Dear Colleague,

Computer security today advances at an exceptional rate, as both its operational relevance and the tension between attackers and defenders continue to grow. New services, new systems, and new networking architectures continuously add new dimensions to the field and subvert previously held assumptions. This symposium offers cutting-edge research on topics that range from making ordinary programs more robust through new classes of denial-of-service attacks.

Want to hear about new ideas for protecting software? New architectures for containing attacks? How to use graphical passwords securely? Come to the 13th USENIX Security Symposium and find out about these topics and many others.

Do you need to prevent and detect intrusions? Deal with malicious cryptography? Are you thinking about monitoring network security with open source, or would you like to understand the theory behind network security protocols? In our Security Training Program, experts such as Marcus Ranum, Radia Perlman, and Moti Yung will give you the information, techniques, tools, and strategies you need to practice effective security today—and tomorrow.

Keynote Speaker William "Earl" Boebert of Sandia National Laboratories will remind us how far we've gone—and yet how little we've actually progressed—since the early days of Multics.

From the Invited Talks, learn how laws increasingly restrict independent security research; what biology teaches us about security; the pre-history of public key cryptography; and much more. The 22 Refereed Papers present the best new research in a variety of subject areas, including Attack Containment, The Human Interface, and Protecting Software.

Join colleagues with similar interests for thought-provoking discussions at the evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. Get a preview of next year's news or present your own new work and get audience feedback at the Work-in-Progress reports and Poster Session.

Whether you're a researcher, a system administrator, or a policy wonk, come to the 13th USENIX Security Symposium to find out how computer security is going to affect you in the future.

We look forward to seeing you in San Diego, August 9-13, 2004.

For the Security Program Committee,

Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania
Security '04 Program Chair