Apple has been revealed as a sponsor of the BSides security conference currently taking place in San Francisco. Apple is listed as a “contributing” sponsor of the conference, joining companies such as Netflix, Google, and Dropbox.
Specifics as to Apple’s extent of involvement as a “contributing” sponsor are unclear, but the event organizers tweeted that one of the company’s donations was food for the day. That may seem nominal, but Apple’s acknowledgement at all of the event is notable.
BSides in San Francisco kicked off today and will run through tomorrow with various discussions and presentations.
BSides is an annual conference held in various cities around the country, serving as an “open forum for discussion and debate for security engineers and their affiliates.”
Apple has put a renewed focus on security over recent years, introducing features such as Differential Privacy to protect user data in the most secure way possible. Tim Cook has also often talked about how he believes there’s no need to trade privacy for better features.
We produce a conference that is a source of education, collaboration, and continued conversation for information technologists and those associated with this field.
The technical and academic presentations at BSides SF are given in the spirit of peer review and advanced knowledge dissemination. This allows the field of Information Security to grow in breadth and depth, and continue in its pursuit of highly advanced scientifically based knowledge.
If you’re at BSidesSF, let us know if you see any Apple branding around the venue.
Very glad to see Apple began to sponsor security conference. pic.twitter.com/0b19pzJWSL
— Claud Xiao (@claud_xiao) February 12, 2017
Thanks @apple for being our breakfast and lunch sponsor for the day !! Curious minds need foooood
— BSides SF (@BSidesSF) February 12, 2017
