Security, Privacy, and Consumer Protection

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course will cover the principles and practice of security, privacy, and consumer protection. Topics include: basic cryptography; physical, network, endpoint, and data security; privacy (including user surveillance and tracking); attacks and defenses; and relevant concepts in usable security. The course will place fundamental security and privacy concepts in the context of past and ongoing legal, regulatory, and policy developments, including: consumer privacy, censorship, platform content moderation, data breaches, net neutrality, government surveillance, election security, vulnerability discovery and disclosure, and the fairness and accountability of automated decision making, including machine learning systems. Students will learn both technical fundamentals and how to apply these concepts to public policy outputs and recommendations.