SERE 2013: Another Rewarding Conference on Software Security and Reliability

W. Eric Wong

Sam Keene

SERE Steering Committee co-Chair

SERE Steering Committee co-Chair

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Vice President, Technical Activity

Past President

IEEE Reliability Society

IEEE Reliability Society

In 2006, the IEEE Reliability Society made a strategic decision to launch an annual conference focusing on security and reliability. This resulted in the establishment of an International Conference on Secure Software Integration and Reliability Improvement (SSIRI). Beginning with 2012, the steering committee made another landmark decision to change the name to International Conference on Software Security and Reliability (SERE), with SE representing SEcurity and RE for REliability, so that the focus of the conference can be more easily recognized by the community.

After being hosted in Yokohama, Japan in 2008, Shanghai, China in 2009, Singapore in 2010, and Jeju Island, Korea in 2011, last year was the first time SERE came to the USA. The conference venue was located at the 234-hectare Gaithersburg campus of NIST in Maryland, about 30 minutes from Washington D.C. There is a special geographic advantage of having the conference at NIST as many of its employees are responsible for supplying industry, academia, and government with standard reference materials, which serve as a baseline for scientific experiments, and/or quality control benchmarks. As a result, the conference can provide an excellent platform for academic faculty and students, industry practitioners, and government employees to discuss face-to-face problems encountered in the software industry, and exchange their ideas and experiences. With the great success last year, this year's conference was once again held at NIST Gaithersburg.

SERE 2013 attracted more than 120 attendees with 60 paper presentations. Refer to Figure 1 for pictures taken at the opening session, conference banquet, and during the following four keynote speeches:

  • Model-based Software Development: Benefits and Barriers
         Constance Heitmeyer, Head, Software Engineering
         U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
  • The Future of Access Control: Attributes, Automation, and Adaptation
         Ravi Sandhu, Lutcher Brown Endowed Chair in Cyber Security
         UT San Antonio, USA
    		•
  • Time Bombs in Modern Networks and Mitigation Thereof
         Nihal Sinnadurai, CEO and Chief Technologist
         ATTAC, UK
    		•
  • 4-D Development Mode of Reliability System Engineering
         Zili Wang, Dean, School of Reliability and System Engineering
         Beihang University, China


    • The conference also featured one plenary panel, "Who Trumps Who: Security or Reliability?" moderated by Dr. Jeffrey Voas (NIST), one half-day tutorial, "Programming on Android: Best Practices for Security & Reliability" by Professor Angelos Stavrou (George Mason University), and two distinguished lectures:

  • Rethinking the Formal Specification, Validation, and Verification Process: Making it an End-to-End Process that is Scalable
         Professor Bret Michael (Naval Postgraduate School)
    		•
  • Six Sigma Requirement Development Tools Assure More Reliable Software
         Samuel Keene (IEEE Reliability Society)
    		•

    There were three co-located workshops with a special focus on safety and security in cyber-physical systems, information assurance, and trustworthy computing. These workshops provided a platform for researchers and practitioners working in related areas to present their novel research ideas and preliminary results. Feedback for their presentations could be used to help them further improve their work for further publication.

    The Student Doctoral Program also gained momentum with two primary objectives: 1) providing graduate students an opportunity to interact with researchers and industry practitioners, and soliciting early feedback on their research efforts, and 2) encouraging students to attend the SERE conference and network with the research community.

    The PowerPoint slides and/or the videos of some keynote speeches, distinguished lectures, and the tutorial have been posted at the conference website under "Slides & Video" on the left menu. Not only is this useful for conference attendees, but also others who did not attend SERE 2013 can take advantage of this resource and continuously use it as a reference at any time. Also posted are the pictures taken at the conference. You may click on "Photo Gallery" on the left menu to view them online or download them to your local machine.

    We thank Dr. Jeffrey Voas, General Chair, and Professor Shiuhpyng Shieh, Program Chair for taking the lead in the organization of the conference, all the Program Committee members and reviewers for evaluating papers and providing valuable comments to help authors further improve the quality of their work, and especially the authors for sharing their innovative ideas and advanced research with all the conference attendees. Without their contribution, the impact of the conference would be diminished.

    We also extend our appreciation to Dr. Paul Black, Workshop Chair, Professor Tadashi Dohi, Student Doctoral Program Chair, Professors Zhenyu Chen, Angelos Stavrou, and Fei-Ching Kuo, Publicity co-Chairs, Professor YuLun Huang, Publication Chair, Professor Junhua Ding, Registration Chair, and Mr. Alfred Stevens, Finance Chair for their excellent assistance in organizing the conference.

    Thanks also go to Andrew Restrepo, Xinwei Gao, Ruizhi Gao, Shou-Yu Lee, and Yihao Li at the University of Texas at Dallas for designing, implementing, and maintaining the conference website, and other organizational tasks.

    We are very pleased that with your help, the SERE conference has become an important venue for students, engineers, and government workers to discuss their problems, ideas, and experiences in the software industry. Together, we can establish a strong community for SERE that benefits everyone.

    Thanks to each and every one of you for your support, and we look forward to seeing you at SERE 2014 in San Francisco.