A project at LASEC

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This guideline explains the steps a student needs to take in order to receive a project from LASEC, and expected outcome from the student.

TL;DR

The goal of a project is not to teach the basics of crypto to students, as the 8-credit COM-401 course already serves for this purpose. We rather hope to deepen the student's knowledge in crypto beyond what is taught in COM-401 and COM-501, and introduce him/her to the fresh research problems. The requirements of projects are clearly specified on the available projects' page.

Choosing a subject, Enrolling for a project

Finding a suitable project for a student is not easy task for the student. It is mostly a matter of knowing what the project requires and whether the student's background fulfills them.

Suppose Alice wants to take a project, here is how getting involved in a project typically goes:

1. Alice reads this guideline, and then checks the pool of projects. Alice finds the project X (or couple of projects) interesting, so using the given references she reads a little bit about the problem.
2. Alice sends an email to the project contact person, mentioning her background and her interest in the project X.
3. The supervisor sets up a meeting to have a face-to-face discussion with Alice. He explains her more details about the project X, as well as how doing a project in LASEC goes, and what are the general expectations. He also confirms whether Alice is suitable for the project X.
4. Alice takes a couple of days to think whether she actually wants to take the project X. Usually she exchanges couple of emails to ask further details etc.
5. Alice signs up for the project course on IS Academia, and chooses Prof. Vaudenay as the supervisor. She also sends final confirmation to both the project administrator and the supervisor.

Tools/Room Availability

On demand, LASEC allocates desks to students in the room INF 220 for their studies throughout the semester.

The key to INF 220 can be obtained from Ms. Sylvie Buchard (LASEC secretary - INF 237) and must be returned soon after the presentation day at the end of the semester.

Supervision

Each project is supervised by a supervisor clearly identified at the start of the project. The function of the supervisor is to help students by following the progress of the project work and making sure students do not get stuck on particular aspects of the topic by giving them advice and directions. Students are strongly encouraged to see their supervisor on a weekly basis.
It is important to point out that a student who is in difficulties during his project and who will not be able to achieve the required work, must react as soon as possible and ask to his supervisor to reframe the project.

Implementation

If the project involves implementations, then the source code must be thoroughly commented. One must keep in mind that all code written may be re-used or modified at a later date for a different purpose. Code written by the students must be clearly identifiable from code coming from another source.

Submitted documents

Documents which must be submitted to Laurane Marco (and ideally your supervisor) on the day of the report deadline:

• One PDF copy of the report.

Documents which must be provided to Laurane Marco the day of the oral presentation at the latest:

• Files needed for the installation, compilation and execution of the program.
• Report source file (LaTeX)
• Report printable file (PDF)
• Presentation source file (LaTeX, PPT, etc.)
• Presentation printable file (PDF)
• Markdown file written in English and using this template: abstract.md

Electronic copies of documents should be sent to Laurane Marco by email (feel free to use a file transfer service if too large).

Report

Format

The project report must be word processed, written in English. Students may use the word processor of their choice but they are encouraged to use LaTeX.

The report must be bound and must comprise of a title page giving the following information:

• name and affiliation of the student(s),
• name of the supervisor,
• name of the responsible (Prof. Serge Vaudenay),
• title of your project,
• type of project (Semester Project, Diploma Work, Graduate School Project, Internship),
• EPFL and LASEC logos.

Please use the following cover for your report LaTeX templates file.

Content

The report must contain (this list is an indication only and is by no means complete):

• Aims and goals of the project.
• Analysis of the methodology and tools utilized in order to reach the goals.
• Problems that arose and solutions implemented to solve them.
• Strategical choices undertaken during implementation.
• Results.
• Theoretical and practical limitations of the project and its implementation.
• Future work.
• Theoretical and practical knowledge gained through the project.
• Step-by-step guide to installation and running of the end product.

Oral presentation

The oral presentation duration is roughly 30 minutes: it comprises of a presentation part of roughly 20 minutes, and 10 minutes of questions. The jury is the members from LASEC, i.e. the PhD students, postdocs etc. Students are encouraged to attend presentations from their fellow students.

If the project is shared between several students then they should all commit to play an equal part in the oral presentation.

A video projector is available, but a laptop is not supplied.

Extensions for the submission of documents or the oral presentation will only be given under exceptional circumstances, according to EPFL guidelines.

Evaluation

Project evaluations will take place at the end of the semester, generally the week following the 14th project week. Students will be informed of the exact day a few days before.

A unique mark will be assigned to each project. It is therefore important that the workload is distributed evenly between students working on the same project.

Here is the semantic for the grades:

6.0    perfect 5.5 very good, could have been better to be perfect 5.0 good, all milestones completed 4.5 acceptable, but missing results 4.0 minimally acceptable 3.5 insufficient 3.0 output with too many mistakes 2.5 severe mistakes 2.0 did not understand anything 1.5 outrageously bad 1.0 was present at the defense, did not work at all 0.0 did not show up

This evaluation takes into consideration the work carried out, documents submitted on completion of the project and the oral presentation. The following list summaries the criteria taking into account for project evaluation.

Work carried out.

• Subject knowledge (theoretical, computing and experimental knowledge).
• Starting expertise versus final expertise.
• Results obtained versus results expected.
• Work methodology (autonomy, efficiency, ability to criticize, etc.)

Documents submitted.

• Report: ability to synthesize, clarity, completeness, discussion of results, document format, etc.
• Markdown page: ability to synthesize, quality of expression, conformity to the imposed format.
• Source code : Care taken during implementation.

Oral examination.

• Oral abilities: clarity, ability to synthesize, elocution, presence, etc.
• Ability to distance oneself from the plan drawn for the report.
• Quality of the overheads.
• Preciseness of the answers to questions asked.
• Ability to demonstrate work achieved and personal thinking.
• Quality of the work demonstrated : clarity, fluidity, originality.

Motivations

Doing a project at LASEC allows to gain knowledge and competence in the field of security and/or cryptography which can be very valuable to the eyes of a potential employer.

Also, excellent projects may be cited or be part of a publication - scientific or not - or even give rise to a publication dedicated solely to the project if it is justified from an innovation point of view.