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All Semesters

Computer Science Project Tutorial (Undergraduate: COSC-302, Graduate: COSC-999-03)

Available for undergraduate independent study. Individual experimental work related to computer science. Student must make arrangements with Prof. Burger and file a proposal endorsed by him. Written report to be submitted upon completion of work.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor

Computer Science Thesis (Undergraduate: COSC-301, Graduate: COSC-999-01)

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor

Prior

Cyber Security Seminar** (UNXD-437): See GU360 for current details

This is a required course for CyberCorps™ scholarship recipients as well as any other interested individuals (with permission of the instructor).

Meeting bi-weekly, this combination academic and community-building course provides students with an understanding of topics such as: the requirements of individuals who want security clearances; Federal cybersecurity regulations and standards, such as FISMA; the respective roles of DHS and NSA when it comes to securing government and civilian networks; and the policy controls and best practices to protect networks and systems. This course builds community between graduate and undergraduate students across the CS, SSP, MSFS, JD/LLM, and MCSR programs.

The seminar course has a mix of invited speakers from government, FFRDCs, industry, academia, and civil society as well as presentations by the students. We benefit by having alumnae/i nearby, who come to campus (or virtual) on a regular basis to describe their experience at government agencies. Some class meetings may occur in the field, such as at Congressional offices, Executive offices, select agencies (such as DHS, NSA, NGA, DISA), and partner campuses of other local universities. This provides students with networking opportunities and the opportunity to work on their professional communication skills and hone presentation skills to government officials.

Class Information: Spring 2019

FinTech & Blockchain (FINC-258): See GU360

Class information: Fall 2018

Advanced Networking (COSC-525): See GU360

Class information: Spring 2016

Information Warfare (COSC-411)

This course will study the nature of information warfare, including computer crime and information terrorism, as it relates to national, economic, organizational, and personal security. Students will gain an understanding of the threats to information resources, including military and economic espionage, communications eavesdropping, computer break-ins, denial-of-service, destruction and modification of data, distortion and fabrication of information, forgery, control and disruption of information flow, electronic bombs, and psyops and perception management. They will learn about countermeasures, including authentication, encryption, auditing, monitoring, intrusion detection, and firewalls, and the limitations of those countermeasures. They will learn about cyberspace law and law enforcement, information warfare and the military, and intelligence in the information age. Information warfare policy and ethical issues will be examined.

This course brings in a number of guest lecturers from the military, government, industry, and academia. As such, missing a class or not reading materials before class could really impact your chances of success in the course.

There are no prerequisites for the course. However, there can be a considerable amount of readings. None require a deep computer science or policy background, but either of those or both would help.

Class information: Spring 2011

Operating Systems COSC-374 (old numbering)

This course studies the software systems that provide the interface between the computer system hardware resources and the users of the system. This interface is composed of a large collection of programs that provide simplified and uniform access to information storage (data and programs on tape, disk, and in memory), processing elements (CPUs and remote computers), input/output devices (telecommunications, keyboards, mice, video displays, printers, etc.), and data acquisition and equipment control devices. Topics include, processes and threads of execution, concurrent process synchronization, concurrent access to hardware resources, file systems, memory management and virtual memory, job scheduling, system modeling and performance evaluation, network communication and protocols, and computer and network security. A variety of example operating systems of different types will be examined and their characteristics compared. Prerequisites: COSC-173 and COSC 251. Spring.

Prerequisites A note on the prerequisites: I am assuming you really did take COSC 250 and 251 and have some clue about how computers operate. Likewise, I am assuming you can navigate basic data structures and can program in C or C++. There will be at least three, not-insignificant programing projects over the course of the semester.