Call For Papers
Special Issue of the International Journal on Information and Computer 
Security (IJICS)
"Nature-Inspired Computation in Cryptology and Computer Security"

Guest editors: John A Clark and Julio Cesar Hernandez

Techniques taken from the field of nature-inspired computation (e.g. 
Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Simulated Annealing, and 
Artificial Immune Systems) are steadily gaining ground in the area of 
cryptology and computer security. In recent years, nature inspired 
algorithms have been proposed, for example, for the design and analysis of 
a number of new cryptographic primitives, ranging from pseudorandom number 
generators to block ciphers, in the cryptanalysis of state-of-the-art 
cryptosystems, in the design of security protocols and in the detection of 
network attack patterns, to name but a few.
There is a growing interest from the cryptographic and computer security 
communities towards nature-inspired techniques. This has occurred partly as 
a result of these recent successes, but also because the nature of systems 
is changing in a way which means traditional computer security techniques 
will not meet the full range of tasks at hand. The increasing distribution, 
scale, autonomy and mobility of emerging systems is forcing us to seek 
inspiration from nature to help deal with the challenges ahead. There is a 
general feeling that the area is ripe for further research, with dedicated 
conference sessions only beginning to emerge (e.g. the Conference on 
Evolutionary Computation special sessions in 2003, 2004 and 2005). This 
special issue of the IJICS solicits the submission of research papers in 
this general area. Suitable topics include (but are not limited to) the use 
of nature-inspired techniques for:
 -  Intrusion detection.
 -  System security management.
 -  Security authentication technologies.
 -  The design of cryptographic primitives.
 -  The cryptanalysis of stream, block and public key encryption algorithms 
(and other security-related algorithms, e.g. watermarking algorithms).
 -  The design or analysis of security protocols.

Submissions (in Word, postscript or pdf) should be emailed to:
John A Clark (email jac@cs.york.ac.uk), or
Julio Cesar Hernandez (email: jcesar@inf.uc3m.es)

with subject title "IJICS Special Issue". Submissions should not exceed 
8000 words.

Important dates:
 -        Deadline for submission: 30 September 2005.
 -        Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2006.
 -        Submission of camera-ready papers: 31 May 2006.