14-814: Wireless Network Security - Spring 2012
Cross-listed as 18-639D
Instructor: Patrick Tague
- Email: tague [at] cmu [dot] edu
- Office: B23 222
- Phone: 650-335-2827
- Skype: ptague
- Office: B23 222
Teaching Assistant: Arjun Athreya
- Email: arjuna [at] cmu [dot] edu
- Office hours: Tuesday 2:30-4:30pm PST / 5:30-7:30pm EST
- Office hours location: B23 1059 and online
- Office hours: Tuesday 2:30-4:30pm PST / 5:30-7:30pm EST
- Email: ramshans [at] andrew [dot] cmu [dot] edu
- Office hours: Thursday 1-3pm PST / 4-6pm EST
- Office hours location: CIC 2214 and online
- Office hours: Thursday 1-3pm PST / 4-6pm EST
Contacting the instructor & TAs:
Schedule:
Course Description:
Evaluation & Grading:
Prerequisites:
Textbooks:
- For sensitive or critical questions or concerns, please contact the instructor at the address above. For all other course-related questions, comments, or concerns, please use the instructors mailing list: 14814-instructors [at] lists [dot] andrew [dot] cmu [dot] edu
Schedule:
- Class times: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:30-11:50am PST (1:30-2:50pm EST)
- Locations: B23 118 in SV, CIC 1201 in Pgh
- Daily schedule (tentative)
- Locations: B23 118 in SV, CIC 1201 in Pgh
Course Description:
- With communication and network services and applications increasingly leveraging wireless media, the importance of information and network security in the wireless domain continues to grow. The challenges of providing secure communication and network services are considerably more difficult in wireless environments than in traditional wired systems (e.g., the Internet), so the focus of the course will be purely wireless environments such as wireless ad hoc, mesh, and sensor networks. Coverage will focus on wireless vulnerabilities and attacks at various layers of the protocol stack, spanning the stack from aspects of physical communication to application and service security issues. Focus will be placed on securing the operation and performance of wireless networks, with less emphasis on information security. Topics include MAC-layer misbehavior; selective packet dropping, modification, and insertion; jamming; distributed trust in ad hoc environments; reputation systems; and cross-layer attacks. Class material will be largely based on recent and current research; students will read and present recent research papers and participate in a group research project.
Evaluation & Grading:
- Students will be individually evaluated on all course deliverables. Contributions to the final grade will be 25% for homework and surveys; 30% for project proposal, progress, and final presentations; 25% for written project reports; and 20% for a single mid-semester exam.
Prerequisites:
- Graduate standing; students are expected to be comfortable with security at the level of 14-741 or 18-730 and networking at the level of 14-740 or 15-441; 18-759 will be helpful, but is not required. Contact the instructor directly with questions about requirements.
Textbooks:
- No primary textbook will be used; course material will be based on research
papers. The following optional textbooks may provide relevant background.
- Levente Buttyán and Jean-Pierre Hubaux, Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks, 2008. [Available Online]
- Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner, Network Security: Private Communication in a Public World, 2002.
- James Kempf, Wireless Internet Security: Architectures and Protocols, 2008.
- William Stallings, Wireless Communications & Networks, 2004.
- David Tse and Pramod Viswanath, Fundamentals of Wireless Communication, 2005. [Available Online]
Homework Assignments
- Homework #1:
- Assignment (PDF)
- Assigned February 2
- Due February 14
- Homework #2:
- Assignment (PDF)
- Assigned February 23
- Due March 6
- Homework #3:
- Assignment (PDF)
- Assigned March 22
- Due April 3
- Homework #4:
- Assignment (PDF)
- Assigned April 12
- Due April 24
Posted Reading Material
Survey Presentations
Project
Exam
- Each student is individually responsible for reading the assigned material. Reading reviews are not required, but assigned reading material may show up on homework assignments and the exam.
Survey Presentations
- Throughout the term, teams of students will give survey presentations that cover a particular topic. Each team will be responsible for
- choosing a set of three papers, to be approved by the instructor at least one week in advance,
- preparing a 65-75 minute presentation on the topic, to be approved by the instructor at least one day in advance, and
- presenting the survey and holding a Q&A/discussion in class.
Project
- Overview and deliverables (PDF)
- Important dates:
- Project Proposal: February 2
- Progress Report: March 20-22
- Final Presentation: May 1-3
- Final Report: May 10
- Important dates:
Exam
- One exam, part-way through semester: April 10