Call For Papers

Breaking Ground

A track where hackers new and old can show off their latest and greatest while interacting with our participants and getting feedback, input and opinion. No preaching from the podium at a passive audience. It is a place where presenters can talk about their newest attack or defensive research, tools, new and novel approaches to InfoSec and to talk about the upcoming areas hackers should be digging into. Talks can vary from 20 to 45 minutes in length and typically include demos (live or otherwise). Some previous talks include reverse engineering malware in Go, network forensics in an encrypted world, anti-honeypot approach, hacking crypto currencies, 0-days in online services, mobile phone binary hacking. Click here for a sample submission.

Common Ground

All other topics of “common” interest to the security community. What should we, as hackers and the security community, know about? Talks in this track have included everything from hardware hacking to law & policy lock picking to mental health to appsec, and everything in between. Talks often but not always assume only minimal specialized background; they are always framed and interactive discussions with your peers and fellow researchers. No passive lectures “at” an audience.

PasswordsCon

Focused on the (in)security of passwords and other authentication solutions, bringing together security researchers, password crackers, and experts in password security from around the globe in order to better understand and address the challenges surrounding digital authentication. This track explores all facets of authentication security, from analysis and education to creating, securing, cracking, and exploiting authentication solutions.

Ground Floor

Foundational talks on topics relevant to security practitioners today. Also, it’s in the Copa so it’s literally on the ground floor. Get, it? We get a ton of talks every year that don’t quite fit Breaking Ground, or aren’t quite esoteric enough for Common Ground, but that we really want to be able to share. Since we’re BSides, it hurts our blackened, twisted little hearts to pass on a good talk just because there’s no room in the program. So we made this track, and filled it with the great stuff we couldn’t put in one of the other tracks. Careful. If it goes well, we may get hotel guests to sign a waiver so we can hold tracks in every hotel room next year. You have been warned.

Ground Truth

A place where hackers, academics, and data science practitioners can share ideas, ask questions, and compare notes. It is a venue for talks rooted in scientific approaches to infosec, such as statistical analysis, machine learning, and less common disciplines like linguistics. We are excited to showcase talks on theoretical topics, examples of successful and failed attempts to apply techniques in practice, software and data set releases, and discussions of relevant techniques from related fields. Some past topics of interest have included: data processes, methods for getting or cleaning data, basic statistics done well, data visualization, real science (scientific method/hypothesis testing), practical applications of data science in production, academic research (both student and faculty), machine learning, attacking machine learning and data science, risks of machine learning and data science, and the use of analytics to discover the story told by the data.

Hire Ground

A career focused track with sessions to provide the tools and knowledge needed for job search and career development. Resume reviews by industry recruiters and career coaching sessions by industry veterans are available on a first come, first served basis.

For more information, click here

I Am The Cavalry

The I Am The Cavalry track focuses on security issues that can affect public safety and human life, across our domains: Transportation, Healthcare, Infrastructure, and Home IoT. Discussions cover technical, public policy, societal, and media topics. Our goal is to catalyze action faster than it would have happened otherwise, with BSidesLV participants.

I Am The Cavalry has been at its best shining a light on dark parts of the map. This work takes deep knowledge, persistence, and ambassadorship. Along with our industry and public policy teammates, we have nudged and catalyzed transformational changes, as opposed to incremental ones.

To catalyze action toward transformational change, the I Am The Cavalry track will curate talks that identify and develop “shovel-ready” projects to empower our volunteers toward measurable or observable outcomes. For instance,- Create tools to increase awareness and understanding of I Am The Cavalry, including transformational outcomes, resources, and individuals. Develop capabilities for ambassadorship and translation among the hacker community. Promote new projects that have leadership, structure, and momentum. Feature calls to action for “shovel-ready” projects or tasks – typically those that only need scale or distribution.

Proving Ground

PG 101: The other kind of forensics for hackers

This year, Proving Ground is trying something different. Instead of our normal 4-month program, we’re going to run a two-day workshop to focus specifically on public speaking in the professional sphere.

Accepted applicants will come to BSLV and spend day 1 working with a small team of mentors to build a 10-minute presentation based on one of these scenarios:

• Presenting the results of a penetration test or security audit to a customer;
• Assembling a technical presentation for consumption by an audience of one’s peers;
• An internal engineering “pitch” (requesting funding or resources for an internal project)

On day two, they’ll present their prepared talks to an audience, in a style similar to high school forensics.

Just like the normal Proving Ground experience, we’re limiting applications to those who haven’t spoken at a major international hacker conference. If you’re interested, please apply!

For more information, click here

Training Ground

This track consists of workshops and classes to give your students hands-on experience learning the latest and greatest tools, tactics, techniques, and processes. We accept proposals for 1/2 day, full-day, and 2-day workshops.

For more information, click here