Call for participation: 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation

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May 4 & 7, 2021. Online Gathering
http://www.obfuscationworkshop.org
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The 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation (WO2021)
Cosponsored by TPM, TU Delft and DLI, Cornell Tech
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In the Spring of 2020, as we were in full force preparing the 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation, COVID-19 was recognized by the World Health Organization as a pandemic, which led us to postpone indefinitely. Today we are pleased to announce that the 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation will finally take place online on May 4 and 7th, 2021. Everyone is welcome to participate, with or without submission. Please visit our website www.obfuscationworkshop.org to register and for other details!

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
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IMPORTANT DATES:
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• Registration re-opens on: February 3, 2021
• Submissions due: March 15, 2021
• Notifications: April 1, 2021
• A vernissage will take place on May 4, 2021

• Workshop: May 7, 2021

• Study group meets on: April 30, May 6 and May 19, 2021

Overview and topics:
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Obfuscation strategies represent creative ways to evade surveillance, protect privacy, improve security; as well as protest, contest, resist and sabotage technology. Obfuscation methods render data more ambiguous, difficult to exploit and interpret, less useful. They rely on the addition of gibberish, meaningless data; they pollute, add noise, randomize. Obfuscation invokes an intuitive form of protection: it distorts that which is visible to render it less (or in)visible. It hides the trees among the forest.

The aim of the 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation is to foster interaction among diverse communities of research, concern and practice interested in obfuscation. We convene researchers, scientists, policy makers, developers, journalists, activists, artists and other interested parties to discuss obfuscation in environments and conditions of asymmetrical power and information. We welcome and value a broad range of approaches, including theories, tools, simulations and experimental methods from diverse disciplines and spheres of practice. The workshop constitutes a wide umbrella welcoming a diverse family of related topics and efforts, including adversarial machine learning, protective optimization technologies (POTs) and obfuscation in behavioral decision-making contexts by humans and artificial agents. We encourage participants to contribute with ideas about how obfuscation may (or may not) serve people in the current context of ever greater power imbalances between people, societal institutions and technology companies.


Submission types:
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• A (short) position paper or extended abstract of your work (this can be work in progress).
• A description of an interesting use case to be discussed (this may be an academic or policy/practice-based case).
• A description of a demo or prototype (of applications, hardware or other artifacts), performance, artwork (in any media) or journalistic piece relevant to the topic of obfuscation.
• A description of a hands-on workshop or other interactive format that engages with obfuscation. We welcome and encourage participants to organize their own session on a topic related to obfuscation. Please provide details on method and logistic needs. Note that we have allocated 1-hour slots for invited sessions; let us know if you need additional time so we can best accommodate your proposal. 

Submissions will be peer-reviewed by the Workshop’s Organizing Committee and accepted based on relevance and potential to contribute to workshop discussions and goals. The workshop will not publish formal (i.e. archival) proceedings. With authors' permission, accepted submissions will be included in the postscript we plan to release after the workshop.


Participate in the 3rd Workshop on Obfuscation Study Group:
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We invite junior researchers, artists, activists and other interested parties to join us in a study group that accompanies the Workshop on Obfuscation. Our goal is to provide an arena for deeper reflection and engagement, a more tight-knit and longer breathed space for collaboration for those interested in obfuscation. The study group will be mentored by leading researchers of obfuscation Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum, as well as other invited artists and researchers. We hope this will provide the basis to collectively engage beyond the ephemeral and rectangled formats of online events. Participation in the study group is preconditioned on a submission.  A limited number of places will be allocated based on submission merit. For more details about what you can expect from the study group and a tentative schedule of activities, please visit the study group page on our website. 

Stipends:
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In keeping with the Workshop on Obfuscation tradition of supporting artists and independent researchers, we have a limited number of stipends available. If you are an artist or independent researcher, please make sure your submission includes a funds request (including project description and production budget). We hope to provide stipends for 4-6 projects, with new works receiving €800 max and previosuly-produced works receiving a fixed amount of €400. 


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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Ero Balsa (Cornell Tech)
Seda Gurses (Delft University of Technology)
Helen Nissenbaum (Cornell Tech) 
Jara Rocha (Independent Researcher)


For any questions, comments or requests, you can reach us at obfuscation@cornell.edu.
Please feel encouraged to share this call in your circles. We are looking forward to receiving your submissions and seeing you at the workshop!

 

+info: https://www.obfuscationworkshop.org/