Course Schedule Fall 2018
This schedule is subject to change. Please check back frequently.
Part 1. The Election Cybersecurity Landscape
| Monday Lecture | Wednesday Lab/Discussion |
|---|---|
|
Sep. 10 Cybersecurity Threats to U.S. Elections Introductions and overview of the course; What happened during the 2016 election? What's been done since then to improve security? How can we, as a class, help? |
(No discussion Sept. 12) |
Sep. 17 Voting as a Security Problem The security mindset; Election security requirements and trade-offs; Evolution of voting technology and election fraud; The rise of electronic voting |
Introduction to the lab Course project discussion |
Sep. 24 Computers at the Polls Vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines; Electronic voting around the world; Architecture and election security |
Hands-on with a vulnerable voting system |
Oct. 1 Election Procedures and Threats Voter registration and authentication; Tabulation and reporting; Physical controls; Logic and accuracy testing, parallel testing; Post-election audits; Usability and accessibility concerns |
Tampering with tamper-evident seals |
Oct. 8 Information Warfare and Elections Social media manipulation; Hacks against political campaigns; Attacking voter confidence; Security best practices |
Securing a political campaign |
Fall Break No lecture or discussion
Part 2. Election Security and Public Policy
| Monday Lecture | Wednesday Lab/Discussion |
|---|---|
|
Oct. 22 Evidence-Based Elections: Risk-Limiting Audits Requirements and goals for an RLA; RLA technologies: ballot and batch, comparison and polling Special guests: Mark Lindeman and Neal McBurnett |
Running an RLA |
Oct. 29 Federal Policy Federalism and Election Policy; HAVA, the EAC, and the VVSG; DHS and the CI designation |
(No discussion Oct. 31 |
Nov. 5 State and Local Perspectives Survey of state practices; Elections in Michigan, recent changes |
Analysis of election day reports |
Nov. 12 What happened on Election Day? |
Project checkpoint |
Part 3. Future Prospects for Securing Election
| Monday Lecture | Wednesday Lab/Discussion |
|---|---|
|
Nov. 19 Policy Reform Prospects for reform in Congress: the SEA and other bills; Prospects for reform through the Courts: recent lawsuits; Special guest: Prof. Jonathan Mayer (Princeton) |
(No discussion Nov. 21) |
Nov. 26 Internet Voting Vote-by-mail and UOCAVA settings Challenges for online voting Case studies: D.C., Estonia, Australia Blockchain? |
Policy debate |
Dec. 3 End-to-end Verification Cryptographic approaches to securing elections; Protocols and properties Open problems and challenges; Special guest: Josh Benaloh |
Attacking an online voting system / Hands-on with Helios |
Dec. 10 Project Presentations Each group will present their project in class |
(No discussion Dec. 12) |