Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed the first annual meeting of Cuba's IT professional society, the Unión de Informáticos de Cuba. In his talk, Díaz-Canel announced that four Cuban organizations - the Havana City Historian's Office, the University of Computer Sciences (UCI), Infomed, Cuba's medical network, and the Ministry of Culture had signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with Google. more
When rolling out a new protocol such as IPv6, it is useful to consider the changes to security posture, particularly the network's attack surface. While protocol security discussions are widely available, there is often not "one place" where you can go to get information about potential attacks, references to research about those attacks, potential counters, and operational challenges. more
At NANOG on the Road (NotR) in September of 2018, I participated in a panel on BGP security -- specifically the deployment of Route Origin Authentication (ROA), with some hints and overtones of path validation by carrying signatures in BGP updates (BGPsec). This is an area I have been working in for... 20 years? ... at this point, so I have seen the argument develop across these years many times, and in many ways. more
In a recently published Uptime Institute Survey, Uptime Institute found that organizations operating data centers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit professionals skilled in security, networking, and hybrid technologies. This realization comes at an interesting time, as the monolithic business infrastructure built over the last two decades is now entering a period of transformation. more
The eighth RIPE NCC hackathon takes on the Quantum Internet! The hackathon will be held during the weekend before RIPE 77 in Amsterdam, and is co-organised by QuTech and TU Delft, along with the RIPE NCC. We're bringing together network operators, quantum networking researchers, students, hackers, software developers and artists, to imagine and build the tools for the future Internet. more
Tech is commoditizing. I've talked about this before; I think networking is commoditizing at the device level, and the days of appliance-based networking are behind us. But are networks themselves a commodity? Not any more than any other system. We are running out of useful features, so vendors are losing feature differentiation. This one is going to take a little longer... more
The APNIC Blog has recently published a very interesting article by Willem Toorop of NLnet Labs on the relationship between Security Extensions for the DNS (DNSSEC) and DNS over Transport Layer Security. Willem is probably being deliberately provocative in claiming that "DoT could realistically become a viable replacement for DNSSEC." If provoking a reaction was indeed Willem's intention, then he has succeeded for me, as it has prompted this reaction. more
By some estimates, only half of the world's population has internet access, leaving the other half at a sizeable competitive disadvantage. This profound connectivity gap is especially significant in the unserved and underserved areas of developing and least-developed countries. For people who live in these places, Internet connectivity is not just about the Internet. It is a lifeline that gives access to electronic commerce and telehealth services, distance learning, social and political engagement, government services... more
One way or another we've been working on various aspects of securing the Internet's inter-domain routing system for many years. I recall presentations dating back to the late '90's that point vaguely to using some form of a digital signature on BGP updates that would allow a BGP speaker to assure themselves as to the veracity of a route advertisement. more
Is the recently announced Cisco Networking Academy at the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas a belated drop in the bucket or the first step in a significant opening? Cisco dominated the infrastructure equipment market in Cuba and elsewhere during the early days of the Internet, but Huawei replaced them in Cuba... What does this mean? It might be a belated drop in the bucket. UCI has only 19 trained CNA instructors while the CNA curriculum is being taught by over 20,000 instructors at over 10,000 institutions. more
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