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TDDE61 Ethical hacking

Seminar

Overview

Working with offensive cybersecurity has many ethical aspects that need to be well understood by those working in this area. The purpose of this part of the course is to discuss some of these aspects in a seminar form. Each student participates in one seminar together with 5-6 other students. Before the seminar, each student writes a 1-2 page reflection about some relevant topic which is shared with the rest of the group. For each reflection one opponent is assigned. To complete this assignment the following steps need to be taken:

  1. Register in one of the seminar groups in webreg. Note the time and date of the seminar you have selected. Deadline: 2024-01-31
  2. Select a topic from the list below and indicate your choice in the shared excel-file in Teams. Deadline: 5 days before the seminar
  3. Write a 1-2 page reflection and upload it in the teams folder that correspond to your seminar group (more details below) Deadline: 3 days before the seminar
  4. Read all the reflections from the other members of your seminar group. Deadline: 1 day before the seminar
  5. Prepare a short opposition (more details below) for the reflection that you are the assigned opponent. Deadline: 1 day before the seminar
  6. Attend the seminar, present your reflection, oppose on one reflection and engage in active discussions on the other topics

Topics

We have prepared a set of topics where there are interesting and relevant ethical aspects to reflect upon and discuss. You should select one of these topics and indicate your choice as indicated in the list above. Note that a topic can only be chosen by one student per seminar group. You select your choice in this Excel document in Teams. The selection will be according to a first-come-first-served policy. The current topics available to select are:

If you would like to propose an additional topic, you can do so by sending an email to mikael.asplund@liu.se. For an additional topic to be included, it should meet the following criteria:

  1. It must be related to some concrete event that has occurred (i.e., a generic topic is not sufficient).
  2. There must be public information available about the event(s).
  3. It must be connected to cybersecurity and have at least some relation to offensive security.
  4. There must be some relevant ethical dimension (e.g., a dilemma, or other illustration of different ethical systems).

Written reflection

Once you have selected the topic, you should write a reflection on applied ethical aspects. Once you are finished, you should submit your report by uploading it to the teams folder for your seminar group. The requirements on the reflection are as follows:

  1. The reflection must be at least 1 and at most 2 pages.
  2. The reflection should be written in Latex using this template. The easiest way to do this is to copy this Overleaf document. Instructions on how to copy a project in Overlaf.
  3. You are not allowed to change any formatting such as font size, margin sizes or line spacing.
  4. You are allowed to use generative AI to produce parts of the text, however, in that case you must clearly describe how AI was used and for which parts (e.g., improving grammar, creating structure, etc).
  5. The reflection should be grounded in one or more ethical theories (e.g., utilitarianism, deontology, etc).

Opposition

During the seminar you will act as an opponent to another student. The opposition will be done orally and should not take more than 3-4minutes. The focus of the opposition should be to ask questions to the presenter that challenge the presented viewpoint and allow for a continued discussion in the entire group. Selection of opponent will be announced later.

Seminar

During the seminar, each student will present their reflection to the others for around 5 minutes. The opponent will then engage in a discussion with the presenter on some pre-prepared questions. Finally, the rest of the group will discuss. The total time for each student will be 10-15 minutes (depending on the number of participants).

Passing requirements

To pass, all the steps above must be taken. If the assistant determines that a student has failed to prepare sufficiently, or otherwise has not fulfilled the requirements (e.g., not met the requirements on the written reflection), an additional reflection assignment will be given.

Page responsible: Mikael Asplund
Last updated: 2024-01-31