Papers to be chosen by April 16th.
Due date will be May 9th.
This is the writing assignment for the semester.
You will select an article from a recent, reputable peer-reviewed journal, and write a detailed paper about that work. You should attempt to answer at most or all of these questions: What did they accomplish? What was new about this work? Why was this work significant? What remains to be done? How does it tie into the broader concerns of security? What are the implications for the future?
The goal is to explain in detail what the article is about, what's new about it, and why it is important or significant.
You are explaining the work done in your own words. You should not simply regurgitate chunks of the article you're to be analyzing. You may want to invent your own metaphors, for example. You may discuss this paper with others and/or have them proof-read it for you, but you should do all the writing yourself.
Do not adopt the structure of your paper from someone else's summary or analysis of the article you're citing.
Avoid plagiarism. Avoid the appearance of plagiarism.
You should choose a paper that relates to a security topic that has seen significant research since 2005. Make sure you pick a paper that covers significant research and technical material.
Textbooks and Wikipedia are great places to start, but are not suitable sources for articles to review in and of themselves. See the end of this page for some ideas.
You need to inform me of your choice, so that we don't have an overlap in papers. When you have identified a topic, and a recent paper that you are going to summarize, send me an email that includes a code-name (so that I'm not posting your names to the class page), the general topic / area of the paper, the title and publication date of the paper, and the authors of the paper.
For example:
Name: John Smith Code: Captain Hook Topic: Role-Based Access Control Paper: A New Mechanism For Enforcing Role-Based Access Control Authors: Amy Finch and David Ngo Publisher: IEEE Peer Reviewed Security Journal, Vol. 17, Issue 2 Publication Date: March 2007
I will give a cursory once-over of the information and provide feedback, if necessary, and then post this information to the class web-page so that everyone can coordinate, and avoid duplicating papers to be reviewed. This should be done before April 16th. First submission wins.
If you wait until the last minute, and I don't approve your article choice, I will not be able to verify that your paper doesn't conflict with someone else's.
Your paper should be as long as it needs to be. If you need a word-count to aim for, aim for 2,000 to 2,500 words for the body (excluding title page, outline, index, table-of-contents, quotations, bibliography, historical context, etc.).
The paper must have a title page. The title page should include your name, the name of your paper, your "code name", an indication that it's for this class, and the date you turned in the paper (or very close).
Title all figures. If you're copying a figure from some reference, cite it. Figure without citations will be assumed to be your own original work.
Use end-notes for citations. You may use footnotes for amplifying text, asides, etc. if you so desire. Do not include references that you do not cite or reference. On the other hand, cite all references.
Use standard margins, single-column, double-space, and no font smaller than 10pt. If you hand in a hard-copy, staple the paper in the top-left corner, and do not use any binders, plastic cover sheets, etc.
By April 16th [23:59:59] you should have emailed me the description (author,
name, publication location and date, etc.) you will be writing about. The
subject line of the email should be:
"Spring 2008 CS574 Project 2 Article Identification - Your Name"
Send the email to:
Email sent to the class-specific email address will be delayed, as it's the time of arrival at the rohan account that will determine who is "first".
On May 9th [23:59:59], you should email to me a PDF of your paper, or, if this is not convenient for you, leave a printed version with the Math/CS department for me (have them write the date/time on the coversheet). Note that the Math/CS office closes long before midnight.
Again, send the email to:
I would also like a copy of the paper you are analyzing; if you have a PDF version of that paper, you may include that in the email; if not, provide me a copy after class (or in my mailbox), with a cover sheet that includes your name, the class, the date, code-name, and the title of the paper you are writing. Note that May 9th this is the last day of class.
For reference, our exam date is May 14th.
The title of the final email should be "CS574 Spring 2008 - AS2 Submission". If you are turning in a hardcopy, send me the email AFTER you have dropped the hardcopy off at the Math/CS department, and indicate this in the body of the email.
Naturally, HTML email will be rejected, so do not wait until the last possible second if you are unsure what you're sending. You will get a response for me saying something like "Accepted" or "Acknowledged" for each of the email turnin parts. If you don't have such an email from me, then you're not done.
Start with works that have good reference lists: textbooks, tutorial papers, and survey papers. They should be a good starting point.
Also check out "index" journals in the SDSU library. Some of these are:
You can also attack the problem from the other end, by finding a paper that is probably referred to a lot. You could start looking in the Science Citation Index.
More and more often, authors are also posting to the web copies of papers that they have submitted to journals. Distinguish between these and unpublished works posted to web-sites. The web does not constitute a "respectable journal", although it can be quite useful. Be sure to look beyond the Web for information.
More potential sources (used as starting points in previous years):
The SDSU library may not have all the papers you wish to refer to; you might find them at the UCSD library, or via inter-library loan, or perhaps even by communicating directly with the author.
A list of sample topics (you are not restricted to this list) from previous years that may prove useful areas in which to find suitable papers:
I will try to post answers to questions regarding the assignment on the class news page, and possibly update this document as well.