1 Learning Outcomes

As a result of taking this course, you should learn

core system architecture, including DMA, interrupts, and cache coherency
real hardware, including concurrency complexities and what makes SPECTRE work
concurrency, including synchronization, mutual exclusion, coherency, and concurrency bugs
virtual memory, including process isolation and shared memory
practical networking, including familiarity with TCP/IP, DNS, snooping, spoofing, and TLS
security, including unix permissions, privilege escalation, and modern exploits
ethical and legal issues, including reporting
a build system and practical command-line tools

2 Readings

We have created several writeups for this course:

(The original version of these was written by Professor Tychonievich.)

We will augment these with various examples, online articles, and other resources.

2.1 Environment for assignments

The assignments in this class require using a POSIX-like environment (such as Linux). You could either setup a suitable environment yourself or use one of the department machines remotely. If you’re using the department machines, you may find these writeups helpful:

options for using SSH
instructions for remote desktop access (via NoMachine)

3 Getting Help

Office hours
Piazza (linked off Collab site)
emailing me (not preferred)

4 Course Staff

Charles Reiss: Office: Rice 205.
Email: creiss@virginia.edu
Telephone: 434-924-8274
Office Hours: (see office hours page)
TAs: Alan Nguyen, Andrew Fu, Anish Mandalika, Anmol Sandhu, Bejoy Sen, Chase Hildebrand, Daniel Xue, Dennis Tian, Edward Lue, Farzana Yasmin Ahmad, Klaus Peng, Lukas, Naeem Patel, Neil Phan, Owen Richards, Ryan Steele, Sid Burre