Important Dates for the Project
By Lecture 10 – Every student must individually post one (or more) project ideas. This is a way for students to learn about what other students are interested in and find teammates. If you have more than one idea or interest, feel free to post all of your ideas, but please use different posts with different headers. Submit a one-page project idea. Your ideas can be from the project ideas we post or they can be new ideas. Feel free to choose your teammates as you wish. We expect groups to be three or four students.
By Lecture 13 – Turn in team composition and a multi-page project draft and bibliography.
Week of Lecture 16 – During this week, each project group will meet with the TA to review their progress.
Week of Lecture 20 – During this week, each project group will again meet with the TA to review their progress.
Lectures 22-25 – Groups will present short talks on their projects in class.
Lecture 26 (last class) – Written projects are due.
Project Ideas
You should also check out the references page, in particular online proceedings from the linked conferences, for inspiration.
Another source of ideas for your final project might be Phillip Hallam-Baker's new book, The dotCrime Manifesto. Hallam-Baker has compiled a short list of potential projects related to the book. We encourage you to take a look at this page and consider the suggested projects.
Topics from Previous Years
This list has gotten a bit long over the past few years. For now, take a look at the project pitches from 2010 and a list of projects from 2009 and before.
Hints for Writing Your Paper and Giving Your Talk
- How to make a good paper and talk
- How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper
- Edwards, Paul N. "How to Give an Academic Talk, v5.1" (PDF) (Courtesy of Paul Edwards. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)
This Year's Projects
- Hacking Wireless
- Preventing Covert Webcam Hacking in the Civilian and Governmental Sectors
- Designing a Secure Biometric Identification System for Israel
- Covert Acoustic Channels: Improving Range, Accuracy, and Undetectability
- Covert Surveillance on PC and Android
- Distributed Settlers of Catan
- Tweetnet: Finding the Bots in the Flock
- Pebble Smartwatch Security Assessment
- Computational Security and the Economics of Password Hacking
- Detecting Subversion on Twitter
- Security Overview of QR Codes
- Security Research of a Social Payment App
- Blackbox: Distributed Peer-to-Peer File Storage and Backup
- Narwhal: An Implementation of Zero Knowledge Authentication
- Two Factor Zero Knowledge Proof Authentication System
- Security Analysis of Wearable Fitness Devices (Fitbit)
- IV = 0 Security: Cryptographic Misuse of Libraries
- CertCoin: A NameCoin Based Decentralized Authentication System
- Computing on Encrypted Data
- Security in Client-Server Android Apps
- Keys Under the Welcome Mat
- Unsafe and Unsound: Cryptoanalysis of Leaky Acoustic Signals
- SendSecure
- Speedy: A Sybil-resistant DHT Implementation
For more information about these projects, please visit the 2014 6.857 class site.