"Qubes virtual mini-summit 2021!" by Marek Marczykowski-Górecki

[Andrew David Wong]

Dear Qubes Community,

Marek Marczykowski-Górecki has published the following announcement:

"Qubes virtual mini-summit 2021!"
https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2021/07/30/minisummit-agenda/

For plain text email recipients, the original Markdown source of this
announcement is reproduced below.

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We are pleased to announce the third annual Qubes mini-summit co-hosted by
[3mdeb](https://3mdeb.com/) and the Qubes OS Project. (For prior year
summaries, agendas, and slides, see
[2019](https://3mdeb.com/events/#Qubes-OS-and-3mdeb-minisummit) and
[2020](https://3mdeb.com/events/#Qubes-OS-and-3mdeb-minisummit2020).) This
year's event will take place across two virtual sessions on August 3 and 10.
Each day, there will be four talks, intermixed with Q&A time. An
abstract for
each talk is provided below. The discussion section will be a live
meeting on
Jitsi, with details to follow. The whole event will be also streamed on
[3mdeb's YouTube
channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_djHbyjuJvhVjfT18nyqmQ), where we
will also accept questions. We invite everyone interested to join!

## Agenda for August 3

| Time (UTC) | Event description
| -------------- | -----------------
| 18:00 -- 18:15 | Welcome and introduction by Piotr Król
| 18:15 -- 19:00 | "Qubes OS 4.1 highlights" by Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
| 19:00 -- 19:45 | "First Impressions Count: Onboarding Qubes Users
Through an Integrated Tutorial" by deeplow
| 19:45 -- 20:15 | Break
| 20:15 -- 21:00 | "Wyng-backups: revertible local and remote known safe
Qubes OS states (including dom0)" by Thierry Laurion
| 21:00 -- 21:45 | "SRTM and Secure Boot for VMs" by Piotr Król
| 21:45 | vPub, informal afterparty

## Agenda for August 10

| Time (UTC) | Event description
| -------------- | -----------------
| 18:00 -- 18:15 | Welcome and introduction by Piotr Król
| 18:15 -- 19:00 | "Usability Within A Reasonably Secure,
Multi-Environment System" by Nina Alter
| 19:00 -- 19:45 | "Qubes OS Native App Menu: UX Design and
Implementation" by Marta Marczykowska-Górecka and Nina Alter
| 19:45 -- 20:15 | Break
| 20:15 -- 21:00 | "A brief history of USB camera support in Qubes OS"
by Piotr Król
| 21:00 -- 21:45 | "How to setup BTC and XMR cold storage in Qubes OS"
by Piotr Król
| 21:45 | vPub, informal afterparty

## Abstracts of the talks

### "Qubes OS 4.1 highlights" by Marek Marczykowski-Górecki

The upcoming Qubes OS 4.1 release is full of new exciting features, ranging
from a technology preview of the GUI domain to subtle, yet important, Qrexec
improvements. In this talk I will give a brief overview of them and demo a
select few.

### "First Impressions Count: Onboarding Qubes Users Through an
Integrated Tutorial" by deeplow

We may all relate to having a rough time when starting using Qubes ---
be that
because we're coming from Windows and everything is different or because we
come from Linux and many things don't work like we expect them to. Apart
from
the usual challenges of going into a different system, Qubes has the
additional
one of requiring a fundamentally different way of thinking about your
computer
(a hypervisor mental-model). Smoothing out this transition is particularly
important as Qubes aims to target vulnerable populations that are less
technically inclined and have less time to explore and read the
documentation.

The solution proposed by deeplow is to implement an integrated onboarding
tutorial. The idea is that a short tutorial (with optional extra parts) that
guides the user through the essential mechanics of Qubes will make the
transition simpler. That's what deeplow's been working on for his master's
dissertation. In this talk he'll introduce the idea and give an update
on the
current progress and challenges.

### "Wyng-backups: revertible local and remote known safe Qubes OS
states (including dom0)" by Thierry Laurion

[Wyng-backups](https://github.com/tasket/wyng-backup) is an incremental
backup/restore tool for LVMs. For Qubes OS, this means even dom0 can be
reverted to a known safe state; locally or remotely, applying changes only.
This talk will be a deep dive into the possibilities of wyng-backups for
deploying and maintaining up to date, revertible states of Qubes OS base
systems.

### "SRTM and Secure Boot for VMs" by Piotr Król

This talk is the continuation of the Qubes OS mini-summit presentation "SRTM
for Qubes OS VMs", where the theoretical background of the Static Root
of Trust
was presented and discussed. In this presentation, we will practically
approach
SRTM and Secure Boot for VMs. We will also explore potential use cases for
self-decrypting storage and signed kernels using safeboot. Finally, we will
discuss how to introduce this and other security mechanisms in Qubes OS.

### "Usability Within A Reasonably Secure, Multi-Environment System" by
Nina Alter

Nina Alter first became aware of exciting possibilities of Qubes OS,
when asked
to lead UX research and design for the SecureDrop Workstation project.
SecureDrop's Workstation is built atop Qubes OS, yet exists for high-risk,
non-technical journalist users. Nina will share her early discovery work;
the joys, the pain-points, and the many opportunities she has since
uncovered
to extend Qubes OS' reach to some of our world's most vulnerable digital
citizens.

### "Qubes OS Native App Menu: UX Design and Implementation" by Marta
Marczykowska-Górecka and Nina Alter

A brief overview of the new Application Menu that's being introduced in (at
latest) Qubes 4.2, the process of creating it, and design and implementation
challenges. Based on design work by Nina Alter and implementation by Marta
Marczykowska-Górecka.

### "A brief history of USB camera support in Qubes OS" by Piotr Król

The use of complex multi-endpoint isochronous USB devices in the presence of
sys-usb was not always possible in Qubes OS. Luckily, the Qubes Video
Companion
project was created by Elliot Killick, which enabled users to use USB
cameras
on Qubes OS. The project is still in development and testing, but it is very
promising and gives many USB camera users hope. This presentation will
tell the
story of using Qubes Video Companion with the Logitech C922.

### "How to set up BTC and XMR cold storage in Qubes OS" by Piotr Król

Cold storage, also called offline wallets, provides the highest level of
security for cryptocurrency. The critical characteristic of a computing
environment that can be used as cold storage is the lack of network
connectivity. Good examples of cold storage are spare computer devices or
microcontroller-based devices like a hardware wallet. By leveraging the same
architecture, Qubes OS domains can be used for cold storage. In such a case,
one of the domains is disconnected from the network and runs a
cryptocurrency
wallet inside. Other domains may generate transactions files, which are
sent to
cold storage VM for signing. Signed transaction files are sent back to the
online environment. All operations are performed using well-specified and
secure Qubes RPCs. This presentation will show how to set up and use BTC and
XMR cold storage with the most popular wallets for those
cryptocurrencies. We
will also discuss what other measures can be taken to secure offline wallet
VMs.

[Andrew David Wong]

On 7/29/21 10:55 PM, Andrew David Wong wrote:
> Dear Qubes Community,
>
> Marek Marczykowski-Górecki has published the following announcement:
>
> "Qubes virtual mini-summit 2021!"
> https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2021/07/30/minisummit-agenda/
>

Just a quick reminder that the second day of the Qubes virtual
mini-summit is today starting at 18:00 UTC!

--
Andrew David Wong
Community Manager
The Qubes OS Project
https://www.qubes-os.org