Course Overview
Course Description
Content
This course will cover topics in 3 different areas of computer
science research. The heaviest will be on differential
privacy, which is a rigorous approach for making data available
and useful, while still maintaining privacy for the individual
data contributors. We will then look at anonymity, which
the aim of understanding how users might interact with online
data, without unwittingly sacrificing their own information.
Finally, we will take a brief look at fairness in algorithms,
to gain a deeper appreciation of why privacy is so important.
Objectives
Students will learn how to carefully read and present technical
papers. They will learn how to think rigorously about
privacy, and will gain a technical understanding of the inherent
tradeoff that is faced when providing and using data.
Course Requirements
The course is heavily focused on reading, discussing and
presenting of research papers. There will be a reading assignment
each week. Students are expected to summarize each reading
assignment, to post some questions about each reading, and to
answer each other's questions on the Piazza discussion board.
Additionally, each student will be assigned to present twice during
the semester. In the week that they are presenting, they will be
expected to lead the discussion from the white board, presenting the
details of technical claims and proofs.
Grading
Presentation:
50%
Paper summaries: 25%
Online discussion: 25%
Presentation Requirements
Your responsibility as presenter is to help the class
understand the main technical claims of the paper, and
their proofs. On the
one hand, this does not necessarily mean you have to cover
every single Lemma along the way: it is OK to ask us to
accept certain things without proof. On the other hand,
this does mean you may need to step back and provide some
background. It is up to you to determine what
background material might be necessary to include in your
presentation! It is quite likely you will
want to do some related reading, and possibly present some
prior work.
I suggest the following plan for preparing your
presentation, though it is not required.
- Read the paper through 2 weeks before
you present.
- Post technical questions to Piazza
ahead of time. I will try to help answer your
questions, and other students might be able to help as
well.
- Create a plan of what you will present
and show it to me a few days before class.
Tentative Schedule