Title and Authors

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Title and Authors#

Title#

The title is the first sentence people read. Make a good impression:

  • Readers might decide to read the rest of your paper or put it aside based on the title.
  • Reviewers might pick your paper based on the information provided in the title.

The title of an academic publication presents a trade-off:

  • Concise & interesting titles draw more readers.
  • Accurate describing titles draw field experts.
  • Title Goal: More readers that are field experts.

Title don’ts:

  • Avoid a title that leaves the readers guessing what your work is about.
  • Do not make it too long.
  • Try not to confuse the reader.

Title Archetypes#

For computer security publications there are some established and proven title patterns:

The Combination#

Combining both an interesting part (like a movie reference or cool sounding statement) with a more descriptive subtitle.

  • Keepers of the Machines: Examining How System Administrators Manage Software Updates For Multiple Machines
  • Where the Wild Warnings Are: Root Causes of Chrome HTTPS Certificate Errors

The Name#

Tool or attack name plus descriptive subtitle. Bit boring, but proven approach. Works for named stuff only, like tools or attacks.

  • The CrossPath Attack: Disrupting the SDN Control Channel via Shared Links
  • uXOM: Efficient eXecute-Only Memory on ARM Cortex-M
  • ALOHA: Auxiliary Loss Optimization for Hypothesis Augmentation
  • RVFuzzer: Finding Input Validation Bugs in Robotic Vehicles through Control-Guided Testing

The Sequel#

If you are following up a previous paper, you could even reference this with a clever title:

  • Initial: Stack Overflow Considered Harmful? The Impact of Copy & Paste on Android Application Security
  • Follow-up: Stack Overflow Considered Helpful! Deep Learning Security Nudges Towards Stronger Cryptography

The Quote#

Very common for survey or interview publications. Presents motivation already in the title. Only applicable if you actually have a good quote.

  • “Something isn’t secure, but I’m not sure how that translates into a problem”: Promoting autonomy by designing for understanding in Signal
  • “There is nothing that I need to keep secret”: Sharing Practices and Concerns of Wearable Fitness Data

Replication#

Specific keyword for a replication paper. Likely required to be in the title by the conference. Replication papers are not accepted by all conferences (Accepted at: CHI, SOUPS, …).

  • Replication: No One Can Hack My Mind Revisiting a Study on Expert and Non-Expert Security Practices and Advice

SoK#

Also specific keyword for a Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) paper. Papers that evaluate, systematize, and contextualize existing knowledge. Relevant conferences with SoK tracks: S&P, EuroS&P, SOUPS, PETS.

  • SoK: Lessons Learned from Android Security Research for Appified Software Platforms
  • SoK: Security Evaluation of Home-Based IoT Deployment

Johnny Papers#

Running joke title in usable security (by now very played out). Based on the first publication by Whitten and Tygar from 1999:

  • Why Johnny Can’t Encrypt: A Usability Evaluation of PGP 5.0

Follow-ups with the same title structure include:

  • Why Johnny Still Can’t Encrypt: Evaluating the Usability of Email Encryption Software
  • Why Johnny Still, Still Can’t Encrypt: Evaluating the Usability of a Modern PGP Client
  • Helping Johnny 2.0 to encrypt his Facebook conversations

Authors#

Anonymizing: You have to anonymize (as in not include) any author names, affiliations, or other identifiable information before the actual camera-ready version of a paper.

Example for formatting authors (IEEE template with OrcIDs):

In a file authors.tex:

\author{%
\IEEEauthorblockN{Mahzabin Tamanna}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    mtamann@ncsu.edu\\
}
\and
\IEEEauthorblockN{Yash Chandrani}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    ychandr@ncsu.edu\\
}
\and
\IEEEauthorblockN{Matthew Burrows}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    myburrow@ncsu.edu
}
\and
\IEEEauthorblockN{Brandon Wroblewski}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    bnwroble@ncsu.edu
}
\and
\IEEEauthorblockN{Laurie Williams}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    lawilli3@ncsu.edu
}
\and
\IEEEauthorblockN{Dominik Wermke}
\IEEEauthorblockA{%
    \textit{North Carolina State University}\\
    North Carolina, USA\\
    dwermke@ncsu.edu
}
}

Fix for IEEE authors drift for 2 and more rows, replace the \and that causes line break with \linebreakand.

% Better alignment without having to change author order
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\linebreakand}{%
  \end{@IEEEauthorhalign}
  \hfill\mbox{}\par
  \mbox{}\hfill\begin{@IEEEauthorhalign}
}
\makeatother

Alternative format if normal format does not fit well (discouraged by some conferences):

% for over three affiliations, or if they all won't fit within the width
% of the page, use this alternative format:
%

%% Authors
\author{
    \IEEEauthorblockN{%
        Dominik Wermke\IEEEauthorrefmark{1},
        Noah Woehler\,\orcidlink{0000-0002-4172-9565}\IEEEauthorrefmark{1},
        Jan H.\ Klemmer\,\orcidlink{0000-0002-6994-7206}\IEEEauthorrefmark{2},
        Marcel Fourne\,\orcidlink{0000-0003-4442-0085}\IEEEauthorrefmark{3},
        Yasemin Acar\,\orcidlink{0000-0001-7167-7383}\IEEEauthorrefmark{4}, and
        Sascha Fahl\,\orcidlink{0000-0002-5644-3316}\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}
    }
    \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{1}CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany, \hypersetup{hidelinks}\texttt{\{\href{mailto:dominik.wermke@cispa.de}{dominik.wermke},\href{mailto:noah.woehler@cispa.de}{noah.woehler},\href{mailto:fahl@cispa.de}{fahl}\}@cispa.de}}
    \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{2}Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, \hypersetup{hidelinks}\href{mailto:klemmer@sec.uni-hannover.de}{\texttt{klemmer@sec.uni-hannover.de}}}
    \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{3}Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Germany, \hypersetup{hidelinks}\href{mailto:marcel.fourne@mpi-sp.org}{\texttt{marcel.fourne@mpi-sp.org}}}
    \IEEEauthorblockA{\IEEEauthorrefmark{4}George Washington University, United States, \hypersetup{hidelinks}\href{mailto:acar@gwu.edu}{\texttt{acar@gwu.edu}}}
}

Including the file in the main.tex:

\begin{document}

%don't want date printed
\date{}

\title{Committed to Trust:\\A Qualitative Study on Security \& Trust\\in Open Source Software Projects}

% Authors
\input{authors}

\maketitle
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