Dear Readers,
The Security and Privacy Symposium successfully resumed its in-person (hybrid) meeting in San Francisco last month with nearly 600 people in attendance physically and 224 virtually. There were 147 papers presented out of 1012 submitted. Thorsten Holz will be the TCSP Vice Chair starting in 2023.
The conference will be held in San Francisco at the same location through 2024, but beyond that, all options are being considered. The conference registration fee has gone up by a factor of 10 in less than 20 years, and there is some sentiment for changing the sign of the first derivative, even that means leaving the San Francisco Bay area. On the other hand, all conferences are having sticker shock in the maybe-COVID-is-over era, so alternatives may be few.
Sven Dietrich's review of a book taking a long backward look at computer security is in this Cipher issue. It harks back to the beginnings of the S&P conference in its recounting of events like the creation of the Orange Book.
A time traveler from that long ago era might think that the smattering of news items in this issue show that computer security research ceased in the 1980s. Although the same problems recur again and again, the failures are probably a drop in the bucket of our massive shift to online services. Costa Rica's government might think differently, having had their customs system thoroughly disrupted. "Yet a definite improvement is discernible today."
All Too Literal: The Poetry of S&P Titles
Anonymous privacy Byzantine,
Side-channel rowhammered timing,
Blockchain suspicious,
Verified malicious,
Fuzzy phish spectres be hardening.