About the HCSS Conference

The High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) Conference was created to support the interchange of ideas among researchers, practitioners, and research managers from Government, research labs, and industry practice. HCSS provides a forum for dialogue centered upon the development of scientific foundations together with innovative and enabling software and hardware technologies for the assured engineering of complex computing systems. These systems, which include networked and cyber-physical systems, must be capable of interacting correctly, safely, and securely with humans and the physical world even while they operate in changing and possibly malicious environments with unforeseen conditions. In many cases, they must be certifiably dependable.

The technical emphasis of the HCSS conference is on mathematically-based tools and techniques and on scientific foundations supporting evidence creation and systems assurance and security. The HCSS vision is one of engaging and growing a community--including researchers and skilled practitioners--that is focused around the creation of dependable systems that are capable, efficient, and responsive; that can work in dangerous or inaccessible environments; that can support large-scale, distributed coordination; that augment human capabilities; that can advance the mission of national security; and that enhance quality of life, safety, and security.

This year's conference will keep in the tradition of two kinds of talks:

• Experience reports: These talks inform participants about how emerging HCSS and CPS techniques play out in real-world applications, focusing especially on lessons learned and insights gained. While experience reports are not necessarily highly technical, they emphasize substantive reflection on all aspects of experience, building on data and direct experience. They also focus on topics such as architecture and requirements, use of advanced languages and tools, evaluation and assessment, team practice and tooling, supply-chain issues, and so on.

• Technical talks: These talks focus on informing the audience regarding specific techniques or methods, ideally from the point of view of someone with experience in practice. There is a wide range of relevant topics, ranging from theorem proving and analysis to techniques for modeling cyber-physical systems or for certifying large systems. While these talks will often focus on the details of a particular technique, they nonetheless should be accessible to the broad HCSS and CPS audience.

The following themes and associated talks are illustrative of the range of topics that will be covered at this year's Conference.

Technology Transfer

• Formal Methods and DO-178C
• Accessible Integrated Formal Reasoning Environments in Classroom Instruction of Mathematics
• Structured Orchestration of Data and Computation
• Developer-Friendly Contract-Based Notations and Machine-Checkable Evidence for Verification of Information Flow Properties for Embedded Systems
• Tech Transfer of Software Tools

Formal Synthesis

• Program Synthesis for Performance
• Preventing Exploits Against Software of Uncertain Provenance
• Formal Synthesis of Efficient Verified Emulators
• Synthesizing Architectural Models of Cyber-Physical systems
• Static Previrtualization
• High Assurance Cyber Military Systems: A New DARPA Program

Compositional Reasoning

• The Ramification Rule of Separation Logic
• Verification of Elliptic Curve Cryptography
• Reasoning About Non-Determinism in Programs
• Framework for Evaluating Information Flows in Multicore Architectures for High Assurance Systems
• Software Model Checking Secure Systems

Designed-In Security

• Lessons from Twenty Years of Industrial Formal Methods
• The Role of Domain-Specific Techniques in Designed-In Security
• Designing for the Human Element in Security
• Designed-In Security for Mobile Applications