@ -25,49 +25,47 @@ These three components are detailed below.
### Paper presentations
**Paper discussions** are one of the main components of this course. Before
every presentation, you are expected to read the paper closely and understand
its significance, including (a) the main problem addressed by the paper, (b) the
primary contributions of the paper, and (c) how the authors solve the problem in
some technical detail. Of course, you are also expected to attend discussions
and actively participate in the discussion.
The topics we will be reading about are from the recent research
literature---peer-reviewed and published, but not completely refined. Most
**Paper discussions** are one of the main components of this course. In groups
of two (or very rarely three), you will present 2-3 papers on a related topic
and lead the discussion; we will have presentations most Wednesdays and Fridays.
Your presentation should last about **60 minutes** long, leaving the remainder
of the time for a wrap-up discussion. Please sign up for a slot and a paper by
**Monday, September 9**; while we will try to accommodate everyone's interests,
we may need to adjust the selections for better balance and coverage.
Before every presentation, all students are expected to read the papers closely
and understand their significance, including (a) the main problems, (b) the
primary contributions, and (c) how the technical solution. Of course, you are
also expected to attend discussions and actively participate in the discussion.
We will be reading about topics from the recent research literature. Most
research papers focus on a very narrow topic and are written for a very specific
technical audience. It also doesn't help that researchers are generally not the
clearest writers, though there are certainly exceptions. These
[notes ](https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf ) by
Srinivasan Keshav may help you get more out of reading papers.
To help you prepare for the class discussions, I will also send out a few
questions at least 24 hours before every paper presentation. **Before** each
lecture, you should send me brief answers---a short email is fine, no more than
a few sentences per question. These questions will help you check that you have
understood the papers---they are not meant to be very difficult or
time-consuming and they will not be graded in detail.
### Homeworks
There will be three small homework assignments, one for each of the core
modules. Y ou will play with software implementations of the methods we cover in
class. These assignments are not weighted heavily, though they will be lightly
graded; the goal is to give you a chance to write some code.
modules, where you will play with software implementations of the methods we
cover in class. These assignments will be lightly graded; the goal is to give
you a chance to write some code and run some experiments.
### Course Project
The main component is the **course project** . You will work individually or in
pairs on a topic of your choice, producing a conference-style write-up and
presenting the project at the end of the semester. Successful projects may have
the potential to turn into an eventual research paper or survey. Details can be
found [here ](assignments/project.md ).
The main course co mponent is the **course project** . You will work individually
or in pairs on a topic of your choice, producing a conference-style write-up and
presenting the project at the end of the semester. The best projects may
eventually lead to a research paper or survey. Details can be found
[here ](assignments/project.md ).
## Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you should be able to...
- Summarize the basic concepts in differential privacy, applied cryptography,
language-based security, and adversarial machine learning.
and adversarial machine learning.
- Use techniques from differential privacy to design privacy-preserving data
analyses.
- Grasp the high-level concepts from research literature on the main course
