Schedule
Spring 2021 · Boston University and Northeastern University · Adam Smith and Jonathan Ullman
Archived offering · Dates and course information refer to Spring 2021.
On smaller screens, scroll the table horizontally to see all columns.
All lecture videos can be found in this Google Drive folder.
| Date | Topics | Deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 1/26 | Lecture 1: Course Overview Video: Watch these two MinutePhysics videos (1, 2). They introduce some of the course topics in the context of the US Census. Lecture Slides In-class Exercises |
|
| Unit 1: Reconstruction Attacks | ||
| BU: Thu 1/28 NEU: Fri 1/29 |
Lecture 2: Reconstruction Attacks I Lecture Notes: pdf (up through 2.3) Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| Tue 2/2 | Lecture 3: Reconstruction Attacks II Lecture Notes: pdf (2.4 onward) Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| Unit 2: Differential Privacy Fundamentals | ||
| BU: Thu 2/4 NEU: Fri 2/5 |
Lecture 4: Differential Privacy Fundamentals I Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 In-class Exercises: pdf |
Homework 1 Out (Due Fri 2/12): pdf, tex |
| Tue 2/9 | Lecture 5: Differential Privacy Fundamentals II Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2, part 3 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| Unit 3: The Algorithmic Toolkit | ||
| BU: Thu 2/11 NEU: Fri 2/12 |
Lecture 6: Exponential Mechanism and Report Noisy Max Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, In-class Exercises: pdf |
Homework 1 Due Fri 2/12 |
| Tue 2/16 | No Class | |
| BU: Thu 2/18 NEU: Fri 2/19 |
Lecture 7: Recap and Discuss Projects Project Info: pdf In-class Exercises: See Lectures 5 and 6. |
|
| Tue 2/23 | Lecture 8: The Binary Tree Mechanism Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
HW 2 out (Due Fri 2/12): pdf, tex |
| BU: Thu 2/25 NEU: Fri 2/26 |
Lecture 9: Approximate DP Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| Tue 3/2 | Lecture 10: Advanced Composition Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| BU: Thu 3/4 NEU: Fri 3/5 |
Lecture 11: Private Empirical Risk Minimization Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
Project proposals due Fri 3/5 |
| Tue 3/9 | Lecture 12: Private Gradient Descent Lecture Notes: pdf Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| Unit 4: Linear Query Release | ||
| BU: Thu 3/11 NEU: Fri 3/12 |
Lecture 13: Factorization Mechanisms Lecture Notes: pdf (up to 2.3) Video: part 1, part 2 In-class Exercises: pdf |
Homework 2 Due Fri 3/12 |
| Tue 3/16 | Lecture 14: The Projection Mechanism Lecture Notes: pdf (2.3 onward) Video: part 1 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| BU: Thu 3/18 NEU: Fri 3/19 |
NO CLASS |
|
| Tue 3/23 | Lecture 15: Online Learning and Multiplicative Weights Lecture Notes: pdf (Sections 1 to 3.1) Video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 In-class Exercises: pdf |
|
| BU: Thu 3/25 NEU: Fri 3/27 |
Lecture 16: Synthetic Data Generation and Online Learning I Lecture Notes (hand-written, from lecture): pdf Video: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5. (There is also part 6, which you should watch for Tuesday, March 30.) In-class excercises: pdf |
|
| Tue 3/30 | Lecture 17: Two-Player Zero-Sum Games I Lecture Notes: pdf (up to 1.3) Video: part 1 (Only one video for Lec 17. Also watch part 6 from Lecture 16.) In-class excercises: pdf |
|
| BU: Thu 4/1 NEU: Fri 4/2 |
Lecture 18: Two-Player Zero-Sum Games II Lecture Notes: pdf (1.3 onward) Video: part 1 part 2 part 3 In-class excercises: pdf |
Project progress reports due Fri 4/2 |
| Tue 4/6 | Lecture 19: Synthetic Data in Practice (Guest Lecture by Steven Wu) Zoom lecture, no reading |
|
| BU: Thu 4/8 NEU: Fri 4/9 |
Lecture 20: The Limits of Privacy Lecture Notes: pdf |
|
| Tue 4/13 | Lecture 21: Private Statistical Inference |
|
| BU: Thu 4/15 NEU: Fri 4/16 |
Lecture 22: Privacy and Adaptive Data Analysis Zoom lecture Reading: blog post by Moritz Hardt |
|
| Tue 4/20 | Lecture 23: Differential Privacy and the Census (Guest Lecture by Aloni Cohen) Zoom lecture, no reading Slides: pdf |
|
| BU: Thu 4/22 NEU: Fri 4/23 |
Lecture 24 |
Project draft final reports due Fri 4/23 |
| Tue 4/27 | Project presentations |
|
| Thu 4/29 |
Project presentations |
Project final reports due Fri 4/30 |