Computer Science CS 4/57205 Information Security
Section 001
Call Numbers 20963 and 21304
SYLLABUS
Fall 2011

Time and Place:

Monday, Wednesday, 12:30-1:45 PM in room 121 MCS aka MSB;

Instructor:

Michael Rothstein, 268 MSB, phone 330-672-9065. Email address: rothstei at cs.kent.edu (The address mrothste at kent.edu will not work too well because I do not check it as often; for a quicker response, the first address is recommended.)

Web address:

http://www.cs.kent.edu/~rothstei

Office Hours:

Monday 2-5, Wednesday 2-3:30, 5:30-7:00, Friday 2-3:30. Also, you can always send email with questions and/or to set up an appointment. Usual turnaround will be a few hours during the day. Email use is to be preferred over voicemail, which will not be checked as often.

Textbook:

Pfleeger, C P and Pfleeger, S L, Security in Computing, 4th Ed., Prentice Hall, 2007, ISBN 0-13-239077-9. Available from Safari Books online.

Course Goals:

This course is an overview of some of the issues surrounding information security; we will look at basic concepts, threats, protection mechanisms, and the design and administration of secure systems.

Material to be covered:

We will cover the material, mostly from the textbook, from chapters 1 to 9; we can then continue with the remaining chapters according to time availability and student's wishes.

Prerequisite:

CS 33001, CS II

Ethical issues:

Ethical issues used to be prerequisite of this course; it no longer is; however, taking or attending this course includes a heavy responsibility; issues and techniques will be covered which can do a lot of damage; bad use of these techniques may have very serious consequences; for example, promising students who have misused hacking techniques have been, not only expelled from the University, but also forbidden from setting foot on University Grounds; nobody takes this abuse lightly.

Attendance policy:

By initiative of the Provost of the University, I have been charged with keeping full attendance records, at least for the first ten weeks of the semester. I will compute these records into your final averages, when I assign letter grades, though the weight will be small. Notwithstanding the above, if you are absent, there may be material created, either spontaneously or in response to questions, and covered in the classroom; often there will not be any written notes of this material, so it might be a good idea to team up with somebody who keeps good notes to make sure you have all the material covered. Some of this material may show up in an exam.

Due to the number of students in the class, attendance will be taken by sign-up sheet.

Read the text. Only general reading assignments will be given. The class will mostly cover material in the same order as the text book, there may be exceptions however. It is the student's responsibility to maintain an awareness of the material in the text that is currently being covered. Ask the instructor if you are unsure of the text material currently being covered.

The syllabus may be changed during the semester if necesary: changes will be announced in class; they will also show up on the instructor's website.

Though homework will be assigned and collected electronically, it will not be graded; it will be counted, however. Some of the homework will be checked to make sure you are actually doing it, though.

Class disruptions:

Disruptions should be kept to a minimum; these include (in increasing order of seriousness):

1. Early departure (if announced and done discreetly: please sit near the door so that as few people as possible notice.)
2. Late arrival
3. Use of electronic devices or other devices which may interfere with your or other student's participation. Laptops are acceptable for taking notes, however, please sit in the last row of the room so that your screen does not distract/block other students.
4. Conversation among students.
5. Aiding and/or abetting these or any other student's disruptive behaviors.

Guidelines pertaining to class disruptions are outlined in the University Rules and Regulations, chapter 4, section 4-02.2 available through:
http://www.kent.edu/policyreg/chap4/index.cfm

Grading:

Your grade will be based on one midterm, one final, assorted exercises assigned as homework in the class notes, and a ``class participation grade'', based both on class participation and attendance. Catching mistakes gets extra points. The weights are:

Class Participation	10%
Midterm (Due October 19 at 10 PM)	30%
Final (Due Dec 14 at 10 PM)	30%
Homework	30%

The final will be comprehensive.

Test make-up policy:

I will need signed documentation to verify each individual absence in order to provide make-ups; only university accepted reasons will be honored.

Grading scale:

I will assign number grades during the session and only convert them to letter grades when I turn them in at the end of the session. No decision can be made regarding a conversion table until the very last minute due to such imponderables as test difficulty, class attendance and participation, etc. which will influence the grade. However, I guarantee the following, worst case, table:

97-100	will convert into an A
94-96	will convert into at least an A-
91-93	will convert into at least a B+
88-90	will convert into at least a B
85-87	will convert into at least a B-
82-84	will convert into at least a C+
79-81	will convert into at least a C
76-78	will convert into at least a C-
73-75	will convert into at least a D+
66-72	will convert into at least a D

Special accommodations for Students with Disabilities:

University policy 3342-3-01.3 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content. If you have a documented disability and require accommodations, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments. Please note, you must first verify your eligibility for these through Student Accessability Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit:
http://www.kent.edu/sas for more information on registration procedures).

Registration Requirement:

The official registration deadline for this course is September 11, 2011. University policy requires all students to be officially registered in each class they are attending. Students who are not officially registered for a course by published deadlines should not be attending classes and will not receive credit or a grade for the course. Each student must confirm enrollment by checking his/her class schedule (using Student Tools in FlashFast) prior to the deadline indicated. Registration errors must be corrected prior to the deadline.

The last withdrawal date for this course is November 6 2011.

On cheating, plagiarism and other unethical behavior:

You are encouraged to discuss class problems with other students but required to work independently of anybody else except the instructors and/or tutor, unless otherwise indicated. Copying other people's work, allowing your work to be copied (even inadvertently!) and plagiarizing work will not be tolerated and will be dealt with according to University regulations, as described in the University Policies and Procedures, a condensed version of which is attached.

Notes:

1. By default, the penalty for cheating in this course is an ``F'' in the course.
2. University regulations require me to notify Student Conduct in case of violations.
3. Cooperation is just as bad as the deed itself: so, deciding which of two is the original is a non-issue: both are equally guilty.