Christmas 2007
Steven is still busy to help build a military
satellite communication system. As the project moves from system engineering to
integration stage, he has gradually moved into information assurance (a military
communication term for security). He is currently defining the security
architecture of the ground network of the satellite system and refining the
system design to mitigate security vulnerabilities. At the request of his
supervisor, he has taken up the role of “Security Architect” of the
Division. In this capacity, he has to help prepare proposals to DoD,
contributing to all domains of security, from cryptography, network security,
access control, to information security management.
Things are not going that well for his health. Not that he was sick, but he decided to perform a surgery to improve his hearing. The surgery was to insert a Titanium implant into his skull via a procedure called BAHA (Bone Anchored Hearing Aid). With the implant and sound processor, the sound is conducted through his skull instead of his middle ear, where two of his three ear bones were removed during another surgery thirty one years ago in Seattle. Like that surgery, he was “unlucky”. While the Titanium piece is successfully implanted into his skull, the wound surrounding the Titanium did not heal. After two more surgeries, the problem has yet been fixed. He is awaiting another surgery on the Chinese New Year Day to allow him to install the hearing aid.