COINS summer school 2015 in Metochi

Welcome to the COINS summer school 2015 on Cloud Security

The COINS summer school is a one week intensive course for Ph.D. students in computer and information security and in related fields. In 2015 the summer school is offered at the UiA study centre in Metochi on Lesbos island, Greece.

outside of the rooms (two floors)

Important dates:

Registration is closed.

ENISA visit: Friday 21/8

Summer school: Saturday 22/8 to Saturday 29/8

Location

kveldssamling_large_fullwidthThe University of Agder’s (UiA) study centre in Greece is located in a monastery annex which forms part of the well-known Limonos Monastery, on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. As a monastery annex Metochi was founded in the 16th century, and it has been renovated for seminars and study purposes in recent times. The monastery and study centre is characterized by simplicity, good opportunities for studies and reflection, and a traditional Greek kitchen. Metochi has its “agora” – a small “amphitheater” – for the good dialogue, a library for private studies, a lecture room for the good monologue, and a small courtyard and garden for thought and reflection.

Limonos, the main monastery, is a cultural centre in the Northeast Aegean. It was founded early in the 16th century, and holds great treasures from the Byzantine period. The monastery is central in the Byzantine tradition, and it was also important in the Greek people’s fight for independence almost a century ago.

Lesbos is the third largest island in Greece. It is about 100 km long and 50 km wide, and has approximately 125.000 inhabitants. The surroundings are beautiful, with a diverse flora and fauna. The monastery is located in the countryside 4-5 km away from the sandy beaches of the bay of Kalloni.

Lecturers

Andrei Costin: Security of Network Monitoring Systems (NMS) for Cloud and HPC. Hands-on assessment, analysis and countermeasures.
Kaniz Fatema: Privacy in cloud environment
Daniel Hedin: Cloud Application Security
Zhiqiang Lin: Everything You Need to Know about VMI
Sandra Scott-Hayward: SDN Security
Sachin Shetty: Moving Target Defense and End-to-End Defense against Kernel Rootkits in a Cloud Environment

Titles of sessions might change while we finalize the programme.

Schedule

Thursday 20/8 Travel to Athens for those visiting ENISA

Friday 21/8 1000-1230 Visit to ENISA’s cloud security experts

Saturday 22/8 Arrival to Lesbos/Metochi, e.g. ATH-MJT 1600-1655

Metochi-SDN-morningSunday 23/8 Teaching

Monday 24/8 Teaching

Tuesday 25/8 Teaching

Wednesday 26/8 Break/Independent Study

  • Social event: Skala Eressos, petrified forest, castle of Mithymna, Molyvos

Thursday 27/8 Teaching

  • 0900-1300 Andrei Costin: Security of Network Monitoring Systems (NMS) for Cloud and HPC. Hands-on assessment, analysis and countermeasures.
  • 1700-1900 Kaniz Fatema: Privacy in cloud environment
  • After dinner: COINS 2016

Friday 28/8 Teaching

  • 0900-1300 Kaniz Fatema: Privacy in cloud environment
  • 1700-1900 Daniel Hedin: Cloud application security

Saturday 29/8 Departure

Programme committee

Ijlal Loutfi, COINS Ph.D. student, UiO

Patrick Bours, COINS steering committee, HiG

General chair

Hanno Langweg, COINS Scientific Director, HiG

IMT6003 3 ECTS

Participants can register for the IMT6003 COINS Summer School course at HiG. Successful completion is documented with 3 ECTS that can be used towards the taught component of a Ph.D. programme. COINS students can register free of charge for IMT6003. Students outside of COINS might be subject to an administrative fee. Please contact us if you are interested.

Students enrolling in IMT6003 need to actively participate in the summer school and document this participation. Documentation comprises:

  • A report on “Security challenges of cross-border use of cloud services under special consideration of ENISA’s contributions”. Students may choose to focus on cross-border cloud security aspects related to their Ph.D. projects, e.g. management/legal issues, interoperability, forensics, cryptography, authentication. Minimum 4 pages A4, submitted as pdf to info@coinsrs.no no later than Monday 2015-08-17T2359.
  • Students need to ask at least one question per day and need to document the question and answer in a reflection report.
  • A report on the summer school, summarizing all sessions, establishing connections between the topics of the session and relating cloud security to the student’s own Ph.D. project. Minimum 6 pages A4, submitted as pdf to info@coinsrs.no no later than Monday 2015-09-21T2359.

Practical information

dining areahttp://www.uia.no/en/centres-and-networks/metochi/practical-information

Metochi Study Centre is located in a monastery dedicated to two Greek Orthodox saints, Saints Anargyroi (Kosmas and Damianos). The monastery was founded in the 16th Century as one of several annexes to the well-known Limónos Monastery. The monasteries are connected by a stone path from the same time period, stretching two kilometres over the hills. The annex Metochi has been restored in recent years, but is still characterized by its original simplicity.

Metochi study centre houses 18 bedrooms (25 from August 2015), 13 showers, 9 toilets, auditorium/lounge, library/reading room, dining hall, courtyard and churches. The conditions are simple with bedrooms for 1-4 persons in old monk cells. The bedrooms are modestly equipped.

(If you prefer to stay in a hotel, you can do so in Kalloni, e.g. at Hotel Malemi. Please note that COINS does not cover hotel accommodation outside of the study centre and that you would have to organise your own transfer between hotel and the study centre.)

The monastery is situated in the countryside by the bay of Kalloni, approximately one hour’s drive from the airport. The nearest town, Kalloni, is 3 km from the monastery. Kalloni is a local trading centre with banks, a post office, medical assistance, pharmacies and different shops. The sandy beaches of the bay of Kalloni are at a distance of 4,5 km from Metochi. By the beach is a small fisherman’s village, Skala Kalloni, with hotels, taverns, restaurants and bars. The landscape between the monastery and the villages is flat and well suited for bike rides.

The monastery is not in daily use by the church, but there are still restrictions as to activities and clothing. Participants are advised not to wear clothes equivalent to bathing outfits within the monastery walls. While visiting the main monastery Limónos, shoulders and knees should be covered.

Regular standard: Breakfast, lunch and dinner (warm meal) is included, with beverages (juice and wine) during the meals. The participants are provided with sheets (but not towels).

We recommend bringing a flashlight for dark nights and a sunhat for use during bike rides and excursions.

The participants are responsible for being covered by their own travel insurance. Those who have a European Social Security Card should bring it.

There is internet access and eduroam most places at Metochi.

Special diets

The kitchen at Metochi will, as far as possible, make alternative dishes for vegetarians and guests with allergies. It is not possible to obtain gluten-free bread locally, so guests with gluten allergies are requested to bring their own bread or crackers. Gluten-free options for breakfast are yogurt and honey, for lunch salad and cheese. It is possible to make a gluten-free dinner option. Gluten-free dessert will usually be fruit. Please contact the course-coordinator before the start of the seminar if there is a need for special diets or a vegetarian diet. Guests who require special diets may contact the office staff at the start of the course to review the menu.

Arrival

Arriving at the monastery, cars might not be able to drive all the way to the entrance gate because of the narrow roads. The participants must therefore be prepared to walk for approx. 5 minutes with their luggage. If the arrival is scheduled after dark, having a small flashlight available will be helpful. If the arrival is after 20:00 sandwiches and drinks are served, otherwise dinner is served at 19:00-20:00. The Metochi information meeting usually takes place in the lecture room at 09:00-09.30 the day after arrival. Bike rental by a local partner can be arranged.

Getting there

When booking your flights, please note that COINS will reserve hotel rooms in Athens for those visiting ENISA: Civitel Olympic. We will show up at ENISA on Friday morning 1000-1230, so your flight to ATH needs to arrive on Thursday. Several attendees fly out with the 1135-1625 Norwegian flight from OSL.

1600-1655 ATH to MJT seems to be a practical and popular option to get to Lesbos from Athens on Saturday. Those arriving late usually come in with the 2150 and 2230 planes from ATH or OSL.

Please let us know when you are going to arrive so that we can arrange for transfer from MJT airport to Metochi.

For direct connections from Norway, please investigate the offers from Lilleput – http://www.lilleput.no. They offer direct flights OSL-MJT (with a stopover on Chios). The arrival time in Gardermoen on the return trip is a bit special, though; the upshot is that you can spend most of Saturday on Lesbos. They mostly sell packaged trips, so you might have to ask them for prices for the flight only.

It takes approximately one hour to get to Metochi from the airport. We envision to have common transfer for participants arriving within the same time window. Let us know in the registration from when you plan to land.

Check-out in Metochi is planned to happen right after breakfast so that the rooms can be prepared for the next group arriving on the same day.

Funding

COINS students/faculty: COINS covers travel and accommodation using the least expensive practical alternative. COINS will reserve hotel rooms in Athens. You need to pay for travel and the hotel in Athens and will be reimbursed later following the usual procedures. Depending on the total number of participants, students may need to share rooms. If you have preferences on sharing, please let us know.

SWITS/MyPhD/COINS partner students: COINS covers travel and accommodation under the same conditions as for COINS students. The offer is limited to a certain number of students. Students need to write a travel report reflecting on their experience and need to send us a picture of them wearing a COINS t-shirt in a summer school session.

Other students/faculty: COINS covers accommodation at Metochi under the same conditions as for COINS partner students, but participants have to cover their travel themselves. In addition, a fee of 300 EUR is to be paid for the week (Saturday-Saturday). If you would love to attend, but could not because of a lack of funds, please get in touch with us. We have a limited support budget for students that do research in the field of cloud security and who make a compelling case on why their attendance would contribute to the summer school.