ECS 289M, Winter/Spring Quarters 2022
Introduction to Research in Computer and Information Security

The goal of this class is to introduce students to real-world research problems. This class will be done in collaboration with external organizations such as government agencies, commercial firms, and (possibly) organizations within UC Davis. Those organizations will propose research problems that the organization wishes to pursue. Each problem has a “sponsor”, or someone in the organization who will mentor the students working on the project. Students see the proposals, form teams, and apply to the sponsor to do the projects. The sponsor then evaluates the teams and picks one to work with. The sponsor and students scope the work to something suitable for the length of time of the class, and then the students conduct the research. We expect the students to meet weekly with the sponsor to discuss progress and ensure the research is on the right track.

This class is intended for graduate students who want to carry our research in computer security. Our focus is on research that will be useful to the sponsors and organizations. It is a 2-quarter class (Winter and Spring 2022 Quarters). Please plan for both quarters if at all possible.

Announcements

• Jan 26 at 1:38pm: No Class Wednesday and Friday
• Jan 25 at 9:40am: INSuRE Spring 2022 — Orientation Recording
• Jan 20 at 11:54am: INSuRE Hub Orientation — Spring 2022
• Jan 20 at 8:49am: Office hour moved to Monday
• Jan 17 at 1:11pm: Teams and ISO Projects ** UPDATE **
• Jan 17 at 12:44pm: Bid Link
• Jan 16 at 4:42pm: Teams and ISO Projects
• Jan 14 at 1:34pm: URGENT: Requirements and Due Date for Bids
• Jan 13 at 12:44pm: INSuRE Open House
• Jan 11 at 2:05pm: Office Hours and INSuREHub Access
• Jan 6 at 11:12am: Office Hours for the first week
• Jan 3 at 12:20am: First Day of Class

Class Information

• Descriptive Flyer
• General Information
• Syllabus
• Detailed course description

Class Videos and Slides

Not every class has a video, and not every class has slides. Here are the ones we have.

• Jan 3 Lecture
  • Slides on course administration
  • Slides on agile research
• Jan 5 Lecture
  • Slides on “How to Read a Paper”
  • Slides on design principles
• Jan 7 Lecture
• Jan 14 Lecture
  • Slides on the bid and how to submit it
• Jan 31 Lecture
  • Team #1’s proposal
  • Team #2’s proposal

Assignments

The due dates may change due to COVID or co-ordination issues. Remember, the other schools are on the semester system and so end earlier than our spring quarter. The INSuRE repository will be on EasyChair; I will post the link when I know it.

• List of projects you are interested in; 200 word summary of the readings
  Due: January 7, upload to Canvas
• Project bid
  Due: January 18, upload to both the INSuRE repository and Canvas
• Give a 10-minute presentation of the project chosen
  Due: January 21, upload presentation to Canvas
• Draft proposal (optional)
  
• Final project proposal, and 10 minute presentation of it
  Due: January 28, upload proposal to both the INSuRE repository and Canvas, and the presentation to Canvas
• Literature review
  Due: February 15, upload to Canvas
• Draft progress report (optional)
  Due: March 10, upload to Canvas
• Final progress report, and 10 minute presentation of it
  Due: March 17, upload progress report to both the INSuRE repository and Canvas, and the presentation to Canvas
  Presentation: March 18, present project and progress report to other mentors and INSuRE teams
• Draft interim report (optional)
  Due: May 1, upload to Canvas
• Interim report, poster, and 20 minute presentation
  Due: May 6, upload interim report to both the INSuRE repository and Canvas, and the poster and presentation to Canvas
  Note: other teams will be giving their final report, but we continue until the end of the quarter
• Draft final report (optional)
  Due: May 28, upload to Canvas
• Final report, poster, and 20 minute presentation
  Due: June 1, upload final report to both the INSuRE repository and Canvas>, and the poster and presentation to Canvas
  Note: Final presentations will be during the final exam time, which has not yet been assigned

Weekly Dashboard Reports

These are to be uploaded to both Canvas and INSuREHub, as described in the General Information handout.

• Dashboard Template and Example [PPTX] [PDF]
  Due: Feb. 11, 24; Mar. 3, 31; Apr. 7, 14, 21, 28; May 5, 12, 20

Readings

• R. Anderson, “Why Information Security is Hard — An Economic Perspective”, Proceedings of the 17th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference pp. 358–365 (Dec. 2001); DOI: 10.1109/ACSAC.2001.991552; local copy on Canvas
• M. Bishop, “Design Principles”, Chapter 14 in Computer Security: Art and Science, Second Edition (draft); local copy on Canvas
• S. Keshav, “How to Read a Paper”, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 37(3) pp. 83–84 (July 2007); DOI: 10.1145/1273445.1273458; local copy on Canvas
• R. Linger, L. Goldrich, M. Bishop, and M. Dark, “Agile Research for Cybersecurity: Creating Authoritative, Actionable Knowledge When Speed Matters” Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Science pp. 5958–5967 (Jan. 2017); DOI: 10.24251/HICSS.2017.723 local copy on Canvas

Matt Bishop Department of Computer Science University of California at Davis Davis, CA 95616-8562 USA

Last modified: December 30, 2021 Winter Quarter 2022