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CITS1003 Introduction to Cybersecurity Course Evaluation: Exciting Labs but Peer Marking Nightmare.

Grade Composition:

  • Lab CTF: 25%
  • Project: 25%
  • Final: 50%

I thought an introductory course wouldn’t have many pitfalls, but I was dead wrong. The most annoying thing about this course is the peer marking. Paying sky-high tuition fees and being forced to grade other students’ assignments just to make sure you don’t lose points? 🤨 (swipe left to see jailbroken GPT’s stand-in 😏)

Lab

The Lab involves solving a series of cybersecurity challenges to get the Flag (a string of code). This part is actually quite interesting. The Lab covers a wide range of topics from cracking passwords, port scanning, memory forensics, simulating phishing emails, to simulating attacks on shopping websites, and more, totaling 10 themes. While searching for answers, you get to learn and apply a lot of cybersecurity knowledge. In terms of positive feedback, the lab achieves a harmonious unity of fun and practicality. Even complete beginners can follow the manual step-by-step and get a taste of being a hacker (some friends even decided to pursue cybersecurity because of this). 💻🔓

Project

The Project is an upgraded version of the lab, with an increased difficulty level, showing that a lot of effort was put into its design. We need to act as hackers to attack the emu (emu) forum/website, analyze images/ciphers, and find the passcode. The project is divided into 4 themes, each with several tasks, such as:

  • Reviewing backend code
  • Cracking the random function of emu’s first online casino to win enough chips
  • Repairing tampered PDF files to get the passcode
  • Using reverse engineering to find backdoors hidden in modified system files
  • Obtaining remote code execution privileges through Node.js prototype pollution

These two parts, in my opinion, deserve full marks. 👍💯

The Project requires writing a report of no more than 40 pages, detailing each step and the knowledge applied. At this point, I have no complaints.

Peer Marking

However, here’s the bombshell. The project report requires peer marking. Each person has to grade the reports of three random peers, or else your project will not be graded 😡. Additionally, you must provide reasons for your grades, and blindly giving high scores will result in a discussion. This approach, which shifts the workload to students, not only increases their burden but also leads to unfair situations (those who know the “Boxers vs. foreign invaders” drama know exactly what I mean) 😏.

With a class of over 700 students, I understand the tight teaching resources, but since the tuition is so high, why not hire more TAs or give TAs more hours to grade assignments? 🙄 Paying money but still having to do the work that should be done by teachers or TAs, with no positive feedback, only negative, my evaluation is that it is a pile of crap 💩.