Intersection of Tech and Policy from Indian Perspective
Amrita Choudhury
We are living in a digital age where technology has become an integral part of our lives. While technology has transformed our lives by ushering in new opportunities, we are also witnessing new challenges, which regulators are grappling to address. To keep up with the times, even in India, we are witnessing several new regulations that have been brought in (such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. The Telecommunications Bill 2023) and discussions underway to overhaul or bring in new regulations (such as the Digital India Act, Digital Competition Bill, Broadcasting Services Bill 2023, Cybersecurity Strategy, etc.). Additionally, there are ongoing discourses to address the challenge of misinformation and fake news (deep fakes), governance of AI, discussions on network usage fees, encryption, etc.
The talk would highlight these regulatory changes and trends and why all stakeholders especially the technical community must participate in such discourses so that India can come up with nuanced, implementable robust, forward-looking regulations. The talk would also discuss how the technical community can engage meaningfully in these discourses.
How Internet censorship changed in Russia during the 1st year of military conflict in Ukraine
Simone Basso
As of today, last year, Russia started its military operation in Ukraine. This was followed by increased levels of internet censorship, as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Russia started blocking access to several news media websites. In early March 2022, OONI published a report documenting these blocks, as well as the blocking of a site (200rf.com) that shares information about captured and killed Russian soldiers in Ukraine. OONI also reported that Russian ISPs started throttling access to Twitter on 26th February 2022, and switched to blocking it by 4th March 2022 – at which point, they also started blocking access to Facebook. Information controls are known to occur during conflicts, and the increased censorship events in Russia suggest an attempt to control the narrative surrounding the conflict in Ukraine. But has internet censorship changed in Russia over the last year? In this report, we attempt to answer this question through the analysis of OONI measurements collected from Russia between January 2022 to February 2023. We supplement our findings with information from relevant legal analysis and desk research provided by Roskomsvoboda.
Tuesday - 6th Feb - IPv6
IPv6 @ Alibaba
Davey Song
In recent years, the global uptake of IPv6 has accelerated significantly. This presentation will offer insights into the large-scale deployment and practical implementation of IPv6 at Alibaba Group. As a leading case study, Alibaba's experience exemplifies the IPv6 development within China.
Happy Eyeballs Version 3: Better Connectivity Using Concurrency
Tommy Pauly
Many communication protocols operating over the modern Internet use hostnames. These often resolve to multiple IP addresses, each of which may have different performance and connectivity characteristics. Since specific addresses or address families (IPv4 or IPv6) may be blocked, broken, or sub-optimal on a network, clients that attempt multiple connections in parallel have a chance of establishing a connection more quickly. This presentation describes the requirements for algorithms that reduce this user-visible delay and provides an example algorithm, referred to as "Happy Eyeballs" over its various iterations.
Wednesday - 7th Feb - Network Observability
Panel Discussion: Challenges in Network Observability
Thomas Graf, Michael Ackermann, Paolo Lucente, Pierre Francois & Dinesh G Dutt
While Network Observability varies across different networks, there is a push for a more systemic perspective among network operators. The panel will commence with brief presentations from diverse backgrounds, including network operators, enterprises, and academia, presenting their viewpoints. The discussion will encompass the transition from SNMP to YANG, as well as topics like BMP, IPFIX, Network Telemetry, and Data Mesh integration. There will be an exploration of bridging the gap between the network and data engineering industry. The panel aims to spotlight the development of network observability applications and address the distinct challenges faced in service providers, enterprises, and academia.
Thursday - 8th Feb - Post Quantum Security
Dawn of the Post Quantum Internet
Dr. Bas Westerbaan
We are at a pivotal moment in cybersecurity. Browsers are rolling out post-quantum encryption by default to counter the store-now-decrypt-later threat. What once was the subject of futuristic tech demos, will soon become the baseline expectation for security. Encryption is only half the story. Post-quantum certificates are much more challenging to deploy. In this talk, we will take measure of the current state, and the challenges that lay ahead for the public Web and its PKI.
PQC for Engineers
Tirumaleswar Reddy
I will talk about the “Post-Quantum Cryptography for Engineers” draft that is adopted in the PQUIP WG. This document explains why engineers need to be aware of and understand post-quantum cryptography. It emphasizes the potential impact of Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers on current cryptographic systems and the need to transition to post-quantum algorithms to ensure long-term security.