SIGSAC Annual Report
July 1998 - June 1999
Submitted by: Ravi Sandhu Chair
SIGSAC continues to forge ahead in establishing leadership in the
Information and Systems Security community. This annual report
outlines accomplishments of the past year and future plans.
1. SIGSAC's CONVERSION TO CONFERENCE ONLY SIG
SIGSAC's conversion to a conference-only SIG has been successfully
accomplished. With its strong conferences and close association with
TISSEC, SIGSAC has established a major presence in the security
community.
2. SIGSAC CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
SIGSAC's flagship conference is the ACM Conference on Computer and
Communications Security. The conference was initiated in 1993. Since
then it has been held twice in Fairfax (1993, 1994), and once each in
New Delhi, India (1996), Zurich, Switzerland (1997) and San Francisco
(1998). The 1999 Conference is in Singapore and the 2000 conference
in Athens, Greece. From its inception this conference has established
itself as among the very best research conferences in security. This
reputation continues to grow. SIGSAC leadership continues to discuss
the future of this conference. Currently we are leaning towards a
model that would keep the conference on the US East coast in the
November timeframe, while leaving the option of taking to
international locations when we receive strong proposals.
In 1995 SIGSAC created the new ACM Workshop on Role-Based Access
Control in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST). The first workshop was held at NIST in
Gaithersburg, Maryland, November 30 - December 1, 1995. This series
of workshops seeks to promote the use and standardization of RBAC.
Interest in RBAC has grown dramatically in the past few years as the
inadequacies of the classical discretionary and mandatory access
control approaches become increasingly evident. Subsequent workshops
have been held at the GMU campus in Fairfax in the October-November
timeframe.
SIGSAC's vision is to develop specialized workshops of this kind to
provide technical leadership in addition to its flagship conference.
The annual New Security Paradigms Workshop, started in 1992, is
another specialized workshop sponsored by SIGSAC. The 8th workshop
was held in September 1999 near Toronto, Canada.
3. SIGSAC PUBLICATION INITIATIVES
SIGSAC has been instrumental in creating the new ACM Transactions on
Information and System Security (TISSEC). The August 1999 issue of
TISSEC draws on papers from the 1998 CCS conference. We expect this
will become a tradition.
4. SIGSAC SPECIAL PROJECTS
SIGSAC continues to support the Computer Security Day.
5. AWARDS
None.
6. SUMMARY
A reinvigorated SIGSAC continues its technical leadership in the
Information and System Security arena. SIGSAC has a strong flagship
conference (established 1993) and two specialized workshop series with
others anticipated in future. SIGSAC has been instrumental in
creating a new ACM Transactions on Information and System Security.
In conclusion, SIGSAC is providing strong technical leadership to the
community and is developing a cadre of volunteers from which future
leadership will emerge.
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