Workshop on Formal and Computational Cryptography
FCC 2009

Background, aim and scope

Since the 1980s, two approaches have been developed for analyzing security protocols. One of the approaches is based on a computational model that considers issues of computational complexity and probability. Messages are modeled as bit strings and security properties are defined in a strong form, in essence guaranteeing security with high probability against all probabilistic polynomial-time attacks. However, it is difficult to prove security of large, complex protocols in this model. The other approach relies on a symbolic model of protocol execution in which messages are modeled using a term algebra and cryptographic primitives are treated as perfect black-boxes, e.g. the only way to decrypt a ciphertext is to use the corresponding decryption key. This abstraction enables significantly simpler and often automated analysis of complex protocols. Since this model places strong constraints on the attacker, a fundamental question is whether such an analysis implies the strong security properties defined in the computational model.

This workshop focuses on approaches that combine and relate symbolic and computational protocol analysis. Over the last few years, there has been a spate of research results in this area. One set of results establish correspondence theorems between the two models, in effect showing that for a certain class of protocols and properties, security in the symbolic model implies security in the computational model. In other work, researchers use language-based techniques such as process calculi and protocol logics to reason directly about the computational model. Several projects are investigating ways of mechanizing computationally sound proofs of protocols. The workshop seeks results in this area of computationally sound protocol analysis: foundations and tools.

We invite presentations of original results on the topics of the workshop. We also encourage submissions that describe work in progress or that further publicise interesting results published elsewhere. The main goal of the workshop is to stimulate discussions and new collaborations.

FCC 2009 will be held in Port Jefferson, New York, USA on July 11-12, 2009. The workshop will start in the afternoon on July 11th following ASA 2009 and SecRET 2009, the other two workshops affiliated with CSF 2009. It will end around noon on July 12.

Important dates

• Deadline for submission: April 30, 2009 May 8, 2009 (extended)
• Notification of acceptance/rejection: May 28, 2009
• Final abstract due: June 12, 2009
• Workshop: July 11-12, 2009

Program committee

• Michael Backes (MPI and Saarland University, Germany)
• Gilles Barthe (IMDEA Software, Spain)
• Bruno Blanchet (CNRS, ENS, INRIA, France)
• Ran Canetti (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
• Hubert Comon-Lundh (AIST Tokyo, Japan)
• Anupam Datta (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
• Cédric Fournet (Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK)
• Ralf Küsters, chair (University of Trier, Germany)

Submission Instructions

Authors should submit a title and a short abstract of their talk (about 100 to 200 words, maximum 1 page) that will be peer-reviewed by our program committee. The workshop does not have formal proceedings, but copies of the abstracts will be handed out to the participants of the workshop. Workshop registration is open.

To submit your abstract go to http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fcc09.

For further information please contact the program chair Ralf Küsters: fcc09 AT infsec DOT uni-trier DOT de