IT 862: Computer Security Models and Architectures

Professor Ravi Sandhu

Spring 2003, Thursday 4:30pm - 7:10pm, Enterprise 175

This course was last offered in Fall 1996 and has been revived to service doctoral students interested in Information Security research. It relies extensively on research papers.

INFS 780 will be a pre-requisite for this course effective Spring 2004.

www.profsandhu.com/it862

• Please send your slides to xzhang6@gmu.edu before class meeting
• Please see the schedule frequently.
• 2/1/03: List of project topics and instructions for email are available here. Please come prepared to 2/6/03 class to finalize project assigments and schedule.
• 1/28/03: This course is only open to students currently enrolled in one of the IT&E PhD programs. It will be offered again in Spring 2004. The 2004 offering is likely to be at a more advanced level due to possibility of offering a new course INFS 780 in Fall 2003. INFS 780 will be a pre-requisite for IT 862 starting in Spring 2004. Students who are just starting the PhD program, or are yet to be admitted, will benefit by taking IT 862 in Spring 2004.
  STRONG ADVISE: If you can wait a year you will get a lot more out of this course.
• The course is closed and over-subscribed. No force-adds will be provided in advance of the first class. Come to the first class and we will assess the situation.
• Please do not sign up for this course unless you have COMPLETED 6 CREDITS FROM INFS 762, 765, 766 AND 767.
  • There are NO exceptions to this prerequisite. SORRY!
  • If you ignore this prerequisite you are likely to have difficulty with the material and unlikely to get sympathy from me.
• This is a tough course with high expectations of the students. Be prepared to be self-reliant and don't let yourself get surprised.
  • We cover a lot of advanced material, without any text book.
  • The source material is mostly research papers that are quite demanding.
  • The material will be determined dynamically as the course proceeds, so I cannot tell you in advance exactly what the course will cover.
  • The exact format of the course depends on the number of students who sign up and their backgrounds. This will take a couple of weeks to develop.
  • Monitor the class web site frequently.
• Look forward to an exciting course!

Course Prerequisites:    

• Must have completed six credits from INFS 762, 765, 766 and 767. Concurrent enrollment is not sufficient. Restricted to doctoral students.
• Must be familiar with Discrete mathematics and Formal notation (such as INFS 501).
• Must be internet, web, pdf (get Acrobat Reader here) and postscript (get GSview here) capable.
• Must know how to access ACM, IEEE and any other digital libraries available to the GMU community. On-campus and off-campus access to these libraries is available to all GMU students. Links are conveniently available at University Libraries -- Database Wizard
• No assistance beyond the web links above will be provided on these basic Internet capabilities.
• There are NO exceptions to these prerequisites. SORRY!

Grading Policy:

• To be determined.

Lecture notes and readings:    

• Copies of lectures slides will be provided on the class web page as appropriate.
• Some lectures may be presented without slides.
• In my lectures I will usually cover more material than provided on the slides. I may also skip over some of the slides. The slides are merely a guideline for the lecture.
• Missing a lecture is likely to be costly. SORRY!
• In most cases lectures are supported by papers from the literature. These papers are generally accessible through digital libraries accessible to all GMU students via University Libraries -- Database Wizard .

Tentative Schedule:    

• Jan-23-03: Logic for Authentication Protocols 1, readings: Paul Syverson and Iliano Cervesato, The Logic of Authentication Protocols, in R. Focardi, R. Gorrieri (Eds.): Foundations of Security Analysis and Design, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS 2171, Springer-Verlag 2001.
  Slides 2/page | Slides 6/page
• Jan-30-03: Logic for Authentication Protocols 2, readings: as above
• Feb-6-03: Assign and schedule projects: Project topics and schedule | Guidelines and due dates
• Feb-13-03: Framework for Role-Based Delegation Models Slides 2/page | Slides 6/page | reading 1 | reading 2
• Feb-20-03: Safety problem in access control. No slides. Paper
• Feb-27-03: Guest lecture: Usage Control Models and Architectures, Jaehong Park. Paper | Slides 2/page | Slides 6/page
  List of papers and soft copies due. Term paper outlines are due before your presentation.
• Mar-6-03: no lecture
• Mar-13-03: Spring Break (enjoy!)
• Mar-20-03: student presentations: Brugman, Kevin (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Johnson, Michael (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Shackleford, Tom (Slides)
• Mar-27-03: student presentations: Pamula, Joseph (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Perini, Remo (Slides) || Singh, Davinder (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)
• Apr-3-03: student presentations: Al-Kohlany, Foaud | Hejmo, Marek (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page|| Zouridaki, Charikleia(Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)
• Apr-10-03: student presentations: Damalapati, Srikrishna (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Qiu, Shiye (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Zhang, Xinwen(Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)
• Apr-17-03: no lecture
• Apr-24-03: student presentations: Dhankhar, Vijayant (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Donis, Paul (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page) || Kaushik, Saket(Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)
• May-1-03: student presentations: Chen, Shiping (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)|| Phung, Pauline(Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)
  Term papers due.
• May-8-03: student presentations: Sohn, Soon-Yong (Slides 2/page |Slides 6/page)

Archives: This course was previously taught in Fall 1996, Spring 1993 and Fall 1991. Archives of these offerings are not available online.