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Early Post-Secondary Student Performance of Adversarial Thinking

Published: 17 August 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Motivation. “Adversarial thinking” (at) is viewed as a central idea in cybersecurity. We believe a similar idea carries over into other critical areas as well, such as understanding the perils of social networks and machine learning.
Objectives. What kinds of at can we expect of early post-secondary computing students? In particular, can they meaningfully analyze computing systems that are well beyond their technical ken? Is their analysis limited to only a social or only a technical space?
Method. In an introductory post-secondary course, we study student responses to questions designed to exercise at, broadly defined. To do this we develop a rubric that provides insight into desirable content.
Results. We find that these students are fairly strong at at. They are regularly able to adopt an adversarial or empathetic viewpoint and analyze quite sophisticated systems. Most of all, they can meaningfully do so (a) outside an explicit cybersecurity context, (b) even from an introductory level, and (c) well before they understand well the key technologies under evaluation.
On the other hand, we also find several instances where students do not explore systems as much as they could, and fail to reference other material they know, which could be evidence of lack of transfer. In addition, our rubric would benefit from refinement that would enable a more sophisticated analysis of student responses.
Discussion. Our work provides a baseline evaluation of what we can expect from students. It suggests that at can be introduced early in the curriculum, and in contexts outside computer security.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ICER 2021: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research
    August 2021
    451 pages
    ISBN:9781450383264
    DOI:10.1145/3446871
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    Published: 17 August 2021

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    Author Tags

    1. adversarial thinking
    2. creativity
    3. functional fixedness
    4. security

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    View all
    • (2024)A User Experience Study of MeetingMayhem: A Web-Based Game to Teach Adversarial ThinkingProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653538(611-617)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Teaching Ethics in Computing: A Systematic Literature Review of ACM Computer Science Education PublicationsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/363468524:1(1-36)Online publication date: 14-Jan-2024
    • (2024)The Matchmaker Inclusive Design Curriculum: A Faculty-Enabling Curriculum to Teach Inclusive Design Throughout Undergraduate CSProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642475(1-22)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)“Regular” CS × Inclusive Design = Smarter Students and Greater DiversityACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/360353523:3(1-35)Online publication date: 22-Jul-2023
    • (2023)How Do Computing Education Researchers Talk About Threats and Limitations?Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600114(381-396)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
    • (2022)Conceptual Framework for Adversarial Thinking Adoption in Experiential Learning Model for Robotics Learning2022 International Conference on Business Analytics for Technology and Security (ICBATS)10.1109/ICBATS54253.2022.9758998(1-5)Online publication date: 16-Feb-2022

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