Symmetry and Asymmetry in Network Measurement, Cryptography, and Information Security
A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 56
Editors
Interests: network measurements
Interests: mobile edge computing; computation offloading; resource allocation; network security
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
With the rapid development of the Internet, cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and large-scale distributed systems, modern networks are becoming increasingly complex, dynamic, and heterogeneous. This evolution poses unprecedented challenges to cryptography and information security: data breaches, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, encrypted malicious traffic, botnets, and privacy leakage continuously threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of networked systems. Accurate and scalable network measurement, including traffic monitoring and classification, topology discovery, performance evaluation, and anomaly detection, has therefore become a fundamental enabler for understanding network behavior, assessing security posture, and designing effective defense mechanisms. Furthermore, symmetry plays an important role in these fields: symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic primitives constitute the backbone of secure communication, while the symmetry and asymmetry exhibited in traffic flows, network topologies, and protocol interactions provide valuable insights for traffic analysis, intrusion detection, and attack attribution.
This Special Issue aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to share their latest theoretical advances and practical applications of symmetry in cryptography and information security, with a particular emphasis on network measurement and network security. We welcome original research articles, comprehensive reviews, and short communications that exploit the concepts of symmetry and asymmetry to measure, model, secure, and defend modern networked systems, including the Internet, the IoT, cloud/edge computing, blockchain platforms, and AI-driven systems.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Network measurement, traffic analysis, and network telemetry for security applications;
- Encrypted traffic classification, anomaly detection, and intrusion detection systems;
- Detection and mitigation of network attacks (e.g., DDoS attacks, botnets, and advanced persistent threats);
- Symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms, protocols, and their applications in network security;
- Authentication, digital signatures, key management, and access control;
- Privacy-preserving computation, federated learning, and differential privacy;
- Security and privacy in the IoT, cloud/edge computing, and 5G/6G networks;
- Blockchain and its applications in network and data security;
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning for cybersecurity, as well as the security of AI systems;
- Data integrity, secure data sharing, and trusted computing.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Xiang Chen
Dr. Jianshan Zhang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- network measurement
- network security
- traffic analysis
- intrusion detection
- symmetric and asymmetric cryptography
- privacy preservation
- IoT security
- blockchain
- machine learning for cybersecurity
- trusted computing
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