March 8,2002

The National Security Agency (NSA) announces the designation of new Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education

The NSA designated the following universities as Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education for academic years 2002 through 2005.  They join the list of twenty-three universities across the country to be awarded this distinction:
     Air Force Institute of Technology (OH)                               George Washington University (DC)
     Indiana University of Pennsylvania (PA)                             New Mexico Tech (NM)
     North Carolina State University (NC)                                  Northeastern University (MA)
     Polytechnic University (NY)                                                    State University of New York, Buffalo (NY)
     State University of New York, Stony Brook (NY)               Towson University (MD)
    University of Maryland, University College (MD)              University of Nebraska, Omaha (NE)
    University of Texas, San Antonio (TX)

The program is intended to reduce vulnerabilities in the national information infrastructure by promoting higher education in information assurance and producing a growing number of professionals with information assurance expertise in various disciplines. Additional information about the program may be found at www.nsa.gov/isso/programs/coeiae/index.htm. Formal presentations will be made to the universities by the Information Assurance Director, National Security Agency on 4 June 2002, during the annual conference of the National Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education. The conference will be hosted by Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Additional information on the Colloquium and the annual conference may be found at www.ncisse.org.

Universities designated as Centers are eligible to apply for scholarships and grants through both the National Science Foundation SFS program (www.ehr.nsf.gov/due/programs/sfs) and the Department of Defense (www.C3i.osd.mil/iasp) Information Assurance Scholarship Programs.

Information assurance education plays a critical role in protecting the national information infrastructure. The Centers are key to having security solutions keep pace with evolving technology now and into the future. The Centers also provide great geographic dispersion of information assurance education across the country, building expertise where the national information infrastructures reside.

Correspndence from Riccardo Focardi, Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita Ca' Foscari di Venezia:

THIRD INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ON FOUNDATIONS OF SECURITY ANALYSIS AND DESIGN (FOSAD 2002)
www.cs.unibo.it/fosad
Application Deadline: June 20, 2002
23-27 September 2002, Bertinoro, Italy

Security in computer systems and networks is emerging as one of the most challenging research areas for the future. The main aim of the school is to offer a good spectrum of current research in foundations of security, ranging from programming languages to analysis of protocols, that can be of help for graduate students, young researchers from academia or industry that intend to approach the field.

The school covers one week (from Monday 23 to Friday 27, September 2002) and alternates monographic courses of about 4/6 hours and short courses of 2 hours.

The school offers six main courses, each composed of 2/3 seminars, each seminar of 2 hours. In alphabetic order, the lecturers of the six main courses are the following:

- Carlo Blundo and Stelvio Cimato (Univ. of Salerno)
        Cryptographic Protocols for Internet Services
- Michele Bugliesi (Univ. of Venice) and Giuseppe Castagna (ENS, Paris)
        Security by Typing in Systems of Mobile Agents
- Matthew Hennessy (University of Sussex)
        Types for Resource Access Control and Information Flow
- Jonathan K. Millen (SRI International)
        Constraint Solving for Security Protocol Analysis
- David Sands (Chalmers University)
        Semantic Models of Secure Information flow in Programs
- Steve Schneider (Royal Holloway, University of London)
        Verifying security protocols with rank functions

Further short courses will be given by:

- Alessandro Aldini (University of Bologna)
        Non-interference Properties for Probabilistic Processes
- Vladimiro Sassone (University of Sussex)
        Capacity-Bounded Computational Ambients

In order to be really effective, at most 45 participants will be admitted to the lectures. Prospective participants should send an application to the address below, together with a recommendation letter, by June 20, 2002. Notification of accepted applicants will be posted by July 5, 2002. Registration to the school is due by July 31, 2002.

More detailed information on courses will be soon available at URL www.CS.UniBO.it/fosad/ Requests of information on the school and applications should be addressed to fosad@dsi.unive.it, while information on organisation (address, how to reach us, etc...) can be requested by e-mail to cbert@sun1.spfo.unibo.it

Colleges make cybersecurity pledge

In a Federal Computer Week article by Megan Lisagor (April 19, 2002, www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0415/web-cyber-04-19-02.asp), Universities are encouraged to help secure cyberspace.

"Colleges and universities have always played a major role in defending our country and keeping our economy healthy," said Richard Clarke, President Bush's cyberspace security adviser, speaking April 18 at a conference on policy affecting information technology in higher education. "So it's not just about protecting research going on at your [university]. It's about protecting your country."

The framework the organizations endorsed will serve as a basis for coordinating cybersecurity activities at the campus and national levels. It calls for:
* Making IT security a higher and more visible priority in higher education.
* Doing a better job with existing security tools, including revising institutional policies.
* Developing improved security for future research and education networks.
* Raising the level of security collaboration among higher education, industry and government.
* Integrating higher education work on security into the broader national effort to strengthen critical infrastructure.

Clarke further asked colleges and universities to develop their own strategies to defend "their bit of cyberspace" as the Bush administration works out a national plan. The framework provides a foundation for those strategies.

There has been a growing concern with some IEEE members about the linkage between the IEEE copyright form and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  IEEE no longer requires authors who write for its journals to sign a form promising to abide by the DMCA.  See the story in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 18, 2002) by Dan Carnevale at chronicle.com/free/2002/04/2002041802t.htm.