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viewpoints

DOI:10.1145/1866739.1866751

Mark D. Ryan

Viewpoint
Cloud Computing Privacy
Concerns on our Doorstep
Privacy and confidentiality issues in cloud-based conference management systems reflect more universal themes.

conference management systems
Most academic conferences are managed using software that allows the program committee (PC) members to browse papers and contribute reviews and discussion via the Web. In one arrangement, the conference chair downloads and hosts the appropriate server software, say HotCRP or iChair.
The benefits of using such software are familiar: ˲˲ Distribution of papers to PC members is automated, and can take into
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account their preferences and conflicts of interest;
˲˲ The system organizes the collection and distribution of reviews and discussion, can rank papers according to scores, and send out reminder email, as well as email notifications of acceptance or rejection; and
˲˲ It can also produce a range of other reports, such as lists of sub-reviewers, acceptance statistics, and the conference program.
HotCRP and iChair require the conference chair to download and install software, and to host the Web server.
Other systems such as EasyChair and
EDAS work according to the cloud

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computing model: instead of installing and hosting the server, the conference chair simply creates the conference account “in the cloud.” In addition to the benefits described previously, this model has extra conveniences:
˲˲ The whole business of managing the server (including backups and security) is done by someone else, and gains economy of scale;
˲˲ Accounts for authors and PC members exist already, and don’t have to be managed on a per-conference basis;
˲˲ Data is stored indefinitely, and reviewers are spared the necessity of keeping copies of their own reviews; and ILLUSTRATION BY GA RY NEILL

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