Internet of Things Software Update Workshop (IoTSU)

In his essay 'The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure And Often Unpatchable' [1] Schneier expressed concerns about the status of software/firmware updates for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT devices, which have a reputation for being insecure at the time when they are manufactured, are often expected to stay active in the field for 10+ years and operate unattended with Internet connectivity.

Incorporating a software update mechanism to fix vulnerabilities, to update configuration settings as well as adding new functionality is recommended by security experts but there are challenges when using software updates, as the FTC staff report on Internet of Things - Privacy & Security in a Connected World [2] and the Article 29 Working Party Opinion 8/2014 on the on Recent Developments on the Internet of Things [3] express. Even providing such software update may provide challenges for constrained devices, as a buffer overflow vulnerability in the implementation of a software update protocol (TR69) [4] and an expired certificate in a hub device [5] demonstrated. On top of challenges there are various problems with privacy, lack of incentives to distribute software updates along the value chains, and questions about who should be able to update devices, and when, e.g. at or after the end-of-life of a product or component.

There are various (proprietary) software update mechanisms in use today and the details vary significantly, particularly depending on the envisioned use with IoT devices. More powerful IoT devices, such as those running general purpose operating systems (like embedded Linux), make use of sophisticated software update mechanisms known from the desktop and the mobile world. The focus of this workshop is, however, on more constrained embedded devices that run embedded OSs or potentially no operating system at all. These devices are typically not equipped with a memory management unit or similar concepts. Many of these devices also do not allow software packages to be downloaded to be run in a sandbox (such as a virtual machine) either.

Important Dates

Position papers must be submitted by 20th May 2016 at the latest.

The program committee will review submitted position papers and send an invitation to the workshop to one of the paper authors. Invitations will be distributed by May 23rd, 2016 at the latest.

This workshop will be a day and a half, and take place on the 13th and 14th of June, 2016.

Position Paper Requirements

Interested parties must submit a brief document. We welcome papers that describe existing work, raise new requirements, highlight challenges, write-ups of implementation and deployment experience, lessons-learned from successful or failed attempts, and ideally a vision on how to improve interoperability of software update mechanisms. Contributions are not required to be original in content.

We solicit brief write-ups of one to three pages, formatted as HTML, PDF, or plain text (for example as a submitted Internet Draft).

We will publish accepted position papers (as well as meeting minutes, slides, and a workshop report). Please submit your position papers via EasyChair

Venue

The planned location for the workshop is at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. We will provide the full details of the meeting venue to the invited workshop participants. Smaller workshops tend to encourage focused conversation and deep dives on specific topics, so the number of participants will be limited to ~40 persons. For local information please contact Stephen Farrell

As of now, we plan to meet in the Lloyd Institute in TCD. Room information will be emailed to folks.

Workshop notes

Workshop notes, piratepad and CSopen username/passwords

And here's some raw notes.

Hotels

There are a number of hotels nearby. We have not arranged any specific room rate or block booking so make your own bookings. We'll be based in the east end of college, near Pearse Station and the Science Gallery (both good landmarks if you need directions). In no particular order, the hotels people usually use close to there are:

There are also some B-and-B type things nearby but fewer than one might expect. Your favourite mapping/search engine can I'm sure help you out there, or there's this. Anything south or west of college (nearer to Grafton Street or St. Stephen's Green) is probably best if you care about being closer to shopping, pubs etc. Lastly, if you want to stay in student rooms in TCD, you can - it's a good bit cheaper and fairly ok, though availability can be a challenge depending on what students are still about and what other conferences/meetings are happening.

IPR Policy

The workshop will have no expectation of IPR disclosure or licensing related to its submissions.

Privacy Notice

You provide your name and your email address for the registration to this workshop. We use this information for planning purposes (such as finding rooms and ordering refreshments). We will also use this information to contact you about the location of the meeting venue, or other urgent and relevant notifications. Before the meeting minutes are publicly distributed, you will also receive a copy for review. We will share your contact details with the other workshop participants, if necessary, for example for post-workshop discussions. Your name and affiliation will be listed on the participant list contained in the workshop report.