Infrastructures and Security News News
- Vacancy for National Expert at the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA)
Applications are open until 31 March 2010 for a vacancy for a National Expert post at ENISA, located in Heraklion in Greece.Job application details for this post can be found at ENISA-SNE-2010-01.
The ENISA is a European Union (EU) Agency created to improve the capacity of the EU, its Member States and the enterprise community to avoid and respond to networks and information security problems.
- European Safer Internet Day 2010
The European Safer Internet Day is on Tuesday, 9th February 2010. 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 the European level by Insafe, a cooperative network of projects promoting awareness-raising for safer Internet use by citizens.The Safer Internet (site in Portuguese) project is the responsibility of a consortium coordinated by The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), 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 organized some national initiatives to promote safe Internet use, with particular focus on elementary and secondary schools, and Internet Spaces, places providing free public Internet access with their own staff on-hand for support.
- FCCN Presents Recent Developments of the RCTS
The Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) presents July 28, 2009 the latest developments of the National Research and Education Network, the Science Technology and Society Network (RCTS), which were developed with funding and guidance of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and also supported by funds from the Knowledge Society Operational Program (POSC). The presentation, in the facilities of FCCN located at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC), Avenida do Brasil, Lisbon, is attended by the Minister of Science Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago. - One of the First Next Generation Networks in Portugal Presented at Évora
The Association of Municipalities of the District of Évora and the partnership set up to develop the “Broadband Community Network for the Évora District” officially presented this Next Generation Network on 15 July 2009 in a session which took place at the new premises of the University of Évora. Present at the session was the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago. The same session was combined with a ceremony to inaugurate the Colégio dos Leões (Antiga Fábrica dos Leões), and included a presentation on the new University site which will house teaching and research work in the Visual Arts, Multimedia, Design and Architecture.
- 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.
- Valimar Digital Seminar
The Valimar Digital Seminar was held on 6th March 2009 at Viana do Castelo Municipal Library, at which the results of the Digital Regions and Cities project “Valimar Digital” and the Community Networks project Valimar Net, both co-funded by the POSC – Knowledge Society Operational Programme, were presented. Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) was represented at the seminar by Professor Graça Simões, who gave a presentation entitled Information Society – Portugal in Change. New Generation Networks.
- 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.
- 1st NGNs in Portugal Available at the Scientific and Higher Education System and at 4 Rural Areas
At a time when operators take the first decisive steps for Next Generation Networks (NGN) and the issues related to investment, management and business models of such networks are discussed, two types of advanced NGN promoted by public authorities with the support of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) – the Broadband Community Networks for e-Inclusion, and the Science, Technology and Society Network for e-Science – are already well developed.
- 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.
- Vale do Minho with New Generation Network
The Vale do Minho Digital Forum took place on 29 and 30 September 2008 in Melgaço with a round of workshops on the first day followed on the second by the presentation of the results of the Vale do Minho Digital project.
This project, which was approved in September 2005, is one of the 33 projects forming part of Digital Cities and Digital Regions which has been carried out throughout Portugal in order to implement the Digital Portugal project, envisaged in 2000 as part of the Operational Information Society Programme (POSI), and later continued in the Knowledge Society Operational Programme (POSC). Together these projects cover 287 of the country’s 308 municipalities and cover roughly 95% of the entire national territory.
- UMIC to Meet with all Community Broadband Network Promoters
The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) has organised a meeting on 9 July 2008 from 14:00 to 17:30 at Taguspark with all the promoters of the projects within the Broadband Community Networks, that is, the municipal authorities within the areas involved. These networks all are currently under construction. The objective of the meeting is to exchange information on solutions found and the progress and difficulties encountered in carrying out the projects, plus reflection on how to plan future activities.
- Évora District with New Generation Network
The ceremony to launch the project “Designing and Building a broadband Community Network in the Évora District” was held on 8 May 2008 at 12.30 in the Espinheiro Convent in Évora, and was presided over by the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago.
This ceremony was an opportunity for the Évora District to acknowledge the start of work to shortly join the restricted set of regions with New Generation Networks which enable good broadband connections using fibre optics.
- European Safer Internet Day 2008
European Safer Internet Day is on Tuesday, 12th February 2008. Just as in previous years, it is expected that 55 countries will hold awareness-raising actions on safe Internet use on this day. This event is organised at the European level by Insafe, a cooperation network of projects promoting awareness-raising for safer Internet use by citizens.The Safer Internet (site in Portuguese) project is the responsibility of a consortium coordinated by The 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 arranged some events within Portugal to promote safe Internet use. In particular, coordinated activities have been prepared in more than 110 Internet Spaces in various parts of the country, as well as the launching of the JovensOnline.Net curriculum, workshops at the Ponto JÁ Stores of the Portuguese Youth Institute and activities in schools.
- 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” 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 workshop on 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.