Coursera: Malware economy course and online student identification

Coursera is hosting a new online course offered by Royal Holloway, University of London:

Malicious Software and its Underground Economy

That by itself is interesting, but what caught my attention is a new system called "Signature Track" that is available for this course as well as some other Coursera offerings. The signature track provides identification and attribution of student work. Identification happens via typing pattern recognition - apparently timing between keystrokes if sufficiently unique to positively identify a person. Attribution is effectively a certificate issued by Coursera that says "We confirm this student has really taken this class online". I thought that was pretty interesting.

Thoughts, comments?

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Comments

About7Narwhal

What if I get distracted while typing? What if I am sleepy, sick, or some other factor that limits my ability. I find the idea pretty cool, but it does raise some questions.

hoktauri

I've seen that on other courses but I don't see why you would want that extra verification. You're still not getting college credit.

ITcognito

Signed up for the course for the sake of the content; could not care less about recognition.

ChooseLife

hoktauri wrote: »

I've seen that on other courses but I don't see why you would want that extra verification. You're still not getting college credit.

Yes, they are probably not getting too many people jumping on it yet. I think Coursera is doing it for two reasons: (1) to allow universities some form of revenue generation, and (2) to test out the new technology so it can be used for MOOC Generation 2, which will be used by universities to issue real degrees (such as this Georgia Tech's pilot program)

Master Of Puppets

ITcognito wrote: »

Signed up for the course for the sake of the content; could not care less about recognition.

Same here. I signed up for this course last year

ITcognito

Master Of Puppets wrote: »

Same here. I signed up for this course last year

How was it?

cyberguypr

Sounded great until this part:

If I have not programmed before, can I still take the course?
Probably not.

Even though I've done some programming, hate it with a passion.

About7Narwhal

^ +1

Programmed enough to know I never want to program.

dmoore44

I'm enrolled in the course too - sounded interesting. Don't really care about credit... But for someone seeking an MS, UoL does have an online option - so this could be a good intro to how they do things...

Master Of Puppets

ITcognito wrote: »

How was it?

Sorry, I missed a "from" there. I meant that I signed up for this course very early and have been looking forward to it for a long time. As far as the programming side, from what they said so far, it is going to be required but it won't be extremely deep.

GarudaMin

I didn't know about Coursera. Thanks for pointing it out. I am gonna take some courses, especially when they are free. I like to learn and gain more knowledge. If you know of others like Coursera, please feel free to mention.
Thanks.

Master Of Puppets

I think here is a good place to ask something - How do you guys squeeze in the time for courses like this? Coursera has so many great courses and I find myself completely out of time. Are you tempted to take more than one at a time? Combined with work and school, I'm surprised my gf hasn't left me

GarudaMin

Master Of Puppets wrote: »

Combined with work and school, I'm surprised my gf hasn't left me

Take CS: Artificial Intelligence courses and build yourself AI gf, now that's one stone with two birds. :P
It is rough when you have to juggle many things. If you find yourself some free time at work, then instead of surfing the net or whatever it is you do, you can use that time for Coursera. But if you really want it, you will find the time. Good luck bud.

GarudaMin

On the side note, I wonder how I can turn Coursera courses into CPE for CISSP, CEH, etc. I assume I would need to do the whole grade/SoA? Anyone done the course and applied it to their CPE successfully?