1COMS4507/7507 Week 13 Information on Final Exam Marius Portmann 2COMS4507/7507 Final Will be held as a centrally scheduled online non-invigilated (no ProctorU) Blackboard Test When 8 July, 4pm (I think) You must check this on your Personalised Timetable !!!! Working Time Total of 2 hours 90 minutes regular Working Time + 30 minutes extra time for potential online issues (no perusal time) Exam is Open Book For more details, have a look at the Exam Cover Sheet, which is available on Blackboard Under “Announcements” Final Exam - What is covered? What is covered All lecture content presented by Naipeng, myself and Peter Robinson (Ethereum) • Plus corresponding Required Reading All Seminars What is not covered Guest Lecture by Dr Paul Ashley Guest Lecture by Dr David Hyland-Wood 3 4Final Exam Format Total 70 Marks Rough guideline for time allocation: 1 mark ~ 1.5 min 3 Parts Part A: 10 MC Questions (20 marks) • Answer all questions (Q1 – Q10) • Questions on Lecture Content Part B: 5 Short Answer Questions (20 marks) • Answer all questions (Q11 – Q15) • Questions on Lecture Content • Mix of short answer and problem solving questions. Part C: Mix of Essay-style and short answer questions • Choose and Answer 3 questions from a pool of 4 (30 marks) • Questions on Seminar Presentations 5Final Exam – Part C Additional Rule You cannot choose a question on your own seminar topic If one of the questions is about your own seminar presentation, you have an additional question that you can choose from Everybody has equal amount of choice, i.e. pool of 4 questions to choose 3 from Example Part C questions on topics: #1, #5, #3, #7 Extra Question: #13 If you presented one of the 4 topics, you cannot choose that question, and your choice of questions would be reduced to 3 out of 3. In this case, you can add the Extra Question #13 to your pool of questions from which to choose 3 from. Final Exam Cover Sheet Blackboard Announcements 6 EXAMPLE EXAM QUESTIONS 7 Part A Multiple Choice Question Which one of the following statements regarding Bitcoin and Ethereum is correct? (choose the best answer) a) In Bitcoin, account balances are stored in the block state. b) In Bitcoin, computation and data storage on the blockchain needs to be paid for by Gas. c) Ethereum is in the process of transitioning to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. d) The cost of storing 1 KB of data on the Ethereum blockchain (permanent storage) is a fixed Dollar amount. e) None of the other statements is correct. 8 Part B Short Answer Questions Example 1) [3 marks] Explain what a Merkle Tree is, and how it is used in Bitcoin. Example 2) [3 marks] Bitcoin Proof of Work Consider the following proof of work puzzle as an alternative to the current hash-cash based approach in Bitcoin. Solving the puzzle consists of multiplying two very large integers, e.g. with thousands of digits each. Discuss pros and cons of this proof of work approach in the context of Bitcoin. This year, all Part B Questions have equal marks (4 marks) Some questions might require simple calculations, so a calculator might be handy. 9 Part C Seminar Questions - Example 1 Paper #2: DAMIANI, E., ET AL. A reputation-based approach for choosing reliable resources in peer- to-peer networks Describe what the XREP protocol presented in the paper tries to achieve, and discuss the basic mechanisms that it is using. Further discuss for what environments it can be applied and describe its limitations and vulnerabilities. Describe the relevance of the parameter K in the proposed protocol. 10 Part C Seminar Questions - Example 2 Paper #19 Aurasium: Practical Policy Enforcement for Android Applications Describe at a high level what Aurasium is, and the key goals it is trying to achieve. Describe how Aurasium interacts with the Android system and applications. Describe if and how malicious application can detect the presence of Aurasium. 11 Old Exam Papers You can also have a look at COMS4507/7507 exam papers from previous years via the UQ Library website. However Structure of this year’s exam is a bit different. Scope is also different, e.g. we did not cover things like Secret Sharing, Zero-Knowledge proofs, etc., which were covered and examined in previous years. Seminar topics are different. 12 13 Tips for Answering Part C Questions Try to be concise Don’t write a novel, don’t repeat yourself Focus on the key points Be prepared and organised Make sure you understand the basic concepts. You won’t have much time for reading entire papers during the exam, but you will have time to check some details. In general, try to be efficient, you don’t have too much time. 14 For Further Questions Consultation (via Zoom) When: 17 June (Wednesday), 1pm – 4pm • You need to book a time slot, so I can schedule a zoom meeting and send you the link. Just send me an email. • Please also email me also the list of questions you have prior to the meeting. Via Blackboard discussion forum Benefit: answers are shared 15 Any questions about the exam? Student Evaluation of Course and Teaching (SECaT) I would appreciate if you could fill in the evaluation form. Your feedback is important, especially this semester. The evaluation should be open now, and you should have received an email with the details. You can access the evaluation via: https://itali.uq.edu.au/for-students/have-your-say-secat-and-setutor-evaluations If there is a problem accessing the evaluation form, please let me know, or directly contact the evaluations section:
[email protected] 16 Thanks for your participation! Good Luck with the Exams! 17
