Description
KWIPS, Kitchener-Waterloo Infosec and Privacy Salon, is a privacy and computer security group that is organized by Straithe. Each of our monthly meetings starts with a 30 to 45 minute presentation from a previous attendee (or invited guest) who has volunteered to speak. Speakers present on an open access academic paper (that is not their own work!) that is privacy or computer security related. There is an hour+ after each presentation for attendees to socialize and meet other folks interested in security, privacy, and related topics.
Meeting Details
KWIPS meetings happen on the third Monday of every month. The next three meetings are:
November 30th, 2026:- Presenter: Jacob Imola
- Paper: "Privacy in Pharmacogenetics: An End-to-End Case Study of Personalized Warfarin Dosing"
- URL: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity14/sec14-paper-fredrikson-privacy.pdf
- Location: KWartzlab
December 21st, 2026:
- Presenter: Vecna
- Paper: “Improving Signal’s Sealed Sender”
- URL: https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/ndss2021_1C-4_24180_paper.pdf
- Location: KWartzlab
January 18th, 2027:
- Location: KWartzlab
- Details TBD
We do appreciate when folks sign up on Luma or email b@straithe.com to let us know if they will be attending so we can book a space big enough for the expected audience, but declaring attendance is not required.
We do require that all attendees wear a mask during the event, so please bring your own if possible. N95 or better preferred. If you do not have a mask, one will be provided.
Previous Presentations
Our previous presentations (in reverse date order) are:
October 19th, 2026:- Presenter: Anonymity requested. Identity revealed at presentation.
- Paper: “Grid Shock: Coordinated Load-Changing Attacks on Power Grids”
- URL: https://ics.uci.edu/~dabrowsa/dabrowski-acsac17-gridshock-preprint.pdf
September 21, 2026:
- Presenter: Brittany “Straithe” Postnikoff
- Paper: “Experimental Security Analysis of a Modern Automobile”
- URL: https://feihu.eng.ua.edu/NSF_CPS/year1/w9_1.pdf
August 17, 2026:
- Presenter: Michael Ossmann
- Paper: “GPS Software Attacks”
- URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/2382196.2382245
Volunteering to Present
Any previous KWIPS attendee can volunteer to present at KWIPS. If you want to volunteer to present, please send an email to Straithe at b@straithe.com and include:
- your name,
- title of the paper, and
- link to the paper.
Once your email is received, the paper is reviewed by Straithe. If your chosen paper is a fit for KWIPS, Straithe will reach out to book you in. Suggested papers are expected to be:
- open access,
- privacy or security focused, and
- not the presenter's own work.
A couple of places you can find open access papers to present are https://petsymposium.org/popets/ and https://www.usenix.org/publications/proceedings.
Privacy Policy
- Pictures are not taken of anyone at the event without their consent.
- The only data Straithe can see with Luma is your name and email address.
- Email addresses are not shared with any company, group, or person except for Straithe (and Luma if you submit your data to Luma.)
- This website does not collect any data or have any trackers added, but it is hosted on GitHub pages.