Underground mines are a dangerous working environment and, therefore, robots could help putting less humans at risk. Traditional robots, sensors, and software often do not work reliably underground due to the harsh environment. This paper analyzes requirements and presents a robot design capable of navigating autonomously underground and manipulating objects with a robotic arm. The robot's base is a robust four wheeled platform powered by electric motors and able to withstand the harsh environment. It is equipped with color and depth cameras, lighting, laser scanners, an inertial measurement unit, and a robotic arm. We conducted two experiments testing mapping and autonomous navigation. Mapping a 75 meters long route including a loop closure results in a map that qualitatively matches the original map to a good extent. Testing autonomous driving on a previously created map of a second, straight, 150 meters long route was also successful. However, without loop closure, rotation errors cause apparent deviations in the created map. These first experiments showed the robot's operability underground.

While the idea of tour guide robots has been addressed several times, applying a video-projector based augmented reality component to this scenario is rather new. We show requirements of the localization system of the robot and how they can be fulfilled, as well as a basic system for projection correction and its suitability for this scenario.

In this paper, we propose the usage of a Wizard of Oz to facilitate the first steps towards a tour-guide robot in a real world environment. In particular, we want to emphasize two essential aspects during such an early project phase. On the one hand, to ensure certain basic skills of the robot (e.g. navigation and interaction), suitable methods have to be selected. On the other hand, insights about the requirements of further developments have to be accumulated. At the same time, it should be avoided to annoy the visitors of the museum by malfunctioning systems. Hence, the robot has to appear to be performing flawlessly. Thus, in such early project stages, we suggest to substitute the still missing parts of the robot by a human operator.

Fig. 1. One of our robots. The research goal of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Applied Sciences Dresden is the development of intelligent and interactive mobile service and assistance systems. For the application of such systems, different scenarios are imaginable, like guidance and information systems within public institutions (museums, airports, train stations, etc.), assistance or supporting systems in markets (do-it-yourself store, shopping malls,etc.), systems to support the elderly in home environments, and systems for industrial tasks (mobile measuring and surveillance systems). For the current research work the robot, which is depicted in Fig. 1, is used as a guidance system in a museum in the city of Dresden (Technische Sammlungen Dresden). The research platform is a commercially available SCITOS G5 equipped with two laser range finders, an omnidirectional camera, a depth camera, a ring of sonar sensors, and a head with two eyes that has no further sensor capabilities, but is used for interaction purposes. The robot is meant to serve as companion or tutor, which guides through the exhibition and provides background information to the exhibits. To start the dialog with the visitors of the exhibition, the robot possesses a broad spectrum of multimodal abilities or channels, like language, gestures, a touch screen and multimedia presentations. Furthermore, the system is meant to be able to adapt the way those different channels are combined during the dialog to the specific needs and preferences of its interaction partner. In addition to the research and development of a dialog system, our robot needs to be able to navigate the exhibition autonomously. However, our intention is not to provide help by augmenting the environment with additional sensors. Instead, the robot is equipped with a number of sensors as already mentioned. Only these sensors are used to generate an inner map of the robots surroundings.

the community of software developers matures in its dealings with privacy, it will be faced with challenges in the evolution of software. To date, there is little in the way of practical guidance for developers and less in the way of tools and techniques to facilitate privacy-sensitive software development and evolution.

Marc Donner's valedictory EIC message addresses the ubiquity of computers as system components, whose embedded, interconnected systems have prompted a new generation of security and privacy issues.

In recent years two things have become clear: first, the fight against malware is essentially unwinnable, and second, there is a way forward. Production and distribution of malware has become a business energized by powerful economic forces. The defenders are at a severe disadvantage and are losing the fight. We should look to new models and new ways of thinking to help organize our work in this area. An attractive domain to look at for new models is the biological one, in which organisms live in dynamic tension with their own malware.

IEEE Security & Privacy could be a lot more international in its focus and content. Reflecting on the content and tone over the past seven years (yes, S&P is seven years old!), it's hard to tell that we do think of either privacy or security in a broad international context. There are examples of taking a broader view, but they're more notable as exceptions than as standards. This is bad for several reasons. First, privacy and security have different levels of importance in different places in the world. Second, by largely ignoring the non-Western world, we risk dangerous blind spots. Third, we might be failing to take simple and easy steps that would make our magazine more broadly valuable worldwide.

When faced with a new thing, human beings do something very sensible. They try to harness previous experience and intuition in service of the new thing. How is this new thing like something that I already know and understand? Trying to model the new thing on some old thing can be efficient, making it easier to reason about the new thing by using analogies adopted from previous experience. We're in the midst of a huge society-wide change to move record keeping from paper systems to digital ones. In consequence, a vast number of existing rules can and should be rethought and revised. No better time than now, and no one better to do it than we.

For humans, war remains an inexhaustible subject of storytelling and analysis—such a compelling topic that experts trace the origins of written history, historiography, to the Athenian general Thucydides, who wrote The Peloponnesian War nearly 2,500 years ago. The appeal of war stories, whether we read them for elevation or escape, is eternal. Science fiction, like every other genre whose authors ...

Associate editor in chief Marc Donner explains why it's still worth reading "bad-guy writing"—and publishing book reviews about those works.

For humans, war remains an inexhaustible subject of storytelling and analysis—such a compelling topic that experts trace the origins of written history, historiography, to the Athenian general Thucydides, who wrote The Peloponnesian War nearly 2,500 years ago. The appeal of war stories, whether we read them for elevation or escape, is eternal. Science fiction, like every other genre whose authors have written for economic gain and popular acclaim, has plenty of combat. This installment of BiblioTech focuses on two novels at opposite ends of the timeline: Robert A. Heinlein's Hugo-winning classic Starship Troopers and newcomer John Scalzi's Hugo-nominated novel Old Man's War.

For humans, war remains an inexhaustible subject of storytelling and analysis—such a compelling topic that experts trace the origins of written history, historiography, to the Athenian general Thucydides, who wrote The Peloponnesian War nearly 2,500 years ago. The appeal of war stories, whether we read them for elevation or escape, is eternal. Science fiction, like every other genre whose authors have written for economic gain and popular acclaim, has plenty of combat. This installment of BiblioTech focuses on two novels at opposite ends of the timeline: Robert A. Heinlein's Hugo-winning classic Starship Troopers and newcomer John Scalzi's Hugo-nominated novel Old Man's War.

As we've seen with the electrical system's evolution and the reengineering of the US voting system, change makes us rediscover essential assumptions and expectations about systems as well as their complexity and inherent risks. In the case of e-voting, the debate reeducated society at large about our expectations of the process, why we have such things as secret ballots, and what it takes to provide confidence that the process has been conducted fairly. With this issue of S&P, we hope that you'll be better prepared to participate in the debate over identity management and ensure that the nontechnical policy makers who will make many of the key decisions can make high-quality choices.

Security & Privacy's associate editor in chief, Marc Donner, discusses the upcoming vote on the Protect America Act, as well as an article about that act in the issue.

Security & Privacy's associate editor in chief considers the recent cyberattack on Estonia.

Figuring out how to gather and share data might not be as glamorous as cracking a tough cipher or thwarting an exploit, but it does have great leverage.