Topics in Secure Communication

COMP 790-188 - Spring 2026

January
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
05	06	07	08 Course overview	09
12	13 Foundations Readings The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (Review optional/extra credit)	14	15 Reading & presenting papers Readings Cybersecurity is not very important (Review optional/extra credit)	16
19	20 Key transparency Readings CONIKS Related iMessage Contact Key Verification	21	22 Key transparency Readings SEEMless Related Proton Mail key transparency	23
26	27 Key transparency Readings Merkle^2	28	29 Key transparency Readings Parakeet Related Deploying key transparency at WhatsApp	30

February
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
02	03 Key transparency Readings OPTIKS	04	05 Key transparency Readings VeRSA	06
09	10 Hiding metadata Readings Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms The Dining Cryptographers Problem	11	12 Hiding metadata Readings Tor	13
16	17 Hiding metadata Readings Dissent	18	19 Hiding metadata Readings Distributed Point Functions and their Applications	20
23	24 Course project proposals	25	26 Course project proposals	27

March
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
02	03 Hiding metadata Readings Riposte	04	05 Hiding metadata Readings Express	06
09	10 Hiding metadata Readings Vuvuzela	11	12 Content moderation Readings SoK: Content Moderation for End-to-End Encryption	13
16	17 Spring Break (No Class)	18	19 Spring Break (No Class)	20
23	24 Content moderation Readings Messenger E2EE whitepaper (pp. 18-19) Message Franking via Committing Authenticated Encryption	25	26 Content moderation Readings ALPACA	27
30	31 Content moderation Readings Why India wants to track WhatsApp messages What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it? Traceback for End-to-End Encrypted Messaging

April
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
		01	02 Well-being Day (No Class)	03
06	07 Content moderation Readings Zombie: Middleboxes that Don’t Snoop	08	09 Content moderation Readings Pretzel: Email encryption and provider-supplied functions are compatible	10
13	14 Content moderation Readings Apple CSAM detection Apple Kills Its Plan to Scan Your Photos for CSAM. Here’s What’s Next Public Verification for Private Hash Matching	15	16 Final presentations	17
20	21 Final presentations	22	23 Final presentations	24