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<h2>
ACM CoNEXT 2021 IWCI Workshop - CALL FOR PAPERS
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<b>Interdisciplinary Workshop on (de)Centralization in the Internet (IWCI)</b><br/>
December 7, 2021 // Munich, Germany (Virtual)<br/>
<a href="https://conext-21-iwci.named-data.net/">https://conext-21-iwci.named-data.net/</a>
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<p>
Paper Deadline: <b>September 20, 2021</b>
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<p>
Our rapidly digitizing world is undergoing a transformative change on a
scale of the industrial revolution. The digital platform has increased the
opportunities for ever larger actors to attain economies of scale that are
inaccessible to all but the very largest. The distortions created by these
small number of dominant digital giants in the business and technology
landscape has resulted not only in unparalleled efficiencies of the
production of goods and services but also with the downside risks of
technology monocultures, monopolies, and critical points of vulnerability.
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<h2>What does this workshop aim for?</h2>
<p>
This one-day workshop aims to offer everyone, who is interested in the
causes and the nature of risk and reward trade-offs of consolidation, an
opportunity to share results and insights. The workshop takes a broad,
interdisciplinary view of the Internet consolidation trend and
decentralization efforts, which may have implications on current and
emerging network technologies. Topics include but are not limited to:
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<ul>
<li> Measurement, simulation, or analytical results from recent or ongoing
efforts that show quantifiable evidence of the trend of centralization
and consolidation in the Internet infrastructure, services, and
applications, together with the insight into the driving forces for this
trend.
</li>
<li> Results from investigations into building decentralized services and
applications, together with the insights into the most critical factors
that enable such decentralized designs in today’s pervasively
consolidated deployment environments, and the factors that may have
contributed to unintended outcomes that further reinforced service
aggregation.
</li>
<li> Analysis of existing or experimental decentralization protocols and
applications, with insights into (a) their most critical factors that
should lead to cost effective operations, and/or (b) potential road
bumps, technical or non-technical, that may block them from reaching
their intended goals.
</li>
<li> Recent discussions suggest that multiple factors have driven the deployed
Internet into today's consolidation: economy of scale, big data
advantages, and in particular the lack of security in general outside the
iron castle. We welcome position papers that brainstorm/articulate
whether viable countermeasures (can) exist, provided that they clearly
articulate how these countermeasures directly address the causes of
centralization.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>What type of submissions this workshop is looking for?</h2>
We welcome two types of submissions:
<ul>
<li> Work-in-progress research results (6 pages, excl. references), which
clearly articulate a problem, a proposed solution, and preliminary
results.
</li>
<li> Position papers (2 pages, excl. references), which reflect
consolidation trends in the Internet or potential solutions to overcome
the current state based on sound arguments. Out-of-the-box thinking as
well as thoughts outside of the computer science field (e.g., social or
legal aspects) are highly appreciated.
</li>
</ul>
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<p>For more details refer to the workshop website: <a href="https://conext-21-iwci.named-data.net/">https://conext-21-iwci.named-data.net/</a></p>
<p>ACM CoNEXT 2021 IWCI Workshop Co-Chairs,
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Matthias Wählisch, Alex Afanasyev
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