CS 854 (Fall 2006) -
Hot Topics in Computer and Communications Security
Location and time: DC 3313, MW 2:30-4pm
Instructor: Urs
Hengartner
Office hours: M 4-5pm or by appointment
Schedule
Assignment (Sample solutions)
Paper reviews
Presentation reviews
Announcements
December 18 - The class is over, grades have been submitted - Happy Holidays :)
December 18 - This class will be re-taught in Winter 2008.
Course Description
Our increasingly networked world and the upcoming of new technologies,
such as RFID, trusted computing, or electronic voting, raise many
security
challenges. The goal of this course is to make students aware of these
challenges and to introduce them to current research in computer and
communications security. Students will also learn basic principles in
security and cryptography. The course assumes a basic knowledge of
computers, networks, and distributed systems, but does not assume any
prior knowledge of security or cryptography.
Lectures
The instructor will give several introductory lectures devoted to basic
principles of
security and cryptography. In the following lectures, two students will
each
present a research paper and lead a short discussion on the paper. All
students should read the two assigned papers prior to a lecture and
submit a short review
for one of them.
The reviews are due at noon
on the day of the presentation of a paper. The (anonymized) reviews
will be made available online. A review should
address the following questions:
- What are the contributions of the paper?
- What is the quality of the presentation?
- What are the strengths of the paper?
- What are its weaknesses?
- What is some possible future work?
See the schedule for a
list of the
discussed topics and presenters. Each presenter should submit his/her
slides before the lecture to the instructor.
Giving oral presentations is an important skill that grad students
should train during graduate school. Feedback is essential for this
training. Therefore, after every lecture, all students should submit a
review for both
presentations. The reviews are due at
noon the day after a presentation. A presenter will
have access to the (anonymized) reviews.
Project
Students will work in groups of two on a project in which
they will undertake novel privacy or security research. Possible ideas for projects
will be mentioned
in class. Students will have to submit a proposal, present their work
in class at the end of the term, and write a workshop-quality report.
Grading
| One assignment |
5% |
| Paper presentations |
25% |
| Paper reviews |
10% |
| Class participation |
10% |
| Project |
50% |