A draft of the lecture slides for each module will be made available
the evening before the module begins.
The final version of the lecture slides will be made available after
the module is completed and replaces the draft. Use of the draft is at
your own risk!
Readings marked as mandatory contain required material for the
course, and must be read before the date of the corresponding
lecture.
Module |
Slides |
Lecture number |
Lecture date |
Textbook sections (Pfleeger et al. / van Oorschot) |
1 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 1 |
May 2 |
1.1 – 1.8 / 1.1 – 1.4, 1.6 |
Optional reading: The 10 privacy principles of PIPEDA |
Optional reading: A terminology for talking about privacy |
Optional reading: Federal privacy reform in Canada: The Consumer Privacy Protection Act |
Optional reading: Modernizing Canada’s Privacy Act |
Optional reading: Microsoft’s report on Russian Cyberattacks in Ukraine |
Optional reading: Social Security Employees in Illinois Sentenced in Federal Court on Charges Including Bribery and Identity Theft |
2 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 2 |
May 4 |
3.1 / 6.1 – 6.8 |
Mandatory reading before class: Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit |
Optional reading: On the Evolution of Buffer Overflows |
Optional reading: Exploiting Format String Vulnerabilities |
Optional reading: Example format string vulnerabilities (November 2011) |
Optional reading: Example format string vulnerabilities (May 2012) |
Optional reading: A Taxonomy of Computer Program Security Flaws, with Examples |
Lecture 3 |
May 9 |
3.2 / 7.1 – 7.4 |
Optional reading: Morris worm |
Optional reading: The Spread of the Sapphire/Slammer Worm |
Optional reading: Slammed! |
Optional reading: Technical analysis of client identification mechanisms |
Lecture 4 |
May 11 |
3.2 / 7.5 – 7.9 |
Mandatory reading before class: Reflections on Trusting Trust |
Optional reading: US Federal Student Aid website has a Facebook web bug |
Optional reading: Linux Kernel "Back Door" Attempt |
Optional reading: The backdooring of SquirrelMail |
Optional reading: Clickjacking attack (Interface illusion) |
Optional reading: MITM Malware Re-Writes Online Bank Statements |
Lecture 5 |
May 16 |
3.3 / 1.7, 6.9 |
Optional reading: An operating system kernel with a formal proof of security |
Optional reading: Bugs in open source software: #gotofail |
Optional reading: Bugs in open source software: Heartbleed |
3 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 6 |
May 18 |
5.1 / 5.1 – 5.2 |
Optional reading: Android permissions demystified |
Optional reading: Google launches its third major operating system, Fuchsia |
Lecture 7 |
May 25 |
5.1 / 3.1 – 3.4, 3.6 |
Optional reading: Breaking SMS-based two-factor authentication: Attacking the cellular network |
Optional reading: Breaking SMS-based two-factor authentication: Android malware for stealing SMS messages |
Optional reading: Passphrases that you can memorize — But that even the NSA can't guess |
Optional reading: The top 50 woeful passwords exposed by the Adobe security breach |
Optional reading: Password Security: A Case History |
Optional reading: Facebook's password hashing scheme |
Optional reading: LinkedIn Revisited - Full 2012 Hash Dump Analysis |
Optional reading: Anatomy of a password disaster - Adobe's giant-sized cryptographic blunder |
Optional reading: Largest password data breach in history has been leaked online |
Lecture 8 |
May 30 |
5.2 / 3.5 |
Optional reading: 'Fake fingerprint' Chinese woman fools Japan controls |
Optional reading: Politician's fingerprint 'cloned from photos' by hacker |
Optional reading: Vietnamese security firm: Your face is easy to fake |
Optional reading: Android facial recognition based unlocking can be fooled with photo |
Optional reading: Breaking Windows Hello Face Authentication |
Optional reading: Reverse-Engineered Irises Look So Real, They Fool Eye-Scanners |
Optional reading: Border Drones with Facial Recognition |
Lecture 9 |
June 1 |
5.2 / 1.7 |
Mandatory reading before class: The Protection of Information in Computer Systems, section I.A. |
Optional reading: The Security Principles of Saltzer and Schroeder, illlustrated with scenes from Star Wars |
Optional reading: Reliably Erasing Data From Flash-Based Solid State Drives |
Optional reading: SELinux |
4 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 10 |
June 6 |
6.1, 6.2 / 9.1, 9.3, 9.6, 10.6, 11.3 |
Optional reading: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username |
Optional reading: Robin Sage |
Optional reading: How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking |
Lecture 11 |
June 8 |
6.3, 6.4 / 11.3, 11.4, 11.6 |
Optional reading: Cybercrime 2.0: When the Cloud Turns Dark |
Optional reading: Why Google Went Offline Today and a Bit about How the Internet Works |
Optional reading: The DDoS That Knocked Spamhaus Offline (And How We Mitigated It) |
Optional reading: The DDoS That Almost Broke the Internet |
Optional reading: Biggest DDoS ever aimed at Cloudflare's content delivery network |
Optional reading: Technical Details Behind a 400Gbps NTP Amplification DDoS Attack |
Optional reading: Understanding the Mirai Botnet |
Optional reading: Strange snafu misroutes domestic US Internet traffic through China Telecom |
Optional reading: A $152,000 Cryptocurrency Theft Just Exploited A Huge Blind Spot In Internet Security |
Lecture 12 |
June 13 |
6.7, 6.8 / 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2 |
Optional reading: The Inside Story of the Kelihos Botnet Takedown |
Optional reading: Gameover |
Optional reading: Backstage with the Gameover Botnet Hijackers |
Optional reading: Attacking an IDS |
5 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 13 |
June 15 |
2.3, 12 / 2 |
Optional reading: One-time pad |
Optional reading: A Stick Figure Guide to AES |
Optional reading: Defeating AES without a PhD |
Optional reading: Twenty Years of Attacks on the RSA Cryptosystem |
Optional reading: Why it's harder to forge a SHA-1 certificate than it is to find a SHA-1 collision |
Optional reading: SHA-1 collision found |
Lecture 14 |
June 20 |
6.3, 6.6 / 4.3, 8.1, 8.2, 8.4, 8.5, 9.2, 10.5, 12 |
Optional reading: Intercepting Mobile Communications: The Insecurity of 802.11 |
Optional reading: Cracking WEP in 60 seconds |
Optional reading: El Gamal Encryption |
Optional reading: DH Key-Exchange |
Optional reading: DigiNotar incident |
Optional reading: Superfish |
Optional reading: Sennheiser Headset Software |
Optional reading: WireGuard |
Lecture 15 |
June 22 |
6.6 / 8.6, 8.7, 10.3 |
Optional reading: SSH: passwords or keys? |
Optional reading: Why Johnny Can't Encrypt |
Optional reading: PGP Criminal Investigation |
Optional reading: Off-the-Record Messaging |
Optional reading: Signal's Double Ratchet |
Lecture 16 |
June 27 |
6.6., 9.1, 9.2, 9.6 / |
Optional reading: A Survey of Anonymous Communication Channels |
Optional reading: The Tor Project |
Optional reading: Re-identifying Tor users |
Lecture 17 |
June 29 |
6.2 / |
Optional reading: Encrypted Traffic Analysis |
Lecture 18 |
July 4 |
/ 13 |
Optional reading: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System |
Optional reading: Ethereum Proof-of-Stake |
Optional reading: The centralized power of decentralized mining pools |
6 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 19 |
July 6 |
7.1 – 7.3, 7.5 / |
Optional reading: A quick-start tutorial on relational database design |
Optional reading: What does ACID mean in database systems? |
Lecture 20 |
July 11 |
9.4 / |
Optional reading: Data mining and integrity: Boston Bomber slipped past while spelling glitch tripped up the law |
Optional reading: Data mining and integrity: How Obama Officials Cried 'Terrorism' to Cover Up a Paperwork Error |
Optional reading: FOILing NYC's Taxi Trip Data |
Optional reading: Social Security Numbers Deduced From Public Data |
Optional reading: A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749 |
Optional reading: ℓ-Diversity: Privacy Beyond k-Anonymity |
Optional reading: t-Closeness: Privacy Beyond k-Anonymity and ℓ-Diversity |
Optional reading: Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization |
Lecture 21 |
July 13 |
9.4 / |
Optional reading: Dataset reconstruction attacks |
Optional reading: Damien Desfontaines' friendly introduction to differential privacy |
Optional reading: A list of real-world uses of differential privacy |
Optional reading: Gautam Kamath's Algorithms for Private Data Analysis course at UW |
Lecture 22 |
July 18 |
/ |
Optional reading: Nicholas Carlini's adversarial ML reading list |
Optional reading: Attacking machine learning with adversarial examples |
Optional reading: Microsoft's Tay chatbot poisoning |
Optional reading: How to steal an AI |
7 |
(PDF) (3up) |
Lecture 23 |
July 20 |
11.1, 11.2, 11.4 – 11.7 / |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: Cambridge Analytica |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: AT&T hacker |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: Deanonymizing Tor users |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: Facebook mood manipulation |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: Unaccountable algorithms |
Optional reading: Ethically questionable behaviour: Malicious Linux kernel patches |
Optional reading: Access Copyright v. York University |
Optional reading: Unintended Consequences: Ten Years under the DMCA |
Optional reading: A Death in Athens |
Optional reading: On the Juniper backdoor |
Optional reading: databreaches.net |
Optional reading: Bruce Schneier on Full Disclosure |
Optional reading: Google's view |
Optional reading: Microsoft's view |
Optional reading: Disclosing breaches to the government |
Optional reading: ACM code of ethics |
Optional reading: IEEE code of ethics |
Optional reading: CIPS code of ethics |
Lecture 24 |
July 25 |
10.1 – 10.5 / 1.3 – 1.6 |
Optional reading: Investigation into the loss of a hard drive at Employment and Social Development Canada |
Optional reading: uWaterloo's Information Security Policies, Standards, and Guidelines |
Optional reading: uWaterloo's Electronic Media Disposal Guidelines |
Optional reading: The Computer Centre Incident at Concordia |
Optional reading: Twitter thread on Rogers' outage |
Optional reading: Roger's report on July 2022 Canada-wide service outage (abridged) |