Proposal for MWSF'08

Over the weekend I finished and submitted the proposal for Common Criteria Tools for Mac OS X for the 2008 MacWorld convention. The Session Description (Abstract) is first, followed by the Additional Comments (modifications from last year's session.

Abstract

International standards have been established (regardless of operating system) to provide for a standard set of controls and for monitoring of and between unlike systems. These standards allow for a common and consistent set of controls to ensure that dissimilar systems are sufficiently secured according to a well documented specification. The US Government uses the standard called Common Criteria to audit computing systems, and many businesses also use these auditing tools. OS X has the basic components built in, but additional software tools and configuration are required. In this session you will learn how Common Criteria tools came to be how to install the additional tools and and configure your system so that your system will conform to Common Criteria standards.

Additional Comments (mods from 2007)

This talk will be largely but not entirely composed of the contents of the Common Criteria Tools presentation of MacWorld 2007. The changes will be a reduction (but not elimination) in discussion of Classic, which is no longer present on Intel Macs. It will necessarily include an addition of installing Common Criteria tools on Intel Macs, which are significantly - and importantly - different from PPC Macs. Finally, it will include a slightly expanded discussion of creating filters in BSM.

Later I'll post the bullet point topics that I plan to cover.

ping from Schoun, and a new proposal for Common Criteria

Schoun pinged me this morning asking if I am still interested in presenting at MWSF 2008. I am, and told him so. Also told him that I plan to submit my proposal with a small modification from last year. This time I will somewhat reduce the discussion of general hardening, especially with respect to removing Classic, increase the discussion and description of how to create filters in BSM, and add discussion of support for Intel and multiple processors.

Call for Papers (for MWSF'08)

The Macworld Conference & Expo Team wanted to remind you that the San Francisco 2008 event is officially underway, and that The Call for Papers is live on the Macworld website. The deadline for your submission is August 6, 2007.

We also wanted to wish all of our Macworld speakers & exhibitors a happy and safe 4th of July.

Here is some important Macworld event info:

Dates: January 14-18, 2008
Location: San Francisco, CA

The conference programs are designed around the following topics: (many snipped)

Mac OS Skills Enhancement
System Troubleshooting
Security
Mac OS X Administration
Mac OS X Server Usage

Please Submit Application(s) Here.

MWSF speaker "call to action" timeline

CALL-TO-ACTION TIMELINE - WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS YOU MUST

Confirm your participation and complimentary registration by sending:

* Speaker Authorization Form
* Speaker Information Form
* Biography - provide about 1 paragraph or 150 words
* Photo - Provide a high resolution image file or at least 135 (horizontal) x 155 (vertical) pixels - larger is preferred

ABOVE DUE - October 20th 2006

NEXT DEADLINE - November 17, 2006

* Reference Materials - provide conference slides/media by November 17, 2006
Guidelines
Presentation Tips

Using Common Criteria Tools on Mac OS X

Subtitle: How to audit systems for compliance with business and government standards
Description: Certain standards are put into place, regardless of the operating system, to allow for a fair comparison between those unlike systems. These standards allow for a common set of values to be measured against one another to insure systems are sufficiently secured based on the given documentation. The U.S. government uses a set of standards called Common Criteria Tools to evaluate systems and many businesses also use these audits for comparison purposes. Mac OS X is judged against other systems based on the outcome of these tests. In this session, you will learn how Common Criteria Tools came to be, how to run the audit on your systems, and how to increase your audit score to insure your systems are more secure than those using another operating system.

Proposal accepted, but heavily modified

August 22, 2006: After several emails to Schoun and Paul Kent outlining much broader topic coverage in a proposed panel talk, Schoun came back with a specific topic - Common Criteria. Furthermore, the talk will be just me and John Martellaro instead of us two and two others I had proposed.

Ninety minutes on Common Criteria may not attract many people and we'll have to really drill down into it. No matter. At least there is some recognition of the unique needs of the users and administrators of OS X in Federal space.