiral Grace Hopper Center for Scary Machines?

(I'm lamenting "cyber building" there, not in any way mocking the admiral)

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jasonkostempski
Read that as "cyber bullying" and was really confused for about 5 minutes.
It's time for bed.

~~~
userbinator
It's only two letters different, and "cyber building" seems far less plausible
of a term today than "cyber bullying", so that's easy to explain - the "mental
autocomplete" did the same thing for me too.

~~~
anchpop
I'd be interested in a directory or database of these "mental autocorrects" \-
it seems like the applications of these errors that you don't even notice
could be interesting.

For another example, notice the the fact that I incorrectly used "the" twice
in a row earlier in this sentence.

~~~
happy-go-lucky
It makes me wonder how the brain excels at correcting and completing stuff. In
doing so, it keeps jumping backward and forward until it's done doing its job
so well!

