Welcome to the 43rd edition of IEEE LCN 2018, one of the oldest and continuously running conferences addressing the leading edge of computer networking.

We hope that, as in previous years, LCN will provide a stimulating and friendly interactive environment, fostering interactions among researchers and practitioners, from academia and industry. LCN will continue its tradition of offering a quality set of papers selected through an extensive peer review process. Poster and demonstration sessions will provide a window into leading edge research and development activities around the globe. A total of five workshops will be held on the first day of the conference. LCN is a truly international conference with authors coming from 33 countries. LCN 2018 will offer keynotes from two distinguished leaders in networking and security: Ed Cabrera, Trend Micro and Prof. Klara Nahrstedt, Computer Science Department of University of Illinois. In addition, this year's conference will feature an exciting panel on the implications of Blockchain to networking research which will host Dr. Salil Kanhere from University of New South Wales, Australia, Dr. Nikita Borisov from University of Illinois and Dr. Klaus Wehrle from RTWH Aachen, Germany.

It has been my great honor and pleasure to work with the members of the LCN Organizing Committee. They are a highly dedicated group of professionals who took time off from their busy schedules to ensure a quality conference. Program Chairs Soumaya Cherkaoui and Karl Andersson have done an outstanding work in putting together a high quality technical program. Finance Chair Frank Huebner continues to ensure that LCN is among the best run conferences sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. Alongside of Frank, Hwee-Pink Tan, the Workshop Chair, solicited and coordinated the set of five workshops. Fadi Al-Turjman, the Publications Chair, supervised the creation of high quality conference proceedings. Suleyman Uludag, the Corporate Relations Chair, strived to secure funding and support from sponsors as well as spreading the word within the local community. Kyong Jin Shim organized the demonstration session. Adel Ben Mnaouer, the Student's Grants Chair, was meticulous about selecting 6 students to receive travel grants for attending the conference due to the generous contributions of IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC). Our Publicity Chair, Eyuphan Bulut, helped publicize the conference and demo call for papers as well as the call for participation. Gary Kessler's service as the Webmaster was, as always, invaluable. This conference would not have been possible without the work of the Local Arrangements Chair, Katrin Reitsma, including the selection of the hotel, organization of the social event, and running the conference.

I also wish to extend my gratitude and thanks to the LCN Steering Committee - Joe Bumblis, Nils Aschenbruck,, Ken Christensen, Ehab Elmallah, Matthias Frank, Salil Kanhere, Anura Jayasumana, Gary Kessler, Burkhard Stiller, Tim Strayer and Damla Turgut for their invaluable advice and continuous support. Thanks to William Atwood for maintaining the committee emailing list.

Many thanks to the LCN workshop organizers, technical program committee members, and reviewers. At last, but not least, I thank all the authors for choosing LCN to share their high quality research.

The LCN community is very grateful to the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) for their continuing sponsorship of LCN.

I wish you a pleasant stay in Chicago, and hope you will find LCN 2018 to be an enriching and enjoyable experience!

Kemal Akkaya, General Chair, LCN 2018 Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL USA