Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering (SADFE)

2021 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops

Call for Papers

The SADFE (Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering) International Workshop brings together researchers and practitioners focused on the state-of-the-art and emerging topics of interest in digital forensics. The 2021 SADFE Workshop will be held remotely in conjunction with the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.
The workshop promotes systematic approaches to digital forensic investigation on the vulnerabilities of today’s cyber systems and networks, digital exploitation and manipulation, and on the emerging methods for how to detect, track, and prevent digital threats. SADFE embraces Digital Forensic Engineering (DFE) advancement as a disciplined and holistic scientific practice.
Namely, the workshop focuses on the topics of AI-generated falsified media (e.g. DeepFakes), cloud forensics, emerging and non-traditional methods (e.g. digital currency forensics, contact tracing, digital evidence management and analysis), forensics of embedded and non-traditional forensics, and related legal, ethical and technical challenges.
The 2021 SADFE Workshop is calling for paper and poster submissions as well as panel proposals in the broad field of Digital Forensics from both practitioner and researcher perspectives. With the dynamic change and rapid expansion of the types of electronic devices, networked applications, and investigation challenges, systematic approaches for automating the process of gathering, analyzing and presenting digital evidence are in unprecedented demand. The SADFE Workshop aims to promote solutions to these and related problems.
Important Dates (all deadlines are AoE time):
Paper submission deadline: February 5, 2021
Paper decisions: March 5, 2021
Paper ready for publication: March 25, 2021
Poster submissions: February 28, 2021
Poster decisions: March 31, 2021
Panel proposals: February 28, 2021
Panel decisions: March 31, 2021
Submission Instructions: Paper and poster submissions should be made at: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sadfe2021. Panel submissions should be emailed directly to the Co-Chairs (begolie@ornl.gov and vinnie.monaco@nps.edu).
Review Process: Papers will be double-blind reviewed using the EasyChair Submission system. Each paper will receive no less than three professional peer reviews with results used for acceptance determination.

Call for Papers

All paper submissions must be original work; authors must dearly document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. We seek submissions of 5 to 10 pages, excluding references and supplementary materials. Submissions must be in PDF format using the IEEE conference proceedings template. Failure to adhere to the page limit and formatting requirements are grounds for rejection without review.
We encourage authors to submit papers of appropriate length for the research contribution. If your research contributions only require 5-7 pages, please only submit 5-7 pages (plus references). Shorter papers will be reviewed like any other paper and not penalized. Papers shorter than 5 pages or longer than 10 pages {excluding references) will not be considered. Submitting supplementary material that adds depth to the contribution and/or contributes to the submission's replicability is strongly encouraged.
Papers must be submitted in a form suitable for anonymous review: no author names or affiliations may appear on the title page, and papers should avoid revealing author identities in the text. When referring to your previous work, do so in the third person, as though it were written by someone else. Only blind the reference itself in the (unusual) case that a third-person reference is infeasible. Publication as a technical report or in an online repository does not constitute a violation of this policy. Contact the program chairs if you have any questions. Papers that are not properly anonymized may be rejected without review.
Accepted papers will be published in the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy Workshop (SPW) Proceedings published by IEEE Computer Society Press (CPS). Authors of select papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their paper for publication in a journal special issue (venue to be determined).

Call for Posters

We encourage submission of poster proposals for a chance to present your work interactively, Posters can cover preliminary or exploratory work, smaller research projects, projects that are showing promising results but aren't quite ready for a full publication, or any other work that would benefit from open forum discussion. Topics of interest are the same as those for papers as well as any other current digital forensics topics. We are particularly interested in work that shares real-life experiences including actual system or product implementation, deployment, and lessons learned. Poster proposals should be at most 2 pages in length and should briefly describe the objectives of the current work, any accomplishments to date, and future plans. Poster proposal submissions should not be anonymized; ensure that you include author information (name, affiliation, country) in your proposal. If accepted, you are expected to attend the virtual poster session. Posters are not considered to be a prior publication.

Panel proposals

We encourage the submission of panels on the topics suggested below. A panel submission should be 1 page (US letter) in PDF format, listing the panel moderator and affiliation, as well as potential panelists and the panel topic. The length of a panel is typically 1 hour. Panel submissions should not be anonymized.
Topics of Interest
Topics to be addressed by submissions include, but are not limited to:
AI-Generated Falsified Media and Falsified Digital Content Detection, Prevention and Forensics
Modalities, sources, and variations of AI-generated falsified digital media and content (i.e. DeepFakes images, audio, video, speech, text, signals, etc.)
Processes, systems and methods for content analysis and verification (e.g., verification of anatomical correctness, background and setting validation, examination of physical conditions, speech patterns, likelihood of appearance, etc.)
Content and model watermarking, content protection, and tamperproofing methods
Identification, attribution, and source tracking of falsified digital media
Use of falsified media to spread misinformation and “fake news” and its political, societal, social, legal, and psychological implications
Legal and law enforcement implications and issues

Cloud Forensics
Collection and management of evidence on distributed and dynamically allocated assets
Issues related to physical location (e.g., locating evidence or data, determining user location, and estimating device geolocation)
Tracking the source and spread of misinformation and politically-motivated campaigns
Legal issues unique to cloud computing, such as digital crime spanning multiple jurisdictions and data obtained through an unverifiable chain of custody
Detection and analysis of covert communication channels, including the circumvention of sandbox and isolation methods
Live cloud forensics, including the analysis of distributed and volatile systems

Emerging and Non-traditional Methods
Digital Quantum Forensics
Nano-scale and ultra-trace forensics at the material level
Human-computer interaction forensics, including deception detection, user profiling, and the detection of illicit activities based on keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, and other behaviors
Behavior-based authentication and identification of users and devices
Novel methods of evidence collection in digital forensic investigations (e.g., evidence obtained through side-channels)
Unconventional sensing methods (e.g., evidence obtained through gyroscopic, electromagnetic, or ambient light sensors)

Digital Currency Forensics
Tracking currency origin, destination, and flow
Address clustering (i.e., resolving multiple addresses to a single entity)
Detection of illicit activities (e.g., tax evasion, sale of illicit goods, laundering services)
Transaction attribution and authentication
Cross-platform forensics (e.g., linking addresses on Bitcoin and Ethereum)
Analysis of transaction logs leveraging external sources (e.g., social media accounts)

Digital Contact Tracing
Forensic reconstruction of transmission networks, including contact event acquisition, storage, and promulgation
Applications and research related to COVID-19 infection containment, and other disease tracking applications
Privacy, policy, ethical, and legal issues of contact tracing
Advancements in mobile and proximity-based tracing
Novel sensing modalities (e.g., visual, acoustic, RF) and devices (e.g., home assistants, wearable devices)
Evaluations of contact tracing protocol accuracy, integrity, usage, effects, and societal impact

Digital Evidence Management, Data Integrity, and Analytics
Digital evidence identification, authentication, collection, analysis, and presentation
Identification and redaction of personally identifying information and other forms of sensitive information
Cyber-crime scenario analysis, modeling, and reconstruction
Combining different forms digital evidence (e.g., digital/non-digital, qualitative/statistical)
Digital evidence in the face of encryption
Post-acquisition handling of evidence and the preservation of data integrity and admissibility

Forensics of embedded and non-traditional devices (e.g. digicams, SCADA, obsolete storage media)
Innovative forensic engineering tools and applications
Proactive forensic-enabled support for incident response
Legal and technical collaboration
Digital forensics surveillance technology and procedures
“Honeypot” and other target systems for data collection and monitoring
Quantitative attack impact assessment

Legal, Ethical, and Technical Challenges
Examination environments for digital data, including forensic tool validation
Admissibility and evidence tests
Courtroom expert witness and case presentation
Case studies illustrating privacy, legal and legislative issues
New Evidence Decisions, e.g., United States v. Jones (2012) and United States v. Kotterman (9th Cir. 2013)
Transnational Investigations/Case Integration under the Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe