News

Busy Beaver Award for Teaching

Written on 04.09.23 by Simon Anell

Dear Students,

The Students' Council awards the 'Busy Beaver' teaching award to outstanding lectures every semester and now asks YOU for input for their evaluation.
We received quite good grades from you in the 'Qualis' evaluation during the lecture but weren't considered in the last iteration for… Read more

Dear Students,

The Students' Council awards the 'Busy Beaver' teaching award to outstanding lectures every semester and now asks YOU for input for their evaluation.
We received quite good grades from you in the 'Qualis' evaluation during the lecture but weren't considered in the last iteration for the award since we finished the winter semester block course at the end of March - very close to the beginning of the summer semester.
If you think we have a chance in the race for the award in the group "Core & Advanced Lectures,"  you can follow the council's instructions in their email from today: 


"For this, simply write a mail to lukasa@cs.fs.uni-saarland.de and state your opinion and arguments why a specific lecture should be considered for the Busy Beaver! We would really love to consider your input in this years nominees."


Best Regards, and have a nice lecture break!

Your Usable Security and Privacy Team!

Re-exam

Written on 12.04.23 (last change on 13.04.23) by Simon Anell

Dear Students,

The reexam will be an oral exam and it will take place on the 21st of April between 9:30am and 1pm.
If you are eligible, you can choose a 30-minute timeslot in the CMS until Tuesday, April 18th.
You can also register in the LSF until Tuesday, April 18th. Both registration are… Read more

Dear Students,

The reexam will be an oral exam and it will take place on the 21st of April between 9:30am and 1pm.
If you are eligible, you can choose a 30-minute timeslot in the CMS until Tuesday, April 18th.
You can also register in the LSF until Tuesday, April 18th. Both registration are mandatory.
(Note that you can only register in LSF after we entered the grades from the main exam, which we will do at the end of the inspection.
The examination number is 11808.)

Best,

Your Usable Security and Privacy Team

Exam Inspection Dates

Written on 11.04.23 (last change on 12.04.23) by Lea Gröber

Dear Students,

we are offering two dates this week when you can inspect your exams. The exam inspection will take place at

Room 4.05
CISPA D1
Kaiserstraße 21
66386 St. Ingbert

Wednesday 12.4 - 1.00-3.00PM
Thursday 13.4 - 2.00-3.30PM

Please ring the "CISPA"-bell at the door at the side… Read more

Dear Students,

we are offering two dates this week when you can inspect your exams. The exam inspection will take place at

Room 4.05
CISPA D1
Kaiserstraße 21
66386 St. Ingbert

Wednesday 12.4 - 1.00-3.00PM
Thursday 13.4 - 2.00-3.30PM

Please ring the "CISPA"-bell at the door at the side of the building, the Front Office will let you in.
When you proceed to the 4th floor, knock at the glass door in case it is closed.

You can attend any of the dates. Please bring your student ID.

Best,

Your Usable Security and Privacy Team

Exam Inspection and Re-exam

Written on 05.04.23 (last change on 06.04.23) by Simon Anell

Dear Students,
We hope you are doing well! We have news for the exam inspection and the re-exam:

The exam inspection will take place next week in our offices in St. Ingbert. If you want to have a look at the correction, please write us an email (usablesecurityal@cispa.de) to schedule an individual… Read more

Dear Students,
We hope you are doing well! We have news for the exam inspection and the re-exam:

The exam inspection will take place next week in our offices in St. Ingbert. If you want to have a look at the correction, please write us an email (usablesecurityal@cispa.de) to schedule an individual timeslot.

The re-exam will take place in the week from 17th to 21st of April. The exam format (oral or written exam) is not yet decided and will depend on the number of students participating in the re-exam.
If you are eligible for participation, please write us an email (usablesecurityal@cispa.de) until 11th of April. We will then finalize the date and the format.
Eligible for participation are students that reached at least 30 points in the assignments and did not pass the main exam.

Best Regards,
The Usable Security and Privacy Team

Exam Points

Written on 31.03.23 by Alexander Ponticello

Dear students,

we entered the results of today's exam, you should seem them now along your overall grade. For those who did not pass the exam, but got at least 30 points on the assignments, there will be a retake exam after easter, more details on that to follow.

 

Exam Registration

Written on 24.03.23 by Simon Anell

Dear Students,

We realized that some of you encountered issues with the registration for the exam in LSF.
The exam is titled "Usable Security and Privacy" and has the examination number 11808. The deadline for registering and un-registering is 28th of March.

If you have trouble registering or… Read more

Dear Students,

We realized that some of you encountered issues with the registration for the exam in LSF.
The exam is titled "Usable Security and Privacy" and has the examination number 11808. The deadline for registering and un-registering is 28th of March.

If you have trouble registering or do not get a verification email, please contact studium@cs.uni-saarland.de and explain your problem. Include your name, student number and the exam. 

(Please consider that you can register in LSF even if you did not pass the admission criteria. In this case you will fail the course and lose a try.)

Have a good weekend and a productive exam preparation!

A step-by-step guide to Chi-square

Written on 22.03.23 (last change on 22.03.23) by Divyanshu Bhardwaj

Dear students,

During the Office Hours, there was some doubt on how the calculation for Chi-square test is done and how the solution is obtained in the slides. We have made a step-by-step guide on how Chi-square can be calculated based on the table in the slides, and the solution sheet is now… Read more

Dear students,

During the Office Hours, there was some doubt on how the calculation for Chi-square test is done and how the solution is obtained in the slides. We have made a step-by-step guide on how Chi-square can be calculated based on the table in the slides, and the solution sheet is now available for download in the Materials Section. We will also discuss the solution in the tutorial. 

Change of Room for Office Hour on 21.03.2022

Written on 21.03.23 (last change on 21.03.23) by Divyanshu Bhardwaj

Dear students,

Due to a mismatch in the allocation of rooms, the office hour today is shifted from seminar room 107 to 016 on the ground floor in E1.3

Updated python notebook for Assignment 2

Written on 19.03.23 by Divyanshu Bhardwaj

Dear students,

We noticed a discrepancy in the points for Assignment 2, between the pdf file and the python notebook. As such, we have updated the python notebook file to reflect the correct points. Please use the new notebook for your final submission.

Deadline Extension for Assignment 2

Written on 17.03.23 by Dañiel Gerhardt

Dear Students,

we have extended the deadline for Assignment 2 by one day which means you have time until 23. Mar 2023 09:59 to upload your solutions as a ipynb file (Jupyter Notebooks). Note that we cannot evaluate delayed submissions.

We cannot move the deadline for this assignment any further… Read more

Dear Students,

we have extended the deadline for Assignment 2 by one day which means you have time until 23. Mar 2023 09:59 to upload your solutions as a ipynb file (Jupyter Notebooks). Note that we cannot evaluate delayed submissions.

We cannot move the deadline for this assignment any further because we need time to grade your submissions. If you need help with the assignments or anything else, please use the office hours which are offered every Tuesday and Thursday from 10:00 to 16:00.

Today's Lecture

Written on 17.03.23 by Alexander Ponticello

Dear students,

just a quick heads up that today's lecture will be in E2 2 (GHH) and the tutorial in SR014 E1 3.

See you there!

Assignment 2

Written on 15.03.23 by Dañiel Gerhardt

Dear Students,

We have published Assignment 2. You can find it under Information > Materials. The Zip file contains the required files for this exercise.

We ask you to submit your solutions via the CMS on your Personal Status page. You have time until 22. Mar 2023 09:59 to upload your solutions… Read more

Dear Students,

We have published Assignment 2. You can find it under Information > Materials. The Zip file contains the required files for this exercise.

We ask you to submit your solutions via the CMS on your Personal Status page. You have time until 22. Mar 2023 09:59 to upload your solutions as a ipynb file (Jupyter Notebooks). Note that we cannot evaluate delayed submissions.

Mandatory Attendance & Assignment 1

Written on 13.03.23 by Dañiel Gerhardt

Dear Students,

as a friendly reminder, we want to reiterate that in-person attendance to the lectures and tutorials is mandatory.

 

Further, we have published Assignment 1. You can find it under Information > Materials. The Zip file contains the required files for this exercise.

We ask you… Read more

Dear Students,

as a friendly reminder, we want to reiterate that in-person attendance to the lectures and tutorials is mandatory.

 

Further, we have published Assignment 1. You can find it under Information > Materials. The Zip file contains the required files for this exercise.

We ask you to submit your solutions via the CMS on your Personal Status page. You have time until 20. Mar 2023 09:59 to upload your solutions as a Zip file. Note that we cannot evaluate delayed submissions.

Statistics Self-Assessment Quiz

Written on 08.03.23 by Dañiel Gerhardt

Dear Students,

we want to remind you to take the statistics self-assessment quiz that we provide for you to test your knowledge of statistics. Statistics is an integral part of this lecture and if you find that your current knowledge is lacking we recommend you read up on statistics and prepare… Read more

Dear Students,

we want to remind you to take the statistics self-assessment quiz that we provide for you to test your knowledge of statistics. Statistics is an integral part of this lecture and if you find that your current knowledge is lacking we recommend you read up on statistics and prepare yourself before the lecture starts next Monday with the materials we provide in the category Further Reading under Information > Materials.

Show all

Usable Security & Privacy 
(held as block course from 13.3.23 - 31.3.23)

 

In this lecture, you will learn about human-centric aspects of IT security. Besides research and design methods, you will learn about hot topics in usable security such as authentication, confidentiality and privacy. In particular, you will learn to

  • design user studies to study how humans interact with security & privacy technology with respect to threat models, 
  • collect, understand, evaluate qualitative & quantitative data,
  • interpret results and draw conclusions based on your data,
  • design new security and privacy technology that is better tied to the users' needs and values.

Prerequisites: CySec1/CySec2 or Security, Statistics. It is also strongly advised to take our statistics self-assessment quiz found here. These are the topics that are needed in order to follow this course and they won't be covered in the scope of this lecture.


Please make sure to allocate enough time to work on the assignments for this course. Programming skills and profound knowledge of statistics and data analysis are required. If you have not yet completed any security courses BUT have a strong background in human-computer interaction, psychology, or design you are still welcome to attend this interdisciplinary lecture. In that case, please contact us to directly to discuss whether this is the right course for you.


Registration

*If you already passed the advanced lecture "Usable Security", you can not participate in this course.*
*If you failed the advanced lecture "Usable Security" three times, you can not participate in this course*

This block lecture is limited to 30 students on a first-come-first-serve basis. 

Registration closes: 13 March 2023, CMS.

Contact: usablesecurityAL@cispa.de


When & Where?

The lecture will take place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:00-12:00, starting 13 March 2023. The last lecture will be on 24 March 2023. The final exam will be on 31 March 2023 in the Cispa Lecture Hall. Tutorials will be held on the same days as the lectures between 14:00-17:00.


Locations

Lectures and Tutorials will be in the CISPA Lecture Hall (except on Friday, 17 March the lecture will be in E2 2 (GHH) and the tutorial in SR014 E1 3).

The Office Hours will be in SR 107 E 1 3. 

Physical presence is required (= more than 70% of on-site lectures and tutorials).

 

Grading

In total, you can reach 100 points in the course of this lecture; points can be collected with
  • graded assignments (25 points each) and
  • a written exam at the end of the semester (50 points).

To pass this course, you need to receive a minimum of 60 points in total and a minimum of 30 points for both the assignments and 30 points in the written exam. Besides that, you have to actively participate in the tutorials where you will 

  • work on solving scenarios to deepen your knowledge and
  • engage in (ungraded) mini quizzes.
Collaboration

You are encouraged to discuss assignments and ask us and other students for help if necessary. However, do not actually show your resulting work to each other if we did not explicitly tell you to do that. Do not plagiarize.


Assignments

There will be 2 graded assignments during the course of this lecture. 

Assignment Start Date Deadline
Assignment 1 (Qualitative) 13 March 2023 20 March 2023 - 10am
Assignment 2 (Quantitative) 15 March 2023 23 March 2023 - 10am

 

 

 

 

You can get a maximum of 25 points for each assignment.

 

Office Hours

There will be office hours on the off days (each Tuesday and Thursday) for students to work on assignments and ask questions to tutors who will be present. 

 

Exam

The exam will consist of knowledge questions and scenarios that you are expected to solve. Only those who fail the written exam will be able to take a re-take exam. 

Exam: 31 March 2023, 10:00-12:00 in CISPA Lecture Hall
(Registration in HISPOS LSF until March 28th, end of day)

 

Lecture Overview & Topics

Please note that this a tentative timetable. Changes will be announced as news posts.

Date Topic
 13.03.23 Introduction & Qualitative research methods
 15.03.23 Quantitative research methods & statistics
 17.03.23 User study design & ethics
 20.03.23 Design methods
 22.03.23 Surveillance & privacy
 24.03.23 Authentication

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this the right course for me?

This course is intended for all computer scientists who would like to take an interdisciplinary perspective on the origins of security vulnerabilities. It will also be interesting for everyone who is interested in a societal discourse about the security and privacy of the systems we interact with. In this course you will have the chance to conduct interdisciplinary research - which means that you will be designing user studies and collecting and analyzing data. You will also have to write code and use statistical testing. Please make sure to take our ungraded statistics self assessment test to understand if your knowledge in statistics is sufficient for this course. You can find the test here.
 

Mental Health

Being a student can be challenging and might be very overwhelming at times. If you need support during times of struggle, reach out to friends, family or faculty you trust. The student union at UdS also offers a counselling service that you may contact. You do not have to go through this alone! If for whatever reason (e.g. a personal emergency) you cannot attend the lecture, tutorial, or deliver your work in time please let us know and we will make appropriate arrangements.

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