Hiring Subsystem Maintainers

The regular LWN kernel development stats have been posted here for version 4.1 (if you really don’t have a subscription, email me for a free link).  In this, Jon Corbet notes:

over 60% of the changes going into this kernel passed through the hands of developers working for just five companies. This concentration reflects a simple fact: while many companies are willing to support developers working on specific tasks, the number of companies supporting subsystem maintainers is far smaller. Subsystem maintainership is also, increasingly, not a job for volunteer developers..

As most folks reading this would know, I lead the mainline Linux Kernel team at Oracle.  We do have several people on the team who work in leadership roles in the kernel community (myself included), and what I’d like to make clear is that we are actively looking to support more such folk.

If you’re a subsystem maintainer (or acting in a comparable leadership role), please always feel free to contact me directly via email to discuss employment possibilities.  You can also contact Oracle kernel folk who may be presenting or attending Linux conferences.

Linux Security Summit 2015 CFP

The CFP for the 2015 Linux Security Summit (LSS) is now open: see here.

Proposals are due by June 5th, and accepted speaker notifications will go out by June 12th.

LSS 2015 will be held over 20-21 August, in Seattle, WA, USA.

Last year’s event went really well, and we’ll follow a similar format over two days again this year.  We’re co-located again with LinuxCon, and a host of other events including Linux Plumbers, CloudOpen, KVM Forum, and ContainerCon.  We’ve been upgraded to an LF managed event this year, which means we’ll get food.

All LSS attendees, including speakers, must be registered attendees of LinuxCon.   The first round of early registration ends May 29th.

We’d like to cast our net as wide as possible in terms of presentations, so please share this info with anyone you know who’s been doing interesting Linux security development or implementation work recently.

Save the Date — Linux Security Summit 2015, August 20-21, Seattle WA, USA

The Linux Security Summit for 2015 will be held across 20-21 August, in Seattle, WA, USA.  As with previous events, we’ll be co-located with LinuxCon.

Preliminary event details are available at the event site:

http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linux-security-summit

A CFP will be issued soon — stay tuned!

Thank you to Máirín Duffy, who created wonderful logos for the event.


Linux Security Summit 2014 Wrap-Up

The slides from the 2014 Linux Security Summit in August may be found linked at the schedule.

LWN covered both the James Bottomley keynote, and the SELinux on Android talk by Stephen Smalley.

We had an engaging and productive two days, with strong attendance throughout.  We’ll likely follow a similar format next year at LinuxCon.  I hope we can continue to expand the contributor base beyond mostly kernel developers.  We’re doing ok, but can certainly do better.  We’ll also look at finding a sponsor for food next year.

Thanks to those who contributed and attended, to the program committee, and of course, to the events crew at Linux Foundation, who do all of the heavy lifting logistics-wise.

See you next year!

New GPG Key

Just an FYI, I lost my GPG key a few months back during an upgrade, and have created a new one.  This was signed by folk at LinuxCon/KS last month.

The new key ID / fingerprint is: D950053C / 8327 23D0 EF9D D46D 9AC9  C03C AD98 4BBF D950 053C

Please use this key and not the old one!


					

		
		
	

							
	

				

			
						

				Linux Security Summit 2014 Schedule Published
			

								


				

			
The schedule for the 2014 Linux Security Summit (LSS2014) is now published.


The event will be held over two days (18th & 19th August), starting with James Bottomley as the keynote speaker.  The keynote will be followed by referred talks, group discussions, kernel security subsystem updates, and break-out sessions.


The refereed talks are:


    

  • Verified Component Firmware – Kees Cook, Google
    • 

  • Protecting the Android TCB with SELinux – Stephen Smalley, NSA
    • 

  • Tizen, Security and the Internet of Things – Casey Schaufler, Intel
    • 

  • Capsicum on Linux – David Drysdale, Google
    • 

  • Quantifying and Reducing the Kernel Attack Surface –  Anil Kurmus, IBM
    • 

  • Extending the Linux Integrity Subsystem for TCB Protection – David Safford & Mimi Zohar, IBM
    • 

  • Application Confinement with User Namespaces – Serge Hallyn & Stéphane Graber, Canonical
    • 



Discussion session topics include Trusted Kernel Lock-down Patch Series, led by Kees Cook; and EXT4 Encryption, led by Michael Halcrow & Ted Ts’o.   There’ll be kernel security subsystem updates from the SELinux, AppArmor, Smack, and Integrity maintainers.  The break-out sessions are open format and a good opportunity to collaborate face-to-face on outstanding or emerging issues.


See the schedule for more details.


LSS2014 is open to all registered attendees of LinuxCon.  Note that discounted registration is available until the 18th of July (end of this week).


See you in Chicago!

					

		
		
	

							
	

				

			
						

				Linux Security Summit 2014 (Chicago) -– Call for Participation
			

								


				

			
The CFP for the 2014 Linux Security Summit is announced.


LSS 2014 will be co-located with LinuxCon North America in Chicago, on the 18th and 19th of August.  We’ll also be co-located with the Kernel Summit this year.


Note that, as always, we’re looking for participation from the general Linux community — not just kernel people, and not just developers.  We’re interested in hearing about feedback from users, and discussing what kinds of security problems we need to be addressing into the future.


This year, we’re looking for discussion topics as well as paper presentations, so if you have anything interesting to talk about, send in a proposal.


The CFP closes on 6th June 21st June.

					

		
		
	

							
	

				

			
						

				Save the Date: 2014 Linux Security Summit in Chicago
			

								


				

			
The 2014 Linux Security Summit will be held on the 18th and 19th of August, co-located with LinuxCon in Chicago, IL, USA.  The Kernel Summit and several other events will also be co-located there this year.


The Call for Participation will be announced later via the LSM mailing list.

					

		
		
	

							
	

				

			
						

				Linux Security Summit 2013 – Schedule Published!
			

								


				

			
The schedule for this year’s Linux Security Summit in New Orleans is now published!


The keynote will be presented by Ted Ts’o.


Refereed talks include:


    

  •  Embedded Linux Security 	(David Safford, IBM)
    • 

  •  Extending AppArmor Mediation into the Userspace 	(John Johansen, Canonical)
    • 

  •  Multiple Concurrent Security Models? Really? 	(Casey Schaufler, Intel)
    • 

  •  Linux Kernel ASLR 	(Kees Cook, Google)
    • 

  •  The AppArmor Labeling Model (John Johansen, Canonical)
    • 



It looks like there’s been quite a lot happening in AppArmor.  There’ll also be general project updates for SELinux, Smack, AppArmor and the Integrity subsystem, as well as a discussion on kernel coding anti-patterns led by Kees Cook.


There’ll be break-out sessions on the second day, details of which will be posted on the schedule as they’re known.  If you’ll be at LSS (or LinuxCon/Plumbers generally) and would like to schedule a break-out session, contact the program committee per the details at the wiki page.


See everyone on the 19th and 20th of September in New Orleans!