COMP715/815GB:Team Money


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Info

 * Planned Meeting Times:
 * Tuesdays at 7:30pm

Week of Sept 17th

 * Meeting time/place:


 * Tuesday, September 18th at 7:30pm
 * Met in Pandora
 * Attendence All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:30pm


 * Topics Covered:


 * Students asked questions on the homework details, specifically:
 * What type of security websites were suitable for question 2.
 * Use of password to create the seed.


 * Open Questions:


 * Students asked what types of websites required for question 2
 * We came up with the following ideas : Banks & Online shops. The students came up with some intersting examples.
 * Students also had concerns with websites in question 3
 * Here we pointed students to Norton and standarad virus checking software sites. We also discussed sppecialist companies that provide a full service sercurity.


 * Concerns:


 * Students were struggling with the random number generation to some extent. We discussed the math and resolved to ask Dr J on Weds regarding the use of the passsword.

Week of Sept 24th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue September 25th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:00pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * Covered the final pieces of the encryption code. Ensured all understood the random number generation.


 * Open Questions:
 * Questions on the position effect in the hash function to ensure more diversity
 * Concerns:
 * Some students had yet to start the text questions so encouraged them to complete them ahead of time next time so as to utilize my resources better.

Week of Oct 1st

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue October 2nd 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:30pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 2 kick off - ensured students aware of the codeing requirements and homework template.


 * Open Questions:
 * Question 2 mainly - Math componant made some of the students 'run for the hills'. Ensured that the right answer is not the goal but the thourght process.
 * Concerns:
 * Some students had yet to start the text questions so encouraged them to complete them ahead of time next time so as to utilize my resources better.

Week of Oct 8th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue October 9th 7:40pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:15pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 2

Coding the changes to the encryption program did not seem to cause any issues for the students.
 * Open Questions:
 * Question 2 mainly - Discussed the complexity of the problem and why its not a one hit formula. Students understood the reason the duplicates make a difference when we hypothesised the scenario that all three of the known numbers were the same eg number 1.
 * Concerns:
 * The event viewer question was ambiguous and we were not sure as to the expected outcome.

Week of Oct 15th

 * Meeting time:N/A
 * No meeting held - Students in special lecture at regular time in 400 Commercial Street with Mihaela. As there is three weeks for this Homework section, students decided to adjorn issues till next meeting.
 * Attendance: None


 * Topics Covered:
 * Open Questions:
 * Concerns:

Week of Oct 22nd

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue October 23rd 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:15pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 3
 * Study for Exam


 * Open Questions:
 * We spent a fair amount of time on review all the coursework from the first half of the semester. The stdents had questions about the differences between MES and DES. I queried them on the types of 3- DES and what the process of the different types entailed. We also discussed the math behind the random generator function. We also had some debate about the HW3 and what it means to digitally sign something. All students seemed to have a solid grasp of the concept although we all acknowledge it took some time to grasp the concept.


 * Concerns:
 * Students concerns mainly centered around the upcoming Mid term exam. I went through some study strategies including detailing all the headings and subheadings from the notes onto thier crib index card. This gave them some structure for their studing and aide memoire during the exam.

Week of Oct 29th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue October 30th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:00pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 3

THe questions they had concerned the Digital Signature. Even though we had gone over this the previous week, there was still some uncertainty as to the process. I decided to update my code to display all tof the various stages of the text and variables. Something that is quite often done when tracing code, and showed the students the transformation of the variables. This helped the student very much.
 * Open Questions:
 * With the exam out of the way the students were able to concentrate on the HW3.
 * Concerns:
 * The student had some concerns on the finding of a virus in the las decade. I advised them to pick a notable one just outside the ten years if necessary. The problem encountered was that many of the malware today is a complex packeged mixture of attacks and cannot be strictly classed as a virus.

Week of Nov 5th

 * Meeting time:
 * Wed Nov 7th 7:30pm after class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:25pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 4
 * Project Proposal


 * Open Questions:
 * Questions encountered included what was required for the profeject proposal, so I walked them throught he details. They all had good ideas for projects. I suggested that they narrow down thier focus otherwise they will have way too much information to deal with. With HW 4 , the students had not yet attempted the questions but had all started on the password hunt.
 * Concerns:
 * One of their main concerns was the time it was taking to run the javascript to hunt the passwords. I did relent and give them a hint. One of the first thngs I did with the list of passwords was to dump them in Excel and sort them to see how many of each length we had. This revealled something rather sneaky. I pointed the students to try the same thing and report back next week.

Week of Nov 12th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue Nov 12th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: All
 * Meeting concluded at 8:15pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW 4
 * Project Proposal


 * Open Questions:
 * Students came with many questions regarding the HW4 . Some of the requirements had some pproblems so I directeed the students to look for an alternative tool that does the same thing but was more up to date. None of the students ha tried the WEP key crack - I had problems doing this myself as I have nothing that is on WEP anymore. Everyone agreed that the colorful graphs these netmonitoring packages had was cool.
 * Concerns:
 * One of the students had some concerns regarding the project which we resolved by narrowing doen the topic . THe pasword hunt was also proving a torture for some of the students. I popped a couple more hints for them like - removing the ones we already have from the list of ones to try next and the use of regexp syntax.

Week of Nov 19th

 * Meeting time:N/A
 * No meeting held - Thanksgiving week
 * Attendance: None


 * Topics Covered:
 * Open Questions:
 * Concerns:

Week of Nov 27th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue Nov 27th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: 4
 * Meeting concluded at 8:00pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * Final Exam review


 * Open Questions:
 * Students had very few questions this week. I confirmed the use of a index card would be avaiable and identified the location of all the notes for the class in the private are of the class web page. We went through the notes identifiying definate question areas that would be on the exam.
 * Concerns:
 * Concerns the students had were more around the level of detail knowledge required and would there be a practivce exam.

Week of Dec 4th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue Dec 4th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: 4
 * Meeting concluded at 8:15pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * Final Exam review
 * HW5


 * Open Questions:
 * Students had some questions on the final - We went over the issues with the text book as well as the notes. I reemphasised the need to read the text also. It really clears some of the more vague notes. Students also had questions regarding the HW5 cipher problem. Many did not know where to start, so we discussed the approaches to take. The clues in the homework problem itself.
 * Concerns:
 * Students had not yet started their presentations. I encouraged them to do something towards it asap so as not o feel rushed the next week.

Week of Dec 10th

 * Meeting time:
 * Tue Dec 11th 7:30pm after OO class in Pandora
 * Attendance: 4
 * Meeting concluded at 8:00pm


 * Topics Covered:
 * HW5
 * Project Presentations


 * Open Questions:
 * Last blog for this semester. Students had questions on how to access the nmap . Change posted on the HW5 on class website. Also many of students did not have Windoews XP so could not do the 2nd question. We found the computer in the conference room was XP so went through the questions together on that. I looked into the windows 7 profile and rule based firewall also. Students for teh most part had done a good job with the cryptography problem.
 * Concerns:
 * Students for the most part had not finished their presentations. Reiterated the mantra that less is more. Limit to 6 slides and not too much detail. Clarified the assignments due for tomorrow. Project 1000 words, Printed 6 slide sheet and cover page. Also HW 5 Lab part.