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CS 594/IDS 594 - Electronic Security and Privacy: Interdisciplinary Foundations

Instructors: V.N. Venkatakrishnan (CS), and Ranga Chandrasekaran (IDS)

Meeting: Thursday, 3:30-6:15pm (Fall semester 2012)

Overview
This course is intended to provide an overview of electronic security and privacy issues for PhD students from a variety of backgrounds. The philosophy of the course is to introduce various topics in the technology and enterprise security issues through a multidisciplinary perspective that include the relevant technologies, economics, user and organizational perspectives and tech-centric policy. Each class will begin with a set of assigned background readings, and a set of in class discussion topics. Homework exercises that will involve diverse (backgroundwise) teams will be used to develop and further the ideas discussed in class.

Topics
Each topic has background reading (to be done outside class), papers for class discussion and
a case study. Each topic will be covered over a two week period.
  1. Cybercrime: SPAM attacks, Malvertising, Economics of cybercrime, Countermeasures
  2. Cloud Computing: Scale and efficiencies of sharing, Security and Confidentiality of Cloud Storage, Attacks and Prevention Mechanisms
  3. Social Networks: Privacy, Identity Management, Network user privileges, Network Analysis, Economics of Social Networks
  4. Financial Transactions: Banking and Bookkeeping, Payment Systems, Credit Systems, Fraud and Detection Schemes, Economics of Fraud Detection
  5. Healthcare: Electronic Health Records, Practice, State of Current Practice, Privacy and Tech-centric Policy
  6. Copyright and Digital Rights Management: Copyrighted content, Circumvention Techniques, Economics and Policy Issues in Circumvention and Detection
  7. Electronic Surveillance: Surveillance by government, corporates and other individuals, surveillance tools and technologies, motivations and impacts of surveillance, anti-surveillance technologies
  8. Information Security Management Philosophies: Economics, Risk Management, System Architecture, Formal Assurance
Textbook
Ross Anderson. Security Engineering. Wiley. 2.ed. 2009.
In addition, a number of academic papers and business case studies will be part of the required
reading for class.

Reference book
Defeating the Hacker. Robert Schifreen. Wiley. 2006.

Learning Outcomes
Appreciating electronic security and privacy issues in day-to-day use of technology. Ability to analyze security issues of a large complex system from a technical perspective. Appreciating the trade-offs in making investments in security. Ability to work in groups, especially those that involve students from other departments and colleges on a resarch project. Writing term papers that analyze security and privacy issues on various topics related to technology. Presenting material on security and privacy to a broad audience.

Prerequisites
Must be enrolled in a PhD program at UIC or consent of the instructor.

Grading
Grading will be based on the following components (1) Reading and homework assignments (2)
Class project and (3) Class participation.