2014 Vancouver B-Sides Security Conference
Front row from left to right: Prof. Huan Huo, Kaitlin Houle, Carolyn Bateman
Members from the CIS faculty and student body attended the B | Sides Vancouver Security Conference on March 10 and 11 2014. More info at securitybsides.com/w/page/27811926/BSidesVancouver
Attending this event was an excellent opportunity for students to interact with industry representatives, as well as, acquaint themselves with current trends in digital security thinking from experts in the field..
What is Vancouver B-Sides?
What is Vancouver B-Sides you might ask? Well, Vancouver B-Sides is one of many Security B-Sides Conferences that happen all around the world. B-Sides Conferences are not-for-profit, open-source, independently run, community supported information security conferences. They typically happen next to larger commercial security conferences which are usually too expensive to attend (unless your employer is getting involved). Security B-Side Conferences strive to be the unconference to the stereotypical and seemingly homogenous commercial security conferences that have evolved from educational forums to marketing junkets.
Security B-Sides Conferences are different as they strives to provide a smaller, more intimate networking and knowledge sharing atmospheres, fascinating breakout discussions and typically fosters stronger audience participation, overall group interaction and access to some of the brightest minds in the information security community. Given the overall support the global information security community has for B-Sides Conferences, security oracles that attend the bigger conferences typically drop by and participate in the smaller, more intimate B-Sides events, enabling the local community to interact with the “A” list without the marketing hype.
Vancouver B-Sides 2014 is in its second year and is going to be bigger and better than ever. Vancouver B-Sides 2013 was a two day event, with 16 speakers and approximately 100 attendees. This year, we are going big or going home! We expect well over 200 attendees, have 19 speakers, and new to this year: 4 workshops where attendees can learn to build a drone, hack a website or find the diamond in the rough with an open-source data mining tool.