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Office Hour July 30

Written on 28.07.25 by Tim Rausch

Hi everyone,

we're happy to announce that we can offer an office hour this week Wednesday, July 30, as usual (14:00-15:00 online with registration, 15:00-16:00 in person).

Feel free to drop by if you have any questions!

Exam Registration

Written on 10.07.25 (last change on 28.07.25) by Tim Rausch

Hi everyone,

this is a gentle reminder to register for the exam which will take place on August 1, 9:30-11:30.

For students at Saarland University: If you have not registered on LSF for the exam yet, do not forget to do this before the usual deadline (which is one week before the exam). We… Read more

Hi everyone,

this is a gentle reminder to register for the exam which will take place on August 1, 9:30-11:30.

For students at Saarland University: If you have not registered on LSF for the exam yet, do not forget to do this before the usual deadline (which is one week before the exam). We suggest to sign up now if you are planning to take the exam and have not done so yet. The exam will take place in lecture hall HS001 in E1.3.

For students in Hamburg and Dortmund: Please follow your local procedures to sign up for the exam.

Due to scheduling conflicts, there will unfortunately be no office hour on July 30 (the week of the exam). Please use one of the two remaining office hours before the exam or use the Mattermost if you have any questions.

If you have any more questions, do not hesitate to reach out on Mattermost!

Project 3 Release

Written on 25.06.25 by Tim Rausch

Hi everyone,
 
we're releasing Project 3 today. The submission is due on August 15. As with the previous projects, there is a handout in the materials section and here are further instructions on how to access the skeleton, use our remote development environment, and to submit your… Read more
Hi everyone,
 
we're releasing Project 3 today. The submission is due on August 15. As with the previous projects, there is a handout in the materials section and here are further instructions on how to access the skeleton, use our remote development environment, and to submit your solution:
 
To get the skeleton code for project 3, you need to pull the project3 branch from the reference repo. Below is an example of how this can be done:
 
# check if you have added the reference repo as an upstream
$ git remote -v

# if not, add the reference repo as an upstream
# if you use git over SSH, consider using ssh://git@lab-pets.privacy-preserving.systems:2224/pets25-h/ref/ref.git
$ git remote add ref https://lab-pets.privacy-preserving.systems/pets25-h/ref/ref.git

# pull the new branches and checkout
$ git pull

$ git checkout project3

# if you so wish, you can create a separate branch to host your work
$ git checkout -b project3-wip
 
This project requires collecting traces of traffic over the Tor network. For this, we have set up a test Tor network as well as a remote developing environment with the necessary facilities pre-installed. Use the following information to access your personal dev env:
 
- Host: lab-pets.privacy-preserving.systems
- Port: 6565
- Username & password: as per CMS notes (same as for project 2)
 
Once you have successfully logged into the remote environment, you can toy around and start working:
 
- You can safely save your code and traces under /persist, this directory persists through server maintenance and restart, while files stored elsewhere will be lost.
- You should be able to use the petrelic package in Python as well as other necessary tools for capturing the traffic (e.g. tcpdump)
 
A few points to note:
 
- As always, please use the persistent storage with courtesy, do not use it as your Google Drive.
- Use this environment only for collecting traces. In particular, do not run resource-intensive tasks.
- Start early on. Collecting traces needs time. Our test Tor network is also configured to mimic real network's delay & jitter. Leaving things until the last minute might expose you to all kinds of unforeseen problems.
- If you need addition Python packages, use pip inside a virtual environment.
- If you need any other tools that are otherwise impossible to install or run without root privilege, please get in touch. However, you shouldn't need extra tools than the ones provided for this project.
- In the rare case where your dev env or our test Tor network requires a restart, we will issue a notification in advance, so you can plan accordingly.
- Backup your progress often, including your traces. We have configured the persistent storage to persist, of course, but backing up is always a good idea.
 
To submit:
 
- Push your code to the project3-submission branch of your personal repo before the deadline.
 
Should you have any questions or run into unexpected issues, don't hesitate to ask on Mattermost.
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