CFP for Grand Challenges

[Gene Spafford <spaf () CERIAS PURDUE EDU>]

Visionaries Needed

CRA Conference on "Grand Research Challenges in Information Security
& Assurance"

Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia
November 16-19, 2003

Computing and IT technologies have become pervasive. This same
infrastructure is growing more complex as the underlying
computational and communication resources grow in speed and capacity.
Every vision of future technology includes predictions of ubiquitous
computing and networking, including embedded, portable, and
distributed systems in every aspect of our infrastructure. Computing
will continue to change the way we do business, interact with
government, entertain ourselves, communicate, keep records, control
our infrastructures and services, execute law enforcement and
national defense, and conduct research and education.

Coupled with these changes, we face threats of massive disruption and
denial, loss of privacy, alteration of critical information, and new
forms of undesirable IT-based activity. Threats from criminals,
anarchists and extremists, random hackers, and cyberterrorists (among
others) continue to grow even as we put more reliance on our
computing infrastructure. Yet most of the money, attention, and
energy in information security and information assurance has been
focused on incremental patches and updates to existing systems rather
than on seeking fundamental advances.

In 2002, the Computing Research Association sponsored its first
"Grand Research Challenges in Computer Science and Engineering." This
was the first in a series of highly non-traditional conferences where
the goal is to define important questions rather than expose current
research. Grand Challenges meetings seek "out-of-the-box" thinking to
expose some of the exciting, deep challenges yet to be met in
computing research. Because of the clear importance and pressing
needs in information security and assurance, the Computing Research
Association's second "Grand Research Challenges Conference" will be
devoted to defining technical and social challenges in information
security and assurance.

We are seeking scientists, educators, business people, futurists, and
others who have some vision and understanding of the big challenges
(and accompanying advances) that should shape the research agenda in
this field over the next few decades. These meetings are not
structured as traditional conferences with scheduled presentations,
but rather as highly participatory meetings exposing important themes
and ideas. As such, this is not a conference for security specialists
alone:  We seek to convene a diverse group from a variety of fields
and at all career stages—we seek insight and vision wherever it may
reside.

Attendance is limited to 50 people and is by invitation only. If you
are interested in attending, please submit a two-page (or less)
statement of two or three examples of a "grand research challenge"
problem in the IS/IA area to <grcpapers () cra org> by September 17,
2003. The organizing committee will invite prospective attendees
based on these submissions. Note that individuals invited must commit
to attending for the entire three-day conference (beginning Sunday at
6 pm, ending after lunch on Wednesday.)

Please submit your paper as an attachment in plain text (no PDF or
Word documents!)  Include a brief biographical statement sketching
your background at the end (maximum one page).

At the top of the first page, please provide the following information:

Name
Affiliation
Street Address
Room No.
City, State, Zip Code
E-mail
Telephone No.

The conference will be held in the executive retreat environment of
Airlie House in Warrenton, Virginia (30 miles from Washington-Dulles
airport). In addition to the formal sessions, two afternoons will be
set aside for free time so that participants may continue discussion
in small, informal groups.

CRA has applied to the National Science Foundation for travel and
lodging support to cover expenses of some participants, where
necessary. When you submit your paper, please indicate whether you
need to be considered for travel and/or lodging support. We have
explicitly budgeted for some participants from outside the United
States, and we encourage submissions from around the world.

More information on the CRA Grand Challenges Conferences may be found
on the WWW at <http://www.cra.org/grand.challenges/>

Organizing Committee:
Eugene H. Spafford, Purdue University and Computing Research Association
    (Organizing Committee Chair)
Richard A. DeMillo, Georgia Institute of Technology
    (Organizing Committee Co-Chair)
David Aucsmith, Microsoft Corporation
Andrew Bernat, Computing Research Association
Steve Crocker, Shinkuro, Inc.
David Farber, Carnegie Mellon University
Virgil Gligor, University of Maryland
Sy Goodman, Georgia Institute of Technology
Anita Jones, University of Virginia
Susan Landau, Sun Laboratories
Peter Neumann, SRI
David Patterson, University of California, Berkeley
Fred Schneider, Cornell University
Douglas Tygar, University of California, Berkeley
William Wulf, National Academy of Engineering and University of Virginia

**********
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