CS 495 : INFORMATION SECURITY

Spring 2005

Dr. David Grossman

Office: 228D Stuart Hall

Teaching Assistant: Jordan Wilberding (wilbjor@iit.edu)

Required Text:

C. Pfleeger and S. Pfleeger, Security in Computing, Prentice Hall..

Grading:

The final grade will be determined as follows:  

Presentation .................................         20 %  

Programming Projects (7) ..........       45%

Test #1..……...................................     15%

Test #2….……................................     20%

Academic Integrity:

Each member of this course bears responsibility for maintaining the highest standards of academic integrity.   All breaches of academic integrity must be reported immediately.  Any violation of the academic integrity policy will result  in the student receiving a failing grade for the course. 

Programming Assignments

Programming assignments are designed to improve understanding of core concepts by implementing them.  As such, there is no requirement to use any specific programming language.  Feel free to use your favorite language or use this as an opportunity to learn new ones.   This semester assignments will flow along two themes.

Theme 1: Building a Secure Shell
Preparation for Cryptography: Use of large integer library.
200-bit prime generation and RSA
Encrypting network traffic
SSH server

Theme 2 : Building a Robust Intrusion Detection System

Rule-based Firewall Implementation
Packet Sniffing UDP/TCP, with message handling
Intrusion Detection System

Research Presentations:

The presentation is an important part of the course as well.    Students will be given a set of research papers and they will select a paper.  Depending upon class size in a couple of weeks, students will be asked to form a group of size 2,3, or 4 (no more than four).  A written summary of the paper will be due one week prior to the presentation.  Allocate significant time to read the paper many times and to work to identify the best means of presenting the paper.  Presentations must be extremely well rehearsed – failure to properly prepare for the presentation will result in an extremely poor grade on the presentation. 

Late Assignment Policy:

Assignments and presentations must be submitted on or before their due date and time.   No late assignments will be assigned a grade.   Please read the preceding sentence again, slowly.  Once finished, read it again.   It is important that students understand this because an ontime submission of a partial assignment is usually worth far more than nothing. 

Requests for extensions will be routinely denied – students are strongly encouraged to avoid wasting the professors time by asking for an extension, but in the event that a request for an extension occurs, it will be quickly denied and the student will be asked why they chose not to read this policy.  

Class Participation:

Students who actively participate in class and stay current with the reading assignments will receive consideration should their final grades be borderline. 

Reading Assignments:

You will be assigned regular reading assignments.  To ensure these are read carefully, occasional, unannounced quizzes may be given in class.  Your performance on these quizzes will affect your grade should your final grade be borderline.

 

Schedule: