Syllabus and Policies

General Policies

Our goal in this class is for you to learn about computer security. As an underlying principle, we will strive to be reasonable toward you, and we ask you to be reasonable toward us. These policies aim to give us some guidelines to make that happen. If in doubt about anything, please don't hesitate to check with the course staff.

Inclusiveness and Respect:

You should expect and demand to be treated by your classmates and the course staff with respect. You belong here, and we are here to help you learn and enjoy a challenging course. Likewise, I expect you to follow the UW Student Conduct Code in your interactions with your colleagues and me in this course by respecting the many social and cultural differences among us, which may include, but are not limited to: age, cultural background, disability, ethnicity, family status, gender identity and presentation, citizenship and immigration status, national origin, race, religious and political beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and veteran status. If any incident occurs that challenges this commitment to a supportive and inclusive environment, please let me know so the issue can be addressed.

Late Policy:

You may use up to 5 late days over the course of the quarter, no questions asked. You may use a maximum of 2 late days on one assignment, but may otherwise allocate them as you wish. If you submit an assignment late, we will assume you are using late days.
If you are out of late days, we will take off 20% for each day it is late. We round up when computing late days (e.g. 25 hrs late is 2 days.)
If you are handing in an assignment more than 3 days late you must email the course staff and include the submission in that email.
If you are working in a group and submit something late, we will apply late day usage to each student individually.
Late day penalties may not be assessed until the end of the quarter; you are responsible for keeping careful track of your late day usage!

Course Recordings:

Lectures for this course will be recorded. You are expected to attend most/all lectures in-person. Section will not regularly be recorded.

Cheating / Academic Integrity Policies

You will only learn effectively if you complete the intellectual work of this course. As part of this, we require that you be honest with course staff in all exchanges. We are required by UW to report all violations of academic integrity policies to CSSC.

If you feel inclined to cheat because you are anxious, overwhelmed, overburdened, or out of time, please talk to me and we'll figure out how you can succeed. We would much rather come up with an alternative set of deadlines, plans for making up work, etc. for you than submit an integrity case!

If you work in a group, you are responsible for all work handed in under your name.

If we believe you did not complete your work according to our policies:

We will file a report to CSSC and email you with a notification that a case is in progress. This will not include any details on the case.
You will then be notified by CSSC, and have a meeting with a CSSC case officer who will discuss the case in detail.
Only after this meeting is complete, you may request a meeting with course staff about the case.
If CSSC finds you responsible, you will receive a 0 for the entire assignment.
If CSSC finds you responsible on more than one assignment, we may assign a 0 for the entire course.
NOTE: You will not receive a final grade (you will get an "X") if there is an unresolved CSSC case when final grades are due. Once your case is resolved, we will assign a final grade.

Our goal is to have the CSSC process be as fair and consistent as possible. We ask that you meet with CSSC before course staff as part of that goal.

Collaboration:

You are encouraged to discuss material and assignments with others, as collaboration is a great way to learn and flesh out new ideas. However, we require that you submit assignments consisting of your own (or group's) intellectual work. Make sure that after discussing material with others, you're able to solve the problems, write the code, or understand the principles on your own. Never look at another student's solution or provide your solution in any form to another student.

A good rule of thumb is: if you discuss a problem with someone else, don't work on the problem for several hours and don't take detailed notes.

Acceptable collaboration examples:

Asking a friend about the mechanics of different C string functions.
Discussing which references you found useful for a given part of a lab.
Helping someone trouble-shoot SSHing into course servers.
Discussing an example from class, and how you might adapt it to other problems (assuming that other problem is not in a homework/lab.)
Discussing philosophical concepts and how they would apply to situations outside of the ones given in assignments.

Unacceptable collaboration examples:

Comparing answers with a friend before submitting an assignment.
Showing any part of your assignment code to anyone but your project partner.
Discussing how to phrase a particular part of a writeup for a problem.
Asking a friend who took the course previously how they solved a problem, or asking them to show you their work.
Searching for or reading online solutions to prior quarter's CSE 484 assignments
Providing a friend currently taking the course with your work after you have finished 484/M584/P564.

Generative AI Tools:

We discourage the use of generative AI/chatbot tools/code-generation AI in CSE 484/M584/P564. These tools shortcut some of the critical components of the learning process. Moreover, they are often deeply incorrect about nuanced security topics and can teach you the wrong thing!

If you do choose to use tools like ChatGPT, treat them as a tool for exploring course concepts, not assignments. Never ask a generative AI tool for assistance on ANY graded assignment.

Concretely:

Do not use AI tools to help with any assignments (e.g. do not paste code from any assignment into a tool, do not copy/paraphrase open-ended writing prompts from assignments, do not use copilot extensions to write code, etc.) This is considered an academic integrity violation.
Do not rewrite/edit your answers using ChatGPT. This will often either introduce technical errors, or will make your answer identical to another student's answer. We may file cases where we believe this occurred.
You may (though we discourage it!) ask questions about concepts in the course to these tools, the same as you would google or ask a TA. (e.g. "What are the parts of a stack frame? What is the maximum unsigned integer value?") If you use a generative AI tool to help with core concepts related to an assignment, you must note in your submission what prompts you gave it.

Illness related policies

If you are sick please to do not attend an in-person activities. Our late-day policy is intended to be used in these cases. Email course staff if you need further assistance.

Communication

Class Announcements: We will use the ed board to make official class-related announcements. All such announcements will also send an email from ed to student emails.
We will assume that all students in the class will be on the ed board, and will check their associated email for announcements. It is conceivable that we will use this functionality to announce assignments, or to make changes/fixes to assignments.
Reaching Course Staff: To reach all course staff, please email cse484-tas@cs.washington.edu. We will do our best to respond quickly, but please give us up to 24 hours to respond to your message. In particular, if you email us right before an assignment is due, be aware that we will do our best but may not respond in time.
Discussion Board: For discussions related to the class, please use this Ed Discussion Board. Questions about assignments/etc should be done via ed (with private questions as necessary.) Q+A Board expectations:
- Questions should include a clear question statement.
- Code must be posted in formatted code blocks, not screenshots. We will not answer questions that post code/text in screenshot form.
- Questions will be answered/addressed within 24 hours.
- Posts including any partial solutions should be marked private.

Grading

You can check your grades on Gradescope.
CSE 484

65% Labs
- 13% Lab 1 (Binary exploitation)
- 13% Lab 2 (Cryptography)
- 13% Lab 3 (Web exploitation)
- 21% Lab 4 (Root-cause analysis and patching)
- 5% Randomly selected oral exam for one lab
5% HW1
5% HW2
15% Final Exam
10% In-class activities

CSE M584

50% Labs
- 9% Lab 1 (Binary exploitation)
- 9% Lab 2 (Cryptography)
- 9% Lab 3 (Web exploitation)
- 18% Lab 4 (Root-cause analysis and patching)
- 5% Randomly selected oral exam for one lab
15% Weekly paper summaries
5% HW1
5% HW2
15% Final Exam
10% Participation and in-class activities

Final Grades Assignment

We do not provide guarantees about particular percentages and what grade they translate to.The approximate grading flow is:

We compute the total-course percentage for each student, ignoring all extra credit.
We assign cutoffs for 4.0, 2.0, and 0.0 based on looking at the distribution of scores this quarter vs last few quarters. There are not a set number of 4.0s we give out, if everyone did great everyone can get a 4.0.
Grades between the cutoffs are a linear interpolation.
We then compute final grades (counting extra credit) against those thresholds.

Additional Resources

Disability Accommodations

Embedded in the core values of the University of Washington is a commitment to ensuring access to a quality higher education experience for a diverse student population. Disability Resources for Students (DRS) recognizes disability as an aspect of diversity that is integral to society and to our campus community. DRS serves as a partner in fostering an inclusive and equitable environment for all University of Washington students. The DRS office is in 011 Mary Gates Hall.

Please see the UW resources at http://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/current-students/accommodations/.

Religious Accommodations

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/.

Sexual Harassment

University policy prohibits all forms of sexual harassment. If you feel you have been a victim of sexual harassment or if you feel you have been discriminated against, you may speak with your instructor, teaching assistant, the chair of the department, or you can file a complaint with the UW Ombudsman's Office for Sexual Harassment. Their office is located at 339 HUB, (206)543-6028. There is a second office, the University Complaint Investigation and Resolution Office, who also investigate complaints. The UCIRO is located at 22 Gerberding Hall.

Please see additional resources at http://www.washington.edu/about/ombudsman/role.html and http://f2.washington.edu/treasury/riskmgmt/UCIRO.

WISE: Women In Science and Engineering

Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) is a university-level program housed within the Center for Workforce Development, designed to increase the recruitment and retention of women of all ethnic backgrounds in science and engineering (S&E) and to create an academic and social climate at the UW which is conducive to both men and women in S&E at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Please see additional information at http://www.engr.washington.edu/curr_students/studentprogs/wise.html.

Other Student Resources

A list of helpful links regarding all aspects of student life can be found here: http://f2.washington.edu/treasury/riskmgmt/UCIRO/links/students.