The 3rd iteration of ABSURD will take place in February 27th-28th at Tufts University.

Important Dates

All dates are at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) time. These are firm deadlines; no extensions will be granted. Long talk submissions can be made at https://hotcrp-absurd.cs.tufts.edu/

  • Paper Submission Deadline: January 22, 2026
  • Paper Notifications: February 7, 2026
  • Final Papers Files Due: February 20, 2026

Overview

ABSURD is a regional event for the Boston area to meet and discuss recent work in Usable Security and Privacy, broadly construed. In this CFP, we are seeking talks and posters based on previously published research and works-in-progress. Many kinds of humans interact with security and privacy in many ways and we see ABSURD as Boston’s home for all research considering these human factors of security and privacy. We welcome a variety of research methods, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Papers will be judged on their scientific quality, overall quality, and contribution to the field. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Innovative security or privacy functionality and design
  • Field studies of security or privacy technology
  • Usability evaluations of new or existing security or privacy features
  • Security testing of new or existing usability features
  • Longitudinal studies of deployed security or privacy features
  • Studies of administrators or developers and support for security and privacy
  • Organizational policy or procurement decisions and their impact on security and privacy
  • Lessons learned from the deployment and use of usable privacy and security features
  • Foundational principles of usable security or privacy
  • Ethical, psychological, sociological, or anthropological aspects of usable security and privacy
  • Usable security and privacy implications/solutions for specific domains (e.g., IoT, medical, vulnerable populations)
  • Replicating or extending important previously published studies and experiments
  • Systematization of knowledge papers that integrate and systematize existing knowledge to provide new insight into a previously studied area

    • Submissions

    At ABSURD, research presentations take two forms: long talks and short talks/posters. As we continue to grow the event, we are taking a two-pronged approach to submission to provide a more rigorous process for evaluating the long talks while still welcoming less refined ideas through a lighter-weight submission process for short talks/posters. Specifically, submissions will take one of the following forms:

    • Long talks: Authors interested in presenting a long talk (15-20 minutes) should submit a 2-page extended abstract describing the idea. Details on the format of the submission are given below. Due to the limited space available for talks, long talk submissions may be accepted as short talks at the committee’s discretion so we can maximize the breadth of research presented.
    • Short talks/posters: Authors interested in presenting a short talk or poster should complete the conference registration form and indicate their interest in presenting by describing the presentation in 1-2 paragraphs. Submissions selected to present posters will need to submit poster drafts prior to the event to receive feedback on design and clarity from the program committee.

    The remainder of this document primarily focuses on details for the long talk submissions.

    Format and Page Limit

    Long talk submissions must use the SOUPS formatting template (available for MS Word or LaTeX) and be submitted as a PDF via the web submission system. Submissions must be no more than 2 pages (excluding acknowledgments, bibliography, and appendices). For the body of your paper, brevity is appreciated.

    Submissions may include as many additional pages as needed for references and for supplementary material in appendices. The paper should stand alone without the supplementary material. We encourage authors to use the appendices for content that is peripheral to the main contributions of the paper but that may interest some readers or that may facilitate replication. Note that members of the program committee are free to not read this material when reviewing the paper.

    Submission Content

    Submissions need to describe the purpose and goals of the work, cite related work, show how the work effectively integrates usability or human factors with security or privacy, and clearly indicate the innovative aspects of the work or lessons learned as well as the contribution of the work to the field. Works-in-progress should also discuss the direction of continued research. The paper abstracts should contain a sentence summarizing the contribution to the field and literature.

    All submissions must clearly relate to the human aspects of security or privacy. Papers on security or privacy that do not address usability or human factors will not be considered. Likewise, papers on usability or human factors that do not address security or privacy will not be considered. The determination of whether a paper is within scope will be solely at the discretion of the program committee chairs.

    Your paper and research approach—including research instruments—should be inclusive and respectful. A variety of guidance exists on this topic.

    Anonymous Submission

    Reviewing is anonymous. No names or affiliations should appear on the title page or in the body of the paper, acknowledgments should be removed, and papers should avoid revealing the authors' identities in the text (e.g., don't name a specific organization's ethics review board or similar) or in the PDF metadata. Any references to the authors' own work should be made in the third person, as if it was work by someone else. Appendices and figures should also be de-identified (e.g., do not leave logos or contact info on study materials, and remove identifying URLs from screenshots). Please ensure all author names, affiliations, URLs, etc. have been removed; the conference organizers will attempt to catch and ask the author to correct minor mistakes since we're all human, but as we're all human, even the organizers can make mistakes and this can cause issues for the blind review process. Contact the program chairs at absurd@cs.tufts.edu if you have any questions.

    Note, ABSURD prioritizes providing presenting opportunities to those newer to the field or with less experience (e.g., students). To this end, after blind reviews have been completed, the organizers will deanonymize the papers for the purpose of selecting the final presentation schedule to enable this prioritization.

    Submissions of Previously Published Work

    Authors should submit the published paper in lieu of the 2-page abstrate on the web submission system. These submission will not be reviewed anonymously and will not received additional reviews as they have already gone through a peer review process. They will be included in the program at the discretion of the program chairs. Again, we seek to balance new and previously published work in our program.

    Conflicts of Interest

    The submission system will request information about conflicts of interest between the paper's authors and program committee (PC) members, including a brief explanation. It is the full responsibility of all authors of a paper to identify their potential conflict-of-interest PC members, according to the following definition. A paper author has a conflict of interest with a PC member when one or more of the following conditions holds:

    1. The PC member shared an institutional affiliation with the author in the prior two years.
    2. The PC member was the advisor or advisee of the author at any time.
    3. The PC member has collaborated or published with the author in the prior two years.
    4. The PC member is serving as the sponsor or administrator of a grant that funds the author's research.
    5. The PC member is a close personal friend or relative of the author.

    We recognize that special circumstances may exist, such as deep personal animosity. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the program chairs at absurd@cs.tufts.edu.

    Ethical Research

    User studies should follow the basic principles of ethical research, including beneficence (maximizing the benefits to an individual or to society while minimizing harm to the individual), minimal risk (appropriateness of the risk versus benefit ratio), voluntary consent, respect for privacy, and limited deception. Studies that rely on crowdworkers can incur additional ethical obligations, including but not limited to paying a fair wage. If images of participants are included in the paper, make sure that these images will not create potential risk for participants and that the informed consent covers potential publication of participant images.

    All papers, especially those with human subjects studies, are expected to discuss ethical considerations. Risks and benefits of the presented research should be weighed. Methodological decisions should be justified. Authors may be asked to provide additional explanations should questions arise during the review process.

    If your organization or institution requires formal clearance for research with human subjects, your paper may be rejected if clearance is not obtained. However, such clearance alone does not guarantee acceptance, and the program committee may reject a paper on ethical grounds.

    Presentation

    For accepted papers, we require at least one of the paper authors to attend ABSURD and present the work. However, in exceptional cases, authors of accepted papers may present remotely with permission from the PC Co-Chairs. If you have any questions, please contact the program chairs at absurd@cs.tufts.edu.

    Credits

    Policy adapted from SOUPS 2026

    ABSURD Organizers

    Program Chairs

    Diana Freed, Brown University, Diana_Freed@Brown.edu

    Tianshi Li, Northeastern University, tia.li@northeastern.edu

    Daniel Voitpka, Tufts University, daniel.votipka@tufts.edu

    Program Committee

    Hamza Khalid, Tufts University

    Kelly Wang, Northeastern University

    Alyssa Lanter, Brown University

    Maya De Los Santos, Brown University

    Sponsors

    We wish to thank the Tufts Cybersecurity Center for the Public Good, Tufts University Department of Computer Science, the Brown University Computer Science Department, and the Brown University Data Science Institute for their support to make this event happen.