System Security Research Methods

Prerequisites

• At least one systems or security course.
• Ability to read English systems-security papers.
• Programming, lab-record, and technical-writing fundamentals.

Learning Outcomes

• Extract problems, assumptions, methods, and evidence chains from papers.
• Design reproducible and ethically compliant experiments.
• Evaluate measurement error, selection bias, and external validity.
• Write clear research questions, threat models, and limitations.
• Complete a small paper reproduction or pilot study.

Course Format

• Two meetings per week: one for core concepts and one for labs, paper discussion, or project review.
• The course proceeds over 16 weeks, each with a checkable assignment, lab, or project milestone.
• Reproducibility is required: code, configuration, data, lab logs, and reports must be reviewable by staff or peers.

Weekly Plan

Assessment

Course Project

Projects may be paper reproduction, public-data reanalysis, tool prototypes, or pilot studies. They must include a clear question, baseline, reproduction steps, limitations, and ethics notes.

Policies

• AI tools are allowed, but generated code, lab notes, and design suggestions must be reviewed by the student and disclosed in the report.
• Students may not submit code, proofs, configuration, or experimental results they cannot explain; each member must defend their own design, tests, and tradeoffs.
• Late work affects iteration grades, but the course values reproducible, auditable, and maintainable results over last-minute accumulation.