{"id":452295,"date":"2018-01-03T08:30:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=452295"},"modified":"2023-05-01T11:56:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T18:56:19","slug":"programming-languages-quietly-run-world-dr-ben-zorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/podcast\/programming-languages-quietly-run-world-dr-ben-zorn\/","title":{"rendered":"How Programming Languages Quietly Run the World with Dr. Ben Zorn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/zorn\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Blog_600x400-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"photo of Dr. Ben Zorn - Research Manager, Principal Researcher\" class=\"wp-image-452301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Blog_600x400-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Blog_600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dr. Ben Zorn &#8211; Research Manager, Principal Researcher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"episode-6-january-3-2018\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-left\">Episode 6 | January 3, 2018<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>How Programming Languages Quietly Run the World with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/zorn\/\">Dr. Ben Zorn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">In an era of AI breakthroughs and other exciting advances in computer science, Dr. Ben Zorn would like to remind us that behind every great technical revolution is\u2026 a programming language. As a Principal Researcher and the Co-director of RiSE \u2013 or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/group\/research-in-software-engineering-rise\/\">Research in Software Engineering<\/a> \u2013 group at Microsoft Research, Dr. Zorn has dedicated his life to making sure the software that now touches nearly everything in our lives is easy, accurate, reliable and secure. Today, Dr. Zorn tells us some great stories about bugs and whales, warns us against the dumb side of \u201csmart\u201d objects, shares about his group\u2019s attempt to scale the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/project-everest-verified-secure-implementations-https-ecosystem\/\">Everest<\/a> of software security, and makes a great case that the most important programming language in the world today is\u2026 the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-msr-subscribe-to-podcast subscribe-to-podcast\">\n\t<div class=\"subscribe-to-podcast__inner border-top border-bottom border-width-2\">\n\t\t<h2 class=\"h5 subscribe-to-podcast__heading\">\n\t\t\tSubscribe to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/podcast\">Microsoft Research Podcast<\/a>:\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t<ul class=\"subscribe-to-podcast__list list-unstyled\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"subscribe-to-podcast__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"subscribe-to-podcast__link\" 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class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-left\">Transcript<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: How do we know where the diseases are in the world? Okay, so you have a Zika outbreak, right? The question is how do scientists know that that might happen? How would they predict? Can we do weather forecasting and that kind of forecasting, but for diseases instead of weather? The hard part is that technically, how do you solve that problem? He drilled that big important question down to this very simple question, can we use a mosquito as a sensor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: You\u2019re listening to the Microsoft Research podcast. A show that brings you closer to the cutting edge of technology research and the scientists behind it. I\u2019m your host, Gretchen Huizinga.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: In an era of AI breakthroughs and other exciting advances in computer science, Dr. Ben Zorn would like to remind us that behind every great technical revolution is\u2026 a programming language. As a Principal Researcher, and the Co-director of the RiSE or Research in Software Engineering group at Microsoft Research, Dr. Zorn has dedicated his life to making sure the software that now touches nearly everything in our lives is easy, accurate, reliable, and secure. Today, Dr. Zorn tells us some great stories about bugs and whales, warns us against the dumb side of smart objects, talks about his group\u2019s attempt to scale the Everest of software security and makes a solid case that the most important programming language today\u2026 is the spreadsheet.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>That, and much more on this episode of the Microsoft research podcast.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: So, let\u2019s actually start by setting up the framework for what we\u2019re going to talk about today. What exactly do the London Whale and a better mosquito trap have in common?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So, they seem very different, but in the end, I think if you think about the world that we\u2019re in now, software plays a key role in our lives, in everything we do. And so, the thing that connects these is that they\u2019re fundamental challenges, big problems, but at the core of solving those problems is the ability to use software to actually attack the problem and make it better. I work in the field of programming languages and we really think every day, we go to work thinking what do we do to make software better? If we make software better, then we can make all the things that depend on software better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Yeah so, what about the London Whale? What was that situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: One of the things that\u2019s important to understand is much of the finance world runs on spreadsheets, and spreadsheets capture a lot of interesting information, information from banks, information from stocks. The London Whale was one of these traders at JP Morgan and he had a spreadsheet and he was looking at how much volatility there was in a particular stock. And the reason they called him the London Whale is because he would make enormous purchases, like $1 billion dollars, literally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Hence, whale.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Yeah, yeah, the whale. So, he did this and unfortunately in the spreadsheet he used, there was a bug. And so, he thought the volatility of a particular stock was much lower than it really was. So, he bought it thinking it was going to stay stable, when in fact it swung and it went way down and he lost literally billions of dollars. And so, this was a human making a decision, but the decision was basically based on a spreadsheet. And again, we\u2019re back to software. That\u2019s the fundamental thing that links these together, is the bug in the software made him lose all this money and then all the consequences. I mean, the company lost $900 billion in a lawsuit essentially because of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Right. So, what about mosquitoes?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Okay, yeah, so let me talk about that. I think one of the things I really, really enjoy about working for Microsoft is the ability for people to have a vision and attack that vision with their heart and soul. And, I had an incredible researcher working with me, his name is Ethan Jackson, and he wanted to solve an important problem, and it wasn\u2019t a problem about money, or etc., it was really a much more fundamental problem, which is how do we know where the diseases are in the world? Okay? So, we have a Zika outbreak, right? The question is, how do scientists know that that might happen? How would they predict? So, in his mind, is, can we do weather forecasting and that kind of forecasting, but for diseases instead of weather? The hard part is that technically, how do you solve that problem? He drilled that big important question down to this very simple question is, can we use a mosquito as a sensor? So, can you take a mosquito and look at what it\u2019s eaten in its meal- that blood contains viruses, and the viruses will tell you what diseases are present in the current environment. That took him on this incredible journey where he met with, you know, disease experts. He met with insect biologists, you know, mosquito experts. He worked with field biologists to understand what their process was. You know, how do they go now and find out where the mosquitoes are, what kinds of things are happening with mosquitoes? But the thing that he connected &#8211; you can think of this as connecting the dots \u2013 He connected mosquitoes to the cloud. So in particular, it\u2019s not just that you catch a mosquito, it\u2019s also that you have to figure out what its DNA in the blood that it ate was, and that requires you to do gene sequencing and it requires you to do it at scale. So, he built a trap. The project is called Premonition. The device that they created was a very, very specialized mosquito trap, and the idea is when you catch things in the trap, you catch these very pristine mosquitoes, and then your sequence their DNA and you send that to the cloud, and in the cloud, you decide what did this mosquito eat? Does it have Zika? Did the animal that it bit have Ebola? And with those answers you can then say well, in this region, we caught a mosquito that has Zika or we caught a mosquito that had Ebola. And in the process of sort of asking this question and finding answers, he had to explore all kinds of interesting problems. In fact, he revolutionized the ability of field biologists to collect data about mosquitoes. This new trap, it tells you things like when this mosquito was caught. So, now they can understand over the period of a day, when certain types of species of mosquitoes come out. He knows the temperature, he knows the sort of environmental conditions around the behavior of the mosquitoes, which they\u2019d never measured. Another thing he did, basically the mosquito trap leverages machine learning. So the trap itself is about five pounds. It has 64 individual cells. Each one has a door, ok, and if a mosquito flies in, the trap can decide whether or not to close the door. So, it can say, if that\u2019s a house fly, I\u2019m not interested. Don\u2019t close the door. But if the mosquito flies in, he can then figure out using machine learning, that insect was the type of mosquito he wanted and he can catch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: This is like so amazing. It\u2019s too bad it\u2019s a podcast because no one can see my face right now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: And let me just say, this is not just some person in a lab having cool ideas. One of the things about this project is it\u2019s an incredible collaboration across Microsoft Research. So, he worked with people in the hardware group. He worked with people doing gene sequencing. Actually, there\u2019s people in Microsoft Research that have expertise in doing it fast, which you absolutely need to do. So, this was a collaboration within the lab, but it was also externally, because we don\u2019t have people that are insect specialists or biology specialists, so &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: What was his specialty?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So the amazing thing, his specialty is actually Programming Language Formal Methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Oh my gosh. Awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So, he had this vision, he built this thing, he executed on it. It was an end-to-end solution, and it showed that you can aspire to these kind of high-impact capabilities and we have this kind of environment here to really support that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: I\u2019m still thinking about how they can tell what a mosquito had for lunch, because I mean, it used to be you spilled mustard on your tie, you could tell what you had for lunch. Chet, you ate a hot dog\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[Music plays]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: When people get excited about going into computer science today, they think maybe this will be my career, they\u2019re often attracted by the kind of buzzy, hot things like machine learning, deep learning, AI, whatever. What role does programming languages play in that, and why would somebody think hey, I\u2019m going to go into research, because your organization is called RiSE, Research In Software Engineering.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: That\u2019s a great question, and it is true that in the end, what we do is we build the things on which people build incredible solutions. So we work on software, we work on making it easier to build software, making it easier to make the software correct, make it perform well. But I think too, the way to think about it is, almost all the big technological revolutions have had with them accompanied a programming language. So if you go back to the late 70s, the advent of PC\u2019s, one of the things that really sold the PC market was spreadsheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: And it transformed the financial industry as we talked about. But those spreadsheets really re-defined how business people thought about their business, how they thought about the future, how they planned and did the trends. And so, I think at the core of programming languages, this ability to capture something that people want to do\u2026 So for example, C++ was fundamental in the growth of object-oriented programming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: It was a way to make it so that everyone that wanted to do object-oriented programming could go to C++. There were mechanisms in there. There were sort of frameworks that were built on top and they could start getting their job done. And the same thing with Java. If you want to do something on the web, you know, Java was the language. One of the reasons you know these are successful is because lots and lots of people start programming in them right away, because it opens up a new frontier for new developers, for new business opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: And even laypeople, I mean, WordPress things, you can go into the HTML and &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: That\u2019s right, yes. Absolutely. Mark down the ability to combine the presentation, and again, with computation you can embed JavaScript into the webpages. Yeah, JavaScript again, a transformative technology really enabled the whole web 2.0, you know, sort of the ability to do apps embedded in browsers. And the other one, you know, this is one that doesn\u2019t get nearly enough credit. Visual Basic transformed the PC industry in the sense that it made it, again, easy for people who didn\u2019t have the deep programming skills to put together applications in verticals and sell them and make a lot of money because there was a need for those things. And the tooling, the sort of the language and programming environment made it easy for people to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: That\u2019s so interesting. Let\u2019s talk about the spreadsheet again, because this is one of your things that I think is super interesting. And it kind of goes with a question I asked you about, in an era of AI infatuation, the spreadsheet is decidedly kind of un-sexy. Why is it important to programming languages?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: First of all, in programming languages that have impact, and I have to say, there are hundreds of millions of spreadsheet users. So, by numbers, spreadsheets actually are the most important programming language in the world. And most people don\u2019t think of it as a programming language, but in the essence of spreadsheets, you\u2019re combining data and code, because you\u2019re computing on that data, and presentation, because you want to see the result. You want to see the chart, you want to see the table, etc. So, spreadsheets are brilliant in that it\u2019s very concrete. It\u2019s not like there\u2019s this abstract program and then you feed it some data. With a spreadsheet, you have the data right there and you have the computing right there. So that\u2019s why it\u2019s so accessible. But in the end, it is a program, and as such, you have bugs. You know, which is one of the reasons, say, the London Whale happened. But I think it\u2019s important to understand that spreadsheets, because they\u2019re so successful, are really a mechanism for people who have questions about data. And more and more people want to answer questions about data. I mean it\u2019s like if I have personal data you know about my health, I\u2019d like to be able to ask questions. I don\u2019t want to have to go to somebody to write a program to answer my question. I\u2019d like to ask that question myself. Well, put it in a spreadsheet. If you want to figure out, can I retire now, you put your data in a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[Music plays]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: This brings up like a host of questions, not the least of which is the Internet of Things, where you have all of these independently programmed &#8211; so let\u2019s say Microsoft is doing software and they do tests and verify it and you know &#8211; I\u2019m guessing that\u2019s not the case in a lot of things that are out there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So I\u2019ll talk a little bit about sort of the Internet of Things. One of the things I\u2019ve had incredible fortune, I\u2019m a member of the CCC, which is the Computer Community Consortium, and this is part of the CRA, which is an organization that represents computer science research to the federal government. The CCC is the part of the CRA that actually is tasked with thinking about the future, thinking about trends in computer science. And the part of the CCC that I\u2019ve been most active with is called the taskforce on intelligent infrastructure. And it looks at this question of, if we embed computing into infrastructure, or into say, the Internet of Things, how does that change the world, and how do we think about that world? And it goes to what I was talking about before about how every company now, to get an advantage, instead of saying okay, we\u2019re going to make our toaster better, like mechanically, now it\u2019s like, how can we use software to make our toaster better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: A smart toaster.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: A smart toaster. You think about, for example, your doorbell. There\u2019s Ring. It\u2019s a big company now, and they sell you a smart doorbell. It\u2019ll show you video of who is at the door. You buy a Tesla, well Tesla is a ton of software, you\u2019re really buying software. Right? Tesla sells you software upgrades, and they sell that to you. So they basically converted selling a car into selling software, right? The Internet of Things is amazing though, and it kind of goes crazy. So, for example, there\u2019s a smart fork. If you look online, there\u2019s a smart fork and it\u2019s like wow, but the fork has a processor in it and it counts how many times you lift it. So, you basically-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Oh, I need this fork.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So, here\u2019s the thing. Smart objects, smart Internet of Things, they\u2019re relatively cheap. No one is going to pay $1000 for a smart fork, right? And they\u2019ve got to get to market fast. Usually they\u2019re built on a software stack which is open source. But the biggest problem is, the level of scrutiny that people pay attention to with these things in terms of are they secure, what levels of care are made in creating that software?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Well, moreover, who is the fork talking to?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: I mean, are they saying, hey, Ben\u2019s password is\u2026 or\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So, here\u2019s the problem. That fork, by definition, because it counts, probably talks to some server on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: And then I look at my wristband and say you\u2019ve lifted that fork 100 times. I mean, somebody is talking, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right. These things, by definition, are connected because they wouldn\u2019t be smart if they were just by themselves, and you don\u2019t necessarily know what software is running on them. And you don\u2019t necessarily know if somebody has compromised that software. So, for example, yeah, I don\u2019t really want to have to worry if my fork is trying to steal my internet and my wireless password.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Or letting people know you\u2019re not home.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: That\u2019s right, yeah. Is the fork talking to the doorbell? We didn\u2019t used to have to think, is my fork trying to steal my password? But now we do. Because if you buy that smart fork, there\u2019s a possibility- and we are in a transition with Internet of Things, where there\u2019s sort of two classes right now of quality and software. There\u2019s certified software, like aircraft software on a plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: It better work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: It is carefully checked. You\u2019re pretty confident there. But then, everything else, there\u2019s no checking. There\u2019s no level of certification. One of the things that I\u2019m doing with the CCC is understanding at the federal level, what are the right things for the federal government to be doing in this space. And in fact they are actively working\u2026 one of the models they\u2019re looking at is using an underwriter\u2019s lab kind of model, so that instead of saying underwriter\u2019s lab says this electro-compliance won\u2019t short circuit and cause a fire, they\u2019re basically saying this device has reached some level of quality. Which is better than just nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Does that include security though?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Yeah, well it goes to questions of best practices. And they\u2019re fundamental questions like how do you update? Let\u2019s say you have a device and then it\u2019s got a bug. We know about Window\u2019s update. We know that we see PC updates frequently. But how many people update their fork?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: I have never updated my fork.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So the question is like that\u2019s a problem, because if there is a security vulnerability and you don\u2019t update it, then your fork is vulnerable forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Can you get a fork patch?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Exactly. And in fact, this is not just a hypothetical. One of the things that happened about a year ago was, people had bought video cameras on the web and it turned out that a hacker figured out that many of the passwords on these video cameras could be guessed. So it turns out they actually hacked about 100,000 or more of these cameras. First of all, if you have a web camera and somebody has hacked into it, how would you even know? So that\u2019s the first problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: There\u2019s so much I don\u2019t know.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: But the second problem is, the person who hacked this leveraged all of these, 100,000 or more machines to do a Distributed Denial of Service attack. What that means is they had these cameras all send packets to a particular website to make it so that no one else could access it. And with 100,000 things, you can really shut things down. And this was a problem last year. One of the things that happens with Internet of Things, with this emerging presence of lots of devices without security, or with less understanding of how the security works, is that you can have these emerging attacks based on large numbers of devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: The scenarios you\u2019ve painted are common in that people click agree on an app for convenience, right? They don\u2019t even know what they\u2019re-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right, yes. There\u2019s two kinds of problems. One is a problem where there\u2019s a bug in the software and somebody exploits that bug. It\u2019s doing things that was never intended. There\u2019s another problem which is the software itself, say an app on a phone, has privileges it doesn\u2019t really need. When it says, here\u2019s 10 things I\u2019m going to do if you want to use me, how do you know what things it really needs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Not only that it\u2019s a binary option, I either say yes or no. Could I do five of those?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right, so I think the good news here is there is an evolving understanding of how to enable &#8211; for example, one of the strategies is you say look I\u2019m not going to say you can do it. When you need it, you ask me. Like when I\u2019m about to use something and it says I need to use your camera right now, then you say yes because you\u2019re taking a picture, you understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Which I\u2019ve done. Can I access your photos? Okay, because I want to edit that photo.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Exactly. So, I think there is hope there in the sense that the understanding of how people interact with software, how you can make software more understandable is evolving. One of the things you can say is that it\u2019s a success story in a sense that people are using these things for so many different activities, so many apps on the phone, so many apps on the computer. The fact that people want to use software for all these purposes, and that we have to understand what that means and how to control that more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: So, if I get a smart fork and I decide I want to upgrade it and they say we don\u2019t support that anymore, are we just\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Well no, this is a real concern. I would basically say, and in fact, the FBI provided a public service announcement saying if you have Internet of Things devices, then you should put it on a separate network. So, this is one of the things they\u2019re telling people, it\u2019s like in your home now, have your network, which is your computers and all your stuff that you\u2019re using that you really need, and then everything else put on a separate network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: But who can do that? I mean, I don\u2019t even\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: I understand and it is a concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: You people are technopolists, in a good way I\u2019m hoping.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: This is an analogy of the Wild West. Right now, we\u2019re just seeing what all the problems that can emerge. Over time I think, for example, wireless routers might actually have these two networks sort of automatically configured in such a way. In fact, even now, I think routers will give you guest networks, but you have to know how to use them and you have to understand the configurations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: You need to be Wyatt Earp in this Wild West.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So let me talk a little bit about a strategy that we can go toward that. There\u2019s a project in the group, it\u2019s called Everest\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Which group?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: In my group, RiSE. What they\u2019re trying to do is think about, not just writing software, but writing software so that it\u2019s fully verified. So what does that mean? Actually, fully is too strong a word, but verified for important properties. So, what does that mean? In particular, what they\u2019ve taken on is there\u2019s a communication infrastructure that connects a web browser and a server, it\u2019s called \u201chttps.\u201d You might have seen it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Yes, I think it\u2019s secure when I go there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right. You get a little lock that says the communication between your client and the server is encrypted, secure. You can send your bank account numbers or credit card numbers and no one who is listening in can understand that. So that https is actually a lot of software. There\u2019s an implementation of it in the open source called Open SSL and it\u2019s used widely. In fact, a couple of years ago there was a major problem with Open SSL called Heartbleed, which made the news because you know it turned out that people could look in on your computers through this Heartbleed bug. And this was a problem with SSL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Was it a bug or a hack?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: It was a bug in the software that then people figured out how to exploit. Exactly. And it was unclear how widely exploited it was because it\u2019s very hard to tell if people have been using it. Anyway, so, Open SSL is an implementation and what the Everest team said was we\u2019re going to build an equivalent version of Open SSL but we\u2019re going to make our version verified for the important properties, like the cryptographic properties. Now, this is using program verification on a scale that\u2019s never been attempted before, because these communication protocols have many layers, they include many different encryption algorithms, and the properties you need to prove include things like you can\u2019t have a memory safety violation, which is the kind of thing that Heartbleed exploited. That\u2019s a very basic property. But the higher-level properties are, if two people are talking on each end of the line, we\u2019re going to guarantee with this proof that there\u2019s no way that an attacker can listen in. It doesn\u2019t matter how the attacker tries, they\u2019re not going be able to hack the software to decrypt these messages. That\u2019s a very challenging problem because it\u2019s a combination of proofs, essentially looking at each line of code and saying what are the possible ways this could go wrong, but at a scale of thousands and thousands of lines of code. And the ability to prove things about thousands of lines of code is actually very difficult. If you think about these proofs, we\u2019re talking about literally hundreds of thousands of formulas all connected together to form the proof, and then saying yes, we can prove that that set of formulas actually is satisfiable. There is a way that this could be true, and no human would be capable of doing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: No way. So, that Everest is one of the projects that\u2019s come out of RiSE?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: That\u2019s right, yes. RiSE is a group &#8211; I co-manage it with Tom Ball. Research in Software Engineering is a group of researchers and developers. We collaborate on a number of different kinds of projects across a spectrum. So we work on software engineering problems, like how do we build software more effectively? How do we deploy software more effectively? How do we help developers understand where the problems in the code are, or what problems they should may be do a code review for? So that\u2019s one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is, we think about the formal foundations of software, so we\u2019re trying to ask questions like what does the software mean exactly? How do we translate essentially a program into math, and then use what we know about math to prove what that program is going to do or not do? And unless you get that kind of level of understanding, we\u2019re going to be in a world where we do have these bugs. We do run into problems where somebody deploys software, and things like Open SSL, which is widely deployed, and it\u2019s a problem with devices, because once it gets deployed on, say, routers, all of a sudden, it\u2019s very hard to update. It\u2019s very hard to fix the bug. What you would really like to do instead is verify the software before you deploy it, and that verification requires a deep understanding of what the software is, how to reason about it, how to prove things about it, and the tools. One of the key things about Everest is it builds on top of a tool called Z3, which is a very, very powerful tool used not just by people in my group, but by people all over the world. Thousands of citations to the work, where if you have a problem that you can specify as a sequence of constraints like X is greater than 3, Y is greater than 2, X plus Y is less than 53, it will actually take that and solve it. It will say here is a value for X and Y that will make this thing true, or if it\u2019s not possible to make it true, it will say it\u2019s not satisfiable. So Z3 is a mechanism on which people build that helps people think about complexity of logic at a scale that is unprecedented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Yeah. You\u2019re here doing this\u2026 my mind is going into all the other things that I have. And I know how expensive it is to test software. This isn\u2019t even a question I had on my list but you just prompted me to think, with all these developers out there doing smart objects with their own code, and probably just shipping. Are you guys doing anything to make it less expensive or more easy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right. I think what you see in the world of software is people want to reuse code. They don\u2019t want to write their code from scratch, right? A great example is cryptography algorithms. When you think about cryptography algorithms, it\u2019s very hard to write that code. It\u2019s actually, performance is critical because encryption and decryption, you know, is something that you don\u2019t really want to do but you have to, so it\u2019s got to be fast. But the problem is that if everyone had to write their own cryptography algorithm, most of them would probably be wrong. Because it\u2019s very, very difficult, you have to be super smart to get it right. So, what you\u2019d rather do is actually do it once, and then verify it, and then use the verified thing. And everybody could use that verified thing. I mean, one of the nice things about open source is once it\u2019s available, there\u2019s no barrier. So, what we\u2019re trying to do with Everest, actually Everest is an open source project, we\u2019re trying to build bigger and bigger components that people can use and reuse instead of trying to have to do it themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[Music plays]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: What are the unique challenges for software engineers now that maybe they didn\u2019t face 30 or 40 years ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Oh, wow. Great question. If you think about a software developer say in 1990 or 1995 where you know, they\u2019re thinking about building a desktop app, like it\u2019s on the desktop, it doesn\u2019t talk to anything. You know, it\u2019s the UI, it\u2019s maybe in the logic, etc. But you think about the developer\u2019s life now and how totally different it is. And one of the key things is, you\u2019re building a service. You\u2019re not building something that sits on somebody\u2019s desktop. If it crashes, that one version goes down, but everyone else\u2019s is fine, right? When you build a service, it\u2019s running 24\/7, it\u2019s got to always work, and if it crashes, everyone, all your customers all of a sudden don\u2019t have something. So, the developer\u2019s life is much, much more complicated now. But it\u2019s also, I mean, the beauty of the service model is the kinds of things that you can do with a service, it empowers, you know, software dramatically. So, it\u2019s harder for the developer. You\u2019ve got all these new things to think about. You know, there\u2019s the deployment process, how do I make sure that as I deploy it to more and more people that it\u2019s still has the right quality, etc.? But I think at the core of the job is still, is the software right, does it perform well, and is my customer happy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: I would imagine that\u2019s one of your major goals in Microsoft Research RiSE?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Absolutely. The whole investment we have &#8211; I mentioned we talked about software engineering, so that\u2019s the process of building software. We talked about formal methods, that\u2019s really figuring out what the software should be doing and making sure it\u2019s doing that. And I think another part is actually helping developers. One of the really successful collaborations we\u2019ve had in MSR, in my group, is that we have a really talented individual, Mark Marron who worked on something called Time Travel Debugging, okay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Okay. Let\u2019s go there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So let me say a few words about this. So, Time Travel Debugging, this is a vision that developers have had for years and years, which is if there\u2019s a bug or if there is a crash or something, instead of like starting over and seeing what happens, I really just want to step back one step, you know, back in time. So, what happened that got me here. Technically that\u2019s a really hard problem because to do that, you have to actually remember everything that happened between when the program started and when it crashed. And so even though this has been a vision for many years, actually giving it to developers to use in a practical way has never happened. Now, this is before Mark Marron and Time Travel Debugging. So, Mark basically said look, in JavaScript, which is a very widely used language, we can build a mechanism inside the JavaScript virtual machine that captures enough information efficiently enough that now we can enable developers with that \u201cgo back\u201d button. This is a collaboration, so this is Mark in research, this was his vision, but he said look, it\u2019s not going to just be enough to write a paper. I want to make sure that this is actually in Chakra, which is the Microsoft JavaScript virtual machine. So, he went to the Chakra team, he talked to them, he sat with them, and at this point, Time Travel Debugging is now part of the open source Chakra release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: That\u2019s really inspiring to know, because it feels like a common theme I\u2019m hearing, is that people are talking to other people, seeing how can they bring it expertise from other areas within different groups, even in the research group.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Right. No. Absolutely. One of the things I think that\u2019s really exciting, especially with the success of AI is it opens up new collaborations. Interactions with groups that we didn\u2019t use to interact as much with, partly because these questions that I mentioned, but partly because, you know, it\u2019s always exciting. And you know, every time you have this kind of shift in the way people think about the complexity, new problems they can solve, new ways to solve it. One of the things that\u2019s really exciting about the AI technology is it does change what it takes to build these models. If you say well, I need a developer to write the code, that\u2019s one thing. But if you say I need labeled examples, you know, to train, that\u2019s a totally different set of skills and it changes who can do it and how you do it. And so, every time these changes happen it\u2019s a new cycle and we get to do all these fun things again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Right, right, right. That\u2019s so interesting. Well listen, let me wrap up with asking, because I\u2019m really interested about who comes here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: What do you look for in somebody that you would like to come here and work with you in RiSE?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Well I think there\u2019s a couple things. I think we look for people who are broad thinkers, that they really, like I said, they go to the heart of the problem. One of the things we offer at Microsoft, which is really different than an academic experience is we have incredible depth in the product teams. So you know, the product teams are dealing with real problems every day and sort of thinking in terms of you know, that\u2019s an opportunity. For the people that come here, the researchers that come here, that\u2019s something they just can\u2019t get in an academic world. You know, you want people that embrace that, that basically look as broadly as possible as sort of how they can impact, you know, the world, the company. In the end, like I said, we look for people to build stuff. People who want to think about solving problems, sharing solutions, having people use those solutions and get their hands on those things. And so, the sort of the expansiveness, the willingness to work and learn across disciplines. I mean, one of the things that we have that\u2019s a huge resource, Microsoft research has incredible depth, you know, compared to almost any academic department in the world. If you\u2019re here, and you don\u2019t step across the hallway and start talking to people doing things very different than you, that\u2019s just a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Right.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: So, I think those are the kinds of things that you know resonate when I look to hire people. Obviously, we have a lot of visibility in the academic community for the things we have done. People come to us with an understanding and the kind of expertise and the kind of strategy that we use to solve important problems. You know, something like Project Everest is a great example where security is incredibly important. You know, it has enormous visibility. It\u2019s an expedition, which is basically a multi-lab effort. So, it\u2019s not just people in RiSE, it\u2019s people in Cambridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: You have Sherpas?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Ben Zorn: Yeah, right. So it\u2019s a team effort. But I think one of the things about that is it reflects an understanding. This is such an important problem you know. And it\u2019s not just an important problem for Microsoft, it\u2019s an important problem for the world. And in fact, you know understanding, you know, how to do this process and understanding what tools are needed and what can and can\u2019t be done is really going to be very important for the whole software ecosystem in the next 10 years. The fun thing is that every day is a new day. We get to have really exciting collaborations. It\u2019s a dream job. I mean, it\u2019s one of those things where working with the talented people that I work with every day is the best possible thing you could imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Host: Ben Zorn, you\u2019re a Rockstar.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[Music plays]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>To learn more about Dr. Ben Zorn and the wide, wild world of programming languages, visit Microsoft.com\/research.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[Music end]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">[End of recording]&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an era of AI breakthroughs and other exciting advances in computer science, Dr. Ben Zorn would like to remind us that behind every great technical revolution is\u2026 a programming language. As a Principal Researcher and the Co-director of RiSE \u2013 or Research in Software Engineering \u2013 group at Microsoft Research, Dr. Zorn has dedicated his life to making sure the software that now touches nearly everything in our lives is easy, accurate, reliable and secure. Today, Dr. Zorn tells us some great stories about bugs and whales, warns us against the dumb side of \u201csmart\u201d objects, shares about his group\u2019s attempt to scale the Everest of software security, and makes a great case that the most important programming language in the world today is\u2026 the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37074,"featured_media":452310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/30183550","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[240054],"tags":[],"research-area":[13560],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-452295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-msr-podcast","msr-research-area-programming-languages-software-engineering","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/30183550","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[199565],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[663087],"related-projects":[235367],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"<img width=\"480\" height=\"280\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Carousel_480x280.jpg\" class=\"img-object-cover\" alt=\"photo of Dr. Ben Zorn - Research Manager, Principal Researcher, wearing glasses and smiling at the camera\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Carousel_480x280.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/MicrosoftResearch_Podcast_Ben_Carousel_480x280-300x175.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/>","byline":"","formattedDate":"January 3, 2018","formattedExcerpt":"In an era of AI breakthroughs and other exciting advances in computer science, Dr. Ben Zorn would like to remind us that behind every great technical revolution is\u2026 a programming language. As a Principal Researcher and the Co-director of RiSE \u2013 or Research in Software&hellip;","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452295"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937863,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452295\/revisions\/937863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=452295"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=452295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}