CS 342: Security and Programming Languages

Spring 2009 homepage

• NOTE: The current title on the books is "Topics in Programming Systems", which we might change to the new, more accurate title "Security and Programming Languages".
• Instructor: Prof. Rahul Simha

• Office Hours: Thu 3-5.

• Class Time/Place: Thursdays 6.10-8.40, Tompkins 410

• Prerequisites/Co-requisites: CS 210, CS 211, CS 212. If you're taking some of these along with CS-342 in the Spring, that's probably fine. However, if your CS background is a little weak (for example, you don't have an undergrad degree in CS) AND you are still taking core courses, then you might not get much out of this course. Talk to me about it.

  Although you don't need to have taken a course in security, some background in security will help.

• Course description: This topics course will cover issues related to security in programming languages. Topics include: language features for security, run-time systems, proof-carrying code, type-safety, protection against code tampering, compiler-driven security, and compiler-hardware approaches to software protection. The course will be conducted seminar-style with paper presentations and a final project.

• What the course is about: This course will address the question: how can programming languages and associated tools (compilers, run-time systems) be designed to achieve security objectives? Such objectives include: preventing code-tampering, preventing unauthorized access and creating more reliable software (with fewer security holes). There have been several research efforts along these lines. Some of these focus on new programming languages, some consider enhancements to current languages, while others focus on run-time systems and compilers. The goal of this course is to get a broad overview of this field and to try to address some open problems via the final project. Students will be expected to read papers, present them lucidly and complete a project with supervision from the instructor.

• List of papers

• Coursework

• Schedule of presentations