Class:
Security class is very difficult. As professor explain, "this is the field where your opponent actively tries to screw you over." Teaching method is like this: class teaches theory where discussion practice those theory. However, the exam is purely on the theory. It is kinda hard.

How to get best possible grade:
As mention on the post on May 2010, you need to go to class. Before you attempt to take this class, try to mentally commit yourself to go to class every morning at 8 a.m. and listen to his slide lecture. Yes, he teaches by slide, because there is a lot of information. He does stop and explain if you have questions and ONLY IF you have questions. You have to actively follow his lecture. I did commit going to class, but after time zone change in the fall, I can't get up so early (because I commute); I ended up sleeping in. The exam is on what he said in lecture and in slide and in textbook. DON'T RELY on slide along, because after midterm, the slide is not helpful as the slide before midterm. Oh, one more thing about the slide: there are some "hidden" slides (some feature by Microsoft office). If you attempt to print out, those hidden slide does not get printed out. He said he will not test on the hidden slide. Do you willing to or trust him enough to take his words on it???

Yes, some information on the exam also come from the textbook. I think the best time to read the textbook is after listen to the lecture. You can determine what he didn't cover in class, but in the text.

Discussion:
Peter Peterson is my TA. He is very helpful and knowledgeable. The assignment is very fun to do. There are TON OF EXTRA CREDIT for the assignment. You might want to do them. :P I won't tell you what are the extra credit, because I think it is same every quarter. If you don't do well on the exam, consider the extra credit.

Final thought:
He uses slide; but but he tells you "stories" about everything on the slide. The stories is what you will remember. That is what make him better than other professor who uses slide.

And you should read other post on May 2010.

Reiher's lectures were always pretty interesting, and the labs were very practical and actually quite fun. Labs are done on the ISI deter testbed, so you actually get to run real security attacks against real machines. (For one of the labs, we were supposed to ARP poison a network, but a few people poisoned the wrong NIC and ended up poisoning the whole testbed which prevented anyone from logging into the testbed.)

A lot of people skipped lecture when I took the class because Reiher puts his slides online, and it was an 8am class. I would highly advise not doing this since the slides are just an outline of what he talks about, and the lectures are really quite interesting! His exams have a lot of multiple choice questions, which people usually think are easy until they actually take the midterm. He likes to ask questions like:
which of the following are NOT reasons for why blah is NOT used for doing...
a) blah is NOT good for...
b) blah and blah are NOT...
....

So basically you just have to read his questions really carefully, be very careful of the NOTs and make sure you know all the fine details. Also, he likes to throw in questions from the book which nobody seemed to read.

Midterm grades ended up being really low (only two people got above a 90, I was one of them), mostly because so many people skipped lectures. But I went to every lecture, skimmed the book, and only studied for a few hours before each exam and I managed to pull off an A in the class, which is unusual for me because I'm usually not the kind of person that gets good grades without studying.

I highly advise Reiher's 136 class, its good, practical, and often fun stuff, and Reiher's an interesting lecturer. As long as you go to lecture and listen, you can pull off a decent grade without too much extra trouble.