CS5430: System Security

Course Overview and Organization.

Lecture times, teaching staff, office hours, prerequisites, assignments and grading policy.

Topic Outline.

High-level listing of topics to be covered along with recommended readings.

Announcements

• [11/28] Pre-final Q+A: Dec 6, 430pm in Gates G01. To help with studying for the final exam, Professor Schneider will run a Q+A session on Dec 6 at 4:30pm in Gates G01. Come with questions!
• [11/26] Homework 6 is posted. See below.
• [11/25] Homework 7 is end of semester course evaluation. Please complete this by December 8. Detailed and actionable comments are the most helpful.
• [11/18, revised 11/25] Information about Final Examination. See here for the reading that is covered on the final examination. The exam also covers material from lecture and the homework.
• [11/16] Special Guest Lecture on 11/21. Dr. Hamed Okhravi (MIT Lincoln Laboratory) will speak about building a Resilient Mission Computer. The slides for this presentation can be found here.
• [10/27] Class will not meet:
  
  • Nov 4 (Fri)
  • Nov 30 (Wed)
  • Dec 2 (Fri)
• [10/27] Programming Project is posted. See below.
• [10/16] Notes on phishing-resistant authentication posted. See Topic Outline.
• [10/12] Homework 5 is posted. See below.
• [10/6] Homework 3 update and extended due date. Please note the small change to Homework 3, problem 1(c). To provide ample time for all to consider the ramifications, the due date for Homework 3 is being extended to Friday October 14.
• [10/2] Special Lecture: 11:30am October 13. Bruce Schneier will be the CS Colloquium Speaker in Gates G01. Plan to attend if you can.
• [10/2] Homework 4 is MTEI Mid-semester course feedback. You should have received the URL by email. Please complete this web questionnaire.
• [9/23] Homework 3 is posted. See below.
• [8/26] Software surprises. In lecture on Sept 19, I mentioned Ken Thompson's discussion of a somewhat surprising attack. The paper to read is: Reflections on trusting trust Communications of the ACM 27, 8 (Aug 1984), 761--763.
• [9/9] Notes on Blind Signatures. For those who want to see a detailed account of blind signatures (discussed today in lecture), the Wikipedia page is suggested.
• [9/9] Date change for midterm examination. The midterm examination will take place in class on Oct. 26 (Wed) instead of the evening of Oct 25.
• [9/9] Homework 2 is posted. See below.
• [8/26] Notes on Secret Sharing. In lecture on Aug 26, we detoured into (n,m) secret sharing. Some written lecture notes covering this material can be found here for students who are interested.
• [8/22] Class will not meet:
  
  • Week of Sept 26 (Mon, Wed, and Fri).
  • Oct 5 (Wed.)
  • Other dates to be announced.
• [8/22] The midterm examination is the evening of Oct 25 (Tues). Here is last year's exam and the solutions.
• [8/22] TA office hours. TA office hours begin the week of August 29. Times and places will be listed in Course Overview and Organization

Homework

• Homework 1 (Articulating Security Goals) due 9/11 at 11:59pm.
• Homework 2 (Shared-key Cryptography) due 9/28 at 11:59pm.
• Homework 3 (Public Key Infrastructure) due 10/14 at 11:59pm.
• Homework 4 (Mid-semester course evaluation) Administered by College of Engineering.
• Homework 5 (Using at TPM) due 10/21 at 11:59pm.
• Programming project. Phase 1 due 11/11 at 5:00pm; Phase 2 due 11/21 at 5:00pm.
• Homework 6 (Information Flow) due 12/4 at 11:59pm.
• Homework 7 (End of semester course evaluation) Administered by College of Engineering due 12/8 at 11:59pm.