Managing Passwords in a Dangerous World & Contributing in the Django ecosystem

Talk #1: Behind Closed Doors: Managing Passwords in a Dangerous World by Noah

Abstract:

Secrets come in many forms, passwords, keys, tokens. All crucial for the operation of an application, but each dangerous in its own way. In the past, many of us have pasted those secrets in to a text file and moved on, but in a world of config automation and ephemeral microservices these patterns are leaving our data at greater risk than ever before.

New tools, products, and libraries are being released all the time to try to cope with this massive rise in threats, both new and old-but-ignored. This talk will cover the major types of secrets in a normal web application, how to model their security properties, what tools are best for each situation, and how to use them with major web frameworks.

Speaker Bio:

Noah Kantrowitz is a web developer turned infrastructure automation enthusiast, and all around engineering rabble-rouser. By day he builds tools and teaches, and by night he works with the Python Software Foundation infrastructure team. He is an active member of the Chef community, and enjoys merge commits, cat pictures, and beards.

Talk #2: A road to competence and contributing in the Django ecosystem: easing the intermediate slough by Becka

Abstract:

Becoming a good programmer is a long, slow, daunting process; becoming adept in the Django ecosystem is, likewise a slow and laborious process. And, new developers know how important it is to contribute to open source as a way to network and to improve their coding skills. Trying to come in as a new contributor to Django is even more daunting than learning the actual framework.

I’m going to dive into more than just the growth struggles I face as a would be contributor and intermediate dev; I’m also going to get into helpful practices and propose simple systems for the community that would improve the learning process for novice developers and contributors.

Speaker Bio:

Becka Robbins is the project manager and sole developer at a nonprofit in Oakland which aims to support at-risk youth by offering jobs and counseling. Before working in tech, she was a special education teacher, and has been working at startups since graduating Hackbright in 2013. She’s built several apps in Django, and has done a lot of community organizing around open source, and is a new Django contributor. Becka is interested in improving the Django user experience and making tech more inclusive.

RSVPing:

Please also RSVP and confirm a ticket on Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sf-django-meetup-eventbrite-managing-passwords-in-a-dangerous-world-contributing-in-the-django-tickets-24569301442)!

Schedule:

6:00pm - Check in and socialize. There will be food and drinks provided by Eventbrite!

6:30pm - Noah's Talk

7:00pm - Becka's Talk

8:00pm - Time to head home!

Notes:

• Eventbrite is generously providing us with their venue space and food. Let's make sure we treat it with respect and clean up after ourselves.

• Please also RSVP and confirm a ticket on Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sf-django-meetup-eventbrite-managing-passwords-in-a-dangerous-world-contributing-in-the-django-tickets-24569301442).