CSCI 780 - Spring 2023
Secure & Trusted Computing

Syllabus

General Course Information

Instructor Stephen Herwig
Office Hours W 11:00am - 12:00pm; Tu,Th 3:30pm - 4:30pm; or by appt.
McGlothlin-Street Hall
Room #136
Time/Place Tu,Th 2:00pm - 3:20pm
Tucker Hall
Room #110

Schedule

Week 1

Tues 1/31: Segmentation

Paper
Native client: A sandbox for portable, untrusted x86 native code
Related
Non sequitur
How to Read a Paper

Thurs 2/2: Paging

Paper
Light-weight Contexts: An OS Abstraction for Safety and Performance
Related
Paging: Introduction (chapter from OSTEP )
Important Dates

Add/drop deadline: 2/3

Week 2

Tues 2/7: Memory Protection Keys

Paper
ERIM: Secure, Efficient in-Process Isolation with Protection Keys (MPK)
Related
Non sequitur
How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper

Thurs 2/9: Virtualization

Paper
Dune: Safe User-Level Access to Privileged CPU Features
Related

Week 3

Tues 2/14: Trusted Platform Module (TPM)

Paper
TrInc: Small Trusted Hardware for Large Distributed Systems
Related Non sequitur
Writing an Introduction by Neil Spring

Thurs 2/16: Trusted Boot (Intel TXT)

Paper
Flicker: An Execution Infrastructure for TCB Minimization
Related
  • Intel Trusted Execution Technology for Server Platforms  
  • AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual - Volume 2: System Programming (Section 15.27)  

    • Week 4

    Tues 2/21: Software Enclaves (Intel SGX)

    Paper
    Intel SGX Explained
    Related
    Intel Software Developer's Manual: Volume 3D  
    Non sequitur
    UChicago: The Craft of Writing Effectively  

    Thurs 2/23: ARM TrustZone

    Paper
    SANCTUARY: ARMing TrustZone with User-space Enclaves
    Related

    Week 5

    Tues 2/29: Control Flow Enforcement

    Paper
    CETIS: Retrofitting Intel CET for Generic and Efficient Intra-process Memory Isolation
    Related
    Non sequitur
    MIT: How to Speak  

    Thurs 3/2: Pointer Authentication Codes

    Paper
    PAC it up: Towards Pointer Integrity using ARM Pointer Authentication
    Related
    Pointer Authentication on ARMv8.3 (Qualcomm whitepaper)

    Week 6

    Tues 3/7: Taint Tracking

    Paper
    TaintDroid: An Information Flow Tracking System for Real-Time Privacy Monitoring on Smartphones
    Related
    Non sequitur
    How to Write a Conference Talk

    Thurs 3/9: Language Safety

    Paper
    RedLeaf: Isolation and Communication in a Safe Operating System
    Related

    Week 7

    Tues 3/14

    No class (Spring break)

    Tues 3/16

    No class (Spring break)

    Week 8

    Tues 3/21: Oblivious Memory

    Paper
    Path ORAM: An Extremely Simple Oblivious RAM Protocol
    Non sequitur
    The Task of the Referee
    Important Dates

    Deadline for approval of syschat paper and proposal topic.

    Thurs 3/23: Searchable Encryption

    Paper
    CryptDB: Protecting Confidentiality with Encrypted Query Processing
    Related
    Important Dates

    Withdraw deadline: 3/27

    Week 9

    Tues 3/28: Functional Encryption

    Paper
    Attribute-Based Encryption for Fine-Grained Access Control of Encrypted Data
    Related
    Functional Encryption: A New Vision for Public-Key Cryptography
    Non sequitur
    How to Write a Technical Paper or a Research Paper by Michael Ernst

    Thurs 3/30: Garbled Circuits

    Paper
    BlindBox: Deep Packet Inspection over Encrypted Traffic
    Related
    Techniques for computing on encrypted data in a practical system by Raluca Ada Popa

    Week 10

    Tues 4/4: Syschat 1

    Paper
    PrivateDrop: Practical Privacy-Preserving Authentication for Apple AirDrop
    Important Dates

    By the end of this week, you should have met with me at office hours to discuss the progress on your proposal.

    Thurs 4/6: Syschat 2

    Paper
    "The Same PIN, Just Longer": On the (In)Security of Upgrading PINs from 4 to 6 Digits

    Week 11

    Tues 4/11: Syschat 3

    Paper
    Wobfuscator: Obfuscating JavaScript Malware via Opportunistic Translation to WebAssembly

    Thurs 4/13: Syschat 4

    Paper
    Morphuzz: Bending (Input) Space to Fuzz Virtual Devices

    Week 12

    Tues 4/18: Syschat 5

    Paper
    Annotating, Tracking, and Protecting Cryptographic Secrets with CryptoMPK

    Thurs 4/20: Syschat 6

    Paper
    Hecate: Lifting and Shifting On-Premises Workloads to an Untrusted Cloud

    Week 13

    Tues 4/25: Syschat 7

    Paper
    Midas: Systematic Kernel TOCTTOU Protection

    Thurs 4/27: Proposals 1-3

    Week 14

    Tues 5/2: Proposals 4-5

    Thurs 5/4: Proposals 6-7

    Final proposal document due: 5/16 @ 11:59pm