6.857: Computer and Network Security

Course Information

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30 - 4:00
Room 6-120
3-0-9

This is a 12-unit (3-0-9) course on network and computer security intended for senior undergraduates and first-year graduate students. It fits within the Computer Systems and Architecture Engineering Concentration. Graduate students will receive H-credit for this class.

All students must have taken 6.033 and 6.042. It is recommended that students have taken 6.046J and have experience with modular arithmetic.

The official course web page is http://crypto.csail.mit.edu/class/6.857. Homework assignments and class announcements will be posted there. The students and staff will all be subscribed to a class mailing list 6857 at csail.mit.edu. Students are welcome to use this list to send relevant and useful information to the entire class. The course staff may be reached at 6857-staff at csail.mit.edu. The TAs may be reached at 6857-tas at csail.mit.edu. Homework will be electronically submitted to 6857-submit at csail.mit.edu

All students enrolled in 6.857 must complete an online registration form and subscribe to the 6.857 mailing list.

Topics covered include (but are not limited to) the following:

Techniques for achieving security in multi-user computer systems and distributed computer systems
Cryptography: secret-key, public-key, digital signatures
Authentication and identification schemes
Intrusion detection: viruses
Formal models of computer security
Secure operating systems
Software protection
Security of electronic mail and the World Wide Web
Electronic commerce: payment protocols, electronic cash
Firewalls
Risk assessment

There is no required textbook for this course. However, several texts are recommended:

Alfred Menezes, Paul van Oorschot, Scott Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography. CRC Press. 1997. (Available Online)
Bruce Schneier. Applied Cryptography, 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons. 1996.
Nigel Smart. Cryptography: An Introduction. McGraw-Hill. 2002.

These texts will be placed on reserve at the MIT libraries. Note that they are about cryptography, and there are many other recommended texts on both cryptography and other aspects of network and computer security.

6.857 is a group-oriented course. Students will work in groups on both homeworks and the final project, although they do not need to work in the same group for both. Students should form their homework group in time to do the first homework assignment. The final project team should be determined and announced to the staff by October 12. Students who need help finding a group should contact the staff.

To keep groups running smoothly, students should ensure their fellow members are actively participating and should communicate regularly. Students who cannot resolve group problems should contact their TAs. If necessary, groups can be dissolved and reformed.

The final course grade is weighted as follows:

30% Six problem sets.
15% In-class quiz.
25% Take-home midterm.
30% Final Group Project.

We will distribute six problem sets on approximately a weekly basis. They will generally posted on Tuesdays and be due on the following Tuesday. All homework must be typed and submitted electronically. Homework submissions are to be sent to "6857-submit at csail.mit.edu" in either PostScript, PDF, or MS Word format. Homework templates are available on the 6.857 web page. For homework involving equations or non-trivial mathematics, student are strongly encouraged to use LaTex to typeset their answers. Homework which is difficult for the graders to read may lose points.

Late homework will not be accepted. If in doubt, e-mail your problem set in early. Solutions will be distributed with corrected homework - hopefully within a week of being collected.

There will be both individual and group components to homework assignments. You are to work on group problem sets and final projects in groups of three or four (preferably three). One problem set will be turned in by each group, and one grade will be given for each problem set. You must work in groups; homeworks turned in by individuals, pairs, pentuples, etc. will not be accepted. Be sure that you understand and approve the solutions turned in to each problem. Get your group organized as soon as you can, and email the composition of your group to the teaching staff.

We may occasionally assign homework that you must answer individually; see below for the policy governing these assignments.

There will be one take-home midterm, assigned on October 12th and due on October 19th, containing open-ended questions to test your application of course material in solving complex problems. There is one in-class quiz on November 18th to test your knowledge of material from lectures, problem sets, and readings. There is no final.

Students will be responsible for a final project. You must work in a group of three or four people. The nature and topic of the project will be your choice, although it must be approved by the teaching staff. See this web page for a list of potential project topics.

Important project dates:

October 5th - Students individually submit one-page project ideas via e-mail. These ideas will be posted on the web for the class.
October 12th - Turn in team composition and final project topics. After reviewing their classmates' projects, students will form three or four person teams. These teams need not be the same as homework groups.
October 26th - A multi-page project draft and bibliography is due.
November 9th - During this week, each project group will meet with a TA to review their progress.
December 2nd, 7th, and 9th - Groups will present 7 minute talks on their projects
December 9th - Written projects are due.

No collaboration is permitted on the take-home midterm or the in-class quiz. All tests are open book and open notes. You may not discuss midterm material online, with your GRT, with your mother, etc. It's a completely individual assignment. We encourage you, however, to prepare for the quiz by discussing course material with your classmates.

You may collaborate with individuals from other groups in problem sets, but your solutions must be written up only by individuals from your group. For individual homework assignments, you may discuss the problem set material with others. You must, however, write up your solutions independently.

If you do collaborate, acknowledge your collaborators in the write-up for each problem. If you obtain a solution with help (e.g., through library work or a friend), acknowledge your source and write up the solutions on your own. In most of your solutions, we will expect to see citations.

You may use any reference material to complete your homework assignments, including material on the Internet and course readers from previous years. However, we cannot emphasize enough that you must cite all your sources properly. You must remove any possibility of someone else's work from being misconstrued as yours. Plagiarism and other anti-intellectual behavior will be dealt with severely. (When we have found instances of plagiarism and/or unauthorized collaboration in the past, we have given reduced or failing grades for the class (not just for the particular assignment) and/or reported the incident to the Dean for Student Affairs.)

This is a course on Network and Computer Security. Although the course is primarily concerned with techniques that are designed to increase the security of networks and computer systems, a proper understanding of those systems requires that you be versed in their vulnerabilities and failings as well.

Nevertheless, unless you have explicit written authorization from the owner and operators of a computer network or system, you should never attempt to penetrate that system or adversely affect that system's operation. Such actions are a violation of MIT policy and, in some cases, violations of State and Federal law. Likewise, you should refrain from writing computer viruses, worms, self-reproducing code, or other kinds of potentially damaging software for this course unless you have explicit, written approval for the specific type of software that you wish to create. These kinds of programs are notoriously difficult to control and their release (intentional or otherwise) can result in substantial civil and criminal penalties.

We strongly recommend that you consult the Athena Rules of Use and Section 13.2 of the MIT Policies and Procedures entitled ``Policy on the Use of Information Technology''. Finally, we recommend that you read and review the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Web material from previous years is available online. Course reviews are available in the HKN Underground Review (available with MIT Personal Certificates only):
2003 2002 2001 1999 1998 1997 1996