KCA slides, photos and videos
I was in Brisbane last week to talk about Linux Kernel Security at Kernel Conference Australia (KCA).
The aims of the talk were to provide a general overview of security features in the Linux kernel, and to examine historical context around Unix security and how Linux is evolving to address modern security requirements.
People may be interested in my slides. They’re available as a PDF download and via Slideshare. Note that full speaker notes are included in the slides, in the second half of the deck.
The conference was streamed live online, and the video from my talk may be viewed here. I’m watching to see how the talk, and my speaking in general, might be improved. As painful as this may be, it seems very effective in understanding what worked and what didn’t. I think I can tighten this talk up for possible future use, and focus more on how our development process—not merely the technology—helps address evolving security requirements.
I later participated in an OS security panel with Cristina Cifuentes and Fernando Gont, the video of which is also online.
I’ve also uploaded a flickr photo set. Brisbane is a great location for a conference, especially in the southern hemisphere winter.
It was unusual being the only Linux speaker at a conference. I hope the talk was useful, if at least to encourage more thinking about security in operating systems.
The primary organizer of KCA, James MacPherson, has posted an initial wrap-up of the conference. If the conference continues—I hope it does; it has a lot of potential for the Australian kernel R&D community—I think it would be highly advantageous to more actively seek speakers (and even organizers), from the broader community. One major local Linux kernel developer had a Linux kernel video talk rejected, which seemed odd given that similar talks were accepted (e.g. the new OpenSolaris sound system), and that an additional OpenSolaris talk was added to the program after the CfP closed.
I understand that organizing conferences is difficult, so I hope this is taken as constructive feedback. I’d certainly be interested in helping review papers or otherwise help out in the future if the conference is held again, and if it is aimed at the broader community.
Hi James, really glad you were able to come to KCA – I really enjoyed your presentation, it will become part of the Proceedings volume that we put together shortly, along with all the other papers. I thought your contribution to the security / secure software engineering panel was very valuable and I’m really glad you were able to take part in it.
I put in a lot of work to get the event off the ground, and worked over as many mailing lists and kernel-oriented presenters as I could find contact details for. I think it’s true to say that the first time an event is run the learning curve is quite steep; all the feedback that we get from attendees and speakers will go into making subsequent KCAs much better.
The DTrace presentation that you refer to was one that was originally solicited when the idea for KCA started to gain shape – unfortunately Brendan was unable to confirm his attendance until really quite late in the piece.