ECE 498 KL - eCrime and Internet Service Abuse

Lecture: Tue and Thu 2:00 P.M. to 3:20 P.M. in ECEB 2015
Final exam: December 14 at 8 A.M. in ECEB 2015

Instructor: Kirill Levchenko klevchen@illinois.edu
Office hours: Mondays at 2:00 P.M. in CSL 468

TA: Joshua Reynolds joshuar3@illinois.edu
Office hours: Thursdays at 1:00 P.M. in CSL 221

Piazza: https://piazza.com/illinois/fall2018/ece498kl
Grades: https://learn.illinois.edu/course/view.php?id=33939

Course Syllabus

Assignments

See the syllabus for late policies, dropped quizzes, etc.

No.	Due	Info
1A	October 30 at 10 P.M.	Assignment 1A
1B	November 13 at 5 P.M.	Assignment 1B
2A	November 16 at 5 P.M.	Assignment 2A
2B	December 4 at 5 P.M.	Assignment 2B
1C	December 7 at 5 P.M.	Assignment 1C (rev. 2)
2C	December 11 at 5 P.M.	Assignment 2C

Lectures and Reading Assignments

Date	Topic	Reading Assignment
Oct 25	Introduction	No assigned reading
Oct 30	Bitcoin (special lecture)
Nov 1	Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)	Required: 18 U.S. Code § 1030 – Fraud and related activity in connection with computers Optional: C. Doyle. “Cybercrime: A Sketch of 18 U.S.C. 1030 and Related Federal Criminal Laws” Reading questions: What kind of computer access does the CFAA prohibit? Which computers are protected by the CFAA? What other acts does the CFAA prohibit?
Nov 6	Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Stored Communications Act (SCA)	Required: 18 U.S. Code § 2511, 2701, 2702, 2703, 2707 Optional: G. Stevens and C. Doyle. “Privacy: An Overview of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping” Reading questions: What kind of communication does ECPA protect? What acts does ECPA prohibit? What kind of communication does SCA protect? What kind of acts does SCA prohibit?
Nov 8	Web search	Required: A. N. Langville and C. D. Meyer. Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings, Ch. 1, Sec. 1.3.2; Ch. 2, Sec. 2.1 and 2.2, skip pp. 17–18; Ch. 3, skip 3.2.2. Reading questions: How does a search engine know what is on your site? How does a search engine determine which sites to show in response to a query? How does a search engine determine a site’s position on a result page?
Nov 13	Basic password attacks and defenses Location: ECEB 3002	Required: P. Ducklin. “Serious Security: How to store your users‘ passwords safely” Reading questions: What is the problem with storing user passwords in the clear? What is wrong with encrypting each password? What is the purpose of the salt? What properties should the password hash function have? What is the purpose of hash stretching?
Nov 15	Advanced password attacks and defenses Location: ECEB 3002	Required: P. Oechslin. “Making a Faster Cryptanalytic Time-Memory Trade-Off”
Nov 27	Web Cloaking	Required: D. Y. Wang et al. “Cloak and Dagger: Dynamics of Web Search Cloaking” Reading questions: What is cloaking? Why do some sites use cloaking? How does a cloaked site determine which page to return? What happened to visitors when they visited a cloaked page?
Nov 29	Traffic Monetization	Required: D. Samosseiko. “The Partnerka—What is it, and why should you care” Reading questions: What is an affiliate program (partnerka)? What are some popular products sold by affiliate programs? Why do affiliate programs exist?
Dec 4	CAPTCHAs	Required: M. Motoyama et al. “Re: CAPTCHAs — Understanding CAPTCHA-Solving Services in an Economic Context” Reading questions: What were the design goals of CAPTCHAs? What were the assumptions made in the design of CAPTCHAs? How do CAPTCHA-solving services work? What kinds of CAPTCHAs can CAPTCHA-solving services solve?
Dec 6	Ransomware	Required: K. Liao et al. “Behind Closed Doors: Measurement and Analysis of CryptoLocker Ransoms in Bitcoin” Reading questions: What is ransomware? Why does ransomware use Bitcoin? How do you estimate amount of ransom paid?
Dec 11	Remote Access Trojans	Required: B. Farinholt et al. “To Catch a Ratter: Monitoring the Behavior of Amateur DarkComet RAT Operators in the Wild” Reading questions: What is a RAT? What does a RAT allow an attacker to do? What can we learn about RAT operators?
Dec 14	Final Exam	Time: 8 A.M. Location: ECEB 2015

These important Web sites are part of Assignment 1: Trimpuny Student Pages