4003-482-01/4005-705-01 Cryptography
Course Grading and Policies

Grading
Grade Notification
Required Reading
Team Projects
Take-Home Quizzes
Final Exam
Extensions
Email Rules
Plagiarism

Undergraduate (4003-482-01) 4%   Team project proposal 20%   Team project deliverables 8%   First team project presentation 8%   Second team project presentation 10%   Take-Home Quiz 1 10%   Take-Home Quiz 2 10%   Take-Home Quiz 3 10%   Take-Home Quiz 4 20%   Final Exam

Graduate (4005-705-01) 4%   Team project proposal 24%   Team project deliverables 10%   First team project presentation 10%   Second team project presentation 8%   Take-Home Quiz 1 8%   Take-Home Quiz 2 8%   Take-Home Quiz 3 8%   Take-Home Quiz 4 20%   Final Exam

I will not hand out letter grades during the course, just points. Your final grade will be determined by the total points you earn, weighted as shown above, and converted to a letter using this scale:

Undergraduate (4003-482-01) 90%  ≤  A  ≤  100% 80%  ≤  B  <  90% 70%  ≤  C  <  80% 60%  ≤  D  <  70% 0%  ≤  F  <  60%

Graduate (4005-705-01) 90%  ≤  A  ≤  100% 80%  ≤  B  <  90% 70%  ≤  C  <  80% 60%  ≤  D  <  70% 0%  ≤  F  <  60%

For the actual formulas used to calculate grades, see the Undergraduate Grade Calculator or the Graduate Grade Calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Q: Will you curve the grading scales based on class performance?
   A: No.
2. Q: If my final score comes in a fraction of a point below the cutoff, will you give me the higher grade?
   A: No.
3. Q: Can I do extra work to increase my grade?
   A: No.
4. Q: I will lose my scholarship if I don't get a grade of ___. Won't you give me a grade of ___?
   A: No.
5. Q: I will lose my visa and have to leave the country if I don't get a grade of ___. Won't you give me a grade of ___?
   A: No.
6. Q: I will go on academic probation or suspension if I don't get a grade of ___. Won't you give me a grade of ___?
   A: No.
7. Q: I will not be able to graduate when I planned if I don't get a grade of ___. Won't you give me a grade of ___?
   A: No.
8. Q: My GPA will be too low for me to find a good co-op if I don't get a grade of ___. Won't you give me a grade of ___?
   A: No.

I will record your grades for the quizzes, exams, and team projects, as well as your final letter grade, in a grade file. Each student will have his or her own grade file. Each grade file will be encrypted with a different secret key for each student. The encrypted grade files will be posted on the course web site. Since no one can decrypt the grade file without the secret key, your personal grade information remains confidential despite being posted on the web site.

To decrypt your grade file, you will have to obtain the secret key from me, in person. Come to my office, show me your student ID, and I will give you your secret key. It is your responsibility to safeguard your secret key. If anyone else discovers what your secret key is, they will be able to decrypt and examine your grade file. Treat your secret key as you would your student ID, driver's license, or credit card. If you lose your secret key or suspect someone else has discovered it, see me, in person, to get a new secret key.

When I have finished grading each assignment, I will post an announcement on the What's New page that the grades are available.

For further information, see Encrypted Grades.

Discussing your grades: If you have questions about or want to discuss your grades, you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not answer questions about or discuss your grades via email.

The required textbook is Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl, Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook for Students and Practitioners (Springer-Verlag, 2010). A free online version is available from the SpringerLink database via the RIT Wallace Library web site.

You are responsible for learning, and will be tested on, the textbook chapters listed in the Course Schedule as well as Structural Attacks on Block Ciphers. While I may not cover all the required reading material in class, you are nonetheless responsible for knowing it.

The team project proposal will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The proposal will be graded pass/fail. If you submit the proposal on time, you will get full credit, otherwise you will get zero credit. The proposal will be posted on the team web site.

Team project presentations will be scheduled in class as shown in the Course Schedule. The date and time for each team's presentation will be announced later.

The team project deliverables will be due at 11:59pm on the date shown in the Course Schedule. The deliverables will be posted on the team web site.

Help with your project: I am willing to help you design or debug your project. However, for help with design or debugging issues you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not help you with design or debugging issues via email.

Absences: If you are absent from class when one of your team presentations is scheduled, you will receive a grade of zero for the presentation unless before the start of the class when the presentation is scheduled you make an alternate arrangement with me. I am normally willing to permit this only for absences due to illness or unforeseen personal emergency. However, if you feel you have a valid reason for your absence, please discuss it with me. Appointments, job interviews, career fairs, vacations, trips home, and other scheduled activities are not valid excuses for absence. You have an obligation to this course, and you must schedule other activities so as not to interfere with class sessions.

Late team project deliverables: I will not accept late team project deliverables unless you arrange with me for an extension. See below for my policy on extensions. Late team project deliverables will receive a grade of zero.

Plagiarism: The team project must be entirely the team's own work. I will not tolerate plagiarism. See below for my policy on plagiarism.

There will be four take-home quizzes. The take-home quizzes will be assigned on the dates shown in the Course Schedule. The take-home quizzes will be due at 11:59pm on the dates shown in the Course Schedule. The quizzes will be submitted via email. The date/time at which your email message arrives in my inbox will determine whether the quiz meets the deadline. Details of each quiz, including submission requirements, will be provided when the quizzes are assigned.

The quizzes will cover material from the textbook chapters (see the Course Schedule) as follows:

• Take-Home Quiz 1 -- Chapters 1, 2, 3
• Take-Home Quiz 2 -- Chapters 4, 5, and Structural Attacks on Block Ciphers
• Take-Home Quiz 3 -- Chapters 11, 12, 6
• Take-Home Quiz 4 -- Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10

The quizzes may involve writing small programs to help answer the questions. The choice of programming language is up to you.

Help with your quizzes: I am willing to help you design or debug any programs you may write to answer the take-home quiz questions. However, for help with design or debugging issues you must come see me in person. Either visit me during office hours or make an appointment. I will not help you with design or debugging issues via email. If it's the evening of the quiz deadline and I have gone home, you are on your own. Plan and work ahead so there will be plenty of time for me to help you if necessary.

I will answer general questions about the take-home quizzes via email, such as requests to clarify or interpret the quiz questions.

Late quizzes: I will not accept a late quiz submission unless you arrange with me for an extension. See below for my policy on extensions. Late quizzes will receive a grade of zero.

Plagiarism: Each quiz must be entirely your own work. I will not tolerate plagiarism. See below for my policy on plagiarism.

There will be a two-hour final exam during the Institute examination period, at the date and time shown on the Course Schedule. The final exam will be open book, open notes, open laptops, open tablets, open smartphones. The final exam will cover material from the entire course. The final exam will involve numerical calculations; be sure to bring a calculator.

I will not hand back the final exam. To see how you did on the final exam, you may visit me in my office.

Absences: If you are absent from the final exam, your final exam will receive a grade of zero unless before the start of the final exam you arrange with me to take the final exam at another time. I am normally willing to permit this only for absences due to illness or unforeseen personal emergency. However, if you feel you have a valid reason for your absence, please discuss it with me. Appointments, job interviews, career fairs, vacations, trips home, and other scheduled activities are not valid excuses for absence. You have an obligation to this course, and you must schedule other activities so as not to interfere with the final exam.

Scheduling conflicts: If you have a final exam scheduling conflict, please refer to the RIT Institute Policies and Procedures Manual, Section D11.0, "Final Examination Policies." You must submit a written request for rescheduling to the head of your home department, with a copy to your instructor, by the last day of the 6th week of classes.

The rules for extensions are:

1. You may request an extension for each take-home quiz and for the team project deliverables. You may not request an extension for the team project proposal.

2. You may request only one extension for each assignment.

3. The first date on which you may request an extension is three days before the deadline date. You may not request an extension before that.

4. The last date on which you may request an extension is the deadline date. You may not request an extension after that.

5. The length of the extension depends solely on when you request the extension, as follows:

   If you request an extension:	You will receive an extension of:
   3 days before the deadline date	3 days
   2 days before the deadline date	2 days
   1 day before the deadline date	1 day
   On the deadline date	1 day

6. You do not have to give a reason for requesting an extension.

7. To request an extension, send me an email message at ark­@­cs.rit.edu. The date on which your email message arrives in my inbox determines the length of the extension as stated in the above table. I will send you an acknowledgment in a reply email message.

   When asking for an extension, I would appreciate some basic courtesy. Too many students send me a rude message like "I need an extension." The polite way to ask for an extension is, "May I please have an extension for Quiz 1?"

The intent of this policy is not to give everyone an automatic 3-day extension for every assignment. The intent of this policy is to accommodate students who plan and work ahead on the assignments but experience an unforeseen last-minute difficulty, and to penalize students who do not plan and work ahead. If you put off working on an assignment and get sick or suffer a computer breakdown at the last minute, I am not going to give you more time than stated above. You should have been working ahead so you would have been finished before the last minute.

If you receive an extension for an assignment and the extended deadline falls after the last day of classes, then at my discretion I may assign you a grade of Incomplete (I) for the course. The Incomplete grade will be changed after you have submitted the assignment and I have evaluated it.

My email address is ark­@­cs.rit.edu. To deter spambots, the email address is obfuscated. If you copy and paste my email address from this web site, it will not work. If you type in my email address by hand, it will work.

I apply spam filtering on incoming email. To get your email past my spam filters and into my inbox:

• Your email must be in plain text format (not HTML format).

• Your email must not include any attached files other than JAR or PDF files for submitting the assignments. (Note that items such as vCards and graphic backgrounds are sent as file attachments.)

• Your email must not mention any spam-related content (pharmaceuticals, mortgages, pornography, anatomy enhancement, etc.) or spam-related web addresses.

I reply in a timely manner to all emails that get past my spam filters and into my inbox. Emails blocked by my spam filters go into a separate spam folder. I do not reply in a timely manner to emails in my spam folder.

It is your responsibility to format your emails so that they get past my spam filters. This includes assignment submissions and extension requests as well as general questions. If I have not responded to your email within one business day (i.e. not counting weekends), contact me again.

For further information, see "Contacting Me."

You may use any resources you wish to do the assignments, including resources discussed in class and resources you find on your own. You may discuss the assignments at a general level with others in the class. However, each assignment you turn in must be entirely your own work. You are not allowed to collaborate with anyone else on any assignment. You are not allowed to use any current student's work, past student's work, or any other person's work in any way when working on your assignments.

I will not tolerate plagiarism. If in my judgment an assignment is not entirely your own work, you will receive, as a minimum, a grade of zero for the assignment. Plagiarism incidents will result in disciplinary action in accordance with Computer Science Department policy and RIT policy. I expect you to read and abide by the following policies:

• RIT Honor Code
• RIT Academic Honesty Policy
• Department of Computer Science Policy on Academic Integrity

These are some examples of plagiarism. These are not the only examples of plagiarism.

1. Copying a piece of code you found on the Internet into your assignment.

2. Copying a piece of code you found on the Internet into your assignment, and including a citation to the original source.

3. Copying a piece of code you found on the Internet into your assignment, with modifications.

4. Copying a piece of code you found on the Internet into your assignment, with modifications, and including a citation to the original source.

5. Copying a piece of code written by someone else into your assignment.

6. Copying a piece of code written by someone else into your assignment, and including a citation to the original source.

7. Copying a piece of code written by someone else into your assignment, with modifications.

8. Copying a piece of code written by someone else into your assignment, with modifications, and including a citation to the original source.

9. A sentence, paragraph, or section of text that is identical to or almost the same as text written somewhere else.

10. A sentence, paragraph, or section of text that is identical to or almost the same as text written somewhere else, with quotation marks.

11. A sentence, paragraph, or section of text that is identical to or almost the same as text written somewhere else, with or without quotation marks, and with a citation to the original source. (Yes, I do consider this plagiarism. It also indicates that you do not have a deep understanding of the material, since you are unable to express it in your own words.)

12. A figure or diagram written somewhere else without a citation to the original source. (It's okay to quote figures and diagrams, if cited. It's not okay to quote text.)

There are only two exceptions to the prohibition on plagiarism:

1. You may reuse without modification a source file from the Parallel Java Library or the Computer Science Course Library.
    
2. You may take a source file from the Parallel Java Library or the Computer Science Course Library and add your own modifications, provided you state that you have done so and give credit to the original author.

Team Project: For the team project, the above policies apply to the team members as a group. If you wish to use another third-party library as part of your investigation, you must obtain my permission before starting to use it.

Cryptography • 4003-482-01/4005-705-01 • Spring Quarter 2013

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Alan Kaminsky • Department of Computer Science • Rochester Institute of Technology • 4486 + 2220 = 6706

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Copyright © 2013 Alan Kaminsky. All rights reserved. Last updated 01-Mar-2013. Please send comments to ark­@­cs.rit.edu.