The Institute for Security, Technology, and Society is dedicated to pursuing research and education to advance information security and privacy throughout society.

Security Summer Camp. Accepting Applications!

Summer Camp 2011

This July, during the week of the 4th (2-3, and 5-6), ISTS is offering a summer camp workshop for high school students. The workshop will explore current interdisciplinary research in cyber security and privacy.

The program for the camp is based on a scaled-down version of ISTS' intensive two-week Secure Information Systems Mentoring and Training (SISMAT) program that is funded by the National Science Foundation. This program for high school students will draw from the SISMAT curriculum focusing issues of security such as: cryptography, digital forensics, privacy, and security awareness. Lessons will mix in lectures with hands-on and interactive activities, augmented with field trips and guest speakers.

Deadline extended! Applications for the camp will be reviewed on a rolling basis until all slots are filled.  For more information see the Summer Camp page.

Context-Free Grep and Hierarchical Diff

Weaver

Smith

The grep and diff commands are time-honored UNIX utilities to extract and compare files and they use the line as the default information container.  The rise in high-level computer languages, caused an increase in meaningful structures that span multiple lines.

Dartmouth/ISTS researchers Gabe Weaver (PhD candidate) and Professor Sean Smith will update UNIX utilities to extract and compare text; such as computer code, configuration files, legal policy documents; by its block structure.  Their Context-Free Grep and Hierarchical Diff will help practitioners to extract and compare texts in terms of this structure.

Gabe Weaver presented the research-to-date at the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) conference in Boston on December 7th.  An article about his poster presentation was picked up by several media outlets, including IT World and Slashdot. For the full list of media coverage see the Context-Free Grep and Hierarchical Diff website.

ISTS Healthcare IT Security Research

The research continues on the NSF-funded Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare (TISH) project, SHARPS, and other healthcare related efforts.

Professor Kotz tests an  mHealth device Photo by Joseph Blumberg

Check the healthcare IT security page on the ISTS site occasionally for new papers, presentations, and other information on the research and be sure to see these recent news items:

• a Wall Street Journal article by Professor Eric Johnson and 
• a piece in Dartmouth Now about Professors David Kotz and Denise Anthony's research.