Attendee Information

Welcome to Open Security Summit 2020

Thank you for your interest in Open Security Summit 2020 (OSS 2020).

The attendee general flow (attendee journey) is as follows;

1. Buy a ticket Remote participants should also register using EventBrite.
2. Create personal participant page
3. Find sessions that you are interested in by viewing the topic index, tracks view or just simply list working, user or product sessions.
4. Register to attend a session.

If you need any assistance you can reach us in Slack or find more details about how you can get help here.

Funding My Ticket

Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor tickets for attendees at this time.

Expectations for Attendees

The Open Security Summit is the most energizing InfoSec event in the world. Each of the 140+ working sessions will create a published deliverable for the wider InfoSec Community to engage with. This high level of productivity does require commitments from the attendees. As an Open Security Summit Attendee we hold you to these expectations:

Participation

The key to the Open Security Summit is its participatory nature. Unlike a conference, attendees are expected to immerse themselves in each working session, collaborating to create a published deliverable in a compressed amount of time. The expectation is that every attendee will actively engage with their peers to create this during the event.

Mutual Respect

You will be engaging in intense, creative activity with your peers. Sometimes the topic you will be dealing may be divisive. The basis for all conversations and growth during the Summit must be mutual respect. Every interaction with your fellow Summit attendees must at heart recognize that everyone is here to make AppSec better - even if we disagree about how to go about it.

Mutual respect also includes making space for others to talk. Be sensitive to not dominating the conversation during your working session.

Challenge Directly

When participating in the event, you are expected to say what you think plainly so that your working session team can quickly and thoroughly confront the issues they are there to respond to. This is the place to engage, not hold back out of misguided fear of challenging ideas.

Please use Radical Candor.

Care Deeply

This doesn’t mean that you are allowed to tear down others. While challenging directly, you are expected to remember that this is a collaborative environment. The goal is to communicate your critiques with the heart and collegial spirit that is due to your Summit colleagues. This means that consideration and thoughtfulness should guide your words without stifling constructive criticism.

Objective Distance and Personal Criticism

You may have passionate opinions about many of the items we will be discussing: this is a good thing. However, you are expected to be able to examine each issue with an objective distance. This means that as we attempt to create consensus (or simply consider where it cannot be found), you are expected to weigh the ideas of others without subordinating them to your own preconceived ideas unduly. This also needs to be applied to your Summit colleagues as you may reencounter them during the Summit after such passionate disagreement. You are expected to be able to deal with each issue from a fresh perspective.

All criticism during the Open Security Summit must be directed at the topics of your working session. Personal criticisms will derail conversations and undermine the collaborative atmosphere; this will not be tolerated.

Offer Supporting Documents for Value Judgments

When offering a value judgment (such as that idea does not work/is bad/is the best), you must offer proof or supporting documentation for your opinion and keep your point constructive to the conversation as a whole.

Be Solution Focused

When noting that an action is sub-par, you should always propose a solution that will address your critiques.

Harassment

The Open Security Summit is dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of Summit participants in any form in any Summit venue, including working sessions, social events, or other channels of communication. Harassment includes, but is not limited to: inappropriate questioning, sustained personal criticism, unwelcome and uninvited following or touching, and repeated unwelcome cornering of individuals away from the group.

If you need to report harassment, please contact a member of the Open Security Summit team.

A Summit participant who violates these rules will be confronted immediately. Should the participant not co-operate, they may be expelled from the Summit without a refund. The Summit organizers reserve the right to expel anyone who violates these rules.

Hacking the Venue

By attending the Open Security Summit, you agree that you will not engage in any illegal activity, including hacking or altering the wifi of the Venue or other guests.

The Summit Experience

This is the villa set up:

Collaborations Around the Clock

The key to the Summit dynamic is in its villas where you can interact with other participants on your own schedule around the clock. To this end, the Venue is organized into a series of villas that are supplemented by the conference centre (conveniently named The Venue). The villas will serve the dual purpose of accommodation as well as locations for the more informal evening sessions. Some venues will also serve as locations for standard working sessions (these will be marked on the schedule).

Accommodation (FAQ)

When you arrive at Woburn Forest Center Parcs proceed to the conference centre (conveniently called The Venue), you will receive your house key and accommodation information package upon registering. Each villa has a mix of single and double rooms. When you arrive at your villa, it is your responsibility to decide the room arrangements with your housemates.

General Housekeeping

Cleaners will come to your villa each morning to clean, and take out the rubbish. As there are no locks on bedroom doors, we advise you not to leave valuables lying around.

You need to have everything out of your room/villa by 10:00am. on the day you leave; you can leave luggage at the registration desk in the Venue.

Schedule

Session timings

Sessions are 60 minutes long. So that we can achieve our goals, please follow this schedule. Please try to get to your session on time so we can start as close to the start time as possible.

If you are the organizer, please have a draft agenda ready for your sessions, so attendees know what to expect. Here is the typical breakdown for a session:

We highly recommend appointing a timekeeper at the beginning of the meeting to warn speakers five minutes or so before the deadline for the next part of the session, to keep things moving and on schedule.

Working Session Outcomes

The point of the Summit is to create concrete deliverables from each working session. These deliverables can take many forms. It is vital that each working session has a definition of done.

Vendor Neutrality

We will observe a Vendor Neutrality policy at this conference. Please do not use the working sessions as a place to pitch your product. Maintaining neutrality enhances the value of the collaborative tone of this week.

Dynamic Sessions

Dynamic sessions are scheduled but do not have a leader or deliverables expected. They are envisaged as organic and dynamic dinner or post-dinner round-table conversations. The topic of conversation could also be prompted by one of the earlier scheduled sessions.

Evening Sessions

Evening sessions take place at villas. There are scheduled topics, but the debate will, more than likely, evolve organically.