CS513 System Security - Overview and Organization

CS513: System Security - Overview and Organization

Course Overview. This course discusses security and survivability for computers, communications networks, and distributed systems. The course will cover policy issues as well as various technical topics associated with implementing the security properties that are critical to "trustworthiness" in a networked information system.

Course URL: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/html/CS513-sp99/

Lecture:Attendance is expected.: 10:10 - 11:25am Tuesday and Thursday. Upson B11.

Teaching Staff:

Professor Fred B. Schneider (255-9221)
4115C Upson Hall
Office hours: Available most afternoons, Tues - Thurs.
email: fbs@cs.cornell.edu. Send email only to request an appointment; other email will go unanswered. Email is a painfully ineffective and impersonal way to discuss anything substantive, and Schneider refuses to allow email to replace live student-teacher interaction.

Mr. Borislav Deianov
4156 Upson Hall
Office hours: 1pm - 3pm, Monday and Friday
email: borislav@cs.cornell.edu

Mr. David Gutierrez
320 Upson Hall
Office hours: 1130-1230, Tuesday and Thursday.
email: dg30@cornell.edu

Prerequisites. The course is open to any undergraduate or graduate student who has mastered the material in CS414 (Operating Systems) or CS519 (Engineering Computer Networks) or CS601 (Systems Principles). Familiarity with the JAVA programming language will be helpful.

Required Reading. There is no required text for the course, since no one textbook does an adequate job of covering the three major areas that CS513 surveys: security policies and access control mechanisms, network and distributed system security, and applied cryptography. Readings from a variety of sources will be suggested in lecture, as material is covered.

Useful reference books to own include:

Bruce Schneier. Applied Cryptography. Second Edition. Wiley, 1996.
Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner. Network Security. Private Communication in a Public World. Prentice Hall, 1995.
Charles Pfleeger. Security in computing. Prentice Hall, 1996.

Assignments and Grading. In keeping with the professional (and practical) orientation of the course, homework assignments are underspecified, open-ended, and motivated by problems that arise in the real world (messy as it is). The assignments are intended more to stimulate thinking about the subject and foster mastery of techniques than to prompt the regurgitation of material from lecture or reading. Locating relevant reference material and using it for actual problems will be a significant element of successful solutions--the practicing professional must quickly master new languages/systems, be able to find and understand technical documentation, and be able to accomplish tasks despite inadequate tools.

Some CS513 assignments will request paper solutions, although devising these solutions might be facilitated by writing programs. In addition, a significant part of your grade is based on a 3-part JAVA programming project, in which students will design and implement the security architecture for a grade-management database system.

Final course grades will be computed as follows:

Written Homework Assignments (15%). Assigned throughout the semester.
JAVA Programming Project (3 phases) (75%). Phases due approx. March 9, April 8, and May 4.
Entirely subjective factors, including class participation, attendance, etc. (10%).

All assignments are due in class on the date stipulated. No late assignments will be accepted.

Students are expected to work in groups of 2 or 3 on each assignment. Working with other people can lead to a better understanding of the material and will enable you to develop collaboration skills that should prove helpful throughout your career. Each participant, however, should be able to defend the entire content of any submitted solution.