Topics in Computer Security Spring 2015

This course is an intensive research seminar in which the class will read, present, discuss, and review both foundational and recent papers related to cloud and distributed systems security, with an emphasis on techniques for building untrusted cloud services. It will begin with a brief introduction to cryptography and then discuss topics such as: TLS, authentication, Web security, trusted computing, byzantine fault tolerance, untrusted cloud services, verifiable computation, anonymity and anticensorship, Bitcoin, and secure deletion. The goal of this course is to introduce the research literature in cloud and distributed systems security as well as computer security research more generally. See the schedule for details.

Announcements

Course Information

Instructor	Ariel J. Feldman ()
Seminars	Tue., Thu. 10:30–11:50am, Ry 277. (Twice this quarter, we'll meet on Fri. 1pm instead of Tue. See the schedule for details.)
Office hours	By appointment, Ry 161A.
Communication	Along with this website, we'll use Piazza for course announcements, posting lecture slides, and general discussion and questions about course material.
References	The slides to the first week's crypto crash course as well as the slides from CMSC 23200: Introduction to Computer Security are posted on Piazza. No textbook is required, but if you would like additional references, we recommend: Security Engineering by Ross Anderson (a general computer security reference) Cryptography Engineering by Ferguson, Schneier, and Kohno (an informal, high-level introduction to applied cryptography) Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Katz and Lindell (a more rigorous introduction to cryptography)

Grading

Paper reviews — 25%
Paper presentations — 20%
Participation — 5%
Course project — 50%

Credits

Many of the topics and readings as well as the website design are adpated from those of J. Alex Halderman.