Blog Task Assignment

Updates

• Jan-06: added ways to access the Discussion Forum on LEARN for this blog task (details).
• Mar-02: allows sign-up of blog posts after the Reading Week but at 50% of the original mark.

Overview

The blog task is intended to acquaint you with the latest developments in computer security and privacy and apply the knowledge in this class to analyze real-world situations.

Two sub-tasks are required to fulfill this assignment:

• An individual blog post about a security or privacy incident happened recently (70% of the grade). Your blog post will be graded on its content and presentation as well as whether you attempted to initiate and engage in a discussion.

• Timely comments/responses to at least three blog posts from your peers (30% of the grade, 10% for each comment). Your response should not be a trivial comment and should potentially lead to further conversations.

Detailed rules

• Sign up for a time slot (one week in the term) with the scheduling system before the reading week. If you do not sign up by this deadline, you won’t be able to earn the blog task marks associated with your individual blog post. No late blog posts will be accepted. The 48-hour grace period for assignments does not apply to the blog post or comments. you will receive at most 50% of the marks for this assignment.

• During your chosen time slot, write and publish a blog post about an issue from the last 4 months that is related to computer security or privacy.

  • Your post should be about a specific security or privacy incident and not about a security or privacy-related topic in general. For example, a break-in into a Bitcoin exchange would be a valid topic but a discussion of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general would not.

  • Topics are first come, first served. It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not post on a topic that has already been posted before (even if just 5 minutes ago) If someone posts on the same topic, even five minutes before you, you will have to submit a different blog post.

  • Reserving a topic: To prevent running the risk of having someone else publish the same blog post before you, you can reserve a topic for 24 hours. To reserve a topic, make a blog post whose title includes “RESERVATION: “ and a brief description of the incident. Give a link to the incident in the blog post. You must make your actual blog post in a separate blog post within 24 hours of your reservation. After 24 hours, your reservation expires and somebody else can reserve the topic. You cannot renew your expired reservation.

  • Comment timing: After a post is made, if you intend to make a comment/response to the post, post your comment within the same weeklong time frame (Note that a week here begins on Mondays at 00:00 and ends on Sundays at 23:59). Comments to blog posts that are not made in the weeklong time frame will not be marked for that week. In other words, comments on old posts will not be graded. (So, you cannot make a comment in week T on a post published in week T-n.)

  • Your post (and comments to others’ posts) should answer questions about the topic, such as:
    • Why is it important?
    • Who is affected and in what ways?
    • What were the causes?
    • How might similar problems be prevented in the future?
    • If such a problem happened, how can we mitigate it, i.e. reduce its impact?
  • References to any sources you used must be provided, as per common citation practices. Do not plagiarize your blog post content! You may not copy text verbatim from your sources. Academic integrity rules apply to blog posts and comments that you make.

If you have questions about the blog task, please post them to Piazza, visible only to instructors if necessary.

Make Blog Posts and Comments

We will be using the Discussion Forum on LEARN for the blog task. The forum can be accessed by following one of the two navigation paths

• Connect > Discussions > CS 458/CS 658 - Winter 2022 Blog Task > Blog Posts and Comments
• Content > Assignments > Blog Task > Blog Posts and Comments

Suggested sources

• Schneier on Security: A blog covering current computer security and privacy issues.
• The RISKS Digest: A forum on risks to the public in computers and related systems.
• BugTraq: A full disclosure moderated mailing list for the detailed discussion and announcement of computer security vulnerabilities.
• Freedom To Tinker: A blog which often discusses security and privacy issues, frequently related to copyright and to electronic voting.
• Threat Level: A forum dedicated to privacy, crime and security online.
• Threatpost A forum on security issues.
• Databreaches.net A forum on privacy news and data breaches.