Layered Assurance Workshop (LAW)

Program Details

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

The Tenth Layered Assurance Workshop (LAW)
5-6 December 2016
Los Angeles, California

The LAW Organizing Committee in cooperation with Applied Computer Security Associates is pleased to announce that LAW 2016 will again be held as an affiliated workshop of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). Among the distinguished invited speakers to appear at LAW this year are, Harald Rueß from fortiss (Munich, DE), Ashish Tiwari of SRI International (Menlo Park, CA), Wilfried Steiner of TTTech (Vienna, AT), Bryan Parno of Microsoft Research (Redmond, WA), Zhong Shao of Yale University (New Haven, CT), and Sergey Bratus of Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), all touching on aspects of this year's theme, "Real-World Applications."

LAW is founded on the proposition that it is possible to build assured systems from compositions of independently assured components, deriving system properties (e.g., functional, safety, and security) systematically from the properties of the components. Layered assurance encompasses diverse manifestations including composition, incremental certification, abstraction layers, and polymorphism. LAW spans the theoretical, engineering, and certification challenges to be met in making compositional assurance for complex systems a reality.

Participation and Contributions

LAW solicits contributions on topics of interest to LAW participants. Contributors are expected to give a presentation, and optionally provide a paper. Contributors are urged to consider the topics below and ACSAC's themes for the year.

TOPICS OF INTEREST for LAW contributed papers:

The workshop theme this year is Real-World Applications. Topics of interest include:

  • predictions and speculations on the future of assurance
  • application domains with emerging need for assurance
  • assurance for cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) / Internet of Everything (IoE)
  • theoretical foundations for compositional, modular, and incremental assurance / verificaiton
  • case studies and challenges from diverse application domains (e.g. aerospace, critical infrastructures, automotive, medical, defense, mobile)
  • combining methods of assurance (multi-legged assurance)
  • standards and metrics for assessing assurance of safety and security properties
  • processes, procedures, tools that would simplify assurance
  • arguments for product families
  • role of architecture and the relationship of architecture to assurance of system properties
  • Properties that defy composition or architectures that thwart compositional assurance
  • bridging technical assurance measures to human confidence and trust
  • requirements assurance

The preceding list of topics is not intended to be exhaustive. Contributions are encouraged on any topics that prospective authors consider relevant to the Layered Assurance Workshop.

Panels

Peter G. Neumann of SRI International will organize and chair panel sessions that have always proven to be lively and thought-provoking.

Attendees willing to participate in a panel, or wanting to submit a proposal to organize and chair a panel session should contact Peter Neumann at neumann@csl.sri.com. Panel proposals should include a list of qualified and willing panel participants.

Works-in-Progress

In the spirit of a workshop, we would really like to encourage LAW participants to share their ongoing work. The WIP session provides the opportunity to present in a format that is shorter in time and without with the formality of a paper with opportunity for questions and discussion.

WIP slots will be a maximum of 20 minutes for both presentation and discussion. Please submit a one page abstract for your proposed Work-in-Progress presentation to the LAW Program Chair, Gabriela Ciocarlie at gabriela.ciocarlie@sri.com by October 1, 2016.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTRIBUTORS

To submit an abstract for consideration by the LAW Program Committee, please go to https://www.acsac.org/2016/workshops/law/openconf/. Since LAW is a workshop rather than a conference or symposium, submissions do not have to be entirely novel, but they do have to be interesting. Final contributed papers must be in PDF format, generated according to the ACM instructions at http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates, using the template Option 2 "WITH permission block". It is requested that papers not exceed 10 pages (2500 - 5000 words).

PRESENTATIONS AT THE WORKSHOP

Authors are expected to give a 30 minute (negotiable) presentation of their contribution at the Workshop and are required to provide their presentation slides in PDF format no later than the time of the workshop for inclusion on the LAW web page. You must provide a PDF of your slides to take the podium, and if you do not take the podium your slides will not be published.

IMPORTANT DATES

Proposed presentation/paper abstracts due:  September 1, 2016
Notification of contribution acceptance/rejection: October 15, 2016
Camera ready papers due:  November 1, 2016

WIP presentation proposals due: October 1, 2016
WIP proposal acceptance/rejection: October 15, 2016
WIP presentations due: December 1, 2016

PROCEEDINGS

LAW will not publish paper proceedings. Papers and speakers' presentation slides will be included on the LAW 2016 web page the week that LAW is held and will be archived there for posterity. By making a submission an author agrees to online inclusion of the final version of the paper and presentation material.

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION

Speakers will be required to register for LAW. Registration may be done at the ACSAC 2016 web site, http://www.acsac.org. One need not register for ACSAC to register for LAW.

SPONSORSHIP

LAW welcomes corporate sponsorship. Interested enterprises please contact rance.delong@gmail.com.

Additional ACSA Events:
NSPW – New Security Paradigms Workshop
LASER – Learning from Authoritative Security Experiment Results