Advanced Computer Security

In this course students will learn:

• Several important areas of current research in computer security
• How to read and review current research papers
• How to carry out independent research in computer security

The course will consist several modules, covering a topic in computer security. Each module will consist of an introductory lecture by the instructor, covering some background research. This will be followed by a set of recent research papers on the topic, presented by students and discussed in class.

Readings

This course will require you to read a lot of papers; this is a key skill that you will need to carry out independent research in computer security. You will need to read the background papers for each module well enough to understand the key ideas. You will also need to read the recent papers in depth, so that you are able to participate in the discussion.

Reviews

You will be required to write a review of each of the recent papers. There will be two style of reviews:

• A short review, which will consist of bullet points summmarizing the paper's contributions and your reaction to them.
• A full review, which should be comparable in length and depth to a peer review for a conference paper, of about 500 words.

You will be expected to write one full review per week and a short review for all other papers discussed in class (except for the background papers).

Presentations

You will be required to present one of the recent papers in class. You should summarize the paper, keeping in mind taht the students will have already read the paper, and then lead and moderate the discussion. The presentation and discussion should take about 30 minutes.

Participation

You are expected to participate in the discussion of all papers and come prepared to discuss them.

Blog post

You will be required to write a blog post about one of the papers discussed in class. The blog post should be about 1000–1500 words, and should capture both the content of the paper and the class discussion.

You will be required to carry out a research project during the semester. There are three options for the project:

• A novel research paper on a computer security topic of your choosing.
• A systematization of knowledge paper that surveys research on a topic and presents a new global perspective on it. See this page for examples of SoK papers.
• A reproduction paper, where you reproduce a published paper and critically reexamine its methodology and results.

There will be several milestones for the project, including an initial proposal and a literature review, but the main deliverables will be a conference-style paper and a presentation, both due at the end of the semester. The project can be carried out in groups of up to three students, but the expecations will be commensurate with the size of the team. Very roughly, a single-student project should result in a paper that could be published to a workshop, a two-student project should be publishable in a second-tier conference, and a three-student project should be publishable in a top-tier conference. You will also be required to submit a collaboration plan, and include a collaboration report in your final paper.

If you would like to propose a project that is based on some of your pre-existing research, have the project receive credit in another course (including CS597), or collaborate with others outside of the course, please discuss this with the instructor during the project proposal phase.

Your course grade will be based on the following: