Agenda:

Nuts & Bolts: "Security on the Desktop" by Gopi Ramamoorthy

Gopi will discuss things that ordinary Linux desktop users should do to improve security and prevent break-ins.

• Known Secuity Problems on Linux Desktops
• Good Security Practices
• Differences Between Linux of various vendors
• Security Utilities
• Other Resources

Keynote: Vadim Kurland, "Firewall Builder"

The variety of firewall platforms currently available on the market creates problems for administrators who need to be proficient in many configuration languages and tools. In addition to that, different firewalls significantly deviate in their capabilities. This means administrators not only have to know how to configure different firewalls, but also should understand their differences very well in order to avoid mistakes. Firewall Builder is an Open Source framework and multi-platform firewall configuration tool that allows the administrator to build a policy for an abstract firewall and then translate it into the actual configuration language. Firewall Builder consists of the GUI frontend, a set of the policy compilers that produce code for different target firewalls, and the API library. Firewall Builder uses object-oriented approach to building firewall policy. Currently Firewall Builder can generate configuration files and scripts for the Open Source firewalls based on iptables, ipfilter, pf and ipfw. Vadim will discuss the abstract firewall model supported by Firewall Builder, its properties and their mapping to some target firewall implementations, as well as Firewall Builder's design and implementation.

App of the Month: "Mozilla"

-- BillWard - 19 Nov 2003
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