A6: Students-led Paper Presentation and Discussion

Part 0: Meeting Your Teammates and Selecting One Research Paper

This is group work. First, enter your email address in this sheet and get to know your teammates if you have not already.

Next, work with your teammates to select one research paper from this list. The paper should not be any of the required reading materials for lectures or assignments. (Optional readings with the “*” mark are allowed.) Additionally, a few more papers are excluded in the list below. After deciding on a paper, register it in the Google sheet. Note that you cannot choose a paper already selected by another group.

Excluded papers

  • StackGuard @Security1998
  • SoK @Oakland2013
  • ShadowStack @AsiaCCS2015
  • CheckedC @SecDev2018

Start by reading the abstract. If it interests you, proceed to the introduction and skim through the framework of the paper to gain an overview. Take notes during the paper selection phase, and compare the notes to decide which paper your group will be working on.

Part 1 (15 points): Paper Reading and Question Answering

Read the selected paper. You can and you should discuss the paper with your teammates, as this is intended to be teamwork. However, you should answer the following questions independently.

  1. (2 points) What problem does this paper try to solve?
  2. (1 points) Why is the problem important?
  3. (6 points) What is the paper’s solution to the problem? If it is an offense paper, what is the technique to launch attacks?
  4. (2 points) What are existing solutions to this problem, and what are this paper’s strengths compared to prior work?
  5. (2 points) What are the limitations/weaknesses of ths paper’s solution/technique?
  6. (2 points) What is the key insight or take-away message of the paper?

Some papers may not present information for certain questions. If you believe this applies to your paper, you may simply write “N/A” for the question.

Part 2: (10 points) In-class Paper Presentation

Work with your teammates to create slides for the paper. The slides should at least include the following sections:

  • Background on the problem
  • (Optional) Background on the techniques used by the paper
  • Core solution proposed by the paper to the problem
  • Evaluation of the solution
  • Conclusion

Of course, you are free to add more materials. The presentation should be approximately 30 to 35 minutes without Q & A. Other students and the instructor will ask questions during your presentation.

Division of Labor

You are free to divide the work of creating slides and delivering the in-class presentation as agreed upon by all team members. For example, you may evenly divide the slides creation and presentation, or have one or two students take the lead of the in-class presentation, while assigning them less responsibility in creating the slides. However, each group should have at least 2 students present the slides.

What you need to submit

Submit your work through Blackboard. The deadline is December 2nd by midnight. Each student should submit a PDF with their answers to the questions in Part 1. In addition, each group should submit a PDF copy of their slides, along with one page of explanation on the division of labor for slides creation and and in-class presentation. Attach the labor division explanation to the beginning of the slides. Note that each group only needs to submit one copy of the slides, and no updates to the in-class presentation slides will be allowed after submission.