6.857: Computer and Network Security

Term Projects

Project ideas

We'll be posting project ideas here as the term progresses. Check back for updates.

You should also check out the references page, in particular online proceedings from the linked conferences, for inspiration.

Another source of ideas for your final project might be Phillip Hallam-Baker's new book, The dotCrime Manifesto. Hallam-Baker has compiled a short list of potential projects related to the book. We encourage you to take a look at this page and consider the suggested projects.

Topics from Previous Years

This list has gotten a bit long over the past few years. For now, take a look at the project pitches from 2010 and a list of projects from 2009 and before.

Hints for writing your paper and giving your talk

• How to make a good paper and talk
• How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper
• Advice on giving an academic talk

This year's projects

• Hacking Wireless by David Goehring by Daniel Martelly, Viet-Tran Nguyen and Evangelos Taratoris
• Preventing Covert Webcam Hacking in the Civilian and Governmental Sectors by Harshini Jayaram, Jonathan Lui, Peter Nguyen, Sylvia Zakarian
• Designing a secure biometric identication system for Israel by Ido Efrati, Jesika Haria, Michael Sanders, Xiao Meng Zhang
• Covert Acoustic Channels: Improving Range, Accuracy, and Undetectability by Evan Lynch, Yihua Li, Wei Zhao
• Covert Surveillance on PC and Android Szymon Sidor, Predrag Gruevski, David Xiao, Arash Delijani
• Distributed Settlers of Catan by Hassan Alsibyani, Tim Mickel, Willy Vasquez, Xiaoyue Zhang
• Tweetnet: Finding the Bots in the Flock by Josh Blum, Bennet Cyphers, Ofir Nachum, Louis Sobel
• Pebble Smartwatch Security Assessment by Thomas Boning, Ceres Lee, Steven Valdez
• Computational Security and the Economics of Password Hacking by Michael Phox, Zachary Sherin, Adin Schmahmann, Augusta Niles
• Detecting Subversion on Twitter by Vladislav Kontsevoi, Naim Lujan, Adrian Orozco
• Security Overview of QR Codes by Kevin Peng, Harry Sanabria, Derek Wu, Charlotte Zhu
• Security Research of a Social Payment App by Ben Kraft, Eric Mannes, Jordan Moldow
• Blackbox: Distributed Peer-to-Peer File Storage and Backup by Payut Pantawongdecha, Isabella Tromba, Chelsea Voss, Gary Wang
• Narwhal: An Implementation of Zero Knowledge Authentication by Ryan Cheu, Patrick Yang, Alexander Lin, Alexander Jaffe
• Two Factor Zero Knowledge Proof Authentication System by Quan Nguyen, Mikhail Rudoy, Arjun Srinivasan
• Security Analysis of Wearable Fitness Devices (Fitbit) by Britt Cyr, Webb Horn, Daniela Miao, Michael Specter
• IV = 0 Security: Cryptographic Misuse of Libraries by Somak Das, Vineet Gopal, Kevin King, Amruth Venkatraman
• CertCoin: A NameCoin Based Decentralized Authentication System by Conner Fromknecht, Dragos Velicanu, Sophia Yakoubov
• Computing on Encrypted Data by Jiarui Huang, Min Zhang, Weixin Chen, Yi-Shiuan Tung
• Security in Client-Server Android Apps by Mike Pappas, Raluca Ifrim, Ben Weissman, Chris Tam
• Keys Under the Welcome Mat by Michelle Wang, Matthew Furtney, Andrew Hyer, Michael Xu
• Unsafe and Unsound: Cryptoanalysis of Leaky Acoustic Signals by Aakriti Shroff, Jennifer Hu, Tiffany Tang
• SendSecure by Akash Badshah, Anurag Kashyap, Kenny Lam, Vikas Velagapudi
• Speedy: a Sybil-resistant DHT implementation by Quanquan Liu, Qian Long, Pratiksha Thaker, Wenting Zheng