Course Project
Your course project should address an important, interesting open problem related to computer and network security. I'm happy to discuss your project ideas individually and help you refine them.
I recommend working in groups of 3 or 4. The larger the group, the more I'll expect you to accomplish.
Pre-Proposal Presentation — In class, February 9
Give a 10 minute presentation explaining the problem you want to work on, the most important related work, and your tentative approach. This will be an early opportunity to get feedback from the class.
Written Proposal — TBA
Your proposal should consist of a 2–3 page description of your project that includes the following:
- Group: Group member names and uniqnames.
- Title: What would you call the eventual paper or product?
- Problem: A description of the problem you will address and why it is important.
- Context: A survey of related work and past approaches to the problem.
- Approach: How you will address the problem and how your approach differs from past work.
- Evaluation: How you will test how well your approach works (e.g., experimental measurements).
- Scope: What you plan to accomplish and deliver by the checkpoint and by the end of the semester.
Upload your proposal to Canvas.
Project Checkpoint — March 22
Write a concise status report (no more than a page) answering the following questions:
- Progress: What have you accomplished so far? What do you have left to do?
- Schedule: Are you on track to complete what you proposed?
- Obstacles: Have you encountered any surprises or unexpected problems?
- Workarounds: If you're having problems, how do you intend to solve them or work around them?
- Preliminary results: Can you draw any preliminary conclusions from your results so far? Include data.
Upload your proposal to Canvas. You're also welcome to come see me or the TAs if you need advice.
Project Presentation — In class, April 11 and 13
The last full week of class is set aside for the Annual EECS 588 Security Symposium. Each group will give an in-class presentation about their results, in the style of a brief conference talk. These will be rapid fire talks; you'll have 13 minutes to speak and 5-7 minutes for questions.
Final Paper — TBA
Your group's final project report should be written in the style of a workshop or conference submission, like most of the papers we have read this semester. Please include at least the following:
- An abstract that summarizes your work.
- An introduction that motivates the problem you are trying to solve.
- A related work section that differentiates your contributions.
- Section(s) describing your architecture or methodology.
- Results and/or evaluation section(s), with data or figures to support your claims as appropriate.
- A brief future work section explaining what is left to do.
- Appropriate citations and references from the literature.
See also: Advice on writing technical articles.
The length of your report should not exceed 8 typeset pages, excluding bibliography and well-marked appendices. There is no limit on the length of appendices, but graders are not required to read them. The text must be formatted in two columns, using 10 point Times Roman type on 12 point leading, in a text block of 6.5” by 9”. I strongly encourage you to use LaTeX and the USENIX template files, and Overleaf might be a helpful collaboration platform. Please upload your proposal to Canvas.
Submitting Your Work for Publication
You should consider submitting your results to a technical workshop. There are several workshops held annually in conjunction with USENIX Security that have deadlines in late April and May. I'll be glad to advise you further in preparation for submission.