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Jefferson's WheelSecurity Research at the University of Virginia |
The list of papers accepted to the 2009 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland Conference) is now posted here:
http://oakland09.cs.virginia.edu/papers.html.
Twenty-six papers were accepted (from over 250 submissions).
The symposium will be held 17-20 May 2009 at the Claremont Resort in Oakland, CA. Hope to see you there!
I’ve won an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia.
UVa has a story: U.Va. Computer Scientist David Evans Wins Statewide Outstanding Faculty Award, 29 January 2009.
SCHEV Update Newsletter [PDF]
Richmond Times-Dispatch: 12 college teachers honored in Virginia, 27 January 2009.
[Added 3 February] The Cavalier Daily also has an article: Computer science professor receives award: State Council of Higher Education honors David Evans as recipient of this year’s Outstanding Faculty Award, Cavalier Daily, 3 February 2009.
[Added 9 March] Pictures from the Ceremony
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.
And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 20 January 2009
Jonathan McCune successfully defended his PhD thesis at Carnegie Mellon University last week. Jon (sorry, that’s “Dr. McCune”) was an undergraduate researcher in our group from 2001-2003, when he worked on agent-based software (for our RoboCup team) and adaptable sensor network security, before joining CMU’s PhD program in 2003. Dr. McCune’s recent research has focused on leveraging trusted hardware to build secure systems.
Congratulations Dr. McCune!
The Daily Progress has an rather odd article juxtaposing our RFID research with a donation from Bob Barker (“Price is Right” host) to the law school to fund animal rights research: Barker’s gift to found animal law program; Science Foundation funds chip research. Perhaps we can combine projects to work on preserving pet privacy when implanting RFID tags in animals.
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“Animal law is a growing area that is in much discussion,” Riley said. “It is a good way even for a student who has no interest in practicing animal law to enlarge their interest and to understand different ways the law works.”A recent of example is Leona Helmsley’s will, Riley said.
When the hotelier, dubbed the “queen of mean,” died at 87 in August 2007, she spurred a legal debate by leaving behind a $12 million trust for the care of her dog.
Riley said a group of students at UVa have shown interest in animal law.
Elsewhere at UVa, the National Science Foundation’s grant will enable a team of engineers to create a more secure design for RFID chips, which are commonly found in remote car-locking systems and touchless debit cards.
These tiny chips, which send information over short distances using weak radio waves, are an increasingly popular way to monitor potentially sensitive information.
UVa researchers have been working to create a stronger encryption scheme that would keep information on RFID chips secure while keeping costs low.
[Added: 14 Jan] NetworkWorld has also picked up this story: NSF gives University of Virginia researchers a million good reasons to improve RFID security, privacy, by Alpha Doggs, NetworkWorld, 14 Jan 2009.
UVa Today has an article about our (myself, abhi shelat, John Lach, and Ben Calhoun) recent NSF Cybertrust grant on RFID security and privacy: U.Va. Team Receives $1 Million Grant To Improve RFID Security, by Brevy Cannon, 9 January 2009.
Some excerpts:
To address the problematic use of custom cryptography, the U.Va. research team will develop an encryption scheme that is relatively strong — providing some measure of privacy and security — but that can be implemented at almost zero cost by repurposing the meager hardware resources already available on common RFID tags. Providing a solution that adds virtually no cost is crucial, because these RFIDs are made by the billions, at such low costs (5 cents or less apiece) that there is no margin for any added expense.
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The team is breaking new ground by using a holistic design approach that considers how all the various levels of the design — the hardware, the encryption algorithm and how it is used — work together, mindful of how an attacker will target the single weakest link in the design.
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The research team hopes their research will forestall that possibility, enabling RFIDs to be used in countless ingenious applications not yet dreamt of, without sacrificing privacy and security in a Faustian bargain.