In 2006, the IEEE Reliability Society made a strategic decision to launch an annual conference focusing on security and reliability. This resulted in the establishment of an International Conference on Secure Software Integration and Reliability Improvement (SSIRI). This year, the steering committee made another landmark decision to change the name to International Conference on Software Security and Reliability (SERE), with SE representing SEcurity and RE for REliability, so that the focus of the conference can be more easily recognized by the community.

SERE 2012 is the sixth annual conference which brings together a wide range of researchers and practitioners to present their on-going ideas, experiences, and outcomes of most recent research, and to exchange their best-of-breed practices for developing reliable, secure, and trustworthy software systems in a more effective and efficient way. It not only allows the academic community to gain an increased awareness of the areas that are vital to the software industry, but it also grants practitioners an opportunity to express their needs. The conference will be held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland which is less than one hour from Washington D.C.

The conference has three major tracks: research papers, fast abstracts and the student doctoral program. Additional workshops with more focused topics will also be held concurrently.


Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:


  Security, Reliability, Availability, and Safety of Software Systems
  Information and Software Assurance
  Fault Tolerance for Software Reliability Improvement
  Modeling, Prediction, Simulation, and Evaluation
  Validation, Verification, and Testing
  Metrics, Measurements, and Analysis
  Secure and Reliable Storage
  Software Penetration and Protection
  Software Vulunerabilities
  Malware Detection and Analysis
  Intrusion Detection and Prevention
  Operating System Security and Reliability
  Mobile and Cloud Computing
  Theory and Practice
  Benchmark and Empirical Studies

SERE 2012 is sponsored by the IEEE Reliability Society. It is also technically sponsored by the NIST and the Intelligent Information & Communications Research Center at the National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan.

Organizing Committee

General Chair Jeffrey Voas NIST USA
Program Chair Shiuhpyng Shieh National Chiao Tung University Taiwan
Workshop Chairs Angelos Stavrou George Mason University USA
Massimo Felici University of Edinburgh UK
Student Doctoral Program Chair Doo-Hwan Bae Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Korea
Publicity Chairs Fei-Ching Kuo Swinburne University of Technology Australia
Michael Siok Lockheed Martin Aeronautics USA
Linzhang Wang Nanjing University China
Finance Chairs Sam Keene IEEE Reliability Society USA
Web Masters Ruizhi Gao University of Texas at Dallas USA
Yihao Li University of Texas at Dallas USA



Steering Committee

Fevzi Belli University of Paderborn Germany
Karama Kanoun LAAS-CNRS France
Sam Keene (co-Chair) IEEE Reliability Society USA
Raymond Paul Department of Defense USA
Shiuhpyng Shieh National Chiao Tung University Taiwan
Ji Wang National University of Defense Technology China
W. Eric Wong (co-Chair) University of Texas at Dallas USA





Program Committee (Tentative)

Sheikh Iqbal AhamedMarquette UniversityUSA
Ebrahim BagheriNational Research CouncilCanada
Doo-Hwan BaeKAISTKorea
Xiaoying Bai Tsinghua University China
Jongmoon BaikKAISTKorea
Fevzi BelliUniversity of PaderbornGermany
Elisa Bertino Purdue University USA
Maarten BoassonUniversity of AmsterdamNetherlands
Lionel BriandSimula Research LaboratoryNorway
Christof BudnikSiemens Corporate ResearchUSA
W. K. ChanCity University of Hong KongHong Kong
Kefei Chen Shanghai Jiaotong University China
Byoungju ChoiEwha Womans UniversityKorea
Mourad DebbabiConcordia UniversityCanada
Ewen DenneyNASAUSA
Robert Deng Singapore Management University Singapore
Junhua DingEast Carolina UniversityUSA
Tadashi DohiHiroshima UniversityJapan
Wei DongNational University of Defense TechnologyChina
Martin Gilje Jaatun SINTEF Information and Communication Technology Norway
Lucas Hui University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
Herbert KuchenUniversity of MusterGermany
Luiz A. LaranjeiraUniversity of BrasiliaBrazil
Jenny LiAvaya Labs ResearchUSA
Ninghui Li Purdue University USA
Xuandong LiNanjing UniversityChina
Horst LichterRWTH Aachen UniversityGermany
Lin LiuTsinghua UniversityChina
Xiaoguang MaoNational University of Defense TechnologyChina
Andrew MartinOxford UniversityUK
Fabio MassacciUniversita di TrentoItaly
Bruce McMillin Missouri University of Science and Technology USA
Mohamed MosbahUniversite de BordeauxFrance
Thomas NollRWTH Aachen UniversityGermany
Phu PhungChalmers University of TechnologySweden
Marco PistoiaIBM Watson ResearchUSA
Alexander PretschnerKarlsruhe Institute of TechnologyGermany
Walid RiajibiIBM Toronto Software LaboratoryCanada
Sahra Sedighsarvestani University of Missouri USA
Tugkan TuglularIzmir Institute of TechnologyTurkey
Chang Xu Hong Kong University of Science and TechnologyHong Kong
Duncan Wong City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
Felix Wu UC Davis USA
Dianxiang XuNorth Dakota State UniversityUSA
Y. T. YuCity University of Hong KongHong Kong
Yijun YuUniversity of TorontoCanada
Jian ZhangChinese Academy of ScienceChina
Lixia ZhangUCLAUSA
Jianjun ZhaoShanghai Jiao-Tong UniversityChina
Mohammad Zulkernine Queen's University Canada


Information for authors of regular papers


Submit original papers (not published or submitted elsewhere) with a maximum of ten pages. Include the title of the paper, the name and affiliation of each author, a 150-word abstract, and up to 6 keywords. The format of your submission must follow the IEEE conference proceedings format.

  Click here to submit your paper.



Information for authors of fast abstracts


The objective of fast abstracts is to report on-going work, describe practical experiences, introduce new ideas to promote further validation, or state positions on controversial issues. Each fast abstract can have a maximum of two pages using the IEEE conference proceedings format.

 
Click here to submit your fast abstract.


Information for authors of student doctoral program


The objective of the Student Doctoral Program is to encourage students to attend SERE and present their work, exchange ideas with researchers and practitioners, and get early feedback on their research efforts. Submit original papers (not published or submitted elsewhere) with a maximum of six pages using the IEEE conference proceedings format. Each submission should include the title of the paper, the name and affiliation of each author, a 150-word abstract, and up to 6 keywords. The first author must be a student (the advisor or non-student collaborators may be co-authors). Once accepted the paper should be presented by a student.

  Click here to submit your paper.


Information for authors of workshops


Submit original papers (not published or submitted elsewhere) with a maximum of ten pages. Include the title of the paper, the name and affiliation of each author, a 150-word abstract, and up to 6 keywords. The format of your submission must follow the IEEE conference proceedings format.

  Click on "Workshops" on the left pane to view all the co-located workshops.

Call For Papers

Name Type Size Download
CFP.pdf Graphics files 59.6KB DownLoad

Conference Proceedings


The conference proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services (CPS) and made available in the IEEE digital library. Papers in the proceedings are also included in the Ei Compendex database.

Special Section of IEEE Transactions on Reliability


Authors of selected best papers from the conference will be invited to submit an extended version to a special section of IEEE Transactions on Reliability (T-Rel).

Important Dates


    November 15, 2011       Workshop proposals due
    January 31, 2012 (extended)       Regular papers due
    February 15, 2012       Fast Abstract Track due
    February 15, 2012       Student Doctoral Program due
    March 20, 2012       Author notification
April 30, 2012 (extended)       Camera-ready and author registration due
    June 20-22, 2012       Conference dates

Jeju Island, South Korea


SSSIRI 2011 is going to be held in Jeju Island, one of the most charming cities in South Korea.


The Jeju Island is famous for 3 things: roaring winds, magnificent rocks, and woman divers for fishing. As one of the host cities of the 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup, Jeju's Seogwipo City has a fame of the most enchanting environment in Korea. Jeju is a focal point of international affairs and offers many kinds of recreation together with breathtaking vistas, a temperate climate and a unique traditional culture. Located in the center of this volcanically formed island is Mt. Halla (a dormant volcano), which is filled with over 1,800 species of wild plants, wild deers, and an ecosystem, that will surely amaze all visitors.


Jeju also offers unbelievably breathtaking views from coast to coast, ranging from waterfalls at Haean Jidae to naturally sculpted cliffs at Jusang Jeolli. Tourists can enjoy each season in Jeju with a particular splash of color; brilliant yellow-colored flowers in spring that spread across the landscape, the golden beaches and sea vistas in summer, the Eulalia's light brown wispy reeds flowing in autumn winds, and the lovely snow flowers of Mt. Halla in winter are all must-sees of Jeju.


  • Click here for more information about Jeju Island

  • Click here for Jeju Island Travel Information

  • Click here to see images for Jeju Island



  • Jeju Grand Hotel


    The conference venue is Jeju Grand Hotel, located in Shinjeju area, which takes just 10 minutes from the Jeju International Airport. A free shuttle is provided between the airport and the hotel. The Jeju Grand Hotel is a super deluxe hotel with 512 rooms. The hotel is equipped with various facilities including casino and banquet rooms with 5 different language simultaneous translation system.

    Previous Conferences


      SSIRI 2011 - Jeju Island, Korea
      SSIRI 2010 - Singapore
      SSIRI 2009 - Shanghai, China
      SSIRI 2008 - Yokohama, Japan

    SERE 2012 co-Located Workshops


    All the workshops will be held concurrently with the main conference.

      MVV: International Workshop on Model-Based Verification & Validation
          Organizers:
          Tugkan Tuglular (Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey)
          Michael Linschulte (University of Paderborn, Germany)
         
      SSCPS: International Workshop on Safety and Security
          in Cyber-Physical Systems
          Organizer:
          Wei Dong (National University of Defense Technology, China)
         
      MaSST: International Workshop on Metrics and Standards for Software Testing
          Organizers:
          Paul E. Black (National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA)
          Elizabeth Fong (National Institute of Standards and technology, USA)
         
      IA: International Workshop on Information Assurance
          Organizers:
          Shiuhpyng Shieh (National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
         


    For any inquiry, please contact Professor Shiuhpyng Shieh, Program Chair or
    Professor W. Eric Wong, co-Chair, Steering Committee.


    Best Paper Award


    At least one Award will be presented by SERE 2012. Authors will receive a plaque signed by the President of the IEEE Reliability Society and also a cash prize (depending on the conference budget).

    SSIRI 2011: Keynote Speakers




    Gerard J Holzmann
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA

    Verifying Complex Software Systems: the Challenge


    Abstract

    Virtually all software applications grow in size and complexity over time.For software used in spacecraft, software size can even be shown to grow exponentially with each new mission flown, matching the growth trends seen in many other industries. This rapid growth poses a serious challenge to our ability to verify the reliability of complex safety-critical software systems. Significant progress has been made in the development of strong tool-based formal verification techniques in the last few decades, but the bar keeps rising. I will describe how we are tackling this challenge, and where the main research challenges in reliable systems design currently are.


    Biography

    Gerard Holzmann received his Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology in 1979. From 1980 until 2003 he was a researcher in the Computing Science Research Center of Bell Laboratories, in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He then moved to NASA/JPL in California to start the new Laboratory for Reliable Software, where he is currently a senior research scientist. He has published four books and many technical articles on software verification methods, image processing techniques, and telecommunication history. Dr. Holzmann is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. url: http://spinroot.com/gerard




    C.V. Ramamoorthy
    Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    UC Berkeley, USA

    Software Engineering Approaches to the Challenges in Technology Education and System Development in the Software Ecosystem Environment


    Abstract

    There exist several challenges in the current science, engineering, mathematics (STEM) graduate education. We are continuously inundated with great volumes of information from our portable communication devices, lap tops, television etc., continuously. We do multitasking to assimilate the information resulting developing short attention spans. Our current digital generation spends enormous amount of time on social networking, video entertainment and video games. Science and engineering subjects require long and deep attention spans to learn and to contribute. We discuss some of the successful methods that can help us to focus on the deep engineering and technology. These include video narratives, entertainment and gaming. We consider the instructional methods developed by ancient Greeks (Aristotle, Socrates etc.), and the teaching of moral principles by means of parables and narratives by Buddha and Christ. We consider the successful interest and curiosity creating violin teaching methods of Suzuki. We study the talent discovering and skill enhancing instructional methods of Montessori. The social networking and interactive type of instruction was used by Escalante to overcome academic weaknesses. The tweet- and- repeat methods of the Khan Academy also provide useful ideas for improving our teaching process using ICT technology. We propose a comprehensive cocktail (mixture) of methods as the transformative means to upgrade of STEM higher education based on similar ideas proposed and successfully used by Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize-winning agricultural biologist in agricultural crop production. His methods eliminated the unfortunate annual food famines in Mexico, China, and India. We propose a comprehensive software supported methods using graphical animation, using virtualization, immersion and video gaming techniques to capture interest and enhance creative skills. It is well known that we use only a small fraction of the total visual and sensual bandwidth that our nervous system and brain can process at any instant. We can expand our educational communication bandwidth input by innovative interactive graphical and aural presentations of our academic material for maximum advantage to create both interest, learning and to develop creative skills.


    We introduce the theme of 'Needs Engineering' into our technical educational curriculum. This topic emphasizes the importance of problem (needs) finding, problem discovery and problem anticipation. We associate a 'problem' with a specific need. Needs and necessities are mothers of invention and innovation and therefore the prime factors in creative thinking. We describe the classification of problem-solution pairs using the Remsfeld paradigm of knowns-unknowns and their importance in creative problem finding and solving. Our educational system emphasizes problem solving under a known and well understood framework of theory and knowledge. It does not lead to creative thinking beyond the 'box'. It has been said that 'main object of teaching is not just how to solve problems and give explanations, but to knock at the doors of the mind'. Problems and needs- finding approaches are indeed the mothers of creative innovation. We quote a well known ICT company CEO:


    "Today it is the minds, not the megahertz or the gigabytes that are scarce. Use IT (information technology) to enhance them and use them to deliver sustainable and survivable products to support our developing world".


    In the second part of the presentation, we shall concentrate on software ecosystems and the sustainability issues of software entities. We see a large proliferation of platforms, app's, operating systems, designs, patterns etc. The concept of software ecosystem tries to develop an environment which nurtures, supports and evolves sustainable software systems. As in the natural ecosystem sustainability implies survivability in the short term and evolution and growth in the long term under changing environments, such as operating systems, languages, platforms, services etc. We develop a simple model of growth and give some examples. The theory involves the three basic resources, namely, intellectual resource (I), manual resources (M), and physical (P) resources, essential for our living. Intellectual resources grow in accordance with the law of increasing returns (Arthur and Romer); the manual resources follow the Churchill's suggestion of using minimum manual effort, and the natural physical resources follow the law of diminishing returns. We show that the basic tenets of our growth theory are similar to theory of evolution of human development. It is not a perfect theory. We are still working on it. It is just an hypothesis and yet provides another abstract way to look at evolution and provides some valuable insights on the software engineering trends of the future.




    Mike Hinchey
    Lero-the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, Ireland

    Evolving Critical Systems


    Abstract

    Increasingly software can be considered to be critical, due to the business or other functionality which it supports. Upgrades or changes to such software are expensive and risky, primarily because the software has not been designed and built for ease of change. Expertise, tools and methodologies which support the design and implementation of software systems that evolve without risk (of failure or loss of quality) are essential. We address a research agenda for building software that (a) is highly reliable and (b) retains this reliability as it evolves, either over time or at run-time. We propose Evolving Critical Systems as an area for research to tackle the challenge and outline a number of scenarios to highlight some of the important research questions that should be asked of the community. Given that software evolution can be seen as a compromise between cost and risk, the most pressing question to ask is which processes, techniques and tools are most cost-effective for evolving critical systems?


    Biography

    Mike Hinchey is scientific director of Lero-the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre and a professor of software engineering at the University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests include selfmanaging software and formal methods for system development. Hinchey received a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge. He is a senior member of the IEEE and currently chairs the IFIP Technical Assembly. url: mike.hinchey@lero.ie


    Conference Registration


      Registration Fee

    Early Registration
    (before May 20)*
    Late Registration
    (after May 21)
    IEEE Member USD 550 USD 650
    IEEE non-Member USD 650 USD 750
    IEEE Student Member USD 300 USD 350
    IEEE Student non-Member USD 350 USD 400
    One-day pass USD 150 USD 150
        *The deadline for author registration is April 30, 2012.

      Payment

         The registration fee must be paid in full with a credit card when registering for
         the conference. Please click here to proceed with your payment.



      Registration Policy

        Every paper must have one paid full registration in order to be included in the
             conference proceedings or the SERE 2012 companion.

        Every paper must be presented at the conference in order to be included in the
             IEEE digital library and indexed by the EI Compendex.

        The deadline for author registration is April 30. Any paper without a completed
             full registration including the payment by this date will not be included in the
             conference proceedings and IEEE digital library, nor will it be EI indexed.

        The regular registration covers all the technical sessions at the main conference
             and workshops, as well as meals and social events such as breakfasts, lunches,
             coffee breaks, banquet, reception, etc.

        The one-day pass is good only for attending the technical sessions, breakfast,
             lunch, and coffee breaks of a specific day. Conference reception and banquet
             are not included.

        No multiple one-day passes will be allowed for the same attendee.

        Student registration only applies to full-time students. Proper IDs must be
             presented at the conference.

        The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) requires that
             SERE 2012 provide the complete list of attendees two business days before the
             conference for a security check. Unless you have a pass to the NIST campus your
             registration must be completed no later than June 15 (Friday). This also implies
             that there will be no on-site registration except for those affiliated with NIST.



      1260 Form for Non-US Citizen Attendees

         Since NIST is an agency of the Department of Commerce of the United States
         of America, all non-US citizen conference attendees are required to complete a
         1260 form and send it to Miss Norris, Mary Lou no later than June 11 (Monday) for
         the purposes of a security check to enable access to the NIST campus.



      Invitation Letter from SERE 2012

         If you need an invitation letter from the conference for your visa application to the
         USA, please contact Professor Eric Wong , Chair of the SERE Steering Committee.
         A formal invitation will be issued after your registration including the payment
         is completed. Since it may take a few weeks for attendees from countries such as
         China to receive their visas, please complete your conference registration including
         the payment at your earliest convenience and then immediately submit a request
         for an invitation letter.



      Information for Visa Requirements

         We strongly recommend that you start your visa application as soon as possible.
         Attendees from countries that do not participate in the US Visa Waiver Program
         are required to obtain a visa. Those from the following countries are waived.


         Click here for more details on how to apply for a visa to the USA.



    Hotel Reservation


    The SERE 2012 conference recommends the following hotels each of which provides a complimentary shuttle service to the NIST campus.

    Holiday Inn
          2 Montgomery Village Ave
          Gaithersburg, MD
          (301) 948-8900

          The room rate for SERE 2012 conference attendees starts at USD 113, which may vary

          depending on the availability.


    Hilton
          620 Perry Parkway
          Gaithersburg, MD
          (301) 977-8900

          The room rate for SERE 2012 conference attendees starts at USD 139, which may vary

          depending on the availability.


    Wyndham Garden
          805 Russell Ave
          Gaithersburg, MD
          (301) 670-0008

          The room rate for SERE 2012 conference attendees starts at USD 99, which may vary

          depending on the availability.

    Conference Venue


    SERE 2012 will be held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the center of Washington, D.C.


                     

    The picture on the left shows the logo of NIST on a beautiful flower bed. The middle is the 11-story Administration Building. The 234-hectare Gaithersburg campus has 35 additional buildings, including specialized research laboratories and facilities. The right picture captures deer (a few hundred) grazing on the NIST campus.


    The official mission of the institute is to
    Promote U.S. innovation and industrial
    competitiveness by advancing measurement
    science, standards, and technology in ways
    that enhance economic security and improve
    our quality of life.


    NIST supplies industry, academia, government, and other users with over 1,300 Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) which serve as calibration standards for measuring equipment, baseline samples for scientific experiments, or quality control benchmarks.


    Visit the NIST's website for more details.



    Final Camera-ready Submission


    Please follow the instructions in the author kit you received from Bob Warner at the IEEE CPS (Conference Publishing Services) to upload your camera-ready version directly to the specific IEEE web server. Do not submit it via EasyChair, which was only for the initial submission.

      Number of Pages

        Regular Paper: 10
        Student Paper: 6
        Fast Abstract: 2
        Workshop: 10

         No extra pages are allowed.

      The submission deadline is April 30, 2012.
       
        If you have more than one paper accepted, you need to create one profile for each
        submission.

        After the submission, you also need to submit the copyright release to the IEEE.
       


    SERE 2012: Keynote Speakers




    Stephen S. Yau
    Information Assurance Center, and School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering,
    Arizona State University
    Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Human Factors in Development of Trustworthy Service-based Systems


    Abstract

    Over the past decade, the rapid advances and growth in deployment of service-based systems, such as the booming cloud computing systems, have had major impacts on the economy, society, and our daily lives. Today, users have grown more accustomed to accessing various online services from a wide range of computing devices, from smart phones/tablets to desktop PCs, for both business and entertainments. However, such a trend also means that more users' private and confidential information than ever is transferred processed and stored in service-based systems. This trend raises serious concerns on the trustworthiness of such systems. Substantial research has been devoted to developing new security mechanisms, network protocols, and methods to improve the trustworthiness of service-based systems. Human factors, however, have not been sufficiently addressed in the development of trustworthy service-based systems.


    Human factors encompass many aspects in the development of trustworthy service-based systems, from design of trust management for trustworthy service-based systems and analysis of tradeoff between system usability and security to the evaluation of users' confidence and the usability of the deployed systems. Human factors are more important in the development of trustworthy service-based systems than traditional software systems due to more complicated interactions among various participants (infrastructure providers, service providers, application developers, and users) of service-based systems.


    In this address, the current state of the art of human factors considered in the development of trustworthy service-based systems will be discussed, especially on how human factors are incorporated in improving system trustworthiness, such as the establishment and evaluation of trusts. Challenges and future research directions for human factors in the development of trustworthy service-based systems will be presented.


    Biography

    Stephen S, Yau is the director of Information Assurance Center and a professor of computer science and engineering at Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, Arizona, USA. He served as the chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at ASU in 1994-2001. Previously, he was on the faculties of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and University of Florida, Gainesville.


    He served as the president of the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and was on the IEEE Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors of Computing Research Association. He served as the editor-in-chief of IEEE COMPUTER. He organized many national and international major conferences, including the 1989 World Computer Congress sponsored by International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), and the Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. His current research includes service-based systems, cloud computing, trustworthy computing, software engineering, mobile ad hoc networks and ubiquitous computing. He has received many awards and recognitions for his accomplishments, including the Tsutomu Kanai Award and Richard E. Merwin Award of the IEEE Computer Society, the IEEE Centennial Award and Third Millennium Medal, the Outstanding Contributions Award of the Chinese Computer Federation, and the Louis E. Levy Medal of the Franklin Institute. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, Taipei, all in electrical engineering.




    Virgil Gligor
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
    Carnegie Mellon University, USA

    Towards a Theory of Trust in Networks of Humans and Computers


    Abstract

    We argue that a general theory of trust in networks of humans and computers must be build on both a theory of behavioral trust and a theory of computational trust. This argument is motivated by increased participation of people in social networking, crowdsourcing, human computation, and socio-economic protocols, e.g., protocols modeled by trust and gift-exchange games, norms-establishing contracts, and scams/deception. User participation in these protocols relies primarily on trust, since online verification of protocol compliance is often impractical; e.g., verification can lead to undecidable problems, co-NP complete test procedures, and user inconvenience. Trust is captured by participant preferences (i.e., risk and betrayal aversion) and beliefs in the trustworthiness of other protocol participants. Both preferences and beliefs can be enhanced whenever protocol non-compliance leads to punishment of untrustworthy participants; i.e., it seems natural that betrayal aversion can be decreased and belief in trustworthiness increased by properly defined punishment. We argue that a general theory of trust should focus on the establishment of new trust relations where none were possible before. This focus would help create new economic opportunities by increasing the pool of usable services, removing cooperation barriers among users, and at the very least, taking advantage of "network effects." Hence a new theory of trust would also help focus security research in areas that promote trust-enhancement infrastructures in human and computer networks. Finally, we argue that a general theory of trust should mirror, to the largest possible extent, human expectations and mental models of trust without relying on false metaphors and analogies with the physical world.


    This talk is based on joint work with Jeannette Wing.


    Biography

    Virgil D. Gligor received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at the University of Maryland between 1976 and 2007, and is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and co-Director of CyLab. Over the past thirty-five years, his research interests ranged from access control mechanisms, penetration analysis, and denial-of-service protection to cryptographic protocols and applied cryptography. Gligor was an editorial board member of several IEEE and ACM journals, and the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing. He received the 2006 National Information Systems Security Award jointly given by NIST and NSA in the US, and the 2011 Outstanding Innovation Award given by the ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control.




    Huimin Lin
    State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software,
    Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

    Checking Safety Properties of Concurrent Programs


    Abstract

    As network and multi-core systems are becoming pervasive, software systems also go concurrent. In a concurrent setting, in order to accomplish its computation task a program must cooperate with other programs by exchanging messages between them. These result in non-determinism and sophisticated interaction behaviour, making it very difficult to ensure that concurrent software systems will run safely and reliably


    In this talk I will present an approach to checking safety properties of concurrent programs. In this approach, concurrent programs are represented as symbolic transition graphs which can be regarded as a generalization of flow chart diagrams to allow nondeterminism and communication. Safety properties are expressed as formulas in alteration-free first-order mu-calculus. An efficient algorithm exists to check whether a symbolic transition graph satisfies the desired properties. Various abstraction techniques can be incorporated to reduce the size of reachable state space.


    Biography

    Huimin Lin received Ph.D in Computer Science from the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1986. He is currently a research professor and the director of the State Key Laboratory of Computer Science, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999.


    Prof. Lin's research interests include concurrency, model checking, modal logics, formal methods, and tools and algorithms for concurrent systems. He is in the editorial boards of Information and Computation, Theoretical Computer Science, as well as major computer science journals in China (Science in China, Journal of Computer, Journal of Software, Journal of Computer Science and Technology etc.). He serves in the Steering Committees of the International Conference on Quality Software and the Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, and has been general chairs or program committee chairs of several international conferences in the area of computer science and software.



    SERE 2012: Additional Invited Speakers




    Karama Kanoun
    Directeur de Recherche
    LAAS-CNRS
    Toulouse, France

    Software Dependability Assessment: A Reality or A Dream


    Abstract

    The widespread use of software systems and their ever increasing size and complexity induce many challenges to software developers and quality assurance practitioners. A fully integrated approach, based on qualitative and quantitative aspects, is needed to ensure that software dependability is correctly handled and the expected goals are reached for the final product. Dependability assessment, based on measurement, plays a vital role in software dependability improvement.


    Measurement encompasses both the observation of the software behavior during its development or operational life (i.e., field measurement) and controlled experimentation (i.e., experimental measurement). Field measurement requires the collection of data related to failures, maintenance, and usage environment, in order to evaluate measures such the overall software failure rate, the failure rates according to some specific (critical) failure modes, the components failure rates, and system availability. Controlled experimentation complements very well field measurement, particularly when considering Off-The-Shelf software for which, most of the time, no information is available from the development phase.


    The presentation will focus on dependability assessment, based on measurements. It will i) outline current approaches to measurement-based dependability assessment, with examples from real-life systems, and ii) identify some research gaps.


    Biography

    Karama Kanoun is Directeur de Recherche at LAAS-CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research - Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems), in charge of the Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance Research Group (http://www.laas.fr/~kanoun/). Her research interests include modeling and evaluation of computer system dependability considering hardware as well as software, and dependability benchmarking. She has co-directed the production of a book on Dependability Benchmarking (Wiley and IEEE Computer Society, 2008).


    Karama Kanoun is Chairperson of the Special Interest Group on Dependability Benchmarking of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), and vice-chairperson of the IFIP working group 10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance. She was the principal investigator of the DBench European project (Dependability Benchmarking), and managed the European Network of Excellence ReSIST, Resilience Survivability in IST.


    She is chairing the Steering Committee of the European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) and serving on the Steering Committees of three other conferences in her field of interest: DSN (the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks), ISSRE (the IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering), and SERE (the IEEE International Conference on Software Security and Reliability). She has been a consultant for several French companies (including Renault-Automation, SYSECA, Aerospatiale, SAGEM, CNES, Alcatel Espace, STNA), the European Space Agency, Ansaldo Transporti, and the International Union of Telecommunications.




    Phillip Laplante
    IEEE Fellow &
    Professor of Software Engineering

    Penn State University

    Safe and Secure Software Systems and the Role Professional Licensure


    Abstract

    Licensure of certain software engineers in the United States will be required in at least 10 states by 2013 and, likely, by all US states and jurisdictions within a few years. States license engineers to ensure that those who offer services directly to the public are minimally competent. But what kinds of software systems affect the health, safety and welfare of the public? Which software engineers will need to be licensed? The answers to these two questions are both a matter of law and of science. This paper introduces some of the scientific aspects of these two questions from the perspective of reliability engineering and suggests new research directions to help answer these questions.


    Biography

    Dr. Phillip Laplante is Professor of Software Engineering at Penn State's Great Valley Graduate Professional Center. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Laplante spent several years as a software engineer and project manager working on avionics, computer aided design and software test systems. He has authored or edited 27 books and has published more than 200 scholarly papers. He is currently chairing the committee that is developing the examination, which will be used nation-wide to license Professional Engineers in the practice of Software Engineering.


    Laplante received his B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Systems Planning & Management, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, respectively, from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Colorado. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and SPIE and a member of numerous other professional societies, program committees, and boards. He is a licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania and a Certified Software Development Professional.




    Ji Wang
    National Laboratory for Parallel and Distributed Processing,
    School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology,
    Changsha, China

    Formal Modeling, Verification and Refinement of Long Running Transactions


    Abstract

    Recently, long running transactions attracted much research attention, because they are adopted in distributed systems, such as service-oriented systems, to ensure consistency. How to model and verify long running transactions is critical to improve the reliability of current distributed systems.


    This talk will introduce our recent work on formal modeling, verification and refinement of long running transactions in terms of a process algebra language. The start point of our work is Compensating CSP (cCSP), which extends CSP for specification and verification of long running transactions. We present an extended cCSP to support the modeling of non-determinism, deadlock and livelock, which are the three basic features of concurrent systems. A full semantic theory supporting refinement for the extended language is developed based on the theory of CSP. Leveraged by our semantic theory, the verification techniques and the tools, such as FDR and PAT, can be extended for verifying long running transactions.


    This talk is based on joint work with Zhenbang Chen and Zhiming Liu.


    Biography

    Ji Wang received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from National University of Defense Technology. He is currently a professor in School of Computer of National University of Defense Technology, and the deputy director of National Laboratory for Parallel and Distributed Processing of China. He has been awarded National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, and Professorship of Chang Jiang Scholars Program of Ministry of Education of China. His research interest includes formal analysis and verification of software systems, and distributed parallel computing. He has been an editorial board member of the Journal of Systems and Software, the Science China (Information Sciences), and a member of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Software Security and Reliability.