Peter Chapin. Office: WIL-414 on the Williston campus. Phone: (802) 879–5974 (voice mail active). Email: peter.chapin@vermontstate.edu. I will usually respond to email within one business day. Email is the best way to contact me. I am also sometimes on the Libera.Chat IRC network under the nickname pcc.
Computer security is a broad subject that can be treated on many levels. The topics covered in this course are intended to be useful to you in the long term by giving you the background you need to understand and evaluate security issues. We won't be covering the latest Windows vulnerabilities or Linux exploits. We won't be talking about how to change passwords or configure a secure web server. Instead, we will cover the underlying principles of computer security that apply to a wide range of situations. After taking this course you will be better able to understand the reason why certain things are done and better able to evaluate new security threats and the technologies that protect against them.
As is typical for VTSU SE/IT courses, this course attempts to balance theory and practice. While we won't necessarily be looking at specific exploits, we will spend some time talking about how security issues are handled in the real world. We will look at how encryption technology is used, how some actual secure network protocols work, and how real-life intrusion detection systems work (for example). However, it is important to understand that there is a body of knowledge about security theory as well. Although we will not delve into the theory to a great extent in this course, we will discuss some aspects of the theory so that you are at least aware of its existence.
The official course outline lists high-level course goals and content. The working course outline is more detailed than the official outline, but they are works in progress and subject to frequent changes throughout the semester.
This course will draw from a wide variety of background material. Your knowledge of networking and system administration will be important. This is not a programming course, but we will be referring to programming concepts in some cases. Also, some concepts from your math courses, particularly discrete math, might be useful.
The texts are in a curated playlist in the O'Reilly Collection. Use your VSC credentials to access it.
I have created an email distribution list for the class. I will use this list to distribute announcements and other supplementary materials. Be sure to check your mail regularly (daily) or you might miss something important. If you send a question in email directly to me, I may reply to my distribution list if I think that others would benefit from my answer. If you would rather I did not reply to the list you should say so in your message.
My home page contains various documents of general interest.
I grade on a point system. Each assignment is worth a certain number of points. At the end of the semester, I total all the points you earned and compare that to the total number of possible points. In this course there are two parts to your grade.
Homework. 20 pts/each. There will be approximately eight assignments during the semester for a total of 160 points. You will have one to two weeks to do each assignment, depending on the complexity of the assignment and other scheduling issues.
Exam. 50 pts. There will be one exam. It will be a take home exam given during the final exam period at the end of the semester.
When doing the exam, you can use any resources available to you except that you cannot consult with other students about exam questions nor post questions related directly to the exam on Internet forums or mailing lists. If you have questions about the exam, please contact me.
For homework, you can discuss the questions with other students and post questions related to the assignments in on-line forums. However, you should still do your own work. See the section on "Copying Policy" below for more information.
In general, late submissions are not accepted. If something comes up that prevents you from handing in an assignment on time, contact me before the deadline to discuss your issue. Under reasonable circumstances I am usually willing to grant an extension.
I encourage you to share ideas with your fellow students, so I won't be shocked to learn that you've been talking with someone about an assignment. In fact, if you worked closely with someone else, you should make a note on your submission that mentions the names of your associates.
However, I do ask you to do your own work in your final submissions. The goal is for all the work in your submission to have passed through your brain so that you comprehend it. If in doubt, ask yourself this: if I called you into my office and asked you to explain what you did, would you be able to do so?
If two submissions exhibit what I feel to be "excessive similarity," I will grade the submissions based on merit and then divide the grade by two, assigning half the grade to each submission. If I receive more than two excessively similar submissions, I will divide the grade by the number of such submissions and distribute the result accordingly.
Since "excessive similarity" is a bit subjective, I may only give you a warning if the similarity is not too excessive—especially for a first offense. However, I do keep records when I find excessive similarity, and I will be much less inclined to be forgiving if I discover it again. If you are concerned about the possibility of submitting something that might be too similar to another student's work, don't hesitate to speak with me first.
If you find material on the Internet or in a book that seems to answer questions I ask in an assignment, you may include such material in your submission provided you properly reference it. If I discover that you have included unreferenced material from such sources, I may not give you any credit for the question(s) answered by such material. You do not need to provide a reference to our text book or to materials I specifically provide in class.
I don't object to you using AI chatbots to research answers to questions on homework assignments or in labs. You are responsible, as always, for the accuracy of whatever you submit. Also, please reword any AI-generated text in your own words. Often, an AI-generated text is overly wordy or includes significant irrelevant material. I may grade you down if your answers wander excessively. I want you to understand what you're saying, so you should be able to filter out excessive and inaccurate chatter from an AI-generated response.
If you do include significant text from an AI chatbot, please include a citation for it as you would for any material taken from another source.
Students with disabilities may request accommodation as provided within federal law. All such requests should be made by first contacting disabilityservices@vermontstate.edu.
Last Revised: 2024-08-16
© Copyright 2024 by Peter Chapin <peter.chapin@vermontstate.edu>