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    **CSE 291-Y: Building Secure Systems with Rust**
          [*Deian Stefan*](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~dstefan/)

About
==============================================================

This course will explore how using a language like Rust with a powerful type 
system and strong safety guarantees affects the design of secure systems. Do the 
safety guarantees provided by Rust (e.g., memory safety) make it easier 
to provide stronger guarantees using techniques like verification? What classes 
of vulnerabilities can we completely eliminate by cleverly taking advantage of Rust's 
type system? Where and how do Rust's safety guarantees break down when applied 
to low-level systems code? To (start to) answer these questions, students will read
and discuss recent research papers in the field and conduct a relevant 
quarter-long research project in small groups. 

Lectures:
: Monday and Wednesday 5:00 - 6:20pm, Warren Hall 2207

Staff:
: **Instructor**: Deian Stefan
: **TA**: Vivien Rindisbacher

Office hours:
: **Deian**: Mondays 4:00 - 5:00pm
: **Vivien**: TBA

Calendar and Readings
==============================================================

Mon Sep 28 2026: Introduction
  - [*Slides*](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jcqrNQ-VHMS-sNvfiaF1Ghej96LPdemsnvjC8-wG8r0/edit?usp=sharing)
  - *Reading*: 
    - [The Rise of Worse is Better](https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html) by Richard Gabriel
  - *Optional reading*:
    - ["What next?"](https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/253769.html) by Graydon Hoare

Wed Sep 30 2026: The early days
  - *Reading*: 
    - [Engineering the Servo Web Browser Engine using Rust](./papers/servo.pdf) by Brian Anderson et al.
    - [Region-based memory management in Cyclone](https://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/150BUGS/cyclone-2002.pdf) by Dan Grossman et al.
    - [The Rust I Wanted Had No Future](https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/307291.html) by Graydon Hoare
  - *Optional reading*:
    - [Some of the Cyclone papers](https://cyclone.thelanguage.org/wiki/Papers/)
    - [Rust book chapter 4: Ownership](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch04-00-understanding-ownership.html)

Mon Oct 5 2026: Safe and Unsafe Rust
  - *Reading*:
    - [Rustnomicon chapter 1: Safe & Unsafe](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/meet-safe-and-unsafe.html) 
    - [How do programmers use unsafe rust?](./papers/unsafe_rust.pdf) by Vytautas Astrauskas et al.
  - *Optional reading*:
    - [Two Kinds of Invariants: Safety and Validity](https://www.ralfj.de/blog/2018/08/22/two-kinds-of-invariants.html)
    - [Unsafe Rust and Miri](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svR0p6fSUYY&t=213s)

Wed Oct 7 2026: Operating Systems
  - *Reading*:
    - [TickTock: Verified Isolation in a Production Embedded OS](https://ranjitjhala.github.io/static/sosp25-ticktock.pdf) by Vivien Rindisbacher et al.
  - *Optional reading*:
    - [Flux: Liquid Types for Rust](./papers/flux.pdf)

Mon Oct 12 2026: Operating Systems
  - *Reading*:
    - [Theseus: an Experiment in Operating System Structure and State Management](https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi20/presentation/boos) by Kevin Boos et al.

Wed Oct 14 2026: Operating Systems
  - *Reading*:
    - [Beyond isolation: OS verification as a foundation for correct applications](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3593856.3595899) by Matthias Brun, et al.

Mon Oct 19 2026: Operating Systems
  - *Reading*:
    - [Atmosphere: Practical Verified Kernels with Rust and Verus](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3731569.3764821) by Xiangdong Chen, et al.

Wed Oct 21 2026: Tock, continued...
  - *Reading*:
    - [Tock: From Research To Securing 10 Million Computers](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3731569.3764828) by Leon Schuermann, et al.

Mon Oct 26 2026: Web Assembly
 - *Reading*:
    - [WaVe: a verifiably secure WebAssembly sandboxing runtime](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~dstefan/pubs/johnson:2023:wave.pdf) by Evan Johnson et al.

Wed Oct 28 2026: Confidential VMs
  - *Reading*:
    - [VERISMO: A Verified Security Module for Confidential VMs](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/osdi24-zhou.pdf) by Ziqiao Zhou et al.

Mon Nov 2 2026: The Cloud
 - *Reading*:
    - [Firecracker: Lightweight Virtualization for Serverless Applications](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/nsdi20-paper-agache.pdf) by Alexandru Agache et al.

Wed Nov 4 2026: The Cloud (continued)
 - *Reading*:
    - [Unlocking True Elasticity for the Cloud-Native Era with Dandelion](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3731569.3764803)

Mon Nov 9 2026: Unikernels (i.e., more cloud)
 - *Reading*:
   - [Unikernels: library operating systems for the cloud](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2490301.2451167) by Anil Madhavapeddy, et al.

Wed Nov 11 2026: FFI
  - *Reading*:
    - [Building Bridges: Safe Interactions with Foreign Languages through Omniglot](https://patpannuto.com/pubs/schuermann2025omniglot.pdf) by Leon Schuermann, et al.
  - *Optional reading*:
    - [Rustnomicon chapter 11: FFI](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/ffi.html)

Mon Nov 16 2026: FFI (continued)
  - *Reading*:
    - [Building Bridges: Safe Interactions with Foreign Languages through Omniglot](https://patpannuto.com/pubs/schuermann2025omniglot.pdf) by Leon Schuermann, et al.
    - [A Study of Undefined Behavior across Foreign Function Boundaries in Rust Libraries](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE55347.2025.00167) by Ian McCormack, et al.


Wed Nov 18 2026: Embedded (guest: Evan Johnson)
  - *Reading*:
    - [Rust for Embedded Systems: Current State and Open Problems](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3658644.3690275) by Ayushi Sharma et al.

Mon Nov 23 2026: FFI (and Miri)
  - *Reading*:
    - [Tree Borrows](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3735592) by Neven Villani et al.
    - [A Study of Undefined Behavior across Foreign Function Boundaries in Rust Libraries](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE55347.2025.00167) by Ian McCormack, et al.

<!-- Wed Nov 25 2026:  off -->

<!-- Wed Nov 25 2026: Fearless Concurrency?
 - *Reading*:
    - [When is parallelism fearless and zero-cost with Rust?](./papers/parallelism.pdf) by Javad Abdi et al. -->

Mon Nov 30 2026: Fearless Concurrency?
  - *Reading*:
    - [When is parallelism fearless and zero-cost with Rust?](./papers/parallelism.pdf) by Javad Abdi et al.

Wed Dec 2 2026: Rust in Space
  - *Reading*:
    - [Bringing Rust to safety-critical systems in space](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10592287) by Lukas Seidel et al.
    - [Programming Language Evaluation Criteria for Safety-Critical Software in the Air Domain](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9985123#page=5.09) by Rob Ashmore et al.

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