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ITM 604: Communications Networking & Security

Coursework

Professor Goel's Assignments

Assignments can be in-class or take-home and will be designated as individual or group assignments depending on the specific assignments.

Professor Crnkovic's Assignments

In the first third of the course, Professor Crnkovic will give one homework assignment. Details are listed in WebCT.

RISK ANALYSIS PROJECT

This project will involve doing a qualitative risk analysis project based on either a case or an organization that you are currently apart of. Students should work in teams of four and will use provided Excel spreadsheets in order to input the values in the analysis. When creating the values, students should also provide written justification for each value citing relevant sources and/or assumptions similar to those shown within the lecture. Download Risk Matrices: riskmatrices.xls

PAPER ON SECURITY-RELATED TOPIC

Students will be offered a set of topics and be required to specify their preference by ranking their top three topics in order. Students will be assigned topics based on these rankings. Other non-listed topics are welcome as long as they are pre-approved by the instructor. The paper should be 5-6 pages (SINGLE-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman, 1-inch margins on all sides). Sources should be scholarly and cited in APA style. The paper should have an abstract, introduction, literature review, discussion, and conclusion in some way, shape, or form.

Sample Topics

  1. Wireless Security: 1) Discuss attacks and defenses of cell phone hacking, OR 2) Discuss attacks and defenses of bluetooth device hacking.
  2. Motives and Mission of Hackers: What are the key drivers?
  3. Emerging Threats to Identity: How secure is your medical information?/li>
  4. What is the impact of increasing network bandwidth on security?
  5. Is the knowledge gap between rich and poor increasing with the Internet or decreasing?
  6. What are the ethical reasons why biometrics should not used?
  7. What are the different attacks that can be launched on biometric identification devices?
  8. What are wireless honeynets and how are they being used for attack detection?

Writing a paper should be a sustained activity that should last several days. The first phase is to understand the subject that you are writing about. Secondly, you need to develop your own ideas for the paper. Thirdly, you need to pen your ideas in a cohesive and structured manner. One good way of structuring a paper is to ask several questions to yourself.

  1. What is topic that I am writing about?
  2. Why is that topic interesting?
  3. What have other people written about the topic?
  4. What are the other issues that have not been addressed in the literature?
  5. How your own views on the topic?
  6. How can I justify those views?

Evaluating Materials Reference

APA Style Resources
Copyright © 2011, Sanjay Goel. All Rights Reserved.