CS5430: System Security (Fall 2021) - Overview and Organization

Course URL:   http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/CS5430/2021FA/

Lecture: Attendance is required. If you must miss a lecture, arrange with another student to find out the material you missed.

9:40 -- 10:55 Monday, Wednesday. Malott Hall, room 251
9:40 -- 10:55 Friday. Gates Hall, G01

We will average 2 lectures per week -- Monday and Wednesday is the default.

Instructor:

Professor Fred B. Schneider   (255-9221)   422 Gates Hall

Office hours:

• Directly after lecture on Monday and Wednesday.
  

• Monday afternoons: 130pm - 3pm.
  

• 9pm - 11pm (zoom) by appointment. Send email before 12 noon to request an appt for that evening.
  

• Schneider is often the office after 430pm --- feel free to drop-in without an appointment. If we can't chat then, we can work out a time to meet.
  

email: fbs@cs.cornell.edu  

Course Staff:

Rebecca Helling, email: lrh73@cornell.edu
Mingzhao Liu, email: ml2579@cornell.edu
Goktug Saatcioglu, email: gs724@cornell.edu

TA Office Hours: Course staff are available each day to help with questions about course material and assignments.

Day	Time	Location	TA
Tues	3:00pm - 5:00pm	Rhodes 405	Helling
Wed	11:00am - 12:00n	Rhodes 592	Saatcioglu
Thurs	12:30pm - 2:30pm	Rhodes 590	Saatcioglu
Fri	3:30pm - 5:30pm	Rhodes 412	Liu

Prerequisites. The course is open to any undergraduate or graduate student who has mastered the material in CS4410 (Operating Systems).

Readings:

Readings to complement the lectures are noted in the course outline. Students are expected to stay current with this reading. But the lectures in this course do change from year to year and the on-line notes don't get updated in a timely way, so the notes do not substitute for attending class.

Assignments and Grading.

Final course grades will be computed as follows:

• 40% Midterm Examination. Closed book, evening examination, scheduled for October 29, 2021 in class. The exam will cover all of the reading, lectures, and homeworks that have preceded our discussion of authenticating humans.

• 50% Written Homework. 3-4 written assignments (varying weights that total 35%) and a programming project (weight 15%).

• 10% Entirely Subjective Factors. These include attendance, class participation, possible in-class surprise quizes, and other means of demonstrating mastery (or lack thereof) of course content.

A student who has attended all of the lectures and submitted and made a good faith effort on all of the homework can expect to receive a final course grade of B- or better. The portion of the grade earmarked for "subjective factors" typically affects only a handful of students, raising or lowering their final course grade by "1/2 letter" grade (e.g, B to B+ or B-).

All assignments are due on the date stipulated, so that correct answers can be distributed and/or freely discussed in lecture after the due date. Late submissions will receive a grade deduction of two "1/2 letters". (E.g., A becomes B+; A- becomes B; B+ becomes B-, etc).

Academic Integrity. Academic integrity violations will be prosecuted aggressively. Do not discuss or collaborate with other students in the class on the assigned homeworks unless the assignment explicitly states otherwise. The source and the sink in an illicit collaboration both will receive a penalty.

Course materials appearing on the course web site or provided to you in CMS are the intellectual property of the Professor. Students are not permitted to share, buy, or sell those materials. Such unauthorized behavior constitutes academic misconduct. In addition, you are prohibited from posting, submitting, or acquiring course materials or content through online "study" platforms. If you acquire or otherwise access course materials through such a platform, you are violating the Code of Academic Integrity. (Cornell is able to trace posts from internet sites, including identifying the individuals who provide content and those who access and/or use the content).

Finally, students are expected to be familiar with the University's and the CS Department's various policies on appropriate use of computers.