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Seminars will be held in the Lecture Theatre 1 - William Gates Building, Computer Laboratory at 4.15pm
   
for the research groups' seminars:

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 Security seminars
 Logic and Semantics seminars
 weekly timetable

Security for Ubiquitous Computing

Frank Stajano

Computer Laboratory, Cambridge

Ubiquitous computing, over a decade in the making, has finally graduated from whacky buzzword through fashionable research topic to something that is definitely and inevitably happening. This will mean revolutionary changes in the way computing affects our society: changes of the same magnitude and scope as those brought about by the World Wide Web. When throw-away computing capabilities are embedded in shoes, drink cans and postage stamps, security and privacy take on entirely new meanings. Programmers, engineers and system designers will have to learn to think in new ways. Ubiquitous computing is not simply a wireless version of the Internet with a thousand times more computers, and it would be a naive mistake to imagine that the traditional security solutions for distributed systems will scale to the new scenario. Authentication, authorization, and even concepts as fundamental as ownership require thorough rethinking. At a higher level still, even goals and policies must be revised. One question we should keep asking is simply "Security for whom?" The owner of a device, for example, is no longer necessarily the party whose interests the device will attempt to safeguard. Ubiquitous computing is happening and will affect everyone. Before focusing on the implementation details, in this high level talk we'll have a serious look at the big picture, highlighting both opportunities and risks of ubicomp.

Wednesday Seminars

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