Reverse Engineering For Vulnerability Research
Adam Gowdiak, Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Menlo Park
10/05/2006
Reverse engineering techniques are the "secret weapon" in every security researchers' bag. In many cases, application of these techniques is the only way to a successful (ending with a discovery of a high impact bug) software security audit. Regardless of the legal threats which reverse engineering people might face, this area has been gaining on popularity in the recent years. This talk will present latest trends in the reverse engineering area with a focus on the techniques used by security researchers to analyze binaries for security defects.
Scoring Alignment Gaps In The Twilight Zone
Barbara Chapman, Sonoma State University
10/12/2006
Scoring systems for protein sequence alignment, the main tool for annotating new genes, perform poorly in the most informative comparisons. In this ‘twilight zone’ of amino acid identity, existing scoring methods miss true relationships and cannot consistently reject chance similarities. This talk covers a proposed structure-sensing scoring method that performs well on tests of execution time, sensitivity, and alignment quality.
Is Your Data Really Backed Up?
Robert Plantz, Computer Science Department, SSU
10/19/2006
You accidentally delete a file. Or you try to boot your computer and discover that the disk has failed. When was the last time you backed up? Did your backup software save everything? The time the file was last modified? Owner/group permissions? Your personal settings? Is the backup media still good? There is much more to backing up than simply copying files. This talk will address backing up issues in the context of Linux and Mac OS X on the desktop, but the concepts apply to any environment.
The HP Labs Virus Safe Computing Initiative
Alan Karp, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto
10/26/2006
HP Labs encourages activities considered to be out of the mainstream. Our group takes a view of security that is quite different from that of the official HP and HP Labs security teams. This talk will discuss our approach and our primary work on a virus safe computing environment for Windows XP. Surprisingly, we don't require people to turn off their computers to protect themselves. We simply let the virus run in an environment where it can't do very much harm. A demo will be given that shows you don't have to turn off macros or stop opening email attachments to be virus safe.
Computer Game Development
Karen Peterson, Telltale Games, San Rafael
11/02/2006
An overview of the game development process and terminology, with an emphasis on programming practices beyond the fundamental concepts learned through coursework, and demonstration of the development of a shipped game.