*Call for Full Papers and Structured Abstracts*

*2013 LASER Workshop*

*Learning from Authoritative Security Experiment Results*

http://www.laser-workshop.org

Arlington, Virginia - October 16-17, 2013

*Full paper submissions due June 27, 2013*

With the increasing importance of computer security, the goal of this
workshop is to help the security community quickly identify and learn from
both success and failure.  The workshop focuses on research that has a
valid hypothesis and reproducible experimental methodology, but where the
results were unexpected or did not validate the hypotheses, where the
methodology addressed difficult and/or unexpected issues, or where
unsuspected confounding issues were found in prior work.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

   - Unsuccessful research in experimental security
   - Methods and designs for security experiments
   - Experimental confounds, mistakes, and mitigations
   - Successes and failures reproducing experimental techniques and/or
   results
   - Hypothesis and methods development (e.g., realism, fidelity, scale)

The specific security results of experiments are of secondary interest for
this workshop.

Journals and conferences typically publish papers that report successful
experiments that extend our knowledge of the science of security or assess
whether an engineering project has performed as anticipated. Some of these
results have high impact; others do not.

Unfortunately, papers reporting on experiments with unanticipated results
that the experimenters cannot explain, experiments that are not
statistically significant, or engineering efforts that fail to produce the
expected results are frequently not considered publishable because they do
not appear to extend our knowledge.  Yet, some of these =93failures=94 may
actually provide clues to even more significant results than the original
experimenter had intended. The research is useful, even though the results
are unexpected.

Useful research includes a well-reasoned hypothesis, a well-defined method
for testing that hypothesis, and results that either disprove or fail to
prove the hypothesis. It also includes a methodology documented
sufficiently so that others can follow the same path. When framed in this
way, =93unsuccessful=94 research furthers our knowledge of a hypothesis and=
 a
testing method. Others can reproduce the experiment itself, vary the
methods, and change the hypothesis, as the original result provides a place
to begin.

As an example, consider an experiment assessing a protocol utilizing
biometric authentication as part of the process to provide access to a
computer system. The null hypothesis might be that the biometric technology
does not distinguish between two different people; in other words, that the
biometric element of the protocol makes the approach vulnerable to a
masquerade attack. Suppose the null hypothesis is not rejected;  it is
still valuable to publish this result. First, it might prevent others from
trying the same biometric method. Second, it might lead them to further
develop the technology=97to determine whether a different style of biometri=
cs
would improve matters, or if the environment in which authentication is
being attempted makes a difference. For example, a retinal scan may be a
failure in recognizing people in a crowd, but successful where the users
present themselves one at a time to an admission device with controlled
lighting, or when multiple =93tries=94 are included. Third, it might lead t=
o
modifying the encompassing protocol so as to make masquerading more
difficult for some other reason.

Equally important is research designed to reproduce the results of earlier
work. Reproducibility is key to science as a way to validate earlier work
or to uncover errors or problems in earlier work.  Failure to reproduce the
results leads to a deeper understanding of the phenomena that the earlier
work uncovers.

Finally, many discussions about papers, proposals, and projects seek to
explore previously tried strategies that failed, usually because published
work does not exist.  Old ideas are often pursued because the community is
not aware of the prior failure.  The workshop provides a venue that can
help resolve this gap in the security community=92s research literature.

*Important Dates:*


*March 4 *          Start rolling consideration of 1-page structured
abstracts
*June 27*            Full papers due
*August 27*        Authors notified of accepted/rejected full papers
*September 23*  Pre-conference versions of full papers due
*September 30*  End rolling consideration of 1-page structured abstracts
*October 16-17* 2013 LASER Workshop
*November 15*   Post-conference versions of full papers due

Both full papers and structured abstracts are solicited.  Full papers
follow a typical pattern of submission, review, notification,
pre-conference version, conference presentation, and final post-conference
version.  One-page structured abstracts serve two purposes:  (1) to enable
authors to receive early feedback prior to investing significant effort
writing papers, and (2) to provide all attendees a forum to share an
abstract of their work before the workshop.

Abstracts will be reviewed by at least two PC members with comments
returned in 5-10 days; submissions before June 27 will receive an
=93encouraged,=94 =93neutral,=94 or =93discouraged=94 indication for submis=
sion of a
full paper based on the abstract.  The pre-submission feedback is for the
author=92s use only.  All abstracts deemed relevant by the PC will be
available on the laser-workshop.org website before the conference, but they
will not be part of the proceedings.

A structured abstract is typically 200-500 words and less than one page.
 It includes at least these elements: background, aim, method, results, and
conclusions. See the workshop website for more details.  The abstracts for
full papers should be similarly structured.

Full paper submissions should be 6=9610 pages long including tables, figure=
s,
and references. All submissions should use the ACM Proceedings format:
http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates (Option 1, if
using LaTeX).  At least one author from every accepted full paper must plan
to attend the workshop and present.  All papers and abstracts must be
submitted via OpenConfhttps://www.openconf.org/laser2013.

The LASER workshop is funded in part by NSF Grant #1143766 and by the
Applied Computer Security Associates (ACSA).

See www.laser-workshop.org for full and up-to-date details on the workshop.

Please direct all questions to info@laser-workshop.org.

*Organizing Committee:*

Laura Tinnel (SRI International), General Chair
Greg Shannon (CMU/CERT), Program Co-Chair
Tadayoshi Kohno (U Wash), Program Co-Chair
Christoph Schuba (Oracle), Proceedings
Carrie Gates (CA Technologies), Treasurer
David Balenson (SRI International), Local Arrangements
Ed Talbot (Consultant), Publicity


*Program Committee: *

Greg Shannon (CMU/CERT), Co-Chair
Tadayoshi Kohno (U Wash), Co-Chair
David Balenson (SRI International)
Matt Bishop (UC Davis)
Joseph Bonneau (Google)
Pete Dinsmore (JHU/APL)
Debin Gao (Singapore Management University)
Carrie Gates (Computer Associates Technologies)
Alefiya Hussain (USC/ISI)
Carl Landwehr (George Washington University)
Sean Peisert (UC Davis and LBNL)
Angela Sasse (University College London)
Christoph Schuba (Oracle)
Ed Talbot (Consultant)
Laura Tinnel (SRI International)
Kami Vaniea (Michigan State)
Charles Wright (Portland State)


*Submission Guidelines: Background and Purpose*

In his keynote speech at the 2012 LASER workshop, Dr. Roy Maxion of
Carnegie Mellon University suggested a simple way to help improve the
quality of experimental research for cyber security: to begin requiring
that papers follow a specific structure, including a structured abstract
that concisely and clearly summarizes the whole story of the work detailed
in the paper.

As a result of round table discussion at the LASER workshop, the organizing
committee decided to try this approach in the 2013 workshop.  To that end,
we are inviting structured abstracts for comment and review to help authors
refine their abstracts prior to developing full papers.  Workshop
participants who do not have a paper in the workshop are also encouraged to
take advantage of the abstract submission and review process to help them
improve their abstract development skills.  We will continue to accept and
review abstracts after the official paper deadline.  All abstracts deemed
relevant by the PC will be available on the laser-workshop.org website
before the conference, but they will not be part of the proceedings.

Researchers should not have to read a whole paper to determine what the
research described in the paper is about.  The idea behind a structured
abstract is to avoid that problem by giving the reader a concise summary of
the whole study and reducing his overall cognitive load.  We also recommend
using bold face as section headers in the abstract to make it easier on the
reader.  Finally, a well-written structured abstract will provide a good
outline for an author to use in developing a full paper and for conducting
meta-analyses.

*Structured Abstract Guidelines*

Abstracts should be 200-500 words and less than one page in length.  They
should contain concise statements that tell the whole story of the study,
presented in a consistent structure that facilitates quick assessment as to
whether or not the paper may meet the reader's needs and warrant reading
the full paper.  Essential elements of structured abstracts are:
background, aim, method, results, and conclusions.

*Background.*  State the background and context of the work described in
the paper.

*Aim.*  State the research question, objective, or purpose of the work in
the paper.

*Method.*  Briefly summarize the method used to conduct the research,
including the subjects, procedure, data, and analytical method.

*Results. * State the outcome of the research using measures appropriate
for the study conducted.  Results are essentially the numbers.

*Conclusions.*  State the lessons learned as a result of the study and
recommendations for future work.  The conclusions are the "so what" of the
study.


By using this format for an abstract, the author has a good structure not
only for his or her paper but also for creating slides to present the work.

Here is an example abstract from the below citation (140 words) of a LASER
2012 paper:

Kevin S. Killourhy and Roy A. Maxion. 2012. Free vs. transcribed text for
keystroke-dynamics evaluations. In Proc. of the 2012 Workshop on Learning
from Authoritative Security Experiment Results (LASER '12). ACM, New York,
NY, USA, 1-8.

*Background.*  One revolutionary application of keystroke dynamics is
continuous reauthentication: confirming a typist=92s identity during normal
computer usage without interrupting the user.

*Aim.*  In laboratory evaluations, subjects are typically given
transcription tasks rather than free composition (e.g., copy- ing rather
than composing text), because transcription is easier for subjects.  This
work establishes whether free and transcribed text produce equivalent
evaluation results.

*Method.*  Twenty subjects completed comparable transcription and
free-composition tasks; two keystroke-dynamics classifiers were
implemented; each classifier was evaluated using both the free-composition
and transcription samples.

*Results.*  Transcription hold and keydown-keydown times are 2=963
milliseconds slower than free-text features; tests showed these effects to
be significant. However, these effects did not significantly change
evaluation results.

*Conclusions.*  The additional difficulty of collecting freely composed
text from subjects seems unnecessary; researchers are encouraged to
continue using transcription tasks.


*Paper Guidelines*

*Format*

Full papers should be 6-10 US letter sized pages (8.5"x11"), inclusive of
tables, figures, and references.  They should follow the latest ACM
Proceedings Format<http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templat=
es>
(updated
May 2013) and *be submitted using Option 2, WITH the permission block*.
 Papers must comply with the template margins and BE SUBMITTED IN PDF
FORMAT.

Please include page numbers on submitted papers to aid reviewers.  Page
numbers should be excluded from final camera-ready papers.  Additional
guidelines for camera-ready papers will be provided to accepted paper
authors.

*Content*

Full papers should provide details sufficient that a reviewer can determine
the validity of the experiment(s) conducted and repeat the experiment, if
so desired. In addition to the title and author, suggested section headings
are:

*Structured abstract (following the above guidelines)*

Introduction

*Background and related work*

*Aim - Problem being Solved*

Approach

*Method (to include apparatus/instrumentation, materials, subjects/objects,
instructions given to subjects, design, and procedure)*

Data

Analysis

*Results*

Discussion

Limitations

*Conclusion*

Future

Acknowledgements

References

Appendices

Endnotes and footnotes


By using a predictable structure for content, the author is helping his
readers because they know what to expect in each section.  Further, it is
easier for researchers to read sections in the order they choose and also
to find something particular in the paper after reading.  Whether the
author chooses to follow this format or not, the information in the bolded
sections is required.