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Description
Aims:
The听module听aims to equip students to become听specialists in understanding the issues around privacy in computer systems and on-line services;听aware of the best available techniques for mitigating important privacy threats through appropriate security and cryptography controls, namely the use of private communications, private authentication and private computations; and听able to securely implement those techniques, as well as familiar with the process of building secure systems.
Intended learning outcomes:
On successful completion of the module, a student will be able to:
- Understand basic and advanced conceptions of privacy.
- Understand techniques used for online tracking and pervasive surveillance infrastructures.
- Understand anonymous communications and Tor.
- Understand privacy in authentication.
- Understand traffic analysis.
- Understand privacy in databases and storage systems.
- Understand censorship and censorship evasion.
- Understand advanced privacy engineering topics like selective disclosure credentials, zero-knowledge proofs, and private computations.
- Understand interdisciplinary aspects of privacy.
Indicative content:
The following are indicative of the topics the module will typically cover:
The module covers in depth major issues in computer security related to protecting privacy as well as threats to the privacy of computer users, and in particular the theory and practice of:
- Private communications, anonymous communications, censorship circumvention and traffic analysis.
- Advanced privacy engineering topics based on modern cryptography like selective disclosure credentials, zero-knowledge proofs, and private computations.
- Interdisciplinary (social, economic, legal, anthropologic) aspects of privacy.
- Students are introduced to both privacy threats such as pervasive surveillance, profiling, location analysis, and traffic analysis, as well as the technical mitigation techniques relying on modern cryptography and differential privacy.
Requisites:
To be eligible to select this module as optional or elective, a student must: (1) be registered on a programme and year of study for which it is a formally available; and (2) have taken Introduction to Cryptography (COMP0025) and Computer Security 1 (COMP0054) in Term 1.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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