MOOCs - Wiretap to Big Data

[eagle]

Cornell University and Edx are offering a Massive Open Online Course called "Wiretaps to Big Data"
This course covers cryptography, authentication, certificates, privacy law, NSA, etc.

Prof. Wicker provides links to Wikipedia articles that explain various technical terms. During tonight's "Hangout" on Google+, he was asked by a student:

I noticed that you have included links to Wikipedia definitions on your MOOC. What authentication is available such as a permalink to prevent people vandalizing the Wikipedia material between the time that you selected the Wikipedia definition and the present.

His response was that "Wikipedia is constantly patrolled, and I am relying upon these many people to catch vandalism as soon as it happens." He noted that he occassionally makes small changes on Wikipedia himself.

One would think that a privacy expert would know better than to trust Wikipedia. Yet, instead of linking to the permalink of the page that he actually reviewed and selected, he just gives his on-line students links to numerous Wikipedia articles to explain the concepts that he references, such as:

Symmetric key
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric-key_algorithm

Public key
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Secure channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_channel

Vernam cypher (one time pad)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Vernam

Encryption
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption

He recommends these links even though Symmetric-key algorithm (T-H-L) is tagged with {{refimprove|date=April 2012}}.
The article Public-key cryptography (T-H-L) continues to draw a steady stream of edits.

[Wonderer]

Maybe he'll change his tune when some teenager contradicts him and pulls rank on him. Or maybe one of his students will prank him and demand an A in the class.

[Kurt M. Weber]

Good. The faster these abominations (MOOCs) lose all credibility, the better off we'll all be.