Reading Responses

Most classes, there will be one or two papers assigned as required reading (those sidelined in blue below). Ahead of time, each student will individually submit responses to the readings.

As a rough guideline, think about it as if you just saw the paper at a conference and were explaining it to someone in the field. What's the gist, what's the idea, how well did they demonstrate it, and what did you particularly enjoy/take issue with — these are all fine things to include.

Class HotCRP

For each required paper, we will provide you with specific questions to respond to:

  • The responses should comprise 1-2 paragraphs per paper.
  • The goal is not to prove that you read the paper, but that you understand the paper.
  • So that I have time to read them and give feedback, please turn them in by 5pm the day before class (5pm Monday for Tuesday classes, and 5pm Wednesday for Thursday classes).

01/26 Introduction

02/02 Ethics in Security Research

02/04 Cryptography Intro / TLS

02/09 The Certificate Ecosystem

02/11 Crypto Failures in Practice

02/16 Building Anonymity

02/18 Breaking Anonymity

02/23 Censorship Resistance

02/25 Protocol Obfuscation

03/02 Botnets

03/04 User Authentication

03/09 Underground Economies

03/11 Project Proposals

No papers

03/16 Spring Break

No papers

03/18 Spring Break

No papers

03/23 Classic Memory Attacks/Defenses

03/25 Modern Memory Attacks

03/30 Modern Memory Defenses

04/01 Trusted Hardware

04/06 Isolation Attacks

04/08 Malware

04/13 Web Security

04/15 Modern Web Security

04/20 Networking Intro

04/22 TCP/IP Security

04/27 Worms

04/29 DoS Attacks

05/04 DoS Defenses

05/06 Project Presentations

No papers

05/11 Project Presentations

No papers

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