Nearly a month after Amazon Web Services went down, Cloudflare, which offers a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to caching content from web servers so such content can load quickly to users globally and DNS hosting services among other things, also experiences a disruption to its service on November 18 2025. Cloudflare’s disruption resulted in several websites and services such as X (formerly Twitter), ChatGPT, Uber, Canva and not being accessible for a few hours.
The disruption to Cloudflare was not due to an external attack but due to a misconfiguration to a database resulting in a larger file generated which disrupted traffic being delivered on Cloudflare’s network.
Cloudflare has posted a detailed blog post on what went wrong less than 24 hours after the incident.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) went down on October 20 2025 causing widespread disruption to many web services that rely on AWS cloud hosting including Amazon itself. According to Ars Technica :
“Ultimately, more than 28 AWS services were disrupted, causing perhaps billions in damages, one analyst estimated for CNN.
Popular apps like Snapchat, Signal, and Reddit went dark. Flights got delayed. Banks and financial services went down. Massive games like Fortnite could not be accessed. Some of Amazon’s own services were hit, too, including its e-commerce platform, Alexa, and Prime Video. Ultimately, millions of businesses simply stopped operating, unable to log employees into their systems or accept payments for their goods.”
Fortunately, October 20 2025 was a holiday in Trinidad and Tobago due to Diwali so business disruption was minimized – I know that users of Autodesk software such as AutoCad and Revit had difficulty running said software which would have disrupted the work of engineering firms.
Between 11:49 PM PDT on October 19 and 2:24 AM PDT on October 20, AWS experienced increased error rates for AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region, which also impacted Amazon.com and Amazon subsidiaries, as well as AWS Support operations. By 12:26 AM PDT on October 20, we determined that the event was the result of DNS resolution issues for the regional DynamoDB service endpoints, and mitigated the issue by 2:24 AM PDT. After resolving the DynamoDB DNS issue, AWS services began recovering, but a small subset of internal subsystems continued to be impaired.
The disruption of Amazon Web Services in one region resulting in disruption to so many third party websites, software and applications worldwide highlights the concentration of cloud providers by the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft and the challenges for third parties to continue operations if there is an disruption to one of the cloud providers that they have hosted their operations.
The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) invites you to a special collaborative webinar, marking Global Encryption Day! We’re hosting this important discussion in partnership with the Internet Society Trinidad and Tobago Chapter, IEEE Young Professionals TT, and the CTU Caribbean ICT Youth Network.
What is Encryption?
Encryption is a tool or process that makes messages unreadable to others. Encryption transforms your data in code so that only the intended recipient can read it. In other words, it secures your information from unauthorised access.
Webinar Details
Theme: Contextualising Digital Rights in the Caribbean
When: Tuesday, 21st October 2025
Time: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM time in Trinidad and Tobago (UTC-4)
In a Trinidad Express newspaper article dated October 7 2025 , Acting Commissioner of Prisons Hayden Forde confirmed that from April 4 to October 4 2025, there were at least 626 drone sightings over Trinidad and Tobago Prisons, primarily at the Maximum Security Prison. The drones are used to drop contraband, and the Prison Service lacks the technology to counter the drones.
Hayden Forde emphasized the need for anti-drone devices and CCTV systems to address the issue.
The hosting of TTCS’s website at https://ttcs.tt is done using Amazon Lightsail which is a Virtual private server, meaning it’s like a virtual machine which you have full control (and therefore maintenance!) of the operating system, web server, database server, runtime environment, the Content Management System and the content to go with the website.
One of the things to be done was the update of the hosting server as it was based on the previous Ubuntu LTS release which ended support in April 2025, running the AMP stack (Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP ). We used WordPress as the Content Management System and the (now previous) TTCS website was using the Koji Theme
which shows blog posts in a card based UI which I liked.
This Koji theme was developed in 2017-2018. Since then WordPress itself has undergone changes internally which a switch from the classic editor which was used to create WordPress content and themes to the Gutenberg Block Editor allowing users to build and design websites using modular blocks for text, images and other content.
So the server content was backed up, and a new server was setup to host the TTCS website at https://www.ttcs.tt and the TTCS OSSWIN online site at https://ttcsosswin.ttcs.tt . The server will also be hosting other websites (more on this at a later time)
After content was imported, I took the default WordPress theme Twenty Twenty Five and tried to come up with a card based UI similar to the Koji theme and to learn more about the Gutenberg editor.
Donate to TTCS – (https://www.ttcs.tt/donate/) – we need funds for the computer refurbishment project, there are many requests and many computers to be refurbished.
The new Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence which looks to be a merger of the previous administration’s Ministry of Public Administration and Ministry of Digital Transformation
Updates on the TTCS Computer Refurbishment Project
and more! Registration is FREE ! Questions? Email info@ttcs.tt
The 9th annual Trinidad and Tobago Internet Governance Forum (TTIGF) 2025 will take place on Thursday January 30 2025 from 9am to 1:30pm and on Friday January 31 2025 from 9am to 12noon and from 1pm to 4:30pm. TTIGF 2025 will be a hybrid event combining in person and virtual participation with a mix of presentations and panel sessions, including a youth forum.
The theme of TTIGF 2025 is “Building Our Multistakeholder Digital Future” and the two day TTIGF 2025 agenda features sessions and presentations on the following topics :
Day 1 – Thursday January 30 2025
Cybersecurity in Trinidad and Tobago
Artificial Intelligence in Education: Navigating the Future
Open Forum
Day 2 – Friday January 31 2025
Youth Session : Bullying in the Cyber Age
Digital Transformation and Financial Inclusion
Using AI for Disaster Resilience in Trinidad and Tobago
Accelerating the involvement of Caribbean ccTLDs (country code Top Level Domains) within the global ccTLD community
Diversity in the Caribbean and Latin American Region
Building a Stronger Regional Community
Future Collaboration and Next Steps
Visit the TTIGF website at https://igf.tt to read more about the topics and agenda schedule. You MUST register to attend to get the remote participation link and is FREE!
During this meeting, we’ll discuss several important topics, including:
TTBS Draft Voluntary National Standards: An overview of the proposed standards related to Information Security, Cybersecurity, and Privacy Protection, currently open for public comment.
TATT’s Framework on Net Neutrality: A discussion on the recently published “Framework on Net Neutrality in Trinidad and Tobago” and its implications.
This event will benefit IT managers to understand the benefits of UA and to consider how their organisations can make their services and systems UA ready and for software developers to better understand how to make their applications UA ready.
A cornerstone of today’s global Internet, UA offers many benefits for both individual Internet users as well as the organizations that serve them. There are currently approximately five billion Internet users, and at least one billion more are expected to come online. Most of these potential new users live in countries that speak and write in languages other than English. Achieving UA ensures everybody has the ability to experience the full social and economic power of the Internet using their chosen domain name and email address that best aligns with their interests, business, culture, language, and script.
UA is the gateway to a more inclusive and multilingual Internet. The Domain Name System (DNS) has expanded dramatically in recent years with the addition of new generic top-level domains (e.g., .photography, .technology). These also include Internationalized Domain Names (e.g., एमईआईटीवाई.सरकार.भारत, 红螺寺.网址, صحة.مصر, стопкоронавирус.рф) and country code top-level domains (e.g., .भारत). However, while the DNS has evolved, the checks used by many software applications to validate domain names and email addresses remain outdated. In addition, not all online portals are primed for the using or opening of a user account with an internationalized email address, leaving many people unable to navigate the Internet using their language and online identity of choice. Considered a technical compliance best practice, UA solves these issues by ensuring all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script, language, or character length, can be used equally by all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems.
By adopting Universal Acceptance, we can help ensure that everyone, regardless of their language or culture, can fully participate in the digital economy. You can learn more about UA at https://uasg.tech/
