Lecturer

Published prerequisites

Acceptable prerequisites

Scheduled Lecture Times

Tutorials

Tutorial sessions will be held during weeks 4 - 11; times and rooms will be arranged in the second week of classes.  Students are invited (but not required) to rehearse their oral presentations during these tutorials.  The instructor will offer feedback and suggest improvements.

Required Reading

Please note that the licenses of some of our Library's online databases do not grant permission to make additional copies, even for classroom use -- students will have to download these articles through http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/.

Description

Content

Assessment

You have two options for your project: a term paper or a project report.

If you write a term paper, it must demonstrate your critical and appreciative understanding of at least three professional publications, at least one of which must be a required reading for this course.  You must also cite and (at least briefly) discuss any other required class readings that are closely related to the topic of your term paper.

If you write a project report, it must demonstrate your competence and creativity in practical work. You must cite and (at least briefly) discuss at least two required class readings that are relevant to your term project.

Your seminar must be a coherent explanation of an advanced topic in software security, showing your careful reading and understanding of one professional publication.  Lecture slides from student oral presentations will be posted to the Assignments area of the class website.

Policy on Plagiarism, Direct Quotation, Paraphrase, and Academic Writing

We follow departmental and University policies on academic honesty. 

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting his or her learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the world-wide web. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review.  The University cheating policy, and some discussion of quotation and paraphrase, is available at http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/teaching/plagiarism/plagiarism.cfm.

The departmental cheating policy is available at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CheatingPolicy.php. Students in CompSci 725 should take particular note of the following passages: "... The Computer Science Department uses many ways to check that the work students submit for marking is their own and was not produced by, or copied from, someone else... Turnitin.com may be used on essays and reports. This detects similarity to online material and submitted works in its own database... All assignments deemed to be too similar are automatically allocated a zero mark. All students who submitted these assignments are entered in the duplicate assignment register. [Students] ... may be referred to the University Disciplinary Committee. ..." 

In this class, we will discuss plagiarism, quotation, and paraphrase, both in the theoretical context of intellectual property, and also in the practical context of academic writing for our class assignments.  If you accurately cite the source of your direct quotations or close paraphrases, you cannot be accused of plagiarism.  However submitting someone else's work or ideas is not evidence of your own understanding of the material, and such submissions will not earn you marks.

We will give some general advice on the appropriate use of direct quotation and paraphrase.  We also teach a few other "tricks of the trade" in technical writing, because in prior years we have found that few of our entering students are highly skilled in academic writing.

Students may earn an "A+" in our course, even if they turn in work with minor grammatical errors.  Major grammatical errors may cause us to misunderstand the author's intent, and we will assign low marks when we are not sure of a student's understanding of the material they are presenting in their paper.  Students should take special care with the spelling of technical terms, especially acronyms, for an incorrect spelling can cause great confusion in the mind of a reader who thinks the author is referring to some other technical term with a similar spelling!  Passing marks are given only when a student's work clearly demonstrates their understanding of the software security technologies, techniques, and analyses discussed in this course.

Additional Resources

The Library http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/instruct/instruct.htm offers resources and tuition on searches and citations.

Our University offers some support in the use of the English language by non-native speakers, see https://www.delna.auckland.ac.nz/support.php.

The Student Learning Centre http://www.slc.auckland.ac.nz/ offers resources and workshops on writing and oral presentations.

Aegrotat / Compassionate Consideration information is available at http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/for/currentstudents/academiclife/aegrotatinfo.cfm.

Tentative Schedule

Note: the date listed for student presentation #x is the earliest possible date on which this presentation may occur; later dates are possible if our schedule slips.  Students will be assigned numbers by a random process during the first week of classes.

1. Week 1 (18 July - 22 July).  Select class representative.  Discuss
   • Handout 1, General Information
   • Handout 2, Selection of Oral Presentations
   • Handout 3, List of Suggested Articles for Oral Presentations (in preparation)
   • Handout 4, Randomly Assigned Student Numbers (in preparation)
   • Handout 5, First set of Lecture Slides
   • [R1] B. Lampson, "Computer Security in the Real World", IEEE Computer 37:6, 37-46, June 2004.
   • [R2] Computer System Statute 2000, University of Auckland. Available http://www.auckland.ac.nz/security/images/ComputerStatute.pdf, July 2006.
   • [R3] "IT Acceptable Use Policy", Version 1.3, The University of Auckland, 2004 (available: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/security/ITAcceptableUsePolicy.htm, July 2006).
   • [R4] "Department of Computer Science Computer System Regulations", 1999   (available: https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/administration/handbook/ugrad/UG.DoCSCSR.html, July 2006).
2. Week 2 (25 July - 29 July). Select papers and dates for student oral presentations in Weeks 5-13.
3. Week 3 (1 August - 5 August). Finalise the selection of papers and dates for student oral presentations.  Discuss how to prepare an oral presentation. Discuss term project requirements.
4. Week 4 (8 August - 12 August).  Tutorial sessions: Students #1 - #4 give practice oral presentations. 
5. Week 5 (15 August - 19 August). Student oral presentations #1 - #4: each presentation will be 10 minutes in length, with an 8-minute discussion period.  Tutorial sessions: Students #5 - #10 give practice oral presentations.  Assignment 1 due (in class Friday 19 August): Term paper or project proposal (one sentence).
6. Week 6 (22 August - 26 August).  Student oral presentations #5, #6 (Monday), #7 - #8 (Wednesday), #9 - #10 (Friday).
   
   Term break (29 August - 10 September)
    
7. Week 7 (12 September - 16 September). Tutorial sessions: Students #11 - #14 give practice oral presentations.  Assignment 2 due (in class Friday 17 September): for term paper: first draft of title, synopsis, and references. For term project: first draft of title, goal statement, resources required (software & hardware), and proposed methodology. 
8. Week 8 (19 September - 23 September).  Student oral presentations #11 - #12 (Monday), #13 - #14 (Friday). Tutorial sessions: Students #15 - #18 give practice oral presentations.
9. Week 9 (26 September - 2 October). Student oral presentation #16 (Monday), #15 (Wednesday). Tutorial sessions: Students #18 - #23 give practice oral presentations.  Friday: Sample final exam (Handout XX: an ungraded midterm test). Assignment 3 due in class Friday 1 October: title and abstract, for publication on class website; and a detailed outline of your term paper or project report.
10. Week 10 (3 October - 7 October). Wednesday: student oral presentations #18 and #20. Friday: presentations #22 - #23 (Friday). Tutorial sessions: Students #24 - #29 give practice oral presentations. 
11. Week 11 (8 October - 14 October). Student oral presentations #24 - #25 (Monday), #26 - #27 (Wednesday), #28 - #29 (Friday). Tutorial sessions: Students #30 - #32 give practice oral presentations. 
12. Week 12 (18 October - 22 October). Student oral presentations #30 - #31 (Monday), #32 (Wednesday). Friday: Discussion of student answers to sample final exam. Course overview. Assignment 4 due in class Friday 22 October): final version of your term paper. (Please refer to the last slide of Handout 15 for detailed instructions on submission.)
13. (date to be announced) Final Examination. The location will be announced on the morning of the exam, using nDeva and hardcopy postings on campus.

Warning

We will discuss vulnerabilities in widely-deployed computer systems. This is not an invitation for you to exploit these vulnerabilities! Instead you are expected to behave responsibly. Don't break into computer systems that are not your own. Don't attempt to subvert any security system in any other way, for example by taking over someone else's "digital identity".