TaPP 2017

9th International Workshop on Theory and Practice of Provenance
Seattle, Washington
June 22-23, 2017
In cooperation with USENIX

The Theory and Practice of Provenance workshop series was started in San Francisco in 2009. TaPP aims to be a venue for early-stage and innovative research ideas related to provenance, and a forum to encourage exchange of ideas between researchers working on provenance and practitioners or potential users of such research. Industry and academic participants interested in provenance in any setting are welcome, and workshop contributions describing unsolved problems or new potential application areas for provenance research are particularly welcome.

Call for papers

TaPP 2017 continues the tradition of providing a genuine workshop environment for discussing and developing new ideas and exploring connections between disciplines and between academic research on provenance and practical applications.

We invite innovative and creative contributions, including papers outlining new challenges for provenance research, promising formal approaches to provenance, innovative use of provenance, experience-based insights, resourceful experiments, and visionary (and possibly risky) ideas. Proposals for tutorials, panel or group discussions, reports on early stage research, or any other activities that will create a successful workshop are encouraged.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

Important dates

All deadlines are 23:59:59 UTC-11

Abstract submission March 20, 2017
Paper submission deadline March 27, 2017Extended: April 4, 2017
Poster submission deadline May 29, 2017Extended: June 5, 2017
Author notification May 8, 2017Extended: May 12, 2017
Final versions due TBD
Workshop June 22-23, 2017

Submission instructions

Papers must be:

Submission Site

Research paper contributions should be submitted online at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tapp17.

Posters: Please submit a 1-page poster proposal (in any reasonable format) summarizing the research topic of your poster presentation to tapp17@easychair.org, by the poster deadline. A draft of the poster itself may also be submitted but is not necessary. Authors of accepted poster proposals will be allocated a poster board area large enough for an A0 or A1 poster. Abstracts of posters will also be included on the TaPP proceedings site.

Program

June 22 (Thursday)
18:00-20:00Provenance Happy Hour
June 23 (Friday)
8.15-9.00Registration Opens
9.00-9.10Opening
9.10-10.00 Keynote by Tyson Condie, Interactive Debugging for Data-Intensive Scalable Computing using Data Provenance
10.00-10.30Break
10.30-12.10 Session 1: Algorithms and Methods
12.10-13.30Lunch in Local Point (Lander Hall)
13.30-14.15 Invited Talk by David Archer, Provenance of Computation Meets Persistent Threat Detection: A Progress Report
14.15-15.30 Session 2: Systems and Performance
15.30-16.00Break
16.00-17:40 Session 3: New Applications
17:40-18:00Town Hall and conclusions
18:00-20:00Dinner Reception & Poster Session

Accepted Papers (by Session)

Session 1: Algorithms and Methods Session 2: Systems and Performance Session 3: New Applications

Invited Talks

Professor Tyson Condie, UCLA, Interactive Debugging for Data-Intensive Scalable Computing using Data Provenance

Data-Intensive Scalable Computing (DISC) systems are being leveraged for analyzing large datasets. DISC system programs are authored in a domain specific language and submitted for execution on a cluster of machines in the form of jobs. Today, DISC users have limited visibility into the logical operations of their jobs during execution. As such, DISC programmers must resort to rudimentary methods—such as, trial and error debugging—to debug their program logic. BigDebug is our effort to fill this program execution visibility gap by providing an interactive debugging toolkit for Apache Spark. Interestingly, many of features in BigDebug stem from the use of data provenance. In this talk, I will present BigDebug and Titian, which augments Apache Spark with interactive data provenance query capabilities. More information on the BigDebug project can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/sparkbigdebug/

Dr. David Archer, Galois, Inc., Provenance of Computation Meets Persistent Threat Detection: A Progress Report

Carefully subtle cyber threats are designed to avoid detection. By minimizing profiles of network communication, avoiding common malware signatures, and moving slowly and cautiously, such threats penetrate, persist, explore, and exfiltrate without detection. In contrast to that cautious demeanor, their potential for harm is substantial, as we’ve seen repeatedly in high-profile data breaches discovered long after the fact. In this work, we describe our approach to detecting such subtle threats using a combination of statistical anomaly detection and computational provenance exploration. We explain the architecture of our detection system, describe the sensor data model we use as input to our analysis, explore our anomaly detection and provenance computation methods, and present preliminary results from a recent adversarial engagement on real systems under realistic attack.

Organizers

Conference Chairs
Program Committee

Proceedings

USENIX site for TaPP 2017 proceedings

Registration

Conference Registration is $300.00 per participant. The final day for on-time registration is Thursday, June 8, 2017. Registration forms received after the deadline date will be processed on a space-available basis and are subject to a Late Registration Fee of $15.00.

The TaPP'17 Registration page is available at https://washington.irisregistration.com/Form/3565. You will be prompted to create an account before being redirected to the registration site. Please note that in order to reserve housing you need to follow the link below.

Visa Information

If you need a letter of invitation to assist you in obtaining a visa to the US, please send an email to the tapp17@easychair.org with the subject "Visa Invitation Letter" and the following information:
  1. Your name as it appears on your passport
  2. Current postal mailing address
  3. Your Registration Confirmation Information
  4. If you have any papers accepted for the conference, please provide the title and indicate whether you are the 'sole author' or a 'co-author'.

Lodging

Lodging will be available through Lander Hall on the University of Washington Campus. Per person package rates for two nights housing are $164.99 for a double occupancy and $239.99 for a single occupancy. This rate includes a $37.99 debit meal card for UW Dining Services.

Reservations can be made at https://washington.irisregistration.com/Form/3564. You will be prompted to create an account before being redirected to the registration site. Please note that this is a separate page than the above registration site.

Local Information

TaPP'17 will take place on campus in the Great Room of Maple Hall (1135 NE Campus Parkway, Seattle, WA 98105). Maple Hall is located next to Lander Hall. As you exit Lander Hall onto NE Campus Parkway, turn left and Maple Hall will be straight ahead. Enter at the north-west corner of the building to access the Maple Great Room.

Announcements

23-Jan-2017: The TaPP'17 CFP is now available.

13-Mar-2017: The TaPP'17 submission site is now online.

11-May-2017: Poster submission instructions are now online.

12-May-2017: Venue Information is now online.

23-May-2017: Registration and Lodging information isnow online.

23-Jun-2017: The TaPP'17 proceedings are now available!

Sponsors

Galois, Inc.