Validation, Verification and Explanation in a Smarter World

View of the Alps from Workshop on "Engineering Adaptive Systems"
Ubiquitous computing systems are creating the potential of a smarter but more complex world. One way of managing this complexity is to develop adaptive systems that can react to changes in their operating environment. In such environments security is an important consideration because the assets, threats, attacks and vulnerabilities can all change at runtime.  Adaptive security can help but it is important to have assurances about:
  1. Validation: (Have we built the right system?)
    Will the system protect the assets from security threats?
  2. Verification: (Have we built the system right?)
    Has the system been correctly configured to protect the assets from security threats?
; and
  3. Explanation:

    Can we understand the behaviour of the adaptive security system?
This is the subject of a recent talk I delivered at a workshop on Engineering Adaptive Systems in Bra, Italy.  The photograph above shows a view of the Alps as we look towards France from the conference venue.  The slides from my talk are embedded below.


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