Grappling Hooks on the Ivory Tower: This Year in Practical Academic Research

Presented at BSidesLV 2017, July 26, 2017, 5 p.m. (55 minutes)

Five years before volume 1 issue 1 of Phrack, there was IEEE Security and Privacy. Where Merkle (of Merkle-Damgård; think SHA-2) showed us how to do crypto right in 1980. Where your favourite nation-state adversaries watch their secrets become public. Where Naval Postgraduate School showed off their secure kernel in 1981. Since then, professors and decidedly unprofessorial types have each, mostly separately, smashed and rebuilt security with their own separate armies of admirers, haters, and hangers-on. We'll take you on a short trip through the parallel universe of academic infosec, and point out just the cool, practical stuff that came down from the ivory tower a few months ago. You'll see a bit of yourself reflected, how hackers shape the academic world, what academics have to say about our favourite bug-writing developers, and what is shaping TLS 1.3. We hope you'll also get inspired and do some science.

Presenters:

  • Falcon Darkstar Momot - Senior Security Consultant - Leviathan Security Group
    Falcon is a senior penetration tester at Leviathan Security Group who works on everything from cryptosystem design to security program operation. He also studies LangSec as an M. Sc. student at Athabasca University, and captures flags with Neg9. His alter ego is AF7MH, licensor-general.
  • Brittany Postnikoff
    Born in the geographic center of Canada, Brittany is a privacy, security, and human factors researcher in the University of Waterloo Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) lab. During the day, she focuses on using embedded artificial intelligences (sometimes thought of as "robots," but not just those) to manipulate human actions and emotions. At night, she conquers an expanding collection of video games, twisty puzzles, and skirts. In her free time, she defines "toque" for non-Canadians.

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