Report: 4th ACM Conference On Computer and Communications Security

Abstract

The 4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security [1] was held on 1-4 April 1997 in Zurich, Switzerland. About 100 participants from around the world gathered to discuss advances being made primarily in the area of defensive information warfare. This was primarily a research-oriented event which attracted principal investigators working in the security field from about 14 nations. I attended the conference for the following four reasons:• I wanted to update my knowledge of the area.• I wanted to ascertain what progress has been made in the field.• I wanted to determine whether there were any breakthrough technologies on the horizon.• I wanted to understand the threats being guarded against and the defensive strategies that leaders in the field were recommending.As I will relate later, significant progress has been in many defensive information warfare areas. I particularly was impressed by the advances that have been made in the area of cryptography, digital signatures and communications protocols. I was disappointed by the perceived lack of progress over the years in the important area of trusted systems and information security infrastructure development.This was the first conference that I have attended on the subject in about a decade. I selected the event because I thought that it would allow me to view both present work in the field and look into the future.