NSPW 2021

Submission deadline: May 21 June 4, 2021 23:59 (UTC -11) via EasyChair
Workshop: October 26 - 28, 2021
Location: White Mountain Hotel and Resort in North Conway, New Hampshire, USA Online

The general and program chairs have decided to make NSPW virtual for a second year in a row. Travel restrictions make it difficult for prospective authors to be confident of in-person attendance, so we believe this step will permit the broadest possible participation in the workshop.

The New Security Paradigms Workshop (NSPW) seeks embryonic, disruptive, and unconventional ideas on information and cyber security that benefit from early, in-depth, and constructive feedback. Submissions typically address current limitations of information security, directly challenge long-held beliefs or the very foundations of security, or discuss problems from an entirely novel angle, leading to new solutions. We welcome papers both from computer science and other disciplines that study adversarial relationships and other aspects of security, as well as from practice. The workshop is invitation-only; all accepted papers receive a 1 hour plenary time slot for presentation and discussion. In order to maximize diversity of perspectives, we particularly encourage submissions from new NSPW authors, from Ph.D. students, and from non-obvious disciplines and institutions.

The theme for NSPW 2021 is interdisciplinarity and translation zones in the context of emerging technologies. We welcome intersectional papers that bring information security into contact with multiple disciplines. Papers should offer new frameworks for bringing information security into contact, but also challenge principles of information security by way of the intersection. Emergent technologies and emergent uses of existing technologies challenge traditional positions in information security by calling into question what we need to secure and how we need to secure it. Working with different disciplines both enhances analysis and challenges traditional technological security responses. Theme papers should therefore also include some reflection on the type of interdisciplinary working that has been carried out to produce the paper and how interdisciplinarity was put into practice.

The following are provocations that require interdisciplinary responses. When developing ideas for Theme submissions, authors might consider such types of provocation in the context of security and emerging technologies:

  • Technological accessibility is an extension of usable security and central to the principle of availability.
  • Protection of data and technology must always be a public good.
  • Informed consent is no longer possible in societies dependent on ubiquitous digital technologies.
  • The security of an emerging technology is dependent on a common understanding of the benefits of that technology.
  • Security for one party always results in insecurity for another party—whether at the policy, technology or societal level.

NSPW 2021 is scheduled to be held at the White Mountain Hotel and Resort in North Conway, NH USA. As in the past, this choice of venue is designed to facilitate interactions between the invited attendees throughout the workshop.