[ The Types Forum (announcements only),
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The University of Pennsylvania's Accountable Protocol Customization (APC)
project is a new multi-disciplinary effort funded by the Office of Naval
Research (ONR) as part of its Total Platform Cyber Protection (TPCP) program.
The goal is to develop tools and reasoning principles for protocol
customization aimed at software de-bloating, by identifying lean protocol
subsets that are sufficient to meet the functional and security needs of
relevant clients and servers while preserving backward compatibility.
Customization can also support protocol dialects that modify the original
protocol standard in settings where backward compatibility is not a strict
requirement. A central project theme is ensuring that customization is
“accountable” — i.e. carefully vetting properties of customized protocols by
tightly coupling protocol customization operations with rigorous formal
analysis and machine-checked proofs in the Coq proof assistant. A particular
target area is modern web protocols such as HTTP2 and TLS.
Our APC project, in collaboration with Carnegie-Mellon University and Stanford
University, brings together researchers with expertise in formal methods,
programming languages, distributed systems, and network security.
The APC team at Penn has funding for one post-doctoral researcher. This is a
one-year position, based in Philadelphia, with the option of a second year
subject to mutual agreement and funding availability. The postdoc will have the
freedom to lead individual projects as well as working with a strong team of
researchers including Ph.D., Masters, and undergraduate students.
We seek applicants with expertise in at least one, preferably two or more, of
the following areas: formal methods, programming languages, distributed
systems, and network security. Applicants should email their CV and a research
statement to Dr. Boon Thau Loo (boon...@seas.upenn.edu
<mailto:boon...@seas.upenn.edu>) and also ask two or three references to email
letters of recommendation to Dr. Loo.
For more information, please feel free to contact any of the APC Principal
Investigators:
Boon Thau Loo (boon...@seas.upenn.edu <mailto:boon...@seas.upenn.edu>)
Benjamin C. Pierce (bcpie...@seas.upenn.edu)
Andre Scedrov (sced...@seas.upenn.edu)
Steve Zdancewic (ste...@seas.upenn.edu)
