COURSE INFORMATION

Course description.  Security issues in computing, communications, and electronic commerce. Goals and vulnerabilities; legal and ethical issues; basic cryptology; private and authenticated communication; electronic commerce; software security; viruses and other malicious code; operating system protection; trusted systems design; network security; firewalls; policy, administration and procedures; auditing; physical security; disaster recovery; reliability; content protection; privacy.

Textbook. There is no required or suggested textbook in this course, because there is no one book that covers the right material in an up-to-date fashion. Here are some good books about security, in case you're interested.

• Ross J. Anderson, Security Engineering. [Covers security in general, with many non-computing examples.]
• Dieter Gollmann, Computer Security. [General security textbook. Good for what it covers, but doesn't cover everything.]
• David Kahn, The Codebreakers. [History of cryptography. Not very technical.]
• Steven Levy, Crypto. [History of cryptography since 1970. Non-technical.]
• Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier, Practical Cryptography. [Focused coverage of applied cryptography, not the most rigorous.]
• Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography. [Very broad coverage of crypto and its applications. Approachable but not as rigorous as Stinson.]
• Douglas R. Stinson, Cryptography Theory and Practice (2nd edition). [Cryptography textbook. Math-intensive.]
• John Viega and Gary McGraw, Building Secure Software. [How to write software that will have fewer security bugs.]
• Michal Zalewski (lcamtuf), The Tangled Web: A Guide to Securing Modern Web Applications. [Web security. Strikes a good balance between conceptual exposition and messy detail.]

There are many good books about cryptography, but relatively few good ones about other computer security topics.

Lectures.  Lectures meet on Mondays and Wednesdays at 11am in Computer Science 104

Homework Policy. Late homework will lose 10% of its value for every day of lateness. Homework more than seven days late will not be accepted.

No homework extensions will be given except in extraordinary circumstances (such as documented illness), and then only if the official university procedures are followed.

Collaboration policy.  This course permits many forms of collaboration, including help from course staff, classmates, and lab TAs. However, you must be careful to collaborate only as authorized below. Here is an executive summary.

activity	your partner	course staff	COS 432 grads	classmates	other
discuss concepts with ...	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
acknowledge collaboration with ...	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
expose solutions to ...	✔	✔	✔	no	no
view solutions from ...	✔	no	no	no	no
plagiarize code from ...	no	no	no	no	no

Grading.  Grades will be computed by the following formula: 50% homework; 45% final exam; 5% class participation.

Staff, Office Hours and Other Help. 

	Instructor Arvind Narayanan - arvindn@ Office: Sherrerd 308, (609) 258-9302 Office Hours: MW 1:30-2:30 pm
AI Harry Kalodner - kalodner@ Office: Sherrerd 312 Office Hours: F 2:00-4:00 pm		AI Paul Ellenbogen - pe5@ Office: Sherrerd 320 Office Hours: TTh 3:30-4:30 pm

If you have general questions about the assignments, lectures, textbook, or other course materials, please post via Piazza. Posts marked private are viewable only by instructors.