Lectures will be loosely organized around **four modules**: differential
privacy, cryptography, language-based security, and adversarial machine
learning. I will give most of the lectures for the first module (differential
privacy). For the other modules, I will give an introductory lecture surveying
the topic and background material. Then, each student will lead one lecture,
presenting a paper and guiding the discussion.  

This is a graduate seminar, so not all lectures are set in stone and there is
considerable flexibility in the topics. If you are interested in something not
covered in the syllabus, please let me know!

## Readings and Homework

**Paper discussions** are a core component of this course. You are expected to
read papers before lecture, attend lectures, and participate in discussions.
Before every paper presentation, students are expected to read the paper closely
and understand its significance, including (a) the main problem addressed by the
paper, (b) the primary contributions of the paper, and (c) how the authors solve
the problem in some technical detail.  

The topics we will be reading and thinking about are from the recent research
literature---polished enough to be peer-reviewed and published, but not always
completely refined.  Most research papers focus on a very narrow topic and are
written for a very specific technical audience. It also doesn't help that
computer science researchers are generally not the clearest writers (though
there are certainly exceptions). These
[notes](https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf) by
Srinivasan Keshav may help you get more out of reading papers.

To help you prepare for the class discussions, I will also send out a few
questions at least 24 hours before every paper presentation. **Before** eah
lecture, you should send me brief answers---a short email is fine, no more than
a few sentences per question. These questions are for your benefit---they are
not meant to be very difficult or time-consuming and they will not be graded in
detail.

## Course Project

The other main component is the **course project**. You will work individually
or in pairs on a topic of your choice, producing a conference-style write-up and
presenting the project at the end of the semester. Successful projects may have
the potential to turn into an eventual research paper or survey. Details can be
found [here](projects/details.md).

## Grading and Evaluation

Grades will be assigned as follows:

- **Discussions: 15%** (Pre-lecture questions and class participation)
- **Paper presentation: 25%**
- **Final project: 60%** (First and second milestones, and final writeup)

## Academic Integrity

The final project may be done individually or in groups of two students.
Collaborative projects with people outside the class may be allowed, but please
check with me first.