This proposal requests funding to assist approximately 10 US-based graduate students to attend the Fifth Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec). Participation in HotSec and similar conferences is a valuable and important part of the graduate school experience. It provides students with the opportunity to interact with more senior researchers in the field, and exposes students to leading edge work in the field. The support requested in this proposal will enable the participation of students who would otherwise be unable to attend HotSec.
The 5th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Security (HotSec '10) is linked with the USENIX Security conference, which brings together researchers, practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others interested in the latest advances in the security of computer systems and networks. Security and privacy are important goals for today and tomorrow's technologies. The challenge is to develop principled approaches for preserving our electronic security and privacy in the ever-changing landscape of new technologies and evolving threats. HotSec will bring together innovative practitioners and researchers in computer security and privacy, broadly defined, to tackle the challenging problems in this space. The HotSec '10 program included 11 technical papers. The papers represent some of the outstanding work in the area, with topics including social factors and minimizing trust, networks and software, secure systems and applications, and more. The workshop was held in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. Criteria for selection of USENIX student stipends: The USENIX Association offers stipends to most conferences we host. Any student enrolled full-time at an accredited university or college is welcome to apply for a stipend. Stipends have two components -- registration costs and expenses. For those students selected, USENIX covers the registration costs by providing students with a complimentary registration code. For the expense portion, USENIX provides a check to assist the student with costs related to airfare and hotel. The check is issued a few weeks prior to the event so the funds are available to the student before they travel. Variations in the amount of offers depends on how far a student will need to travel and the amount they request (i.e., some students may stay with a friend in the town of the conference, and therefore, do not need the hotel expense). We confirm that the students register and attend the event. We do not require that students provide us with a detailed accounting of how the funds were spent. - Students who are participating in the conference, e.g., presenting a poster - Students whose areas of study significantly overlap with the conference topics and who write a concise essay (supporting statement) outlining their research - First-time applicants and those who have not received a stipend in the past 12 months - Students who are willing to volunteer at the conference (this generally consists of writing a summary of technical session(s) for ;login:, the USENIX journal) - Students from institutions not traditionally represented at USENIX events - Student members of the Association (not required) - Class level and financial need USENIX received five stipend applications from students, and five were awarded grants. The funds were covered by the $5,000 from NSF. USENIX appreciates the financial support of the NSF, which allowed us to grant awards to many more qualified applicants than we would have been able to otherwise. Attendee Demographics: There were 101 total attendees at HotSec. Of these, 62 were from the US. Non-US attendees came from Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Training and Development: Participating in conferences such as HotSec is one important component in the training and development of graduate and undergraduate students in the areas of systems and networking. The student travel support program provided stipends that enabled a larger number of students to attend HotSec and benefit from the training and development opportunities that it offered. This website has the program, event details, and link to the publications from HotSec 2010: www.usenix.org/event/hotsec10/. Contributions within Discipline: The main contribution of this grant is toward the training and development of the five systems and networking undergraduate and graduate students who attended the conference via the travel support program. Contributions to Resources for Research and Education: As part of the travel program, the awardees volunteered their assistance as scribes to record the technical discussions for the benefit of the greater research community. This is available in the form of a conference report online and in ;login:, the USENIX magazine.
