New England Security Day for Fall 2016

The next New England Security Day (NESD) will be held on Sept. 29, 2017, at Northeastern. Details are available here.

The goal of NESD is to bring together premier practitioners, researchers, students, and funding partners in security, in and around New England. NESD serves as an opportunity to share the latest advances, debate roadmaps and future directions, create new collaborations, and seek new opportunities.

Program and Schedule

Click here for the full list of abstracts.

8:50–9:00am Opening Remarks  
9:00–10:00am Talk session 1 Detecting and Managing User-Level Compromises in Corporate Networks
    The Dover Architecture: Hardware Enforcement of Software-Defined Security Policies
    Privacy Preserving Federated Search and Sharing
10:00–10:15am Break  
10:15–11:00pm Talk session 2 A Study on Designing Video Tutorials for Promoting Security Features: A Case Study in the Context of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
    Catena: Preventing Lies with Bitcoin
11:00–11:15am Break  
11:15–12:00pm Talk session 3 AnonRep: Towards Tracking-Resistant Anonymous Reputation
    End-to-end IoT Security and Privacy
12:00–12:45pm Lunch and Poster Session  
12:45–1:45pm Talk session 4 In Depth Enforcement of Dynamic Integrity Taint Analysis
    Intra-cloud and Inter-cloud Authentication is No Good
    A Vision for Trustworthy Bare Metal Clouds
1:45–2:00pm Break  
2:00–3:00pm Talk session 5 Beyond “I have a bad feeling about this”: Jedi CWEs for parser weaknesses
    Hyp3rArmor: Reducing Web Application Exposure to Automated Attacks
    Measuring Protocol Strength with Security Goals
3:00–3:15pm Break  
3:15–4:15pm Talk session 6 Anomaly Detection in Computer Networks Using Robust Principal Component Analysis
    Characterizing the Nature and Dynamics of Tor Exit Blocking

Registration

Registration is now open! Go to this website to register. The registration fee is $5. If you would like this fee waived, please contact Tina Knight.

Venue and Parking

NESD will be held in the Rubin Campus Center Odeum on the campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The Odeum is located on the top floor (third level) of the building. Attendees should park in the garage under the rooftop field. Due to construction on campus, attendees will need to walk up Salisbury St to reach the campus center. See the walking route here.

Break snacks and lunch will be provided. If you have any dietary restrictions, please let us know when you register, and we will do our best to accommodate.

Nearby Hotels

There are several hotels close to WPI. These include the Marriott Courtyard Worcester, Hilton Garden Inn, and Beechwood Hotel.

Call for Presentations and Posters

We would also like to invite you to submit presentation proposals. We are interested in all presentations that concern research on computer security. NESD presentations do not need to be about polished or complete results. Proposals for presentations of preliminary work, progress reports on ongoing projects, useful lessons from research that has failed, and tool demos are also welcomed at NESD. If you would like to present at NESD, please email Robert Walls on or before November 14 with a title, presenter and affiliation, and a short abstract.

There are 15 slots for presentations in the schedule. If we have more presentation proposals than slots, we will select presentations based on the diversity of the participants’ talks, and appeal to a broad audience.

Each slot is 20 minutes long. However, we would like to use an unconventional slot structure. Each speaker will be given 12 minutes to present their material (strict). Then for 4 minutes, members of the audience will form groups of 3-5 people, discuss the talk, filter and form questions. The last 4 minutes of each slot will involve a Q&A between the speaker and the audience. This structure encourages members of the audience to interact with each other and exchange opinions, and clarify their understanding of the talk. It is especially beneficial for students as it will allow them to interact with senior researchers. Moreover, the quality of questions filtered up to the speaker is improved. We used this format in Spring 2016 with great success.

We invite you to submit a poster proposal as well. Like the talks, posters should concern security and can report on ongoing work. Posters will be displayed all day around the workshop space. We have limited space for posters, and we’ll follow the same selection process that we have for presentations. If you would like to present at NESD, please email Robert Walls on or before November 14 with a title, list of authors and affiliations, and a short abstract (and not the poster pdf).

Anti-Harassment Policy

The open exchange of ideas and the freedom of thought and expression are central to the aims and goals of NESD; these require an environment that recognizes the inherent worth of every person and group, that fosters dignity, understanding, and mutual respect, and that embraces diversity. For these reasons, NESD is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience, and implements the ACM policy against harassment.

Participants violating these standards may be sanctioned or expelled from NESD, at the discretion of the organizing committee members.

A useful related resource is the Geek Feminism Wiki, which includes models for public announcements and guidance for conference staff. If you hear an inappropriate remark, intended or misjudged, we encourage you not to stay silent. You may find this list of comebacks to be useful.

Organizers

Steering Committee

  • Stephen Chong, Harvard
  • Sharon Goldberg, Boston Univ.
  • Amir Houmansadr, UMass Amherst
  • Brian Levine, UMass Amherst
  • Cristina Nita-Rotaru, Northeastern Univ.