CSCI 6268: Foundations of Computer and Network Security

Announcements

• Reading: Please read Section 9.2 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Reading: Please read Section 10.1 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• WEP and RC4 Notes: A nice overview of the attack on WEP and RC4 can be found on line. The technical paper is by Flueher, Mantin, and Shamir.
• DDoS Notes: The DDoS lecture will be mostly based on Steve Gibson's fascinating account of a DDoS attack on his web site. Also, we may discuss IP Traceback.
• Assignment 5: new assignment here.
• Notes:A couple of pointers added to the notes page.
• Midterm II Results: The second midterm has been graded and will be returned 14/11 in class. You may view a histogram of the scores.
• Notes:The web page used for the buffer overflows can be found here.
• Cancelled Office Hours: John will be out of town Nov 18th through the 21st.
• Reading: Please read Section 9.1 pp. 292-303 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Notes: articles on WEP are available from the notes page.
• Reading: Please read Sections 6.5--6.6 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Reading: Please read Sections 6.1--6.4 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Reading: Please read Section 7.2 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Cancelled Office Hours: Antonio will be out of town on Thursday Oct 17th and therefore will not have office hours that day.
• Reading: Please read Section 4.2 of Stallings' Network Security Essentials.
• Midterm I Results: The first midterm has been graded and will be returned 10/8 in class. The solutions are available for your perusal, and you may view a histogram of the scores.
• Added Office Hour: John will have an office hour on 10/1 from 3pm-4pm to answer questions before Thursday's midterm.
• Midterm details: Several people have asked about calculators. You are allowed to use calculators, but only the type which do math and not the type that store alphanumeric information. This will be a closed-book and closed-notes exam, so it would be unfair to allow calculators which store text. If your calculator has memory (for numbers, formulae, etc) please clear the memory before the test.
• Reading: Please finish reading our survey of cryptography. Also, read 2.4.2 in MOV (the Extended Euclid's Algorithm) along with sections 8.1 and 8.2 (RSA Cryptosystem).
• Midterm I: Reminder: Midterm I will be on Thursday Oct 3rd. It will cover all lecture material from the beginning of the term through Thursday, Sep 26th.
• Cancelled Office Hours: John will be out of town Friday Sep 27th through Tuesday Oct 1st, and therefore and therefore will not have office hours on Monday, Sep 30th. Since assignment #2 is due the following day, be sure and ask any questions you might have by Thursday, Sep 26th.
• Room Change: We will no longer be using ECOT 831 for this class. Beginning Thursday, 9/19, we will use the following two rooms instead:
  • Tues: DUAN G1B27 (Physics building where Math/CS Library is)
  • Thur: ECCR 1B51
  This means every Tuesday is in DUAN and every Thursday is in ECCR. The room for the final exam (which is on a Saturday) will be announced later.
• Reading: Please read our survey of cryptography through section 2.3. Also, read 9.4 in MOV, paying attention to the hash functions created from block ciphers and SHA-1 and MD-5.
• CTR Mode: CTR Mode was proposed as a standard during the 2000 NIST Modes Workshop. If you are interested in a few more details, the proposal is easy reading and quite informative.
• Reading: Please read our survey of cryptography through section 2.2.5. Also, skim 7.2.2 in MOV. (Unfortunately, there is no complete discussion of the material I want to cover in class; this is the closest I can find.)
• Room Changes: There is some funny stuff going on with the on-line scheduling system due to the fact we are trying to change rooms. However, do NOT believe anything regarding room changes unless you hear it directly from us either (1) during class or (2) on this page of announcements. For the time being we are still in ECOT 831.
• Guidelines: There are some assignment guidelines to help with reading Assignment #1 and understanding what we expect from you in your solutions. Please read them carefully.
• Reading: Please read our survey of cryptography from the beginning through section 2.2.2. Also, skim section 7.4 of the Handbook of Applied Cryptography; we will go over this in detail on Tues, Sep 3.
• Cryptography Textbook: The Menezes, van Oorschot, Vanstone text is being sold for retail (about $94) at the bookstore. You can find it on-line at buy.com for about $85, shipping included. And remember, this book is available free on the web so you needn't buy it at all. (Note: this announcement does not constitute an endorsement of buy.com!)
• 27 August - Survey Form: Please fill out the Student Survey Form. It should take you approximately 10 minutes to complete. The due date is Thursday, August 29th, at 10:00 Mountain Time.