Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our current featured reviewer, Andy Huber (Hifn Inc.).
Q: What is the most important thing that's happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A: It's hard to imagine anything more influential than the emergence of the Internet into a critical part of the worldwide infrastructure. Its impact will continue to grow and infiltrate our lives in many ways, positive as well as negative.
Q: By the end of your career, where do you think computer science
will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute
toward that?
A: Far wiser prognosticators than I have noted that predictions are hard to make, especially about the future. So while claiming no special foresight, I expect computer science and software engineering to provide us reliable and secure systems and software, making the Internet safe and secure while protecting privacy. I hope my and my company's work in IPSec and Internet security will contribute by protecting all data on the Internet.
Q: Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A: Charles Babbage, as an inventor, mathematician, and engineer who was truly a visionary ahead of his time and a founding figure in computers and computer science. Just think how much farther ahead computers and computer science might be today if the technology of his day had permitted his analytical engine to be successfully built. His efforts qualify as the first computer start-up that failed, but, as with many unsuccessful ventures, foreshadowed spectacular successes by others later building on his ideas.
Q: If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A: I'd probably be an organic chemist like my father was.
Q: What is your favorite type of music?
A: Any kind of classical music, from Bach to Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner up through Prokofiev and Copeland, with a special affinity for Romantic composers.
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To learn more about Andy Huber, check out his profile.
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