Syllabus

CS 196M Course Syllabus

Instructor information
1. Name: Mark Stamp
2. Office: MQH 216
3. Office hours: T/Th 9:30-noon
4. Phone: 408-924-5094
5. email: stamp@cs.sjsu.edu
6. Greensheet: http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/stamp/CS165/syllabus/syllabusSpr04.html
7. Who am I?
Textbook: Fundamentals of Secure Computer Systems, Brett C. Tjaden, Franklin, Beedle & Associates, 2004, ISBN: 1-887902-66-X. This is a very readable and inexpensive book.
- Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Classic Cryptography
  3. Modern Cryptography: Symmetric Key
  4. Modern Cryptography: Hash Functions
  5. Modern Cryptography: Public-Key and Digital Signatures
  6. Other Security Building Blocks
  7. Computer Security
  8. Computer Security Threats
  9. Network Security
  10. Network Security Threats
  11. E-mail and WWW Security
  12. E-mail and WWW Security Threats
  13. Intrusion Detection Systems
  14. Electronic Commerce
Other security books:
- Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World, second edition, Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman and Mike Speciner, Prentice Hall, 2002, ISBN: 0-13-046019-2. This book has very good coverage of cryptography and security protocols. I use this as the textbook in my graduate security class.
- Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, Ross Anderson, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001, ISBN: 0-471-38922-6; see Ross Anderson's Security Engineering website http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html for lots of interesting security information, and errata for this book. This is an excellent book, but not a textbook. If time permits, we may discuss some of the topics found in Chapters 7 through 23.
- Security in Computing, third edition, Charles P. Pfleeger and Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Prentice Hall, 2003, ISBN: 0-13-035548-8. The strength of this book is security issues related to software. In particular, it operating systems and secure software engineering well. It has reasonably good information on viruses. If time permits, we might cover parts of Chapters 3 and 4.
- Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code in C, Second Edition, Bruce Schneier, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995 (2nd edition), ISBN: 0-471-11709-9. This is the standard cryptographic reference.
- Computer Security, Dieter Gollmann, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999, ISBN: 0471978442. This is a good book, but not easy to read. Chapter 8, How Things Go Wrong, is especially good.
- Computer Security: Art and Science, Matt Bishop, Addison Wesley, 2003, ISBN: 0-201-44099-7. This is a popular new (and very long) book. It is much more theoretical than any other security book I've seem.
- The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking, Ankit Fadia, Premiere Press, 2002 (1st edition), ISBN: 1931841721. This is an interesting book, with the emphasis on hacking, not on ethics. The book includes things like source code for viruses and various other types of malicious code. A lot of this information can be found online, but the descriptions here are better than you're likely to find elsewhere.
PowerPoint slides for the textbook are available here
My PowerPoint slides are available here
Grading:
1. Test 1, 100 points. Date: Wednesday, March 10.
2. Test 2, 100 points. Date: Wednesday, April 21.
3. Homework, quizzes and other work as assigned, 100 points.
4. Project, 100 points. Date: April 5.
5. Final, 100 points. Finals schedule can be found at http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/soc-spring/rec-716.html
  Date: Friday, May 21, 12:15-14:30.
6. Semester grade will be computed as a weighted average of the 5 major scores listed above.
7. No make-up tests or quizzes will be given and no late homework or project will be accepted.
Homework
- Assignment 1: Due Friday, Feb. 6.
  
  Problem 5, page 9. Read the article at http://home.earthlink.net/~mstamp1/tripreports/defcon11.html and write a 1 page summary.
- Assignment 2: Due date: Monday, Feb. 23.
  
  Problem 1 and 2, p. 26
  Problems 1,2,3 and 4, p. 63
  Group project ("groups" of size 1 or 2): Implement a variant of the tiny encryption algorithm, TEA, that only uses a 32-bit key. Encrypt the 64-bit block (in hex) 0123456789abcdef using the key (in hex) a56babcd and decrypt the result to obtain the original plaintext. Encrypt the message Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. using each of the following 3 different modes (in each case using the key a56babcd): ECB mode, CBC mode and CTR mode. In each case, explain how you encrypted the last block.
- Assignment 3: Due date: Monday, March 1.
  
  A) Write 1 paragraph summary of lecture on Wednesday, February 25
  B) Write 1 paragraph summary of lecture on Friday, February 27
  C) Find a 16-bit key that encrypts
  plaintext = 0x1223 = 0001001000100011
  to
  ciphertext = 0x5b0c = 0101101100001100
  using the cipher SimpDES. See the files SimpDES.c and SimpDES.h for C source code and header file. A description of the cipher appears is included in the source file. To test the code, key 0xffff encrypts plaintext 0x0101 to ciphertext 0x026d. Of course, you must also be able to decrypt as well.
- Assignment 4: Due date: Monday, March 22.
  1. List 2 passphrases and for each of these, give three passwords derived from the passphrase.
  2. In some applications a passcode consisting of some number of digits is required (for example, a PIN). Using the number-to-letter conversion on a telephone
    1. What passcode corresponds to the password "hello"?
    2. Find all passwords that correspond to the passcode 4596. Your passwords must be dictionary words.
  3. Suppose that on a particular system, all passwords are 10 characters, and there are 64 possible choices for each character. The system has a password file with 512 passwords. An attacker has a dictionary of 2²⁰ common passwords, and from experience he knows that the probability of finding a randomly-selected password in his dictionary is 1/3. For this problem, work is measured by the number of hashes computed. Give pseudo-code for an efficient algorithm for attacking the password file, using the dictionary.
  4. Discuss two advantaged of capabilities over ACLs. Discuss two advantages of ACLs over capabilities.
  5. Briefly discuss two applications where multilevel security (MLS) is (or could be) used.
  6. What is the "need to know" principle and how does multilateral security enforce this principle?
  7. List the 3 types of firewalls discussed in class. At which layer of the Internet protocol stack does each type operate?
  8. Discuss one methods of inference control. Be sure to mention its strengths and weaknesses.
  9. Inference control is inherently weak. Why is it a good idea to employ weak inference control, but a bad idea to use weak cryptography?
  10. Suppose that you work in classified environment, where MLS is employed, and you have a TOP SECRET clearance. Describe a covert channel involving the network. How would you minimize this covert channel, while still allowing network access by users with different clearance levels?
- Assignment 5: Due date: Friday, April 16.
  1. Suppose we want a secure mutual authentication protocol based on a shared symmetric key. We also want to establish a session key and we want to assure perfect forward secrecy. Design such a protocol that uses three messages. Can you reduce the protocol to two messages?
  2. Design a variant of the "Simplified SSL" discussed in class which is based on symmetric key cryptography. Is your protocol resistant to a man-in-the-middle attack? Explain.
  3. Briefly explain a advantage of SSL over IPSec and 1 advantage of IPSec over SSL.
  4. Consider the "Kerberized rlogin" discussed in class. In the REPLY message, why is "ticket to Bob" encrypted with S_A? Why is the ticket to Bob sent by the KDC to Alice instead of being sent directly to Bob?
  5. Suppose we implement a Kerberos like protocol using public key cryptography instead of symmetric key cryptography. Give details of the Kerberized rlogin for this protocol. Is the KDC still a "trusted third party"?
  6. In class, we described GSM security over the "air interface" as
```
                               RAND
                  <----------------------------
                               SRES 
           mobile ---------------------------->  base station
                        encrypted with Kc
                  <---------------------------->
```
    Modify this protocol so that it achieves mutual authentication.
- Assignment 6: Due date: Monday, April 26.
  1. Read the paper at crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc and write a 1 page summary of the article.
- Assignment 7: Due date: Monday, May 17.
  1. It is often said that "complexity is the enemy of security". Why does this apply to software development?
  2. We said that the "trinity of trouble" includes complexity, extensibility and connectivity. Explain how each of these create security problems.
  3. What is a validation error and how can such an error lead to a security flaw?
  4. Discuss one example of a virus or worm that was not discussed in class.
  5. How is a "canary" used to prevent stack smashing attacks? Why was Microsoft's implementation of this technique flawed?
  6. What is a race condition? Discuss an example of a race condition, other than the mkdir example dicussed in class.
  7. What is the distinction between polymorphic and metamorphic viruses/worms? How might metamorphism be used for good instead of evil?
  8. Suppose that a large and complex piece of software has 10,000 bugs, each with an MTBF of 1,000,000 hours. Then you expect to find a specific bug after 1,000,000 hours of testing, and---since there are 10,000 bugs---you expect to find one bug for every 100 hours of testing. Suppose the good guys do 200,000 hours of testing and the bad guy does 400 hours of testing. How many bugs should each find? What is the probability that the bad guy finds at least one bug that the good guys did not?
  9. What is a trusted computing base (TCB)? How (and why) does TCG/NGSCB implement a TCB?
  10. In class we discussed two compelling applications of NGSCB (DRM and "what you see is what you sign"). Discuss one other compelling application.
  11. Why is it said that only a trusted system can break your security?
  12. Patch the code found here so that any serial number results in the message "Serial number is correct!!!". Turn in a screen capture showing your results. Extra Credit: Determine the correct serial number.
Cheating will not be tolerated...
...but working together is encouraged
Student must be respectful of the teacher and other students
Any disability issues must be resolved in advance
Valid picture ID required at all times
Major topics to be covered
1. Cryptography
2. Protocols
3. Access Control
4. Software Issues
5. Special Topics
Guest lectures
- TBD.
Why study security?
Everyone in this class is encouraged to follow the bugtraq newsgroup. You can subscribe at this URL
http://online.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/sfonline/subscribe.pl
and you can read archived messages here
http://online.securityfocus.com/archive/1