[HN Gopher] Computer Systems Security 6.566 / Spring 2024
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       Computer Systems Security 6.566 / Spring 2024
        
       Author : barishnamazov
       Score  : 114 points
       Date   : 2026-01-18 00:09 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (css.csail.mit.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (css.csail.mit.edu)
        
       | tptacek wrote:
       | It's a fun class; worth keeping in mind that several topics with
       | 1-2 units here are whole specializations in the field, including:
       | 
       | * memory safety and exploitation (the "buffer overflow" section
       | is about 20 years out of date, though super appropriate for a
       | first course)
       | 
       | * the WebPKI/certificates thing
       | 
       | * messaging security and messaging cryptosystems,
       | 
       | * microarchitectural security and hardware side channels.
       | 
       | Multiple _full courses_ on each of these subjects would bring you
       | up to  "practitioner" levels of expertise.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Considering an undergraduate course is about 3-4 months in
         | duration, there's only so much it can cover in any depth. Even
         | the most rigorous are still pretty shallow compared to what
         | someone with years of work in the field would know.
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | Of course! It's a survey course. But you could probably get
           | somewhere significant in a rigorous 3-month course on memory
           | corruption.
        
             | chc4 wrote:
             | RPISEC's Modern Binary Exploitation is somewhat famous for
             | doing exactly that!
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | More people interested in security should know about RPI.
               | :)
        
       | bikeshaving wrote:
       | Seeing this makes me miss the salad days of MOOCs. I learned
       | programming in the 2010s through MIT's EDX Introduction to
       | Programming course, and then a course on Coursera by Martin
       | Odersky on Functional Programming through EPFL, and I feel like
       | that ladder has been kicked away due to MOOC monetization
       | policies. I wonder if we could return to these days.
        
         | Obscurity4340 wrote:
         | Dont many of them end up as Youtube playlists anyways?
        
           | TZubiri wrote:
           | Yeah, there were 2 golden ages:
           | 
           | 1- When this internet thing came out
           | 
           | 2- When this covid thing came out
           | 
           | On the first era, here's a Java lecture from Stanford, if
           | it's too basic for you, it still has historical value, iirc
           | it's something like Java 6. And it also reinforces the
           | basics.
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkMDCCdjyW8&list=PLA70DBE71B.
           | ..
           | 
           | It's a bit harder to follow along with online materials since
           | you have to use the Internet Archive, and download older
           | compilers or use options to target older versions, but it's
           | all the more fun for it.
        
         | g947o wrote:
         | I took the EPFL course as well, although did not finish it. As
         | someone who only had experience working with imperative
         | programming and OOP stuff, it blew my mind -- I never knew you
         | could write code like this. The course was great but a bit too
         | fast for me at the time (part of the reason I did not complete
         | it).
        
       | jrflowers wrote:
       | I like that the MIT CSAIL CSS website
       | (https://css.csail.mit.edu/) has a link to a Russian online
       | gambling site due to what I'm assuming is a typo (click on the
       | Foundations of Cryptography class)
        
         | barishnamazov wrote:
         | Likely it was an expired domain. I have seen this trend happen
         | quite a bit with semi-popular domains, e.g., International
         | Olympiad in Informatics 2019 official website, ioi2019.az
        
           | jrflowers wrote:
           | The domain was created two months ago.
           | 
           | https://whois.domaintools.com/mit6875.org
        
           | rediguanayum wrote:
           | Presumably for SEO tactic of the gambling site?
        
       | ethical wrote:
       | What they don't tell you. Everyone in the company will hate you,
       | no one will fix the bugs you find, HR will want to sack you for
       | fun, and the execs are all psycho's. Find a better career, like
       | watching paint dry, or become a monk. Its fun, but not worth it.
       | People are twats.
        
         | blazex344 wrote:
         | Sucks being a cost center. I've come to realize that a lot of
         | what makes security fun for me still boils down to engineering
         | problems that isn't only found in security teams.
        
           | tgv wrote:
           | Cost center... now there's a frame. It's nothing but ignorant
           | or malicious bean counter talk.
        
         | markus_zhang wrote:
         | Or just go to the dark side if you are good enough /s
         | 
         | I kinda think the dark side is now pretty competitive, though.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-18 23:01 UTC)