Monday 6 December and Tuesday 7 December, 2010, Austin, Texas, USA

The Fourth Annual Layered Assurance Workshop (LAW 2010)

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Workshop Background and Description

The Fourth Layered Assurance Workshop (LAW) will be held in Austin, Texas, December 6-7, 2010. The LAW Organizing Committee in conjunction with Applied Computer Security Associates is pleased to have LAW as an affiliated workshop of the 26th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC) December 6-10, 2010. If you have attended a previous meeting of the LAW we believe you will find this year's LAW and ACSAC to provide a greater opportunity for exposure to the latest developments in applied computer security.

LAW has provided a forum for vital exchange, as well as a maturing source of information, focused on key issues relating to the effective and efficient modular construction and certification of assured systems from assured components. It is widely recognized that such an approach is the most promising way to achieve diverse and flexible systems that can be certified quickly and cost effectively. LAW is concerned with the theoretical, engineering, and certification challenges to be met before this goal can be fully realized.

The Workshop concerns itself with the fundamental problems of “compositional assurance” and with a need for principles, methods, and techniques that can be applied to achieve the assurance necessary for security-critical, safety-critical, and mission-critical components and systems.

For the past three years, the Layered Assurance Workshop has grown and evolved. The first LAW in 2007 took an exploratory approach, relying heavily on the participants' input to establish the agenda. The second LAW in 2008 was attended by approximately 80 individuals representing more than 30 distinct organizations. In that Workshop more of the program was established in advance, with several keynote talks chosen from responses to an open invitation, followed by breakout sessions on diverse topics. The third LAW comprised two thematic days with a common structure: morning keynote talks, afternoon panels and breakout sessions. The theme of the first day was programmatic needs of government, while that of the second day was research and development on the problems of layered assurance.

This year, the fourth LAW will include talks by distinguished speakers, panels, discussions and technical training. Attendees are encouraged to participate in ACSAC in addition to LAW. The conjunction of LAW and ACSAC provides increased opportunities for academic and industry participants to contribute in the forum of their choice. Please pass along information about LAW to colleagues who may be interested.

The workshop is unclassified and will be open to all attendees. Please see the ACSAC web site for more information about ACSAC. As a result of the transition to make LAW a permanent ACSAC workshop, there is now a LAW registration fee. This year, to ease the transition for attendees, the LAW sponsors have generously provided a sponsorship for early registrants.

Hotel Reservations and Workshop Registration

Links for hotel reservations and registration for LAW and ACSAC are provided on the ACSAC web site.

LAW registration discounts still available! These are not based on a date - first come, first served.

The registration fee for LAW is 200ドル. To ease the transition for attendees this year, the LAW sponsors have generously provided a sponsorship for early registrants. There are three discount categories (affiliation and status subject to verification): 33 discounts of 100ドル for government employees, 30 discounts of 80ドル for industry/academic, and 15 discounts of 100ドル for full-time students, all available on a first-come, first-served basis. The discount is accessed by a code that is made available during the ACSAC registration process: look for the early bird discount link in the "Special Code" block on the "Contact Information" page. When all the available early bird discounts in each category have been applied, the code will no longer produce a discount.

Workshop Program

Contributed papers will be linked to the program shortly after December 1, prior to the commencement of LAW.
Presentations will be linked to the program shortly after the conclusion of LAW.

The LAW Business Meeting scheduled after the conclusion of sessions on Monday December 6 is open to all interested individuals. Planning for LAW 2011 will commence. Participation is encouraged.

LAW attendees are invited to attend the ACSAC Reception on Tuesday December 7 at 6 PM.

The names of invited speakers and presenting authors are underlined in the Program following.

A pdf of the program is here.

Monday December 6

Tuesday December 7

LAW Organizing Committee

Contact: Workshop Chairman

Rance J. DeLong -- LynuxWorks, Santa Clara University, Consultant