Uncovering the Science in Computer Science: Challenges for the 21st Century

Progress on the hardware side of computer engineering has been impressive, but software has lagged behind. Security continues to be troublesome at the operating system level, network level, and various application levels in computer networks. Some collections of computers (called "bots" or "bot armies") are used in abusive ways to send spam by launching distributed denial-of-service attacks. We may not be configuring the hardware of our basic computing platforms to assist in improving security. Where should we be spending time, money, and brainpower to significantly enhance our ability to provide deeper roots for computer, system, and network designs for the future?