University of Virginia, Department of Computer Science
CS588: Cryptology - Principles and Applications, Fall 2001

Manifest: Wednesday 5 December 2001 -

Assignments Due

Upcoming Talk

Thursday, December 20, 2001
Avi Rubin
AT&T Labs Research
Olsson 120, 10:30 AM

Publius: A robust, tamper-evident, censorship-resistant web publishing system

We describe a system that we have designed and implemented for publishing content on the web. Our publishing scheme has the property that it is very difficult for any adversary to censor or modify the content. In addition, the identity of the publisher is protected once the content is posted. The system has robustness properties that make content available, even in the face of DDOS attacks.

Our system differs from others in that we provide tools for updating or deleting the published content, and users can browse the content in the normal point and click manner using a standard web browser and a client-side proxy that we provide. All of our code is freely available.

Joint work with Marc Waldman and Lorrie Cranor

Donuts and coffee will be served in Olsson 120 at 10am

I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customer got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel a as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. Whats in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.

Alan Perlis (quoted in Abelson & Sussman)


CS 655 University of Virginia
Department of Computer Science
CS 588: Cryptology - Principles and Applications
David Evans
evans@virginia.edu