CS 6262: Network Security
Fall 2010
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CS 6262 provides graduate students with basic training in network security. This is an intensive, fast-paced class covering a large collection of topics in a short period of time—we rarely spend longer than one lecture on a particular topic. This is a reading intensive course, so students should be prepared to read 50–100 pages or more of text per week in addition to time spent completing homework assignments, exams, and research projects.
Course contents:
- Security threats
- Introduction to cryptography and its applications to network security
- Secret key and public key cryptographic algorithms, and hash functions
- Authentication
- Security for protocols
- Firewalls and intrusion detection.
This course is suitable for first-year graduate students, including Ph.D. students preparing to qualify in security.
Course outcomes:
- Learn fundamentals of cryptography.
- Understand network security threats and countermeasures.
- Acquire a background for supporting electronic commerce.
- Gain hands-on experience with programming techniques for security protocols.
- Obtain a background for original research in network security.
Prerequisites: Undergraduate courses in information security, computer networks, operating systems, and discrete math. Fluency in C.
This course includes programming using C. I expect students in the course to be proficient C programmers and will not provide background instruction in C.
This course includes evening midterm exams.
Instructor
Dr. Jon Giffin
Email: giffin@cc
Phone: 4/385-1060
Office: Klaus 3140
Skype: Given privately in class
Office hours:
- DL priority: M 2:30–4:00 Atlanta time
- Local priority: Th 10:00–11:00 Atlanta time
I run two simultaneous queues of students during my office hours. One queue contains local students from sections A & B lined up in the hallway outside my office. The second queue contains distance students from section Q waiting to speak with me online. My Monday office hours prioritize the distance queue: local students can still come to my office, but I will not see them until the queue of distance students is exhausted. My Thursday office hours priortize the local students: distance students can still find me online, but I will not chat with them until the queue of local students is empty.
My distance office hours will be held on Skype. I have both work and personal Skype accounts, and I will hold my office hours only in the work account. While is it fairly easy to find my personal account, I will not respond to attempted communication from students on my personal account.
I do my best to respond to email within 24 hours of receipt. Please remember that email is not an instantaneous communication medium and do not expect immediate replies.
Grader
Hari Satheesh
Email: hari.shankar@gatech
For questions regarding homework grading, please contact Hari first. If you feel that he does not satisfactorily resolve your questions, then contact the instructor.
Class Meetings
Sections A & B
SEB 110
1:05–1:55 MWF
Section Q
I expect students to watch the lecture video within 48 hours of posting. You can find videos here, and yes, since this is a network security class, I hope you noticed that your username and password appear to be transmitted in the clear. (How would you verify this?)
Textbook
Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner. Network Security—Private Communication in a Public World, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, 2002. ISBN 978-0-13-046019-6.
In addition to the textbook, we will read publications covering fundamental developments in network security. The class schedule contains links to these papers when they will be included in class discussions. You will need to be a registered student in the class with a GT username and password to access the online PDF files.
Assignments
This course has homework assignments that should be completed individually by each student. Each assignment includes written responses and/or programming problems that are due by 5:00 p.m. local Atlanta time on the due date.
Assignments may be submitted online at T-Square. At least this site encrypts your password.
Project
Sections A & Q
Sections A & Q do not include a project.
Section B
Each student in section B must form a project group of two or three students. Each group will complete a significant research project, which includes a proposal, a final paper, and a presention to the class at the end of the semester.
Grading
Grades will be posted at T-Square. The breakdowns below are meant as an approximate guide, however, the instructor retains the discretion to assign each student whatever grade he believes is appropriate.
Sections A & Q
- 60% Homeworks
- 10% Midterm 1
- 10% Midterm 2
- 20% Final exam
Section B
- 40% Homeworks
- 10% Midterm
- 50% Project
The Georgia Tech and College of Computing rules regarding academic honesty apply.
A student may contest a possible grading error by notifying a TA of the error. The student should contact Prof. Giffin with a contested grade only if they believe that the TA has not satisfactorily resolved the mark. Please note that Prof. Giffin highly regards the TAs in this course and will rarely overrule a TA's decision.
Acknowledgements
Course design, lectures, assignments, and exams reuse material developed by Profs. Wenke Lee and Patrick Traynor. Material reused with permission.