Network technologies have revolutionized the way people interact with each other, with corporations, and with government. Yet a range of network interference techniques, including censorship, surveillance, online tracking, content manipulation, throttling, and net neutrality violations, pose increasing threats to users’ security and privacy.

In this course, we’ll study the latest research in detecting and resisting these threats, including systems for censorship detection and circumvention, web tracking and traffic analysis countermeasures, anonymous communication systems such as Tor, and other privacy enhancing technologies (PETs). Student groups will be expected to complete original research projects on topics in this area.

Course Structure

This course will include reading 3-4 papers per week, with written reviews and in-class discussion on the topics. You must complete a final group project related to Internet censorship and Privacy enhancing technologies. We’ll aim for submitting our final projects to technical conferences and workshops. There will be no exams. Instead, your grade will be based on the following:

Class Participation (15%) — In each class, we read and discuss  1-2 research papers. You should read the assigned papers before coming to each class and be fully prepared to talk about them.

Paper Reviews (20%) — You are required to write a 400 word review for each assigned paper.  A good review often consists of four parts: a concise description of the problem the paper tries to solve, summary of key contributions, evaluation of the paper’s strengths and weaknesses, and discussion on open questions.  Your review should project that you carefully read the paper and have thought about the research problem and the solution space. Please send these to ensafi@umich.edu with the subject "598 reading", and include your review as inline text in the email.

Paper reviews are due by 1 pm on the day of each class through HotCRP.

In-class Presentation (15%) — Working with a partner, pick a new or controversial topic related to censorship and privacy enhancing technologies (PETs). Read blogs, news, and research papers, and prepare a 20 minute presentation to present to the class. Send an email to ensafi@umich.edu with your top 2 choices and who your partner will be before the class on Tuesday, Oct. 1st.

Research Project (50%) — You need to complete an original research project in a small groups of 3 or 4 on topics related to the course. This project should address important, interesting open problems related to censorship and privacy enhancing technologies (PETs).  While I am happy to discuss and recommend projects, it is ultimately your task to choose the topic. Final project consists of four parts:

• Pre-proposal presentation: Each group will present a ~5 minutes overview of their selected project. The talk should make a case why your topic is important, what you specifically plan to do, and what would be the research contribution. In class presentation happens on Oct 17.
• Written proposal: Each group will submit a 2-3 page proposal describing the problem and solution of the proposed research. Proposal should include: group member names, project title, a description of the problem and why it is important, a survey of related work, your approach to solve the problem, evaluation of the proposed approach, your output by the checkpoint and by the end of the semester. Due on Nov 5.
• Progress Checkpoint: Each group will submit a short report on the state of their project indicating what has been done, the detailed timeline of remaining tasks, description of potential obstacles, possible workarounds in the case of persistent problems, possible preliminary data and results. Due on Nov 19.
• Project presentation: Each group will be given 20 minutes to present their final project during the last week of the semester. Treat this talk as a conference presentation and expect to have a Q & A at the end of the talk.  
• Final paper: Each group will submit a research paper in FOCI USENIX format. Due on Dec 19.

Ethics, Law, and University Policies

Please review ITS’s policies on responsible use of technology resources and CAEN’s policy documents for guidelines concerning proper use of information technology at U-M, as well as the Engineering Honor Code. As members of the university, you are required to abide by these policies.

Topics and Reading