Proceedings of the 2012 New Security Paradigms Workshop

The New Security Paradigms workshop (NSPW) occupies a unique niche. It welcomes ideas that challenge conventional thinking, it encourages bold approaches, and it offers a home for work that would be viewed as too risky elsewhere. The workshop is collaborative, with every paper getting a thorough airing. The discussions are positive and constructive, with attendees focusing on the good that can be made of an idea, rather than reasons to dismiss. This approach has paid off, and over two decades the workshop has hosted exciting, original and innovative work. Many things that are now accepted wisdom, that we regard as indispensable elements of the security toolkit, were presented first as crazy ideas at NSPW. This year was no exception: the twenty-first NSPW was held in beautiful Bertinoro, Italy. We had presentations from economics to access control, from social approaches to authentication. The volume in your hands represents the final papers, each of them revised in the light of the discussion at the workshop (and earlier comments from shepherds). We believe that each of them challenges conventional thinking in various ways, and hope they stimulate further discussion. We had the privilege to act as PC chairs this year. Living up to the record of previous years and producing a diverse and stimulating program was a challenge. We cannot thank enough our PC members, most of whom had to review papers well outside their comfort zones, and then participate in vigorous discussions to decide which papers would make for the most interesting workshop. Our PC members also did double-duty as shepherds, helping authors prepare both manuscripts and presentations.