security: cgr 2025 talk idea addition

Author: Rubix982

security/cgr-2025/ideas.md

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+# ChainGuard Talk & Security Craft — Conversation Archive
+
+> A living record of the discussion between you and the assistant about preparing a ChainGuard talk, building reproducible demo repos, research-adjacent topics, personal growth and practical next steps. Use this as the canonical context for the talk and repository you will build.
+
+---
+
+## Summary
+
+You have an opportunity to speak at ChainGuard. You currently work at **Securiti.ai** and have practical experience writing Dockerfiles and using Chainguard (CGR) public images to reduce vulnerability counts in images to zero. You want to move beyond a simple "we swapped images" story and present something that is:
+
+- novel and research-adjacent,
+- practically useful to the audience,
+- representative of Securiti.aiès real work,
+- reproducible and demonstrable (a repo + demo environment), and
+- positioned to increase your visibility and credibility in the security community.
+
+You also recognized the mental side of public speaking and professional growth: persistence, deliberate practice, and repeated presence are critical.
+
+---
+
+## Opportunity & Context
+
+- **Event**: ChainGuard / Chainguard Assemble (or equivalent supply-chain/container security conference)
+- **Your role**: Securiti.ai engineer who hardened Dockerfiles and reduced vulnerabilities using Chainguard images; you now prefer CGR public images for personal projects too.
+- **Goal**: Apply to speak and deliver a talk that combines practical implementation, measurable outcomes, and research-edge thinking.
+
+---
+
+## What Makes a Strong Talk (High-level)
+
+- **Clear narrative** (problem → action → outcome → takeaways)
+- **A unique technical hook** that is more than "we used Chainguard" (examples: provenance in CI/CD, policy-driven enforcement, reproducible builds, zero-trust ephemeral workloads)
+- **Tangible artifacts**: a public repo, demo scripts, example Dockerfiles and Kubernetes manifests.
+- **Actionable advice** attendees can apply immediately.
+- **Credibility**: metrics before/after, a real pipeline, and reproducible steps.
+
+---
+
+## Speaker Profiles & CFP Process (what speakers look like)
+
+- Speakers at Chainguard Assemble included founders, product leads, engineers, PMs, and external contributors from companies like Cisco and Roblox.
+- Typical speakers have:
+
+  - _Technical expertise_ (container security, supply-chain),
+  - _Real-world experience_ (production deployments, CI/CD integration), and
+  - _Presentation skill_ (clarity and storytelling).
+
+### How to submit
+
+- Conferences commonly use CFP platforms like **Sessionize** or accept direct email submissions.
+- Typical CFP components:
+
+  - Title (concise)
+  - 200-300 word abstract
+  - Speaker bio (3-5 sentences highlighting relevant experience)
+  - Experience level (beginner/intermediate/advanced)
+  - Session format (talk, demo, panel)
+
+- Selection criteria include relevance, originality, clarity, diversity, and engagement potential.
+
+---
+
+## Talk Angles & Hooks (Idea Tree)
+
+Pick 1-2 branches as the spine and use others as supporting points. Candidate branches:
+
+1. **Beyond Zero CVEs** — What zero CVEs actually implies and what it doesn't (residual risks, misconfigurations, kernel space, supply chain risks).
+2. **Supply Chain Attestation & Provenance** — Using signed images, SBOMs, and Sigstore/Cosign to create a verifiable chain from source → build → deploy.
+3. **Policy-Driven Kubernetes Hardening** — Enforce "must use CGR images" with OPA/Gatekeeper/Kyverno and measure operational improvements.
+4. **Reproducible Builds & Verifiability** — Deterministic builds and cryptographic verification of container state; ties to formal methods.
+5. **Ephemeral Workloads & Zero-Trust** — Ephemeral containers seeded from attested images as the basis for a zero-trust orchestration model.
+6. **Developer Ergonomics & Shift Left** — How adopting CGR images changed developer workflows and reduced friction.
+7. **Research-Adjacent Topics** — Runtime observability, microVMs, unikernels, confidential computing, side-channel resilience, automated remediation.
+
+### Sample talk titles
+
+- _Beyond Zero CVEs: Building Verifiable Containers with ChainGuard_
+- _Closing the Supply Chain Loop: Provenance-First Containers in Kubernetes_
+- _From Distroless to Verifiable: Research Directions in Container Security with ChainGuard_
+- _Reproducibility, Ephemerality, and the Future of Secure Container Orchestration_
+
+---
+
+## Research-Adjacent Topics (expanded)
+
+These help position you as a research-thinking practitioner—topics to mention, pair with demos, or use as future directions:
+
+1. **Runtime Security & Observability**
+
+   - Behavioral anomaly detection (syscalls, network anomalies)
+   - Runtime attestation and integrity checks
+
+2. **Supply Chain Transparency & Provenance**
+
+   - Graph-based dependency tracking for vulnerability propagation
+   - Cryptographic provenance chains (Sigstore, Cosign)
+
+3. **Formal Verification & Policy Proofs**
+
+   - Apply formal methods to Dockerfile/manifest invariants
+   - Proving Kyverno/Gatekeeper rules enforce invariants
+
+4. **Minimalism & Side-Channel Resistance**
+
+   - Distroless images, minimal runtimes
+   - Microarchitectural side-channel mitigation implications
+
+5. **Confidentiality & Multi-Tenant Security**
+
+   - TEEs and confidential computing for sensitive workloads
+   - Secure multi-tenant orchestration models
+
+6. **Reproducible & Deterministic Builds**
+
+   - SBOMs + deterministic builds = verifiable containers
+   - Reproducible build pipelines and attestation
+
+7. **Self-Healing & Autonomous Defenses**
+
+   - Automated runtime remediation and quarantine
+   - AI-assisted supply chain defense (research frontier)
+
+---
+
+## Key Technical Stack for the Demo Repository
+
+Security-savvy audiences appreciate modern, practical choices. Suggested stack:
+
+- **Container / Image**: Docker or Podman; Chainguard CGR images; distroless/minimal images
+- **Vulnerability Scanners**: Trivy, Grype, Docker scan
+- **SBOM Tools**: Syft (SPDX / CycloneDX)
+- **Signing & Provenance**: Sigstore, Cosign
+- **CI/CD**: GitHub Actions (or GitLab CI / Jenkins) with sample pipeline YAMLs
+- **Policy Enforcement**: OPA/Gatekeeper or Kyverno
+- **Kubernetes for Demo**: kind or k3s (lightweight local clusters)
+- **MicroVMs / Unikernel Mentions**: Firecracker (for microVM demo references), pointers to unikernel projects
+- **Reproducibility / Build Tools**: Makefiles, build scripts, and clear docs
+- **Demo Hosting Options**: GitHub Codespaces, Gitpod, or a small ephemeral cloud instance if you want live external demos
+
+---
+
+## Repository Structure (concrete proposal)
+
+```text
+repo-root/
+├── README.md                # overview + quick start
+├── dockerfiles/             # before/after Dockerfiles, hardened examples
+│   ├── vulnerable/          # illustrative vulnerable images
+│   └── hardened/            # CGR + distroless + hardened Dockerfiles
+├── ci-cd/                   # sample GitHub Actions workflows and scripts
+├── k8s/                     # Kubernetes manifests demonstrating policies
+├── tools/                   # helper scripts: build, sign, verify, sbom
+├── demo/                    # small example app and compose files
+├── docs/                    # step-by-step guides for reproducing locally
+└── scripts/                 # scripts to run demo, generate SBOMs, run scans
+```
+
+### Demo environment
+
+- Provide **Docker Compose** for quick local demo, and **kind/k3s** manifests for Kubernetes.
+- Include scripts to: build image, generate SBOM (Syft), scan vulnerabilities (Trivy/Grype), sign image (Cosign/Sigstore), and attempt to deploy bad image (show policy enforcement blocking it).
+- Add a `Makefile` or `./run.sh` to simplify all steps for attendees.
+
+---
+
+## Demo Flow (for talk)
+
+1. **Hook (2 min)**: Show a screenshot or quick run of a vulnerable image with N CVEs.
+2. **Fix (3-5 min)**: Replace with CGR/distroless, rebuild, rescan — show CVE drop (before/after metrics).
+3. **Provenance (3 min)**: Generate SBOM, sign the image with Sigstore/Cosign, show verification step.
+4. **Policy Enforcement (4 min)**: Attempt to deploy an untrusted image in a local cluster with Kyverno/Gatekeeper and show the pod being denied.
+5. **Advanced Directions (3-5 min)**: Mention microVMs, confidential computing, reproducible builds, and how they extend the security posture.
+6. **Takeaways & Repo Link (2 min)**: Provide link to the repo and quick steps for attendees to reproduce.
+
+---
+
+## Example Artifacts to Include (quick wins)
+
+- Hardened Dockerfile (CGR base, minimal install, explicit user, no shell as entrypoint)
+- GitHub Actions workflow that:
+
+  - builds image
+  - generates SBOM with Syft
+  - scans with Trivy
+  - signs with Cosign
+
+- Kyverno policy that enforces `image.registry == "ghcr.io/chainguard/"` (example)
+- Script to show before/after CVE counts saved as a small CSV or chart-ready JSON
+
+---
+
+## Explainers (short definitions)
+
+**SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)**: A list of components and dependencies in a software artifact. Tools: Syft, SPDX, CycloneDX.
+
+**Confidential computing**: Protecting data in use via TEEs so computations can occur on data the host cannot read.
+
+**Unikernels**: Single-purpose OS images that compile app + minimal OS into a tiny unikernel binary to reduce attack surface.
+
+**MicroVMs**: Lightweight VMs (e.g., Firecracker) that combine VM isolation with low overhead—useful for secure multi-tenant or ephemeral workloads.
+
+---
+
+## Draft Abstract (CFP-ready)
+
+**Title:** Beyond Zero CVEs: Building Verifiable Containers with ChainGuard
+
+**Abstract (≈200-300 words):**
+
+> Organizations often measure container security success by a single metric: CVE count. While reducing CVEs is necessary, it is not sufficient. In this talk I'll share a practitioner's journey—how we moved from ad-hoc registry images to a provenance-first, policy-enforced container workflow using Chainguard images at Securiti.ai. I'll present the practical steps we took: hardened Dockerfiles, automated SBOM generation, cryptographic image signing with Sigstore/Cosign, and Kubernetes admission policies that ensure only attested images run in production. Along the way I'll show measurable outcomes (vulnerability reduction, faster remediation cycles) and discuss the remaining risks (runtime threats, dependency provenance gaps). Finally, I'll map this work onto research directions—reproducible builds, microVM isolation, and confidential computing—so attendees leave with immediately actionable steps and a view of the next frontier in container supply-chain security.
+
+---
+
+## Draft Speaker Bio
+
+- _\[Your Name]_ is an engineer at Securiti.ai focused on container security, supply-chain hardening, and CI/CD integrity. They have led efforts to harden production images, integrate SBOM and attestation workflows, and reduce vulnerability exposure across services. Passionate about reproducible builds and practical security, they build demo-first resources to help teams adopt trustworthy container practices.
+
+---
+
+## Preparation & Practice Plan (step-by-step)
+
+1. **Choose final talk spine** (pick 1-2 branches). Recommended: “Beyond Zero CVEs” + Supply Chain Attestation.
+2. **Draft CFP abstract & bio** (use the draft above and tailor to the venue).
+3. **Build the repo** (start with `dockerfiles/`, `ci-cd/`, `k8s/`, and `demo/`). Make the `README` and `./run.sh` extremely simple.
+4. **Collect metrics**: before/after CVE counts from Trivy/Grype; commit these as CSV/JSON for quick charting in slides.
+5. **Prepare slides**: follow the talk structure; include diagrams of pipeline + verification.
+6. **Rehearse**: 3-5 dry runs, ideally with a colleague for feedback. Time the talk and polish transitions.
+7. **Submit CFP** and start gentle outreach (LinkedIn, ChainGuard community). Engage previous speakers and comment on posts to increase visibility.
+8. **Finalize demo & repo** 2 weeks before the talk; ensure all steps run offline (no external dependencies that can fail during demo).
+
+---
+
+## Mental & Professional Growth Notes
+
+- Speaking and visibility require consistent, repeated effort—treat security as your craft.
+- The mental hurdles are real: commit to showing up repeatedly, practicing deliberately, and iterating on feedback.
+- When tired, the best engineers take _intentional_ breaks (short movement, change of scenery, passive learning).
+- You expressed the mission: security is your craft and you will grow it deliberately.
+
+---
+
+## Practical Next Steps / TODOs
+
+- [ ] Pick the final talk spine (which two branches?)
+- [ ] Finalize CFP title & abstract
+- [ ] Create the repository skeleton and push the first commit
+- [ ] Implement a hardened Dockerfile + SBOM + sign + scan workflow
+- [ ] Create a Kyverno/OPA policy demo showing enforcement
+- [ ] Prepare slides and rehearse the demo flow
+- [ ] Submit CFP and start outreach
+
+---
+
+## Appendix: Quick command snippets (examples you might include in repo docs)
+
+```bash
+# generate SBOM
+syft packages docker:your-image:tag -o spdx-json > sbom.spdx.json
+
+# scan with trivy
+trivy image --format json -o trivy-report.json your-image:tag
+
+# sign image with cosign (assumes cosign key or OIDC setup)
+cosign sign --key cosign.key ghcr.io/your/image:tag
+
+# verify signature
+cosign verify --key cosign.pub ghcr.io/your/image:tag
+```