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Dr James Heather

Senior Lecturer

Qualifications: BA (Oxon) MSc (Oxon) PhD (Lond)

Email:
Phone: Work: 01483 68 9636
Room no: 05 BB 02

Office hours

Thursdays, 2pm to 4pm

Further information

Research Interests

My main focus is on the application of formal methods to computer security problems.

For the first part of my career, this largely involved analysing security protocols using the process algebra CSP, and either finding attacks or proving that no attacks existed.

More recently I have spent most of my time working on secure electronic voting. I am leading the EPSRC-funded Trustworthy Voting Systems research project at Surrey, which aims to design, develop and verify a secure voting system that is strong enough and usable enough for real-world elections. The project is joint work with Birmingham, and run in close collaboration with Luxembourg.

Publications

Highlights

  • Heather JA, Llewellyn MH, Teague VJ, Wen R. (2011) 'On the Side-Effects of Introducing E-voting'. Tallinn, Estonia: VoteID 2011
    [ Status: Accepted ]
  • Schneider SA, Srinivasan S, Culnane C, Heather JA, Xia Z. (2011) 'Prêt à Voter with Write-Ins'. Tallinn, Estonia: VoteID 2011
    [ Status: Accepted ]
  • Heather J, Ryan PYA, Teague V. (2010) 'Pretty good democracy for more expressive voting schemes'. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Computer Security – ESORICS 2010, Athens, Greece: 15th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security 6345, pp. 405-423.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-15497-3_25
  • Ryan PYA, Bismark D, Heather JA, Schneider SA, Xia Z. (2009) 'The Prêt à Voter Verifiable Election System'. IEEE IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 4 (4), pp. 662-673.
    doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2009.2033233
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7244/
  • Heather JA, Lundin D. (2008) 'The Append-only Web Bulletin Board'. Malaga, Spain : Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Formal Aspects in Security and Trust, Malaga, Spain: FAST 2008 5491, pp. 242-256.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-01465-9_16

Journal articles

  • Heather JA. (2010) 'Turnitoff: identifying and fixing a hole in current plagiarism detection software'. Routledge Journal of Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35 Article number 6 , pp. 647-660.
    doi: 10.1080/02602938.2010.486471
  • Ryan PYA, Bismark D, Heather JA, Schneider SA, Xia Z. (2009) 'The Prêt à Voter Verifiable Election System'. IEEE IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 4 (4), pp. 662-673.
    doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2009.2033233
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7244/
  • Heather J, Wei K. (2009) 'Where next for formal methods?'. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5087, pp. 52-58.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-04904-0_10
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107397/
  • Wei K, Heather J. (2007) 'A theorem-proving approach to verification of fair non-repudiation protocols'. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 4691 LNCS, pp. 202-219.
  • Heather J. (2007) 'Implementing STV securely in Prêt à Voter'. Proceedings - IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium, , pp. 157-169.
  • Wei K, Heather J. (2006) 'Towards verification of timed non-repudiation protocols'. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 3866 LNCS, pp. 244-257.
  • Heather J, Schneider S. (2005) 'A decision procedure for the existence of a rank function'. IOS Press Journal of Computer Security, 13 (2), pp. 317-344.
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107394/
  • Antonopoulos N, Heather J, Peel R. (2005) 'Programmable agents for generic distributed authorisation'. Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Internet Computing, ICOMP'05, , pp. 174-180.
  • Wei K, Heather J. (2005) 'Embedding the stable failures model of CSP in PVS'. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 3771 LNCS, pp. 246-265.
  • Heather J, Lowe G, Schneider S. (2003) 'How to prevent type flaw attacks on security protocols'. IOS Press Journal of Computer Security, 11 (2), pp. 217-244.
    doi: 10.1109/CSFW.2000.856942
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107395/

Conference papers

  • Heather JA, Llewellyn MH, Teague VJ, Wen R. (2011) 'On the Side-Effects of Introducing E-voting'. Tallinn, Estonia: VoteID 2011
    [ Status: Accepted ]
  • Schneider SA, Srinivasan S, Culnane C, Heather JA, Xia Z. (2011) 'Prêt à Voter with Write-Ins'. Tallinn, Estonia: VoteID 2011
    [ Status: Accepted ]
  • Culnane C, Bismark D, Heather JA, Schneider SA, Srinivasan S, Xia Z. (2011) 'Authentication Codes'. Electronic Voting Technology Workshop on Trustworthy Elections, San Francisco, USA: EVT/WOTE 2011
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107386/
  • Moran M, Heather JA, Schneider SA. (2011) 'Anonymity and CSP for Voting Systems'. Limerick: CryptoForma 2011
  • Heather JA, Schneider SA, Teague VJ. (2011) 'Cryptographic Protocols with Everyday Objects'. Limerick: CryptoForma 2011
  • Schneider S, Llewellyn M, Culnane C, Heather J, Srinivasan S, Xia Z. (2011) 'Focus group views on Prêt à Voter 1.0'. Proc. of 2011 Int. Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Electronic Voting Systems, REVOTE 2011 - In Conjunction with the 19th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2011, RE 2011, , pp. 56-65.
    doi: 10.1109/REVOTE.2011.6045916
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107391/
  • Heather J, Ryan PYA, Teague V. (2010) 'Pretty good democracy for more expressive voting schemes'. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Computer Security – ESORICS 2010, Athens, Greece: 15th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security 6345, pp. 405-423.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-15497-3_25
  • Xia Z, Culnane C, Heather JA, Jonker H, Ryan PYA, Schneider SA, Srinivasan S. (2010) 'Versatile Pret a Voter: Handling Multiple Election Methods with a Unified Interface'. Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Hyderabad, India: Indocrypt 6498, pp. 98-114.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-17401-8_8010
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7233/
  • Bismark D, Heather J, Peel RMA, Schneider S, Xia Z, Ryan PYA. (2009) 'Experiences gained from the first Prêt à Voter implementation'. 2009 1st International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for e-Voting Systems, RE-VOTE 2009, , pp. 19-28.
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7211/
  • Heather J. (2009) 'Where next for formal methods? (Transcript of Discussion)'. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Security Protocols, Cambridge, UK: 14th International Workshop 5087, pp. 59-61.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-04904-0
  • Heather JA, Lundin D. (2008) 'The Append-only Web Bulletin Board'. Malaga, Spain : Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Formal Aspects in Security and Trust, Malaga, Spain: FAST 2008 5491, pp. 242-256.
    doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-01465-9_16
  • Xia Z, Schneider SA, Heather J, Traoré J. (2008) 'Analysis, Improvement, and Simplification of Prêt à Voter with Paillier Encryption.'. Berkeley, CA : USENIX Association EVT'08 Proceedings of the Conference on Electronic Voting Technology, San Jose, USA: USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Workshop
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/7188/
  • Xia Z, Schneider SA, Heather JA, Ryan PYA, Lundin D, Peel RMA, Howard PJ. (2007) 'Prêt à Voter: All-in-one'. Ottawa, Canada : Ottawa, Canada: IAVoSS Workshop On Trustworthy Elections (WOTE 2007)
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107398/
  • Lundin D, Treharne HE, Ryan PYA, Schneider SA, Heather JA, Xia Z. (2006) 'Tear and Destroy: Chain voting and destruction problems shared by Prêt à Voter and Punchscan and a solution using Visual Encryption'. Hamburg, Germany: IAVoSS Workshop on Frontiers in Electronic Elections (FEE 2006)
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107399/
  • Lundin D, Treharne HE, Ryan PYA, Schneider SA, Heather JA. (2006) 'Distributed Creation of the Ballot Form in Prêt à Voter using an element of Visual Encryption'. Cambridge, UK : IAVoSS Workshop On Trustworthy Elections (WOTE 2006), IAVoSS Workshop On Trustworthy Elections (WOTE 2006)
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/107400/
  • Lundin D, Treharne HE, Ryan PYA, Schneider SA, Heather JA, Xia Z. (2006) 'Tear and Destroy: Chain voting and destruction problems shared by Prêt à Voter and Punchscan and a solution using Visual Encryption'. EATCS Fundamenta Informaticae (Journal of Fundamental Informatics), , pp. 1001-1019.
  • Heather J, Schneider S. (2006) 'To infinity and beyond or, avoiding the infinite in security protocol analysis'. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, 1, pp. 346-353.