Fall 2001, CSE 597E: Projects

Each student enrolled in the class should pick up a specific topic for

Students should pick up their preferred topic and time-slot for presentation. They will be assigned according to the principle "first requested, first served". I will maintain updated the list of topics and time-slots still available.

Deadline for the project

November 30, 2001.

Modalities of presentations

Each student send me the slides of his/her presentation at least a couple of days in advance, so that I can prepare quiz questions based on them. The slides should be in some electronic format (html, pdf, ps, ppt etc.) so that I can put them online as soon as I receive them. Together with the quiz, I will distribute evaluation forms for the speaker, to help me evaluating him/her. Confidentiality will be ensured (in fact, the forms will be anonymous).

Time-slots for presentations

See the Schedule of lectures for the list of dates available for presentat of dates available for presentations. Each date corresponds to 2 time-slots, i.e. it can accomodate 2 presentations.

List of topics

Each topic has enough material for two people, unless stated otherwise. If two people pick up the same topic, they should coordinate and give the presentation in the same day. They can study the material together. The project, however, should be done separately (i.e. each person should present his own report.)

  1. Taken by Amit Chetal and monica Desai (Nov 14). The BAN Logic. A logic for describing the beliefs of trustworthy parties involved in authentication protocols.

    References

    Michael Burrows, Martin Abadi, and Roger Needham. A Logic of Authentication. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 8(1), pp. 18-36, 1990. Report version version available here.

    Martin Abadi and Mark Tuttle. A Semantics for a Logic Authentication. Proc of PODC: 10th ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, 1991. Published version avalilable here.

  2. Available. Strand Spaces. A topological approach to proving correctness of security protocols.

    References

    F. Javier Thayer Fabrega, Jonathan C. Herzog, and Joshua D. Guttman. Strand Spaces: Proving Security Protocols Correct. Journal of Computer Security, Vol. 7, pp. 191-230. Avalilable here.

    Dawn Song, Sergey Berezin, Adrian Perrig. Athena: a novel approach to efficient automatic security protocol analysis. Journal of Computer Security, 2000. Avalilable here.

  3. Taken by Ramesh Yechangunja (28 Nov). The spi-calculus. A calculus to specify and verify cryptographic protocols.

    References

    Martin Abadi and Andrew D. Gordon. A calculus for cryptographic protocols - The spi calculus. Information and Computation, 148(1), pp. 1-70, 1999. Report version version available here.

  4. Available. Secure Process Algebra. Another approach based on process algebra.

    References

    R. Focardi, A. Ghelli, and R. Gorrieri. Using noninterference for the analysis of security protocols. In Proceedings of DIMACS Workshop on Design and Formal Verification of Security Protocols, 1997. Avalilable here.

    R. Focardi, R. Gorrieri, and F. Martinelli. "Non Interference for the Analysis of Cryptographic Protocols ". In Proceedings of ICALP'00, 2000 Avalilable here.

    R. Focardi and R. Gorrieri. A classification of security properties for process algebra. J. Computer Security, 3(1):5-- 33, 1994/5. Avalilable here.

    R. Focardi and R. Gorrieri. The compositional security checker: A tool for the verification of information flow security properties. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 23(9):550--571, 1997. Avalilable here.

    For the following topic it is probably better to have some attitude for physics

  5. Taken by Brandin Claar (5 Dec). . Quantum Cryptography. Use of Quantum Physics for cryptographic goals.

    References Bennett, C. H., "Quantum cryptography: Uncertainty in the service of privacy", Science, vol. 257, 7 August 1992, pp. 752 - 753. Available here.

    Bennett, C. H., Brassard, G. and Ekert, A. K., "Quantum cryptography", Scientific American, October 1992, pp. 50 - 57.

    Samuel J. Lomonaco, Jr. "A Quick Glance at Quantum Cryptography". Cryptologia, 23(1), pp. 1-41, January 1999. Available here.

    Bennett, C. H., Brassard, G., Crépeau, C. and Skubiszewska, M.-H., "Practical quantum oblivious transfer", Advances in Cryptology | Crypto '91 Proceedings, August 1991, Springer - Verlag, pp. 351 - 366. Available here.

    Brassard, G., Crepeau, C., Jozsa, R. and Langlois, D., "A quantum bit commitment scheme provably unbreakable by both parties", Proceedings of the 34th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, November 1993, pp. 362 - 371. Available here.

    Other references can be found in A Bibliography of Quantum Cryptography

    The following topics deal with the foundations of cryptography and are of a rather mathematical nature.

  6. Taken by Alok Amul Parikh (Dec 5). One-way functions. The foundation of public-key cryptography.

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 2. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Version prior to publication available here.

  7. Taken by Vivek Bhatnagar and Chaitanya Cheruvu (Nov 7). Random numbers and Pseudo-random generators. The theory behind generation of secret keys and nonces.

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 3. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Version prior to publication available here.

  8. Available. Zero-knowledge proof systems. A tool for achieving trust without revealing private information.

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 4. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Version prior to publication available here.

  9. Taken by Brice Toth and Amit Choudhary (21 Nov). Encryption schemes (better if preceded by presentations on Ch. 2 and Ch. 3). Algorithmms and techniques for encryption.

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 5. Will be published by Cambridge University Press. Preliminary version available here.

  10. Taken by Munaiza Matin (28 Nov). Signature schemes (better if preceded by presentations on Ch. 2 and Ch. 3). Algorithmms and techniques for signatures.

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 6. Will be published by Cambridge University Press. Preliminary version available here.

  11. Taken by Chun Liu (23 Nov). Secure Multi-party computation (better if preceded by presentations on Ch. 2 and Ch. 3).

    References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 7. Will be published by Cambridge University Press. Preliminary version available here.

    Other References

    Oded Goldreich. Foundations of Cryptography - Volume 1. Ch. 1, Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Version prior to publication available online here.