Aug 14 2013
ISSNet 2013 Summer Event
Sunset over the University of Calgary in July 2013; and soon sunset over ISSNet.
For the past 5 years, ISSNet has been a big part of our lives. ISSNet is the NSERC Strategic Research Network on Internetworked Systems Security, and it was a real networking and research success. Through ISSNet, we made connections between many of the researchers in computer security across Canada, and built a community that will last a long time. But ISSNet itself is ending, and its 5 year term is done at the end of 2013. To start the process of moving on, we held a summer event in July at the University of Calgary. Normally the ISSNet summer events were “summer schools”, and featured background sessions on all the kinds of work involved in contemporary practical security research. But this year we looked forward, and held one day each on the perspectives from the government, academic, and industry sectors. The students held extra sessions to round out the week. It all worked well, and reinforced the feeling that there is a strong spirit of collaboration that lightens the challenges in this kind of work. What will come after ISSNet? Some plans are already hatching: one is the VENUS effort. But more will unfold in the months ahead: the real legacy of ISSNet is the ongoing community it built.
Robert Biddle