Research School 2024-2025

My ResearchSchool attendance during 2024-2025.

I participated in the Research School project by Vilnius Tech. Here's a summary of my contributions during this time :)

My primary research focus was on security. As a result, this repository delves into various vulnerabilities related to secure programming practices, along with insights from security research.

Structure

• examples/ - Just some random examples. Nothing too relevant.
• findings/ - Findings of the project
  • findings/common-issues-1.md - Common problems in the code.
  • findings/stats-1.txt - Code statistics.
• writeups/ - Write-ups of various parts of the project.
  • writeups/img/ - Images.
    • writeups/img/flow-chart.png - Flow chart of the project and its stages.
    • writeups/img/pw.png - Example of a strong password being generated.
  • writeups/article.md - The article covering the project's findings.
  • writeups/checklist.md - Extended checklist for research group I.
  • writeups/common-vulnerabilities.md - Common security vulnerabilities in web applications and their mitigation methods.
  • writeups/formal.md - Formal project write-up formalizing its findings.
  • writeups/literature.md - Literature used.
  • writeups/mini-checklist.md - Shortened checklist (research group II).
  • writeups/password-research.md - Side quest: Strong password parameters.
  • writeups/plan.md - Initial project plan.
  • writeups/subjects.md - Research areas to explore.
  • writeups/task.md - The task given for research groups I and II.
  • writeups/tools.md - Security analysis tools.
• presentation/ - The final presentation files.
  • presentation/research-school-2024.pdf - The presentation in the PDF (Portable Document Format) format.
  • presentation/research-school-2024.odp - The presentation in the ODP (Open Document Presentation, LibreOffice) format.

Project

• 2024-11-04: Our first serious meeting when we discussed subjects and research areas. We decided on one. (subjects.md)
• 2024-11-20: Our second meeting where we discussed the flow of the project. (plan.md)
• 2024-12-05: Decided on our research plan, discussed the resources as well as the task itself. Planning for experiments.
• 2024-12-09: Creation and execution of the task. The lecturer I am working with prepared the task. I paraphrased the task.
• 2024-12-26: Code was presented by 4 students.
• 2024-12-27: The code was manually reviewed and analysed by me. (common-issues-1.md)
• 2025-01-21: Finalise the statistics of the code. (stats-1.txt)
• 2025-01-23: Presentation draft.
• 2025-01-24: Start work on the formal write-up. (formal.md)
• 2025-01-25: First complete formal write-up draft.
• 2025-01-26: Final formal write-up draft.
• 2025-02-18: First article draft. Mark the formal write-up as out of review. (article.md)
• 2025-02-20: Finalise the presentation.
• 2025-02-21: Project closing.

Experience

During my time in the ResearchSchool project, I had a great experience. I had the opportunity to work with passionate professors who truly understood me and collaborated with me throughout the project. It felt like a refreshing break from the rigid and overly formal structure of the traditional education system, where teachers often don't have the same depth of knowledge and passion as professors in the field. This project stood in contrast to that, offering a much more engaging and supportive environment than usual.

I really enjoyed working on this project and put a lot of passion into it because it was genuinely interesting to me. While I did feel a bit anxious during the meetings, which made speaking a little challenging at times, the overall experience was fantastic.

A big thank you to ResearchSchool and Professors Simona & Pavel! :) Would recommend this project to anyone looking for a non-standard academic experience who want a break from the inflexible education system wherein your mere existence and happiness is sometimes treated as a controversial question.