Politics of Security and Privacy

Dear students,

As the final group presentations are near, I would like to clarify a few things regarding your presentations and the submission.

The purpose of the final project is to develop the contents of a lecture on the topic of politics of security and privacy (S&P). The audience are students who have a background in S&P, but most likely never though about the political implications of what they study and work on. So the lecture should show them, how S&P topics are political and give them some food for thought for their further studies and work life. Consider that just reiterating the contents of the papers might already go into too much depth, as papers are very focused on a specific topic and require more comprehensive effort than the average student is willing to give. Therefore, it is essential that you break down the high-level topics to a more manageable and digestible level. Think about yourself before the seminar, what would you have liked to hear about the topic or what would have been helpful to you that fits into a single lecture session?

Regarding your submission (CMS submission will unlock on Friday, upload a ZIP file), it should include the following:

• lecture slides which are designed for around 20 mins of presentation
• lecture notes which contain all the contents of the presentation and could be handed out to students for studying purposes
• assignment tasks with solutions and grading scheme

During your presentation slot this and next week, you will go through your 20 minute presentation (each team member should have a part in that) and also present the assignment tasks, explain your thoughts behind them, and what students should learn from them. 

Furthermore, we ask everyone to upload the slides for their individual presentations as PDF files to CMS, you should find a form for that on your personal page.

 

Looking forward to your presentations and submissions!

Best,

Alexander

Dear students,

as discussed in the last session, I have uploaded the template we want you to use for the final presentation. Please make sure to install the Montserrat font (included in the archive). https://cms.cispa.saarland/psp/dl/68/Presentation_Template.zip

Also, please note again that this weeks session will be starting earlier than usual, namely at 12:00 sharp! The room will remain unchanged and so will be the duration, so we will finish by 1:30pm. The reason for this is the doctoral defense colloquium of one of our esteemed colleagues. 

 

See you on Friday,

Alexander

Dear all, 

for the seminar on July 18th, 2025, it has come to our attention that some of you will attend the cryptography exam on the same day between 4pm and 6pm. 

To judge whether and how we could reschedule the seminar, please fill in the following survey until tomorrow (Tuesday 27 May 2025 EOB). 

https://cispa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2bDJUYU5BTHK8hE

Thank you! 
Carolyn 

Hi everyone,

there's more things happening in the world right now that are very relevant to the topics we discuss in our seminar, I'm curious what you folks think about the topics of Real-Time Bidding and the Transparency & Consent Framework it during the next discussion on the topic.

Once again, big thanks to Sara for letting me know about it!

 

https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/eu-ruling-tracking-based-advertising-by-google-microsoft-amazon-x-across-europe-has-no-legal-basis/

 

See you on Friday,

Alexander

Dear students,

I would like to forward you a recent news article which is very relevant to the contents of our latest session. Perhaps we can include it into our discussion when the topic of nation state actors comes back around ;) Thanks a lot to your colleague Sara for pointing it out to me!

https://posteo.de/en/news/nso-must-pay-167-million-in-damages-for-spyware-attacks

See you all on Friday!

Best,

Alexander

Dear students,

due to force majeure, we need to change the room for this week's seminar session (Friday, May 9th). The time will be the usual one, starting at 1pm c.t. If you are presenting during that slot, please make sure to be there a few minutes early, such that you can try the setup with your laptop.

The new room is E1.7, Room 0.08.

See you there, best,

Alexander

Dear Students,

Thank you all for the amazingly smooth kick-off session last! I could see your all motivation and eagerness to dive into deep discussions of this topic.

I uploaded your paper assignments to the materials section on CMS. You can also check your assigned slot on the schedule overview. With the paper assignment, you can furthermore determine your group members for the final group project, i.e., the students with papers in the same main topic. Please make sure to get in touch with them early, best during the next seminar session.

See you all next week, best,

Alexander

Dear all, 

welcome to our seminar on "Politics of Security and Privacy". 

Our Kick-Off is on 25. April 2025 at 1pm c.t. at CISPA C0, room 0.02 (in person only). 

In preparation for the kick-off, please read Rogaway's The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work. 

Additionally, please read all abstracts of the papers mentioned under 'Papers' below (they are available in the materials section) and mark down for yourselves, which papers you'd be particular interested in presenting. The assignment to topics and papers will happen in the kick-off session. 

Let us know if you have any questions. 

We are looking forward to the seminar :) 

Best, 
Carolyn