{"614683":{"#nid":"614683","#data":{"type":"news","title":"David Devecsery Wants to Build Better Systems ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn the world of academia, sometimes the most innovative research isn\u0026rsquo;t practical.\u0026nbsp;Yet new Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/people\/david-devecsery\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDavid Devecsery\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;believes\u0026nbsp;he has a duty to build usable systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;I want to create better systems and ways of doing things with hopes someone else will use it,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDeveloping\u0026nbsp;systems\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDevecsery\u0026nbsp;has been working on finding solutions to real-world problems since college. In his junior year as a computer science student\u0026nbsp;at\u0026nbsp;the University of Michigan, where he also completed his M.S. and Ph.D.,\u0026nbsp;Devecsery\u0026nbsp;joined an embedded systems project to help spread information in the developing world.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Talking Book was\u0026nbsp;an audio computer\u0026nbsp;created\u0026nbsp;to transmit information in some of the world\u0026rsquo;s poorest countries,\u0026nbsp;where electricity is unreliable and cellphones are too expensive.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EYet the device\u0026rsquo;s original format cost $45 to build and wasn\u0026rsquo;t energy efficient, so\u0026nbsp;Devecsery\u0026nbsp;and his team\u0026nbsp;developed an\u0026nbsp;inexpensive\u0026nbsp;custom microprocessor.\u0026nbsp;He\u0026nbsp;helped design\u0026nbsp;the project from the original chip to the computer\u0026rsquo;s applications. The three-year\u0026nbsp;endeavor\u0026nbsp;solidified his interest in systems.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDesigning and building an entire computing stack from the ground up\u0026nbsp;came with challenges. Debugging the chip was no easy feat, especially when the debugging interface itself had a bug.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s very nice to look at buggy software and make it reliable and understand how it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESolving system failure\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs software systems grow more complex, they become\u0026nbsp;more challenging\u0026nbsp;to debug. Having tools to analyze and understand the space is important if software is going to be scaled effectively. With this in mind,\u0026nbsp;Devecsery\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;systems research has focused on two\u0026nbsp;avenues:\u0026nbsp;eidetic systems and optimistic hybrid analysis.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEidetic computer systems have the ability to recall any past setup or state of the computer. Therefore,\u0026nbsp;they\u0026nbsp;can be useful in recreating events to help figure out what happened during a system failure or a cyberattack. The process is typically time-consuming and manual, but Devecsery\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;research automates it. With this information, researchers can learn how to improve software or debug more efficiently.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Most\u0026nbsp;of these scenarios are preventable\u0026nbsp;with techniques we know today,\u0026nbsp;but most are too expensive to do practically,\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;Devecsery\u0026nbsp;said. \u0026ldquo;The research is how\u0026nbsp;we can\u0026nbsp;take techniques and make them more efficient so we can use them today.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers are already using\u0026nbsp;Devecsery\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;work.\u0026nbsp;One of the most promising cybersecurity breakthroughs of the last year was the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/news\/598030\/instant-replay-computer-systems-shows-cyber-attack-details\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ERefinable Attack INvestigation (RAIN)\u003C\/a\u003E, which is a new software system that enables researchers to accurately and quickly determine how and when intruders entered a network, what data they took, and what systems were compromised.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EOptimistic hybrid analysis helps to prevent\u0026nbsp;many software bugs, such as\u0026nbsp;data-races.\u0026nbsp; A data-race occurs\u0026nbsp;when a system attempts to perform two or more operations\u0026nbsp;on the same data simultaneously. Although computer scientists already have the tools to do\u0026nbsp;data-race\u0026nbsp;detection, they slow the system down by 10 times and are often inaccurate.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDevecsery\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;work uses a strategic mix of static (examining code without running the program) and dynamic (examining code while running the program), or hybrid, analysis.\u0026nbsp;By making dynamic observations of the code, researchers can trim down how much static analysis they must do, making\u0026nbsp;it\u0026nbsp;much more efficient.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETraining\u0026nbsp;better\u0026nbsp;systems\u0026nbsp;researchers\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDevecsery\u0026nbsp;is also passionate about training future researchers to do this work.\u0026nbsp;He has been teaching since he joined his high school\u0026rsquo;s tutoring club and considers it\u0026nbsp;one of the main reasons he was drawn to academia.\u0026nbsp;He prefers an active learning approach where he gives students difficult questions to discuss with a partner and then apply to a real-world situation.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter joining the School of Computer Science in the fall semester, he found the next generation of researchers. The students are \u0026ldquo;extremely intelligent and think creatively about research,\u0026rdquo; according to\u0026nbsp;Devecsery.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026ldquo;I really believe when you give students a challenge and they come to you for help, you never really tell them the answer,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;You just turn on a light down that path and encourage them to take a step in the right direction.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"David Devecsery joined SCS as an assistant professor in fall 2018."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2018-11-27 21:50:11","changed_gmt":"2018-11-27 21:56:52","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2018-11-27T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2018-11-27T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"614686":{"id":"614686","type":"image","title":"Devecsery","body":null,"created":"1543355713","gmt_created":"2018-11-27 21:55:13","changed":"1543355713","gmt_changed":"2018-11-27 21:55:13","alt":"David Devecsery","file":{"fid":"234026","name":"DDevecsery2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/DDevecsery2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/DDevecsery2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":766840,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/DDevecsery2.jpg?itok=GEu5ZZN-"}}},"media_ids":["614686"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"},{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Communications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["tess.malone@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}