News
- Benefitting from the Internet Safely: actions promoted by UMIC in Portugal
The UN – United Nations declared 17th May as World Telecommunications and the Information Society Day and decided that this year would be dedicated to the topic of young people surfing the Internet safely.
Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), as the public body with the task of coordinating Information Society policies in Portugal, decided to extend the commemorations for the World Telecommunications and the Information Society Day to all strata of the population and it put on public awareness raising actions on the benefits of and safe use of the Internet for the whole week starting on 17th May and continuing until 22nd May 2009.
- UMIC Brings Together Promoters of Broadband Community Networks in a Workshop
In the 12th of February 2009, at the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), takes place the 3rd Workshop on Broadband Community Networks. This workshop brings together the promoters (municipal associations) of 4 Broadband Community Networks that were created by the program prepared by UMIC and partially supported by the Knowledge Society Operational Program (POSC): Minho Valley, Lima Valley, Terra Quente Transmontana, Évora District.
These Broadband Community Networks are optical fiber Next Generation Networks in deprived areas or where there are failures of the telecommunications market, particularly due to low population densities, which can be explored on multi-operation and provide equal access to all operators in tendering for exploitation.
- European Safer Internet Day 2009
European Safer Internet Day is being held on 10th February 2009. Just as in previous years, it is expected that 50 countries will hold awareness-raising actions on safe Internet use on this day. This event is organised at European level by Insafe, a cooperation network of projects promoting awareness-raising for safer Internet use by citizens.
The Internet Segura (Safer Net) (site in Portuguese) project is the responsibility of a consortium coordinated by Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and which also involves the Directorate-General for Curricular Innovation / CRIE at the Ministry of Education, the Foundation for National Scientific Computation (FCCN) and Microsoft Portugal. This consortium represents Portugal in Insafe and has prepared various national initiatives to promote safe Internet use, with particular focus on elementary and secondary schools and Internet Spaces, which are places providing free public Internet access with their own staff on-hand for support.
- Watch the Weekly Progress of the Broadband Community Networks Projects
There are 4 ongoing construction projects of Broadband Community Networks: Évora District, Terra Quente Transmontana, Minho Valley, Lima Valley, a total length exceeding 1,000 km of optical fiber cable and a total investment of 34 million euros. The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) constituted and ensures the operation of the Technical Support Commission (CAT), under which the coordination and monitoring of the ongoing projects is assured. The following figures show the evolution of the indicators of progress of the various projects, updated weekly.
- FTTH Forum 2008
The FTTH Forum 2008, dedicated to New Generation Networks and to fibre optics telecommunications access for houses in particular (FTTH – Fiber To The Home), will be held on 5th and 6th November at the Centro Cultural de Belém. This technology enables much higher bandwidths than those possible with ADSL and is able to carry high quality voice, Internet, television communications and interactive applications through the bandwidth that is effectively supplied and the availability of symmetrical bandwidths for downloads and uploads, which are considered indispensible for the Internet of the Future.
- APDC Communications Congress
The Communications Congress ’07 (site in Portuguese) is being held on 4th – 6th December 2007 at the Estoril Centro de Congressos. It is being organised by APDC – Portuguese Association for Communications Development. The following thematic plenary sessions have been scheduled: The Changing World of Communications (text in Portuguese), i2010 State of Play and Perspectives (text in Portuguese), The New ICTs Sector in a GLOBAL context - Part 1 (text in Portuguese) , The New ICTs Sector in a GLOBAL context - Part 2 (text in Portuguese), The Challenges of the New Regulation (text in Portuguese), Consumer Trends: the profile of the new consumer (text in Portuguese), Sustainable Development and e-Inclusion (text in Portuguese), Regulation (National Oversight) (text in Portuguese), Mobility and Convergence (text in Portuguese), The Investor's View (text in Portuguese), Training and Competitiveness (text in Portuguese), The Major TDT Challenges in Portugal (text in Portuguese).
- ENISA / CERT / CC Workshop on Mitigation of Massive Cyberattacks
The ENISA / CERT / CC Workshop on Mitigation of Massive Cyberattacks is being held on 19th September 2007 in Porto. It is being jointly organised by the CERT Coordination Centre – Carnegie Mellon University (CERT/CC), the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation and by the FEUP – Porto University Engineering Faculty. It is dedicated to the role of CERTs – Computer Security Incidents Response Teams - in mitigating massive cyberattacks and the critical issue of cooperation in this type of situation.
Portugal has had an internationally accredited CERT since September 2002, namely the CERT.PT (site in Portuguese) of the FCCN – Foundation for National Scientific Computation (site in Portuguese) , which operates under the RCTS – Science, Technology and Society Network. A new internationally accredited CERT came into being on 1st July 2007, namely the University of Porto’s Engineering Faculty CSIRT.FEUP (site in Portuguese).
- 3rd ENISA Awareness Raising Workshop
The 3rd ENISA Awareness Raising Workshop is being held on 18th September 2007 at the Hotel Tivoli in Lisbon. It is being jointly organised by ENISA - the European Network and Information Security Agency and the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation. The objective is to share this agency’s experience and that of other relevant bodies so as to raise companies and organisations’ awareness of security issues for information systems and networks (see ENISA workshop agenda).
- Public presentation of the Internet Segura (Safe Net) Project
The Internet Segura (site in Portuguese) project will be presented to the public on 5th July from 12 pm to 1 pm at the FCCN – Foundation for National Scientific Computation, located on the premises of the National Civil Engineering Laboratory, Av. Do Brasil 101, Lisbon.
The meeting agenda (in Portuguese) includes interventions from representatives of each of the bodies participating in the project and from the corresponding services of the European Commission.
- European Safer Internet Day
European Safer Internet Day is on Tuesday, 6th February 2007. Various initiatives will be carried out in Portugal throughout the week:
- A space for the SafeNet project will be opened on Monday, 5th February on the http://moodle.crie.min-edu.pt/ (site in Portuguese) website where best practices by schools under the SafeNet 1 project (2004/2006) will be posted, as will the best work from the 2006 national SafeNet competition.
On European Safer Internet Day, there will be:
- Visits to 20 Portuguese Schools involved in the European Competition Safer Internet Day, and awareness-raising sessions in these schools by the CRIE team, Microsoft and by the Ministry of Education’s Competence Centres;
- Advanced Broadband Services
The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) organised a workshopon 14th July 2006 on the following topic: Developing Broadband Services – from the Installation of Infrastructures to Effective Use of Advanced Services The work was organised around two types of cases: local and regional networks, and national research and education networks.
Cases in other countries were presented at the workshop, namely those of municipal broadband networks in the United States of America, local public broadband networks in various regions of France and fibre-optic networks in the cities of Almere in the Netherlands and Stockholm in Sweden.
- IT Security: Government - Microsoft Memorandum of Understanding
The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation (site in Portuguese) will sign a cooperation agreement with Microsoft on Wednesday (21st July) on I.T: security which puts into practice the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Government and the American I.T. company in February.
- Promoting Cybersecurity
The United Nations set 17th May as World Information Society Day and decided that the 2006 day would be dedicated to Promoting Cybersecurity. The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation (site in Portuguese) answered the United Nations’ call by organising the Promoting Cybersecurity meeting on 17th May 2006 from 3 pm to 5 pm at the FCCN, on the LNEC – National Civil Engineering Laboratory campus. The opening session will be chaired by the Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education.