Topics in Computer Security Winter 2017

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 cover topics such as: TLS and certificates, secure messaging, systems guaranteeing accountability, Byzantine fault tolerance, property-preserving encryption, trusted computing, trusted execution environments, cloud side channels, verifiable computation, and cryptocurrencies. It will also include a course project, done in groups, consisting of original research in cloud or distributed systems security. 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.

Course Information

Instructor	Ariel J. Feldman ()
Seminars	Tue., Thu. 10:30–11:50pm, SS 107.
Office hours	By appointment, Ry 161A.
Communication	Along with this website, we'll use Piazza for course announcements, submitting paper reviews, posting lecture slides, and general discussion and questions about course material.
References	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.