Continuing
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
                  _____      ____              ___ ___ 
                 |__  /__ _ / ___|___  _ __   |_ _|_ _|
                   / // _` | |   / _ \| '_ \   | | | |
                  / /| (_| | |__| (_) | | | |  | | | |
                 /____\__,_|\____\___/|_| |_| |___|___|

             /it's ZaCon, not Zacon, ZACon or ZACON, kthxbi/

                         http://www.zacon.org.za
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


This is most definitely a Call For Papers  (well, abstracts,  but no one 
writes CFA).

--------------
   Why ZaCon?
--------------

Last year  was the  first ZaCon event in  its current guise,  and pulled
together 16 speakers and an audience of over 9000 (sixty) people. It was
deemed a roaring success by the organisers, based on feedback such as:

    * "Seating was cramped and uncomfortable."
    * "also the venue was cold"
    * "Website initially looked quite dodgy."
    * "Is ZaCon on a Saturday?"
    * "You never made us tea"

While  most of the comments  were received  with bated bad-breath it was
the last comment that really convinced  us a repeat was necessary. Also,
the  fact that the final talk had as sizeable  an audience as  the first 
seemed to indicate that either the audience was interested up to the end
or UJ has an abnormally  high geek-hobo  population.  Since no  shopping 
trolleys were visible, the former appears more likely.

Let's recap: many other conferences exist to cater either to the strict-
ly Academic or Professional individual. We want a simple community based
forum  that is completely  free of  corporate affiliation (or shilling).
The intention behind this  is that the passion for the field or of shar-
ing knowledge should  be  the primary motivation  of attending or speak-
ing at this conference.

We aim to fulfill these objectives:

    * Provide a platform for publication of infosec research
    * Showcase free locally-developed infosec tools
    * Support  the interaction of industry, academia and  the interested
      public
    * Encourage discussion on infosec / hackery / sec-related-geekery at
      large
    * Build the ZA infosec community
    * Provide a platform to up-n-coming talent


Check out the videos from last year's con:

    * http://www.vimeo.com/album/150132


-----------------
   When is ZaCon?
-----------------

9 October 2010. University of Joburg. Joburg.

Yes, it's a Saturday.  The goal is to hit breakeven on the costs,  so an
entry fee (if charged) will be low.


---------------------
   How to participate
---------------------

Someone once said that  "it's better to speak at ZaCon  than to listen",
and we tend to agree. We're looking for interesting talks that appeal to
a technical and security-minded  crowd.  Importantly,  the work does not 
have to be original;  feel free to explain  known attacks albeit  in new 
and interesting ways. 

Areas of interest include (but are NOT limited to):

    * Code analysis
    * Crypto
    * Databases security
    * Exploitation
    * Forensics and anti-forensics
    * Reverse engineering
    * Web app security
    * Integrating security technologies
    * Technical security management
    * Any security related hackery and fun!

So, if you want to:

    * release a security tool
    * show off a new vulnerability/exploit
    * show off how your language / framework  of choice is resilient  to
      pesky hackers
    * demo complex attacks
    * finally explain why cloud /  DLP /  NAC / * will be our collective
      saviour (or not)
    * discuss securing large corporate / academic networks (hi Simeon)
    * tear into Gauteng's soon-to-be highway to[ol]l system
    * show last year's speakers that you can out-* them
    * X     where X := { sec-related && interesting && compressable into
                        a short talk && { attack || defence }}

then you MUST [1] send an abstract, talk title and expected presentation
length to:

    * abstracts at zacon.org.za.

Closing date for submissions is 20 August 2010.


-----------
   Contact
-----------

    * Site: http://zacon.org.za
    * Abstracts: abstracts AT zacon org za
    * Organisers: people AT zacon org za
    * IRC: #zacon on irc.atrum.org



[1] http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2119.html