My name is Derek Morris Jr. I am a junior at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). I was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia. The major that I wanted to obtain is Computer Science with a concentration in Scientific and a minor in Mathematics. Computers are used in every professional field around the globe and knowledge of computers is a vital asset in succeeding with any company. I figure why not learn about and I can possibly teach it to other or even developed something for the new generation.

I am currently an active member of the Center of Excellence for Remote Sensing Education and Research program (CERSER). In the program I have learned how to use Linux and Mac OS X, Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop C23, GPS, and etcetera. Since I have been in this program they not only taught me more than how to use operating systems and make programs; they program helps me improve my networking, and communication skills, and overall improve my presentation skills.

In the spring of 2013 I was a member of a research team under Mr. Je'aime Powell (mentor). The project was called "Documentation of Seaspace Ground Station Systems at Elizabeth City State University." This project consisted of us finding how/what building we are going to put up two of the ground station; the third one will not have to be placed on the building. After we figure out the weight, size, tools, what building we using and then we will have ECSU training. The ground station collect data that NASA can receive and transmit it back to then; they cannot receive it because they are on the west coast and their signal is not strong enough. Once I finish that project, I presented in New Hampshire, at The Association of Computer/Information Sciences and Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions (ADMI), and on research day at my school.
During summer of 2013 I attained researched program at Indiana University (Bloomington). This was a single project; I didn't have any group members other than my mentor Dr. Gregor von Laszewski. The topic he assigned to me was "Programming the Cloud: From Zero to Hundred for Non-Programmers." I had learned how to use python for the first few weeks. From there, everything was a buildup. I learn the basic such as starting a program, declaring, and initialize the program. Once I got that basic, I made a program inside the cloud that was useful for the scientist. After the project was done I had to present in Indianapolis, Indiana. 


This summer of 2014 I attended Indiana University (Bloomington) for the second time. My group and I had an amazing project. We had to do the design of the Android operating system; which is based on a set of unprotected shared resources, some of which are inherited from Linux. These unprotected shared resources, along with the extensive development of Android applications, such as Twitter, makes available a large amount of background information, which can potentially turn harmless resource sharing into serious privacy breaches. In our study, we discovered that zero-permission applications can reveal a user's identity or location through the following ways: the app's network-data usage statistics, the public address resolution protocol, and the speaker status of the device. Because of the public resources available on Android, some of a user's sensitive information can be discovered through the applications on their phones by a few inference techniques. Use of these techniques can reveal a user's disease conditions, location and identity. One particular technique involves reading the data usage of a user's Twitter application and creating a vector of time stamps of when the user tweets. Through this inference technique, more can be discerned about the user. To help combat the access of a user's personal data, we have implemented a Mitigation strategy. This strategy reduces the accuracy of the data captured by rounding up or down the actual number of bytes sent or received by the application to multiple integers before disclosing the value of the query process. The study reveals that highly sensitive data of smartphone user, such as his/her identity, interest condition, geo-location, driving route and more can actually be reliably inferred from researching popular apps. The name of it was "Analyzing the Security Infrastructure of the Android Operating System."

After I graduate, I plan to further my education by obtaining my master's degree followed by my PhD in Computer Science. In the near future I hope to work for a successful company that will allow me to perform my skills and helpful with what I learn.