Anonymity and Privacy -- Spring '05

COMS E6998.007
Wed 04:10P-06:00 PM
Seeley W. Mudd 327
TA: Salman Abdul Baset
Courseworks page

"Anonymity and Privacy" will be taught as a seminar class. Students will be expected to read a wide variety of papers; these will include technical papers, statutes, court opinions, and the like. Prerequisites include reasonable familiarity with networking and cryptography. Grading will be based on class presentations of these papers -- the exact number will depend on the total enrollment -- and on a final paper. There will be no exams.

Topics will include:

Please subscribe to the class mailing list via the web at lists.cs.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/anon-priv

Homework assignments should be submitted by emailing them to hw-anon-priv at the obvious domain name.

Background Reading on Cryptographic Protocols

Those who have no background in cryptographic protocols should read

Jan 19
Introduction: What is Privacy?
Reading:
Chapter 3 of Who Goes There? Authentication Through the Lens of Privacy. Make sure you see Table 3.1; there's no link to it in the HTML version of the book.

Jan 26
Legal Foundations of Privacy
Reading: Using some quasi-random process -- i.e., the last 4 digits of your social security number modulo 3 -- prepare one of the three sets for presentation.

Feb 2
Wiretapping
Reading: Using some quasi-random process -- i.e., the last 4 digits of your social security number modulo 3 -- prepare one of the three sets for presentation.

Note (2 March): CDT has prepared an ex parte filing on the CALEA extension NPRM.

Feb 9
The Web: Cookies
Reading: Use the usual random selection process to select a presentation topic.

The first reading item is technical background to understand the how the privacy threats are implemented. The second is a description of how Doubleclick works. Today, they have a very complete privacy policy; years ago, they were a poster child for privacy misbehavior. The third section is to analyze the privacy policies of two different pairs of major Internet sites, Google/Orkut and Amazon/A9.

Feb 16
The Web: Protecting Privacy
Reading: Use the usual random selection process to select a presentation topic. Since there are four papers this week, please adjust your timing accordingly.

There are many more links about P3P at http://www.w3.org/P3P/.

Feb 23
No office hours Feb 23
Feb 23
Database Nation
Read chapters 4, 6, and 7 of Database Nation, by Simson Garfinkel, and prepare a presentation on one of those chapters. The link to the book is via the Columbia library network; full text is available. (In fact, you may wish to read more; it's a fast read. Chapter 9 is prescient and scary --- and it was written before the terrorist attacks of 9/11.)

Mar 2
Privacy and Data Mining Use the usual random selection process to select a presentation topic.

Mar 9
Anonymous Connectivity For more papers, see http://www.onion-router.net/.

I assume I no longer have to say anything about how to pick a paper...

Mar 16
Spring Break

Mar 23
Side Channels

Mar 30
Traffic Analysis

April 6
Digital Cash

April 13
Key escrow and the "crypto wars"

Notes on the Presentations

Apr 20
Student Presentations

Apr 27
Student Presentations

Final paper The final paper must be emailed to hw-anon-priv by 7:00 pm Wednesday, May 11. NO EXCEPTIONS


smb @cs.columbia.edu

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