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Good practice in teaching information technology includes inviting lectures by experts from industry. This gives students the opportunity to learn directly from people who are shaping the direction of development in the field and inspiring the community with their practical experience. This approach has been used at FIT for many years. Selected examples from among many include the courses Binary Code Analysis (IAN), IBM zSeries Server Administration (IIZ), and User Interface Design (ITU). Jan Pluskal also applies a similar approach in his courses at the Department of Information Systems.

The C# Seminar (ICS) and Programming in .NET and C# (IW5) courses feature several external lecturers. "Like the ICS course, the IW5 course is taught in collaboration with leading experts from the field who are actively involved in teaching. Our lecturers are top experts in the field of software development who have long been involved in modern technologies and regularly share their experience with the community. Many of them lead large teams of developers in companies engaged in custom software development, which gives students deep insight into technologies as well as real-world project management and teamwork." The lecturers are also recognized figures in the .NET community, appearing at conferences such as WUGDays, Update Conference, and MeetUpdate, organizing professional events, and many of them have been repeatedly awarded the prestigious MVP (Most Valuable Professional) title by Microsoft.

One of these experts is Roman Jašek, who completed his introductory lecture in the IW5 course three weeks ago and will again contribute to the course with topics such as Blazor, Azure, and NET Multi-platform App UI. "I have several lectures as part of the course. Students who attend them will learn how to create a web application, what parts it consists of, how communication works between the part that is displayed to the user in the browser and the part that runs in the background. At the same time, they will learn how a comprehensive solution for managing and logging users into a web application works and what standards are used in web application development."

Jašek admits that teaching is a challenge for him. It consists of explaining principles he knows from practice in a way that is understandable to people who do not yet have experience with them. He sees the advantage of "people from the field" in that they can bring their practical experience from long-term work with the technology—they encounter situations that cannot be fully covered in school. At the same time, they can provide insight into current developments in a specific area. "I believe this can be beneficial for students when deciding which direction to focus on and, therefore, when choosing their future career."

One of the topics Jašek discussed with students is the use of artificial intelligence in student projects. He naturally uses AI in his daily work, so he expects students to work with it as well. "On the other hand, I told the students that AI is good to use, but at the same time, they shouldn't abuse it. If it solves the entire task for them without them understanding what it is creating, it is counterproductive. In that case, they miss out on the opportunity to learn something new... and AI can actually replace them." Artificial intelligence that frees up your hands (e.g., by performing repetitive tasks) so that you can focus on the creative parts that move you forward will increase your productivity.

In addition to Jašek, Martin Dybal, Maroš Janota, and others are involved in teaching the subject. The use of experts from industrial practice certainly has its place in university IT studies. This is also demonstrated by the studies at our faculty.

Beneath the surface of normal internet content and traffic (the so-called surface web) lies content that we do not normally encounter. This is not just the deep web, i.e. the part that requires some form of authorization and is not indexed by search engines. Roughly half of the content on the internet, as a global system of interconnected computer networks, is represented by the dark web. It is not often discussed in public, and when it is, it is often simplified, if not downright wrong. That is why it is valuable when experts comment on the topic. One of them is FIT VUT researcher Daniel Dolejška, a doctoral student and passionate programmer who is actively involved in the issue of trade in illegal products on the dark web. In cooperation with local and foreign security forces, he strives to find new ways to identify illegal cryptocurrency transactions.

Dolejška has repeatedly devoted himself to popularizing topics in the field of cybersecurity, and in August he accepted an invitation to appear on the Reset podcast. Last week, the episode was published and even aired on CNN Prima News. Dolejška discussed the topic with Robert Šuman, an expert from ESET Research.

Freedom of speech, digital underworld... or both?

Accessing the dark web requires specialized software (the best known is the Tor browser) and knowledge of the necessary addresses, which are different from the commonly known URL addresses of the surface web. Access to the dark web is not illegal in itself, but it does require adherence to certain principles (not disclosing personal information, ideally using a VPN, etc.). And also vigilance.

The motivation behind the creation of this "layer" of the internet was to create an environment that would ensure anonymous (in the sense of the anonymity of the users themselves) and free access to information. Anonymity is almost guaranteed, but users can sometimes be identified by the context of their behavior (access times, writing style, etc.).

Unfortunately, the dark web is now rightly associated with the sale of weapons, drugs, prescription drugs, and cyberattacks. It has become (by no means exclusively!) the infrastructure of cybercrime. However, this transformation required the development of other technologies, primarily cryptocurrencies, which enabled monetization and, with their emphasis on anonymity, became a natural complement to operations in this area of the internet.

The dark web is not just about illegal content and trade, but also about services such as encrypted email services. On the dark web, you can also find versions of servers such as BBC, Reddit, and Facebook that circumvent the restrictions of authoritarian regimes. Ensuring freedom of speech was the fundamental motivation for its creation, and it is still an argument for the existence of the dark web today.

Daniel Dolejška touched on all these points and many others in his interview for the Reset podcast. You can listen to it here or watch it on the CNN Prima News website.

We would like to thank everyone who came to FIT on Friday, September 26, for this year's Researchers' Night and let our researchers convince them that science and information technology in particular constitute the wealth of our society. This year, we had a record number of visitors: 850!

We would especially like to thank our researchers for their extremely interesting presentations and workshops, which made the program truly exceptional. Finally, we would also like to thank the members of the Student Union for their crucial help throughout the evening.

Thanks to all of you, we had an extraordinary evening with science.

For more photos, check out our photo gallery HERE.