CSCE 824– Information Security Principles

Spring 2019

Project Information

1. SELECT INITIAL TOPICs OF INTEREST

· Read, read, read, …(Pick a paper that you like. Follow up on related works, other papers of the authors, cited by, and relevant technical papers)

· Security and privacy related publications

· Database, Knowledge discovery, Big Data, Data Mining, etc. publications

Recommended sources:

· ACM and IEEE conferences and journals

§ ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2019/

§ European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, https://esorics2019.uni.lu

§ IFIP WG 11.3 Conference on Data and Applications Security and Privacy, https://dbsec2019.cse.sc.edu/

§ ACM SIGMOD/PODS International Conference on Management of Data, http://sigmod2019.org/

§ IEEE Trans. Information Forensics and Security

§ IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng.

§ Computers & Security

§ IEEE Trans. Information Forensics and Security

§ ACM Transactions on Information and System Security

Deliverables:

· Short description (1 page) of one or two topics of interest.

· Detailed review of 5 seed papers (max. 1/2 page each)

1. Problem description, its importance and relevance to your area of interest

2. What supporting evidences the authors give for their claim?

3. What is missing?

4. Your suggested extension of the work

Due date: February 28, 2019

2. FORMULATE PROBLEM AND BUILD BACKGROUND

· Read more! What is the problem you are trying to solve? Why is it a problem?

· Revisit references. Is this still a problem? Is there a technology (possibly in another domain) that would solve the problem?

Deliverables:

· Extended problem specification and motivating example (1-1.5 pages)

· Complete literature review (2-3 pages)

· Presentation on related work

Due date:

Presentation: TBA

Write up: March 21, 2019 April 2, 2019

3. DEVELOP SOLUTION TO ADDRESS THE LIMITATIONS.

· Finalize research problem

· Present related work and its limitations

· Give a representative example of the problem and how current technologies fail to solve the problem

· Outline proposed solutions

o Provide an overview of the functionality provided by your solution

o Discuss how your solution solves the problem of the missing capabilities of current technologies

o Explain how you will be able to demonstrate (e.g., code, demo, survey, etc.) that your solution is useful. Make sure you present objective evidence to show the feasibility of you approach

· Describe research tasks that must be completed for the project (usually have solutions for a few of the research tasks)

Due date:

Final Report: April 28, 2019

Format:

Title

Author

Major

Abstract (300 words)

Introduction (1 page, single spaced, 11 points)

<Brief overview of

Problem description, its importance

Representative example

Brief description of related works

What is missing?

Your work addressing the research gap)

Related Works and their Limitations (2-3 pages, single spaced, 11 points)

<Make sure include all relevant works and be factual about the limitations.

e.g., “XY proposed a methods that is limited.” Is not enough. Give specifics

on what these limitations are.>

Description of project (2-3 pages, single spaced, 11 points)

<Several chapters on the proposed project, initial results, expectations, etc.

You need to convince the reader that the work is important, needed and that

you’re capable of performing the proposed work. >

Research Tasks (0.5-1 page, single spaced, 11 points)

< This is included in the project description. The main focus here is to give specific tasks that must be completed and evaluated for the project to succeed.>

Conclusion

References

Presentation: May 7, 2019, 4:00 – 6:30 pm

Look for presenation guidelines at: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-outline-rule-of-three/ and http://www.sussex.ac.uk/internal/doctoralschool/researcherdev/threeminthesis/preparing3mt

Prepare a short, 4 minutes demonstration on your area of interest. Your demonstration should have the following components:

i. 0.5 minute: Security problem and your credentials to solve the problem – layman's terms only

ii. 1 minute: importance of the problem and the impact of the technology you are proposing – layman's terms only

iii. 2 minutes: list 3 most challenging aspects of your proposed solutions and how you overcome these challenges – can be technical

iv. 0.5 minute: recap your contribution and emphasize your contributions– layman's terms only

Percentage of final project grade per components

1 : 20%

2. : 30 %

3. : 30 %

How to read scientific publications?

· Paper at a glance (10-15 min): read Abstract, skim Introduction, read Conclusions

After this stage you should have a general idea what the paper is about, but do not know in detail the technical content, it’s correctness, supporting arguments. However, you can decide whether the topic is important for you. If still interested in reading the paper, follow next step.

· High-level understanding of problem and proposed solutions (30-60 min): Read Abstract, Introduction, skim “body” of the paper, read Conclusions. When skimming through paper, focus on technical details that are used to establish correctness of presented solutions or show limitations of other works. After this phase you should have a pretty good understanding of the technology being described and being able to evaluate the quality of the paper.

· Detailed reading (2-3 hours, days ?): If you’re still interested in the paper, get a pencil and make sure you have plenty of time. Read the paper from beginning to the end, make notes on the margin, and verify correctness of presented concepts (not all published paper are correct, most have some flaws). You may also have to get additional papers, usually listed in the Reference section to fully understand the paper.

Questions to keep in mind when reading the paper:

· What do the authors claim? - Usually this is some sort of contribution to the field of research.

· What supporting evidences the authors give for their claim? – Formal proofs, experimental results, etc. These must be facts.

· Is the problem addressed is important? – Do we really need research in this field?

· Your comments on the work: Limitations? How to improve it?