CONFERENCE DATES:

The 8th USENIX Security Symposium will be held in Washington, DC, August 23-26, 1998.

• Paper due: March 16, 1999
• Notification to authors: April 27, 1999
• Camera-ready papers due: July 12, 1999

THE CALL FOR PAPERS:

Instructions to authors:

The guidelines for submission are a bit different from previous years. Authors must submit a mature paper in PostScript format. Any incomplete sections (there shouldn't be many) should be outlined in enough detail to make it clear that they could be finished easily. Full papers are encouraged, and should be about 8 to 15 typeset pages. Submissions must be received by March 16, 1999.

Authors will be notified of acceptance on April 27, 1999.

All submissions will be judged on originality, relevance, and correctness. Each accepted submission may be assigned a member of the program committee to act as its shepherd through the preparation of the final paper. The assigned member will act as a conduit for feedback from the committee to the authors. Camera-ready final papers are due on July 12, 1999.

THE NEXT STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.

• All submissions must include a separate E-mail message listing:
  • The title, all authors of the manuscript, and their affiliations.
  • The name of one author who will serve as a contact, with regular and electronic mail addresses, daytime and evening telephone numbers, and a fax number.
  • Indicate any authors who are full-time students.

• Copies of the manuscript must be submitted by the following two methods:
  • Email (PostScript) to: securitypapers@usenix.org.

  • Send a hard copy to:

    Security Symposium USENIX Association 2560 Ninth Street, #215 Berkeley, CA 94710 U.S.A. Phone: 510-528-8649

• The final paper should ideally be between 8 and 15 pages in length, and in no case more than 20 pages.

Specific questions about submissions may be sent to the program chair, Win Treese, via email to: securitychair@usenix.org.

GETTING A COPY OF THE CALL FOR PAPERS:

A complete copy of the Call For Papers (CFP) for this conference is available on the Web.

WHAT KINDS OF PAPERS DOES USENIX PUBLISH?

The most important thought to keep in mind when deciding whether to submit a paper is "what will the audience or readers learn from my paper?" We don't expect every paper to report on a major breakthrough, but we do look for something new, potentially useful, and not entirely obvious. Think about how different your work is from previously published papers; it may be good work but if there is nothing new to learn, it isn't worth reading (or writing) a paper about it. Think about how other people might find your work useful; can they apply what you are teaching them to their own systems? And, does your work really improve upon the previous state of the art? Or does it show how other people have been confused? "Negative results" that contradict the conventional wisdom are often more important than positive results.

Trying to decide if something is non-obvious isn't easy (patent lawyers make lots of money arguing about this), and sometimes the best ideas seem obvious in hindsight; but if lots of people have done the same thing, and you are simply the first person to have considered writing a paper about it, perhaps it's too obvious.

Again, when you are writing your paper, keep in mind "what do I intend to teach the reader?" That means keeping the paper focused on one or a few main points. Don't try to cram too many big issues into the paper, and don't fill it up with irrelevant details. But do include enough background for the reader to understand why your problem is important, how your work relates to previous work in the field, and how it might fit into a practical system. Also, provide enough detail for the reader to put your performance measurements in context. It is vitally important to provide a good bibliography, both so that you give proper credit to previous work, and so that a reader can know where to turn to find additional background information. The program committee will not look kindly on a paper if the author doesn't appear to be familiar with the current literature.

HOW SHOULD I GET MY MANUSCRIPT TO YOU?

The Program Committee would prefer to receive submissions via electronic mail, but there are occasionally problems in printing them. That is the main reason why we also request a printed copy of your submission. First, we can use the printed copy to make sure we printed your on-line version properly. Second, and more important, if we cannot print the on-line version, we have the other copy as a backup. If you have any reason to suspect that your submission might not be easy for us to print, please submit an already printed hardcopy by surface mail, in addition to your email.

Submissions via email should be in PostScript format.

• Use only the most basic of fonts (e.g., TimesRoman, Helvetica, Courier). Other fonts are often not available with every printer or previewer.

• PostScript that requires some special prolog to be loaded into the printer won't work for us. Don't send it.

• If you used a PC or Macintosh-based word processor to generate your PostScript, print it on a more generic PostScript printer before sending it, to make absolutely sure that the PostScript is portable.

DON'T send files meant for various word-processing packages (Word, WordPerfect, MacWrite, etc.). We don't have the resources to deal with them.

Since electronic mail systems have been known to mangle mail, it is always a good idea to wrap up your submission using compress and uuencode.

If the paper you submit via email is missing illustrations that are present in your hardcopy or fax submission, please indicate this with a prominent note.

Authors from outside the U.S. should make sure that their abstract prints properly on US-style 8.5x11 inch paper. Please make sure that you leave enough room for top and bottom margins.

Thank you for your interest in the USENIX Security Symposium, and for your assistance in this process. We look forward to your submission.