TUT/ IT / Post-graduate studies in information security

There are currently two books. This one involves a normal examination, but requires certain background in security:

Russ Housley, Tim Polk: Planning for PKI: Best Practices Guide for Deploying Public Key Infrastructure.
John Wiley & Sons, 2001. ISBN: 0-471-39702-4. 327 pages.   [2 credit units]

Ross Anderson: Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems.
Wiley 2001. ISBN 0-471-38922-6. 612 pages.   [2 credit units]

• Discuss with JK about the goals and quality criteria.
• Read the book once.
• FOR i=1 to 2 DO
  • IF i=1,
       invent 10 interesting topics from different chapters of the book.
    ELSE
       receive 10 topics from JK.
  • Write essays on the topics.
  • Send them to JK by mail or on paper in a format that is suitable for feedback.
  • Modify and possibly extend the texts according to comments of JK and resend them.
  • (NEXT i)
• If not earlier, finalize the essays and provide them in electronic editable format and give JK the right to use them for educational purposes (keeping your own rights as well, and not violating Anderson's rights).
• Have a discussion with JK showing that you wrote the essays and actually read the book.

• Topics should not deal with simple matters like how encryption or some other technical procedure is carried out - unless there are issues that often go wrong with this.
• The topic could involve describing a situation, threats therein and countermeasures or the lack of them.
• Even if a topic is contained in one section of a chapter, the essay should preferrably not be contained therein, too. This doesn't only mean awareness of the rest of the book. Instead the writer is encouraged to show connections to his or her own field of study and research and/or newer sources of information in literature or www.
• The length of essays should be somewhat less than a page or 400 words. The more you use your own words (or Finnish language) the shorter text will do.