The local section of IEEE (an Engineering organisation) together with ISOC-TT (an Internet organisation) and TTNIC (a DNS registry) will host a forum on Internet Governance on campus on Thursday May 1, 2014, from 6.30pm-8.30pm, at Room 101, Faculty of Engineering Building.The forum is titled “Internet Governance: What it is and why you should care”. All interested persons are welcome to attend.

The Working Group on Internet Governance (IG) has defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet”.

In this forum, Internet governance will be explained and the views of various stakeholders will be presented.

Agenda:

6.30pm-6.40pm	Welcome and introductions	Dr. Patrick Hosein, Chair of the Computer and Communications Society of the TT IEEE Section
6.40pm-7pm	A Civil Society perspective of Internet Governance	Ms. Cintra Sooknanan, Chair of the TT Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC)
7pm-7.20pm	A Government perspective of Internet Governance	Mr. Tracy Hackshaw, Vice Chair, Governmental Advisory Committee, ICANN
7.20pm-7.40pm	The Multi-Stakeholder Model with examples	Ms. Jacqueline Morris, Member of the TTNIC Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group
7.40pm-8pm	ICANN activities in the Caribbean Region	Albert Daniels, ICANN Global Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the Caribbean
8pm-8.05pm	Vote of thanks and closing remarks	Mr. Kevon Andrews, Vice Chair of the Computer and Communications Society of the TT IEEE Section

For further information please contact the IEEETT CCS Secretary at laura.bigram@gmail.com.

Abbreviations

IEETT – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Trinidad and Tobago Section

CCS –  Computer and Communications Society

ISOC-TT – Internet Society Trinidad and Tobago Section

TTNIC – Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre

A group of researchers have discovered a 2 year old flaw in the OpenSSL library used by web servers to encrypt communications between users and the server. These are the websites that you would use “https” instead of “http” and include websites that offer cloud services (such as email) that require user to login to banking and e-commerce websites.

Dubbed the Heartbleed bug because the flaw is in a particular part of the OpenSSL code called heartbeat. As the Heartbleed website (http://heartbleed.com/) says:

“The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users.”

Website operators that use OpenSSL need to update their servers and reissue their security certificates (if case, they were already stolen due to the Heartland bug).

End users should limit their visits to websites that use of SSL (hard I know), change their passwords after being advised by websites to do so and in the near future, consider changing all of your online passwords.

 

Various links to learn more:

• ReadWrite article
  
  http://readwrite.com/2014/04/08/heartbleed-openssl-bug-cryptography-web-security/
• http://heartbleed.com/ – site by the researchers that discovered the flaw
• https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ – site to test websites if they are vulnerable.
• http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/ – another site to test websites if they are vulnerable

Today’s Patch Tuesday will be the last Windows Update for Windows XP. Microsoft is dropping support for Windows XP, meaning no technical support and no more security updates . Also, Microsoft is also discontinuing its anti-virus tool Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows XP.

Microsoft’s End of Support Page for Windows XP:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help which offers suggestions on migrating to Windows 8.1

Ars Technica looks on this milestone and the challenges for Windows XP users:
The XPocalypse is upon us: Windows XP support has ended | Ars Technica.

 

Good article by Time  on the launch of Gmail by Google 10 years ago on April 1, 2004.

How Gmail Happened: The Inside Story of Its Launch 10 Years Ago Today | TIME.com.