MobiCraNT Lecture series on Web Security by Mark S. Miller (Google)

The Software Languages Lab and the Web and Information Systems Lab of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel invite you to a lecture series on Web Security by Google Research Scientist Mark S. Miller.

The lecture series consists of two talks, one targeted at an industrial audience, another targeted at a research audience. Attendance to both talks is free, but registration is required.

Program Details

Industry-oriented session: Secure Distributed Programming with Object-capabilities in JavaScript

Thu October 6th, 16:00-17:00, VUB Campus Etterbeek (Building K), Brussels

Until now, browser-based security has been hell. The object-capability (ocap) model provides a simple and expressive alternative. Google's Caja project uses the latest JavaScript standard, EcmaScript 5, to support fine-grained safe mobile code, solving the secure mashup problem. Dr. SES -- Distributed Resilient Secure EcmaScript -- extends the ocap model cryptographically over the network, enabling RESTful composition of mutually suspicious web services. We show how to apply the expressiveness of object programming to the expression of security patterns, solving security problems normally thought to be difficult with simple elegant programs.

[ slides ] [ video ]

Reception

The industry-oriented talk will be followed by a reception, to allow for networking among attendants.

Research-oriented session: Bringing Object-orientation to Security Programming

Fri October 7th, 15:00-16:00, VUB Campus Etterbeek (Building K), Brussels

Just as we should not expect our base programming language to provide all the data types we need, so we should not expect our security foundation to provide all the abstractions we need to express security policy. The answer to both is the same: We need foundations that provide simple abstraction mechanisms, which we use to build an open ended set of abstractions, which we then use to express policy. We show how to use EcmaScript 5 to enforce the security latent in object-oriented abstraction mechanisms: encapsulation, message-passing, polymorphism, and interposition. With these secured, we show how to build abstractions for confinement, rights amplification, transitive wrapping and revocation, and smart contracts.

[ slides ] [ video ]

Speaker Bio

Mark S. Miller is a research scientist at Google, main designer of the E and Caja secure programming languages, a pioneer of agoric (market-based secure distributed) computing, an architect of the (pre web) Xanadu hypertext publishing system, and a representative to the ECMAScript (Javascript) standards committee.

Location

Both talks will take place at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, campus Etterbeek [how to get there?], building K, 2nd floor, room Auditorium Janssens.

If you are coming by car, parking is available on-campus. To enter the campus, please download the following barcode. Scan it at the entrance to get automatic access. Building K is located close to entries 6 and 8.

If you are coming by train, the closest station is "Etterbeek". If coming by metro, the closest stop is "Petillon".

This Lecture Series is funded by the Brussels Institute for Research and Innovation (INNOVIRIS) via the Strategic Platforms Project Second Generation Mobile Cross-media Applications: Scalability, Heterogeneity and Legacy (MobiCraNT).