TNC24: 10-14 June 2024 | Rennes, France
TNC24: Rennes, France | 10-14 June 2024
LIGHTNING TALKS
Technologies developed for R&E institutions can also be used and adapted so that more people in society can benefit from them, thereby strengthening the societal role of the NREN community.
Belnet, the Belgian NREN, has adapted the FileSender service so that it can benefit the various departments of the federal government, which was convinced by its innovative functionalities and its guarantee of exchanging sensitive data in complete security.
New Zealand’s national cyber security agencies provide trusted lists of threat intelligence that are specifically curated for New Zealand organisations. These dynamic lists of threat indicators are formed using local knowledge and other international threat intelligence and are updated in close to real time. REANNZ take these threat feeds, block them at the edge of the network, and provide telemetry back to the agencies and our customers.
This lighting talk will explain how we have implemented threat blocking within our network to protect all our customers.
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) at universities has changed dramatically over the last couple years as campuses responded to the pandemic, MFA phishing bypass attacks, and the changing environment. The Internet2 NET+ Duo program sponsored a 2023 MFA Community survey with 225 unique responses with responses from Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom. Responding universities protect the learning of over 3 million students. This presentation will discuss the results from the survey and how MFA is evolving to provide ideas for other universities to improve MFA.
Every research and education network operator is dealt with its unique intricacies that are influenced by both in-country policies, and regional or global transnational cooperation strategies; but, all are confronted with the issue of sustainability. Factors such as policies, funding, research & innovation goals, socio-economic benefits and impact determine the existence and survival of NRENs. This lightning talk will focus on the experience of the Philippine REN and its continuing challenges in sustaining its operation as a government-run network.
How, and at which speed is climate change impacting the oceans? Real-time monitoring of ecosystems and invasive species can give insights into future scenarios and help with proactive measures. However, the task of monitoring marine wildlife is arduous and complex, demanding custom approaches by scientific teams. Our seas’ incredible diversity makes the establishment of underwater monitoring systems a recurring and adaptive process. With the aid of real-time analytics and automatic model adjustments, it’s possible to understand and implement immediate actions in the marine ecosystem. This novel approach blends edge computing with cloud processing, not only simplifying the implementation of monitoring systems, but also promoting enduring conservation efforts, as it continually refines and updates edge models with fresh ecological insights.
Every click, swipe and scroll leaves an impact on the environment. As we rely more on the Internet in many sectors and for many applications, the carbon footprint of the internet is rising, and it is unclear if we can achieve the net zero goals by 2050. Introducing carbon awareness to computer networks is one promising solution, yet with many challenges. In a simulation-based framework, a new carbon-aware traffic engineering algorithm was implemented and tested on real network topologies including GEANT. An easy 15% carbon savings was achieved without changes to the infrastructure and without additional costs.
Many official documents remain difficult for ordinary recipients to understand, hindering effective communication. Utilizing advancements in text-to-text AI, this talk describes a tool called "Simple Writing" that automatically transforms sophisticated documents into simpler versions. The AI model, trained on domain-specific data, generates a simplified text without losing crucial details or altering the original context. By implementing this tool, governments and other entities can improve the accessibility and comprehension of official documents, fostering better citizen engagement. It can also help school and university authorities communicate clearly with students and assist researchers and IT specialists in delivering clear technical and usage documentation
I am presenting an idea of alerting poor data quality issues to the analyst based on the analysis type and data quality issues. The alerting is supposed to help organizations not waste resources on data processing and data quality, but also make informed decisions based on the analysis of the poor quality data.
With the internet's ever-growing nature, the importance of cyber security is heavily emphasised in the modern network environment. Much is done to prevent and mitigate DDoS attacks, social engineering, and malware. Unfortunately, when it comes to the most essential protocol to any company looking to connect to the internet, about half of the time, security is overlooked. When any entity can advertise their ownership of any IP address, many types of malicious attacks from data sniffing to misdirection, to complete black holing of data can occur. By accident, or through malicious intent, the advertisement of incorrect routing information has been the cause of some of the internet's biggest outages and data leaks. It is a well-known fact that BGP is by nature unsecure. So why, then, do only 53% of companies that use the BGP protocol to peer with others and connect the internet try to secure it properly?
This lightning talk will tell you all you need to know about planning, tendering and implementing the new Funet Cyber Security Operations Center as a service, that CSC started to offer for Finnish Funet NREN community 11/2023.
Job security is not what it used to be. The truism that "it's not just what you know, but who you know" applies more than ever. This talk sheds light on the vital yet daunting task of building a human network, especially for us geeky introverts. The goal is to provide practical strategies for identifying your dream job, finding where your future colleagues congregate online, and engaging with them in a way that feels authentic to you. One of the first steps is lurking, but this grows from there. Let's get you prepared and comfortable with career instability.
Having joined HEAnet in late 2023 as Research Engagement Officer, I initiated a horizon scan to explore how other NRENs are supporting research and researchers, with a particular emphasis on Open Research practices. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of the key findings from this horizon scan and illustrate how they intersect with the ongoing initiatives at HEAnet, aligning closely with the objectives of the National Open Research Forum (NORF) in Ireland. Additionally, this session will extend an invitation to individuals interested in promoting FAIR Data and Open Research at a national level to collaborate.
Despite progress, women remain underrepresented in the tech industry, comprising only a fraction of the workforce. This gap is not just a matter of diversity; it's a missed opportunity for innovation and growth. It's crucial to recognize that diverse teams lead to better outcomes. Companies with a more balanced gender representation tend to be more innovative and profitable. However, women face numerous challenges in entering and thriving in the IT sector. This presentation will delve into the achievements and insights gleaned from the Women in IT Networking at SC (WINS) program. WINS endeavors to sponsor 5-8 proficient female professionals in the early- to mid-stages of their careers to volunteer for SCinet, the group responsible for designing and building the world's fastest temporary network at the annual International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, also known as SC. Over its nearly decade-long tenure, the program has remained adaptive to the evolving demands of the contemporary workforce. It has done this through financial support, mentorship, and professional development opportunities. At TNC24, WINS is proud to unveil its global outreach initiative and invites applications from international candidates eager to participate in this groundbreaking endeavor.
In our interconnected world, where collaboration and knowledge sharing within the research and education (R&E) space are required at a global scale, the R&E networks have helped to build a system of networks to ensure resilient and efficient connectivity. The backbone systems, such as the Asia-Europe Ring (AER), Asia-Pacific Oceanic Network (APOnet), Advanced North Atlantic (ANA) collaboration, etc, show how each provides multiple points of resiliency for the specific regions, and how each system could improve by working together.
With these systems in place, it ensures researchers, educators, and students are able to drive scientific progress on a global level.
VUCA!
The ‘Wake up!’ of the business world! VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. These are the challenges faced by management and their workforce every day in the modern business landscape. NRENs are no exception. So, Switch started a transformation to address these challenges. Where did Switch start its transformation? In meetings.
Will/should we as NRENs take on additional contractual and financial risks if we can, by doing so, provide additional value and lower the risks for R&E institutes? How do we “sell” this to our members? Or are we risk averse, and do we let each institutes take these risks?
In this lightning talk I will use recent examples within SURF demonstrating this is more complex than you might think.
Most organisations in our community have been created between 20 and 30 years ago as bottom-up community driven activities. However, they also mainly rely on ministerial/governmental top-down funding. At a time when funding for digital is simultaneously "everywhere" but "increasingly competitive" - how do organisations in our community achieve top-down recognition by the funding bodies? How do we as community organisations manage the middle, where our validation is from the bottom up and our funding is top-down? What sort of communications and considerations are needed to balance ourselves in this environment?
This lightning talk offers a brief narrative of the Zino network monitor's success story, and its ongoing modernization: Its feature set, how it has been used successfully for monitoring research networks **for more than 25 years by Uninett, NORDUnet and SUNET**, and the ongoing collaborative endeavor by *NORDUnet* to reimplement Zino's state monitor component to ensure it remains a compelling choice in the future, *even for NRENs outside the Nordics*.
While the journey of NRENs is often centred on reaching maturity, little attention is given to the pitfalls of regression and what causes it. The presentation will delve into why maintaining the status quo might not be enough to sustain maturity and growth and it will highlight the conditions under which an NREN is likely to experience regression and decline. The presentation will also highlight the value addition of functions such as Business Development, Risk Management, and Internal Audit, through which an NREN can regain relevance and continue to grow
Nowadays, user tracking is pervasive in the Internet. Most websites try to identify their users and gather as much information as possible from them in order to customize their experience and maximice company's revenues. However, the collected information has been found to be used for many other purposes such as price discrimination, financial assessment, phishing or even identity theft. In this presentation we introduce eprivo.eu, a new online service based on a set of state-of-the-art new web tracking detection and classification methodologies, where anybody can scan a particular website and look for the web tracking methods running in the background used to collect our personal information
In an era defined by rapid technological development, it’s crucial to reflect on the evolution of universities. The integration of 5G technology within university campuses holds a profound opportunity to reshape the educational experience. This lightning talk aims to explore the transformative potential of 5G, where boundaries blur, and innovation thrives. Drawing insights from leading Finnish universities leveraging the 5G test network, the talk will delve into three key areas: the benefits of 5G, its use cases, and fostering collaboration for success. This presentation further aims to offer a visualization of the concept of "University 4.0", showcasing how 5G seamlessly integrates with existing infrastructure to create dynamic and collaborative educational experiences.
In our network engineering study, we utilize the GNS3 simulation tool to replicate real-world scenarios and optimize network performance. Our approach includes intensive traffic simulations to fine-tune operations and identify potential improvements. We propose an Advisory Service leveraging GNS3 and cloud solutions to provide tailored recommendations for seamless equipment integration. This service empowers NRENs to stay ahead of evolving demands and ensure seamless operations.
This lightning talk will draw parallels between cybersecurity and climate change communication, highlighting the topics shared complexity and the importance of innovative communication strategies to inspire action. Reflecting on past struggles in communicating climate change, the talk will emphasise the approach of evidence-based message framing to convey clear and compelling narratives. Using examples from awareness campaigns, it will highlight the benefits of this approach in shaping perceptions and motivating action. The aim is to highlight an approach to communicating cybersecurity that could be applied to security awareness initiatives in the GÉANT community.
This presentation will provide an overview of the EUDAT data management services and how collaboration with NREN can be beneficial to further support Open Science in Europe.
One critical success factor of large-scale IT infrastructure deployment is rigorous and automated testing. Strategic test automation where tests are continuously adapted and executed based on requirements complements traditional IT monitoring solutions, and provides a viable strategy for testing in an industrial-grade DevOps project.
We will guide the audience through a whole test automation pipeline, from systems design to integration engineering, to fully automated testing using virtual desktop environments.
This summer, Sean Cummings and Chris Cummings developed a proof of concept SIIT-DC NAT64 translator using the ESnet SmartNIC framework and DPDK. In this lightning talk, I'll explore the advantages of this framework for rapidly developing high-performance hardware network functions. I'll provide an overview of the ESnet SmartNIC framework and discuss how we utilized P4 and DPDK to achieve 100G line-rate IPv6 SIIT-DC translation on an FPGA.
It is not often we see a government department deviate from a state entity mandated by law to oversee their ICT affairs, due to dissatisfaction from alleged low quality of service, at least not in South Africa. This talk takes the audience through a short anecdote of what happens when an instrumental government department finally approaches an NREN to "solve" their ICT systems problems.
New eduMEET with new architecture, scalability and independence.
Ready for an interactive, dynamic and substantive LT presentation with audience
participation?
An interesting and technically challenging combination of a traditional presentation and a live demonstration will draw those in the audience into being part of the presentation!
In 2024, InCommon is hosting its third annual Cyber Security Cooperation Exercise for federation member organizations, focused on using the REFEDS Sirtfi framework. Past years have highlighted that some organizations’ security teams are unaware of Sirtfi or have not updated their internal procedures to fully institutionalize federation cooperation when security incidents involve external federation partners. This exercise is open to eduGAIN and REFEDS members, with opportunities to get federation operators involved. Last year, we saw participation from New Zealand and Australian R&E trust federations. The call for participation will go out in September, inviting federation member organizations to participate in November’s distributed tabletop exercise. This call for participation goes to both the InCommon mailing list and the REFEDS mailing list. This lightning talk will be a five minute presentation with highlights of the exercise purpose and why such practice is important, some lessons learned from the past two years, and pitching that participation is not limited to InCommon but open to members across eduGAIN who participate in the REFEDS Sirtfi trust framework.
In out lightning talk, we explore the enigma that is quantum entanglement, both in science and philosophy. In an era where data security is paramount, we unravel the practical tool that is quantum cryptography and its role in transforming secure communication in critical sectors like banking and defense.
We will also delve into the philosophical implication of quantum entanglement and how this mysterious phenomenon challenges our understanding of the universe. Quantum physics, at the end of the day, is not just a field for scientists, but a topic for philosophical inquiry.
Can a lightning talk about the production of the conference opening program be technical? What if the initial performance is packed with interesting technologies that are worth discovering, showing and explaining? For example - a ticking atomic clock, or drones that not only fly, but also create sound? Or the artificial intelligence that we harnessed to cooperate? In a word - a mix of old and new, advanced technologies with retro solutions, and above all - a practical "behind the scenes" art & science show on TNC.
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