Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies—Fall 2007

Instructor Ian Goldberg
Office Phone x36168
Office Location DC 3518
Office Hours Thursdays 3:30-4:30, or by appointment
E-mail iang@cs.uwaterloo.ca
Seminar times TTh 1:00-2:30, DC 3313

Suggested Reading List

Students only:

View Course Announcements

Schedule for paper and project presentations

Discussion Forum

Paper reviews

Presentation reviews

Overview

This is a seminar course that examines current research into technologies that help users maintain their privacy, both online and in the real world.

Lectures

This seminar will primarily consist of reading, reviewing, and presenting research papers. There will be two papers assigned to each class period, selected from topics including the following:

All students are to have read both of the papers before the class, and to have submitted a review for one of them (of the student's choice) by noon on the day of the lecture. Each paper will be presented to the class by one student, in a 25-minute conference-style presentation. The student presenting the paper will then lead the class in a discussion of the paper, taking 45 minutes for the presentation and discussion in total for each paper.

All students should also submit presentation feedback forms (one for each of the two presentations per class period) by noon of the day following the class period. These forms will be made available (anonymously) to the presenter.

Projects

Students will work in pairs on an original research project on some topic related to privacy enhancing technologies. Each pair will submit a proposal to the instructor no later than 15 Oct. Near the end of term, they will present their work to the class in a 30-minute conference-style presentation. In addition, by the end of term, they will produce a workshop-quality paper, 10-15 pages in length, describing their project.

Grading

Grades for this seminar will be calculated as follows:

25%Paper presentations
15%Reviews of papers and presentations
10%Class participation
50%Project

Grades will be available after the end of term through UW-ACE.

Academic Integrity

Note that students are not generally permitted to submit the same work for credit in multiple classes. For example, if a student has reviewed or presented one of the papers in another seminar class, he or she should avoid reviewing or presenting it again for this class.

The general university policy: