Computer monitor with the text Anti-virus software on it

Anti-Virus Software

Science/Technology

3 Surprising Ways Trojans Changed High Tech

Your computer and smartphone wouldn’t be the same without these creations from USC faculty and alumni.

February 28, 2018 Alicia Di Rado

USC innovators now have a new home in Boston: The USC Information Sciences Institute chose the startup hotspot as the site for its third office. The big expansion is just the latest sign of USC’s growth and influence in the tech world, though. USC engineers and their computing innovations have been changing high tech for decades.

Chances are you’re probably benefiting from advances and inventions created by alumni and faculty, without even knowing it. Here are three ways Trojan techies changed the field.

Tech Talk Anti-Virus SoftwareAnti-virus Software

USC engineering grad student Fred Cohen first defined the oncoming threats from computer viruses in 1983. He is credited with inventing the major virus defense techniques in use today.


 

Tech Talk JPGThe .JPG

Researchers at USC’s Signal and Imaging Processing Institute came up with a way to digitize and compress images in the mid-1970s. Today called .jpg, it has made the selfie ubiquitous.


 

Tech Talk Internet Domain Name SystemInternet Domain Name System

You take .com, .edu, .net and the other internet suffixes for granted. But it was Paul Mockapetris at the USC Information Sciences Institute who invented the Domain Name System, or DNS, in 1983.