15-827 Projects

Administration

You (or your group) may choose from one of these topics or design your own. If you design your own, you should write a one-two paragraph description of what you would like to cover, give a list of relevant reading material, and discuss your proposal with Jeannette.

Based on your background, why you are taking this course, and how many people we have enrolled, Jeannette will help you make your decisions about both whether you should work alone or not and the topic to choose.

Some topics must be covered (see below) so matches between student and topic will not necessarily be completely based on student preference. Also, to avoid a conflict, topics will be doled out on a first-come first-serve basis. Thus, it is to your advantage to fill out the Project Proposal as soon as possible.

Requirements

The nature of the written component of the project also depends on the topic you choose. It could be a short research paper, a set of class notes, a summary of a set of papers, or any variation thereof.

Jeannette will help you work out the details for your specific case.

Topics

• Authentication
  • * BAN logic and its variants (GNY, SVO). BAN controversy.
  • * Needham-Schroeder and subsequent controversy.
  • * Flaws in authentication protocols.
  • * Design principles for cryptographic protocols.
  • * Model checking approaches to reasoning about security.
  • * Theorem proving approaches to reasoning about security.
  • Formal models of security.
• Electronic Commerce
  • * Electronic auctions.
  • Electronic voting.
  • * Watermarking.
• Advanced
  • Trust management.
  • Key escrow and cryptography.
  • State of the art in factoring methods.
  • Elliptic curve cryptography.
  • Failures and security (R).
  • Cryptography and multicast (R).
  • Rights management (R).
  • Anonymity (R).