Privacy and Surveillance Tech

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course will explore technical privacy threats and countermeasures in modern computing and communications systems. We will start with a broad survey of the legal, social and technical requirements and expectations for the privacy properties of these systems, the conflicts and trade-offs inherent in these requirements, and the default privacy threats and protections under which current and historical systems operate. We will particularly focus on techniques for breaching privacy of communications content, communications metadata, identity, and stored data, countermeasures to these threats, and the effects of technological and platform changes to these threats and the efficacy of countermeasures. Specific topics will include the distinction between content and metadata, how various kinds of surveillance and interception techniques work in practice, countermeasures such as encryption and anonymity networks, and the legal framework under which surveillance operates. Background: A solid familiarity with networking, applications software, and operating systems, as well as a willingness to think broadly and deeply about the impacts of the technologies we build.