Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies—Fall 2015

Instructor Ian Goldberg
Office Phone x36168
Office Location DC 3518
Office Hours Thursdays, 3:30–4:30 pm, or by appointment
E-mail iang@cs.uwaterloo.ca
Seminar times TTh 10:00–12:00, DC 3313

Suggested Reading List

Students only:

Schedule for paper and project presentations

Discussion Forum

Paper selection preferences

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.

Classes

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

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 10:00 am 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 60 minutes for the presentation and discussion in total for each paper.

All students must also submit presentation feedback forms [TXT, PS] (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 18 Oct at noon. Near the end of term, they will present their work to the class in a 30-minute (including five minutes for questions) 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 LEARN.

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:

Note for Students with Disabilities

AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, Room 1401, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility at the beginning of each academic term.