<p>Depends on the language, the use of obfuscation techniques, and what you want to do. Java is almost perfectly decompilable, C much less so. It's generally much easier to tweak an executable slightly (no-CD crack, maphack, function wrappers for code profiling) than it is to recover source code.</p>
<p>What about things other than code, such as an aircraft or a missile? Or a device that can look into the future, such as the one that Ben Affleck reverse-engineered in Paycheck? :-)</p>
<p>the code is the key. you could reverse engineer a missile's superstructure and even stuff like the propulsion sytems, but you cant really learn much from it. You can always make copies (although youd be infringing on someones ip rights :p) but without the code the entire thing is useless. And it isnt necessary that the code be on a conventional memory device like a hard drive - it may even be built into the hardware. In such cases, if you have the technology to reverse engineer a microchip, then you may not need to steal missile guidance systems :p</p>
<p>aircrafts are much harder to reverse engineer, too many parts. Again i think it'll be easier to make one yourself.</p>
<p>As someone from Europe beginning to think about graduate schools, I find this whole debate very interesting. It gives some good insight into what universties in the US are really like, and what matters most to students there. It would be interesting to know how the "rigor"of the undergraduate courses at Caltech or MIT compares to the "rigour" of a top European university like Cambridge, but maybe that's taking this thread a little too far.</p>
<p>About applications of QM to economics, I do think it's more than a work-out. One of our maths lecturers used to joke about the importance of PDEs for the prospect of physics students to find a good job in finance, and our ability to handle PDEs being our main "selling point" in the eyes of recruiters. I think it's fairly obvious why that's true. However, there are also some more direct applications of QM to finance, which are more than just general problem-solving skills. Of course, all economics is not finance, but at least in some areas, the importance of QM could be very real.</p>
<p>Take, for instance</p>
<p><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0406129%5B/url%5D">http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0406129</a></p>
<p>which gives a good non-technical introduction, as well as a list of references.</p>
<p>Very interesting article! Many thanks.</p>
<p>*DECLINING BY DEGREES *
*May, 2005 </p>
<p>When award-winning journalist John Merrow started work on his PBS
documentary about the state of American higher education, "Declining by
Degrees," he met with noted educators, policy makers, and researchers
before he shot the first minute of video. Many of us here at Carnegie
spoke with him at that time. Yet, even with this degree of preparation,
John admits that he wasn't ready for what he found once he began to visit
campuses and started talking to faculty and students.</p>
<p>In this month's Carnegie Perspective, John takes on one of the primary
issues raised in the documentary, the decline in the quality of education
experienced by many of America's college students. For anyone who cares
about the state of the academy, it's a tough piece to read, just as his
documentary may be uncomfortable for many to watch. Rest assured that
during his frequent periods of residence as a visiting scholar at the
Carnegie Foundation, John's role is often that of challenging all of us
with equally uncomfortable questions.</p>
<p>*By John Merrow * *</p>
<p>Of all the students I met during nearly two years of working on our PBS
documentary about higher education, I continue to be intrigued by a
sophomore named Nate. After proudly proclaiming that he was maintaining a
3.4 GPA despite studying less than an hour a night, he wondered aloud,
"It's not supposed to be this easy, is it? Shouldn't college be
challenging?" Nate was one of the more enlightened students that we
interviewed.</p>
<p>He talked about his "boring" classes, including an English class he
described as "a brain dump." We sat in on that class. The teacher had
assigned students to write parodies of The Road Not Taken, knowing that to
do the assignment well, they would have to read and understand Frost's
poem. She was meeting students at their level ... and trying to push them
to go beyond it, attempting to move them out of their "intellectual
comfort zone" and lead them in new directions. Tough job, because Nate and
undoubtedly most of his classmates-had obviously NOT read the assignment.
Nate had succeeded in high school by figuring out what was going to be on
his tests and doing as little as possible. And since that approach also
got him into college and was now earning him a solid B average, he saw no
reason to change. Ask Nate the purpose of college, and he would probably
say something about "getting a good job." The learning part wasn't
necessarily what he was paying good money for.</p>
<p>Although we found this English class stimulating, we could see how
frustrating it became for the teacher because of the lack of
student-directed engagement and motivation. In this case, the students'
expectations didn't match the professor's. Teaching becomes a difficult
transaction when students expect to get the diploma that they pay for
without caring whether they learn anything in the process. The situation
is made more difficult because professors begin classroom teaching at a
disadvantage. Few have any training in how to teach. We were very
impressed by Tom Fleming, a senior lecturer at the University of Arizona,
who took advantage of a faculty development course offered by his
institution on teaching theory and effective practices. Using technology
in a huge lecture hall, he deftly engaged students, allowing very few to
merely get by.</p>
<p>College used to be a "sink or swim" environment, but today, either
colleges are giving much-needed "swimming lessons"-investing in student
success-or they're allowing students to "tread water"- giving decent
grades for very little work. In the first case, students actually receive
an education; in the second, they merely get a degree. It's all too easy
for some students and faculty members to settle into a pattern of behavior
that looks like an unspoken "non-aggression treaty," in which professors
don't ask much of students and the students don't expect much from their
professors (as long as they get A's and B's).</p>
<p>The good news is that many faculty members-those giving swimming
lessons-work with energy and imagination to move their students beyond
that simplistic "diploma=$$" formula. The relationship between Tom Fleming
and his students falls into this category. Even more heartening is the
fact that many students intuitively know that they're being denied an
education and seek out campus experiences that give them what they need.
But that 20 or so percent out there treading water are shortchanging
themselves and future employers who think that a college degree indicates
achievement as well as persistence. And those professors who find it more
comfortable to demand little of their students are denied the satisfaction
that good teaching affords.</p>
<p>The shift in the expectations of students and faculty members began around
the time that America learned that college graduates made more money than
high school graduates-as much as a million dollars more over their working
lives. The mantra became, "If you want an education, then you pay for it."
The old social contract-the idea that education of individuals is a public
good and therefore should in part be publicly financed-is on life support
and barely breathing. Instead, "Education Pays" is proclaimed on
billboards around Kentucky, encouraging kids to go to college just to nail
down that good job.</p>
<p>Kids arrive on campus determined to major in "business" and often remain
impervious to the efforts of their professors to expose them to new ideas
and new information. Our student financial aid system supports the
"investment in me" approach by making less money available in the form of
grants to needy students, and more in the form of loans to be paid back as
a return on the individual's investment in themselves. The message our
kids get is that they're not students; they're consumers. And if they're
willing to settle for "purchasing" a degree that means nothing in terms of
educational achievement, it's their right. It's their investment. In this
environment, professors, colleges, and universities are forced into giving
the customers what they want, not necessarily what they should want.</p>
<p>I admire students who squeeze as much as they can from the college
experience, and I salute the teachers who dedicate their energies to
seeing students succeed. Too much is left to chance, however, and too many
lives are blighted by our national indifference to what is actually
happening on our campuses during the years between admission and
graduation. What we found is not the equivalent of a few potholes on an
otherwise passable highway. Serious attention must be paid at a national
level. Other countries are not standing still. Those that have not
surpassed us already in educational attainment levels are clearly visible
in the rear-view mirror.</p>
<p>.................................................. .........................</p>
<p>* John Merrow, president of Learning Matters Inc. and a visiting scholar at
the Carnegie Foundation, produced the documentary "Declining by Degrees:
Higher Education at Risk," which will air on PBS stations Thursday, June
23. Check your local listings for exact times. To learn more, go to
<a href="http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/</a>.</p>
<p>Carnegie Perspectives is a series of commentaries that explore different
ways to think about educational issues. These pieces are presented with
the hope that they contribute to the conversation. You can respond
directly to the author at <a href="mailto:CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org">CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org</a> or you
can join a public discussion at Carnegie Conversations.</p>
<p>Join the Carnegie Perspectives email list by sending an email to
<a href="mailto:CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org">CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org</a> with "Subscribe" as the subject
line.</p>
<hr>
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<hr>
<p>Folks:</p>
<p>The posting above, by John Merrow, president of Learning Matters Inc. and
a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation looks at the current state
of higher education in the United States. It is #17 in the monthly series
called Carnegie Foundation Perspectives. These short commentaries
exploring various educational issues are produced by the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
<a href="http://www.carnegiefoundation.org">http://www.carnegiefoundation.org</a>. The Foundation invites your response
at: <a href="mailto:CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org">CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org</a>. Reprinted with permission</p>
<p>Declining By Degrees
----------------------------------- 1.106 words ------------------------------ *</p>
<p>Ben,</p>
<p>Do you have anything to add, subtract, agree with or oppose with the quoted article above, which was sent to me by a friend.</p>
<p>SHABIN</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>It is interesting how examples of students "faking out" the professors (or of professors and students colluding in joint "non-aggression" pacts, as discussed above) tend to be in the humanities. In science, math, or engineering, you simply do not find as many such examples.</p>
<p>Maybe humanities education in America needs some fixing.</p>
<p>A few things.</p>
<p>Obviously, this does not describe Caltech in the least. Pretty much the main selling point of the institute is how difficult it is. That reputation is what makes Caltech graduates valuable on the job market. If we lost that, we would go out of business. This is the opposite of some other, less well-known universities, which would go bankrupt if they stopped giving out easy diplomas. So our incentives are different, and that makes it less attractive to slide into meaninglessness.</p>
<p>I think it's possible to have no-nonsense rigor in the sciences or the humanities; but in practice, standards tend to slide in the humanities first.</p>
<p>It's curious why employers are willing to pay a premium for students with meaningless diplomas. (The fascinating economic explanation of college</a> as a signaling device -- see also section 6.6.3 in Principles</a> of Economic Analysis -- doesn't work here because that requires college to be easier for the competent than the incompetent, but this doesn't apply to the four-year diploma mills that have proliferated. This parenthetical remark is mostly for our occasional economist visitor.) Someone who has graduated from a college with very lax standards has, at the most, shown that his parents probably have money.</p>
<p>My personal guess is that we are currently in an adjustment phase. Employers still give some prestige to the notion of a college diloma in general. Pretty soon, that prestige by association will evaporate for the truly terrible colleges, and only a fairly small number of colleges, and a fairly small number of degrees, will be meaningful.</p>
<p>My prediction is that in twenty years, there will be a large set of colleges whose diploma statistically adds no earnings over having just a high school diploma, and then those colleges will rapidly go bankrupt. We will see if I am right.</p>
<p>I have a quick question: what are some impressive courses to take at Caltech to get a really good job in economics and quantitative trading? PDE's? Quantum Mechanics? Nonlinear and Linear Programming?</p>
<p>
[quote]
My prediction is that in twenty years, there will be a large set of colleges whose diploma statistically adds no earnings over having just a high school diploma, and then those colleges will rapidly go bankrupt. We will see if I am right
[/quote]
</p>
<p>One could already say that that is true about many doctoral programs, even some at Caltech. Let's face it. Many people with doctorates really don't earn that much more than people with just bachelor's, and certainly not enough to justify the return-on-investment of spending those extra years in school which you could have spent working. Yet those programs show no signs of disappearing. Far from it - many doctoral programs are swamped with applicants.</p>
<p>I think the doctoral programs are slightly different. While you are right that many do not justify themselves in terms of lifetime earnings, (they are a net monetary loss), the people in them seem to enjoy what they're doing, and are willing to pay a premium for that enjoyment. The same does not seem to be true of the diploma mills -- the students appear to be going to college only for future earnings.</p>
<p>Interesting... this week's issue of BusinessWeek happens to note that the change in real earnings for people with only a bachelor's actually went down -4.9% from 2000-04 (whereas owners of advanced degrees gained 2.5%). This is on page 48 of the Sep 12 edition; data is for 2004 from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics.</p>
<p>Webhappy, I think much of that had to do with that a lot of people in the late 90's got jobs that wer far above and beyond anything they would have gotten in most other times in history. I wouldn't say that they didn't deserve those jobs (because who really deserves anything?), but I would say that there were some pretty darn high paying jobs obtained by some not particularly highly qualified people. </p>
<p>Especially at the dotcoms. I remember one dotcom where, except for the receptionist, everybody at the company was getting paid at least 120k. And these people weren't exactly the highest qualified people in the world. Some of them had just gotten out of college, and some of them didn't even have that, but were just high school graduates with a few years of work experience. Now things are far more normal and dotcoms are no longer throwing around obscene salaries to people who, quite frankly, aren't that good. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it still doesn't usually 'pay' to get your PhD, except maybe in certain specialized fields like business administration or finance, and even then the payoff is highly questionable. But as Ben Golub says, it has something to do with personal enjoyment as well.</p>
<p>~"My prediction is that in twenty years, there will be a large set of colleges whose diploma statistically adds no earnings over having just a high school diploma, and then those colleges will rapidly go bankrupt. We will see if I am right.</p>
<p>I think that you may be right. Anyway let's wait and see how right you may turn out to be, unless something happens to change the currently rising trend.</p>
<p>SHABIN</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>At least people have to call you "Dr. ..."</p>
<p>Oh, and about the reverse engineering of software. A lot of people will just use a hex editor to look at stuff like passwords, CD key checking algorithms, etc. But if someone really wants to, they can do crazy stuff like write an entire interpreter to interpret part of the executable it self from within the executable. The question is how far one is willing to go interms of sacrificing speed and efficiency(there are ways to lessen this) over protection.</p>
<p>Probably the easiest way is to create an interpreter, which will interpret a scrambled file that is embedded in the interpreter. I can't think of how to hack that unless you want to sit and reverse engineer the interpreter, and then study the embedded content.</p>
<p>I'm not going to Cal Tech and I'm not even applying. These are serious posts with thoughtful discussion. You should read some of the Ivies' posts.</p>
<p>I suspect candidates are scientifically oriented and literature and fine arts is not your focus. However, your posts reflect a better command of the English language than most of the posts at the Ivies. Your concerns are more specific and less superficial. </p>
<p>Now I'm really worried. Will I be going to school with students not of Cal Tech calibre.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I suspect candidates are scientifically oriented and literature and fine arts is not your focus. However, your posts reflect a better command of the English language than most of the posts at the Ivies. Your concerns are more specific and less superficial.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>LOL! Caltech students are very science-oriented, yes, but it doesn't mean that they are weak in common English knowledge, as it is easily reflected on their high SAT Verbal scores. But they would generally not be so strong in terms of knowledge in literature, history and humanities. Don't be discouraged in anyway!</p>
<p>I don't know about that, rtkysg... it may be true, but then again I've met plenty of kids at Caltech that are very strong at literature or history or foreign languages. I'd say the atmosphere here is somewhat more intellectual than at many of our peer schools, and that goes across the board -- (I say this having taken courses in both math/science and the humanities at Princeton for a year).</p>