Teaching cryptography and access control hands-on

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2015

Department

Department of Computer Science

Abstract

Cryptography and access control are perhaps the two most fundamental mechanisms for data protection. This workshop presents hands-on methods for teaching cryptography and access control that leverage software tools developed with funding from the NSF. The workshop will proceed in two sessions. The first session will address teaching well-known ciphers (including Vigenère, DES, AES, RSA, and SHA) and elliptic-curve cryptography using tools from the cryptoVisual software suite. These tools step students through an algorithm with either the system or the student computing the result of each step. The second session will address access control and the Multilevel Security, Role Based Access Control, and Domain Type Enforcement models using tools from the acVisual software suite. These tools support graphical policy development and analysis. The presenters have used this material in undergraduate courses in Cryptography and Computer Security. The tools have been used and evaluated favorably at multiple institutions. Participants will install and use the software on their own laptops running Linux, Windows, or MacOS. The acVisual software runs natively on Linux and MacOS and through a Linux virtual machine under Windows. The cryptoVisual software suite is available at http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/NSF-4/. The acVisual software suite is available at http://acv.cs.mtu.edu.

Publication Title

Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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