FOSDEM 2021 (Online) - Hardware-Aided Trusted Computing Devroom Call For Participation

Submission deadline : 23/12/2020

About FOSDEM

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels. In 2021, they will gather online. FOSDEM is free to attend. There is no registration.

Devroom overview and objectives

Following the success of last year’s edition, we are for the 2nd time organizing a devroom devoted to the emerging open-source ecosystem around hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Under TEEs, we understand architectures that allow to isolate and attest trusted “enclave” software components running on top of a potentially compromised operating system. Over the last years, all major processor vendors have developed some form of TEE support, e.g., Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) and upcoming Trust Domain Extensions (TDX), ARM’s TrustZone and upcoming Morello, AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) and upcoming SEV-ES/SEV-SNP extensions, and IBM’s Protected Execution Facility (PEF).

Hence, with today’s mainstream consumer hardware being increasingly shipped with these advanced trusted computing technologies, this devroom wants to foster discussion on the much-needed open-source TEE ecosystem amongst industry players, academics, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and project maintainers.

Desirable topics

The devroom’s topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Programming frameworks for TEEs: how to develop free and open-source software that can run inside enclaves (e.g., library OSs, SDKs, Linux kernel support, etc.).
• Compiler and language support for emerging trusted hardware extensions.
• Open-source enclave processor designs (e.g., RISC-V TEEs).
• Use cases and applications on top of TEEs.
• TEE-specific attacks and defenses: reverse engineering, side-channels, vulnerabilities, exploits.
• Vision: future TEEs (what is missed, proposals, wishes, discussions).

New rules: What changes since last year

For obvious reasons, this year the event will not take place in a physical location but online.

• The reference time will be Brussels local lime (CET).
• Talks will be pre-recorded in advance, and streamed during the event.
• Q/A session will be take live.
• A facility will be provided for people watching to chat between themselves.
• A facility will be provided for people watching to submit questions.
• Once your talk was accepted, we will assign you a deputy to help you to produce the pre-recorded content.
• During the stream of your talk, you must be available online for the Q/A session

Key dates

• Submission deadline: 23 December 2020
• Announcement of selected talks: 31 December 2020
• Conference dates 6 & 7 February 2021 (online)
• Hardware-Aided Trusted Computing devroom date: Saturday 6 February 2021 (online)

Submit a talk proposal

Submissions are required to proceed through the FOSDEM 2021 Pentabarf website. Create an “event” and click on “Show all” in the top right corner to display the full form.

Your submission must include the following information:

• Your contact email.
• The title (and possible subtitle) of your talk: please be descriptive, as the audience will have to choose to attend your talk out of a listing with ~500 talks from other projects at FOSDEM.
• Select “Hardware-Aided Trusted Computing devroom” as the track.
• A short abstract of one paragraph.
• A longer description if you wish to do so.
• Links to related websites / blogs etc.

Contact and organizers

• Main organizer: Jo Van Bulck (jo.vanbulck@cs.kuleuven.be)
• The devroom is supported by the Confidential Computing Consortium.