The traditional resources consumed during computational processes are time and space. These suffice for complexity analyses of standard computers such as Turing machines, but are not exhaustive for certain non-standard (quantum, chemical, analogue, …) systems, which may for example consume energy or precision. Non-standard resources arise naturally, then, in the context of unconventional computation.

Non-standard resources arise also in the context of cryptography; specifically, it is desirable to model as a resource the notion of security of cryptographic protocols, for then security can be reasoned about with existing complexity-theoretic techniques. Exactly how security can and should be modelled as a resource is the topic of this, the “Information Security as a Resource”  workshop.

The workshop aims to bring together researchers with relevant interests, including cryptographic primitives; non-standard resources, especially as arising in cryptography/informatics; and category- and domain-theoretic techniques suitable for abstracting the relevant properties of security from the incidental details of protocols’ implementation.

Scheduled talks include  "Structural Resources for Quantum Crypto’ by the Department’s Bob Coecke, as well as contributions from other institutions including “Creation vs. Conservation of Security” by Simon Gay of Glasgow University and “Min-Entropy as a Resource” by Geoffrey Smith of Florida International University.

 The Information Security as a Resource workshop will be held at the Department of Computer Science University of Oxford on the 13th – 15th October 2011.  Further information at:  http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ISR11/