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2023 Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) - Containment Architecture: Protecting Systems by Keeping the Bad Stuff Inside
The College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) is a unique opportunity for college of engineering undergraduate students to engage in hands-on research with a faculty mentor while using critical thinking, collaborative, and entrepreneurial skills. SURP is an 8-week long program (can be non-contiguous), and students are expected to spend at least 20 hours/week working on their research projects and additional time preparing and presenting their poster for the annual SURP symposium; SURP students and their faculty mentor will agree upon a start date and timeline for their research project (with a suggested start date of June 26th, 2023). The goals of SURP are to:
- Help Cal Poly Engineering students develop professionally and enhance their portfolios for future employment.
- Give opportunities for CENG faculty (including lecturers) to advance their research/project agendas over the summer quarter.
- Build lasting student-faculty mentoring relationships
- Provide opportunities for industrial and other external sponsors to work with Cal Poly faculty and students to advance connections, gain access to Cal Poly talent and capabilities, and engage in valuable collaborative activities.
Our Summer 2023 SURP will support over 30 projects (with some projects taking 2 students) for 39 students. You can apply to up to 3 projects on MustangJobs (each project has its own job posting). You need not be in the same department as the faculty advisor to apply to a given project.
Each SURP student participant will receive a CENG Summer Research Grant of $3,500.
Please note that the grant amount is fixed, and additional funding is not available. This grant will be disbursed through the Financial Aid Office toward the end of the summer. Preference will be given to students who have not yet participated in SURP.
This Project
Project Title: Containment Architecture: Protecting Systems by Keeping the Bad Stuff Inside
Faculty Advisor: Stephen Beard
Faculty Email: srbeard@calpoly.edu
Faculty Department: CSSE/CPE
Number of Students for this project: 1
Trusted systems require the faithful execution of secure software by secure hardware. Today’s systems have neither. Essentially all software contains bugs that attackers can find and exploit. The complexity of hardware, combined with the large attack surface presented in its development, manufacturing, and deployment processes make it nearly impossible to secure every component. Containment Architectures reject any output produced by a contained system that does not match the output that would have been produced by a secure and correct system. They do this without relying upon the existence of a secure and correct system to use as a reference. Instead, trust comes from a small, simple, efficient, and trusted hardware element, called the Sentry, that must be convinced that the computation is safe, secure, and correct before allowing output to leave the container. This holistic system-based approach has the potential to guarantee the correctness of communication from a system without major impacts to its performance. There are still many open areas that deserve further investigation in this area, including exploration of programs and systems that can most utilize Containment Architectures; implementation of simulators; implementation of hardware components in FPGAs; and proofs of correctness. A SURP project could explore a number of areas, depending upon student interest. Students with an interest in computer architecture, software toolchains, proof systems, or security would likely find this project most suited to them.
HOW TO APPLY:
PLEASE SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING TWO DOCUMENTS VIA HANDSHAKE AND SEE RUBRIC BELOW FOR EVALUATION CRITERIA. YOU CAN APPLY TO UP TO THREE SURP PROJECTS, BUT CAN ONLY BE AWARDED ONE.
- Submit your resume
- Submit a cover letter that answers the following three questions:
- Describe why you are interested in this research project.
- Describe how participating in SURP and working on this research project, will help you advance your academic and professional development goals
- Describe how your past experiences have helped prepare you for your participation in SURP. This includes relevant academic, other formal, and informal preparation.
INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS COULD DISQUALIFY YOU FROM FURTHER CONSIDERATION.
Note that applications are due April 30; selected students will be notified by no later than May 12.