ECP Annual Festival: We've gone digital?!

SIDN is ECP Annual Festival partner

As in previous years, SIDN is supporting the ECP Annual Festival, and – along with SIDN Fund – contributing to the proceedings. We see the event as a great opportunity to share our knowledge and expertise with the valuable ECP network. We'll be delivering 3 sessions at the festival:

How can we get a grip on polarisation?

(Session round 1, 13:15 - 14:10)

The spread of fake news and polarising algorithms on the internet can have serious consequences, such as swaying election results and fomenting violent protest. But how does disinformation spread, how do social media platforms' algorithms drive polarisation, and who's responsible? A better understanding of how online mechanisms promote the spread of disinformation and polarisation can help us develop more effective ways of mitigating the negative impacts and reinforcing positive influences.

Having supported numerous projects devoted to investigating and addressing polarisation, SIDN Fund will deliver a session in which experts Marc Faddoul and Jelle Postma describe their work in this field.

Can the digitised Netherlands withstand a knock?

(Session round 2, 14:30 - 15:25)

Our society is highly dependent on electronic services; such as DigiD, iDEAL and the many systems underpinning communications and health care. Unfortunately, though, prolonged outages are not uncommon. One reason is that the underlying internet infrastructure that such services use is often less stable than most people realise. 'Below the waterline', electronic services may be dependent on a single provider, DNS operator or IP network, for example.

SIDN Labs will run a session looking at the resilience of the critical online services that the Netherlands relies on. Researchers from the Labs team will flag up the services that are vulnerable to outages at a small number of supporting providers, and explain how, in some cases, entire industries are dependent on a single service provider. They'll also present a tool you can use to measure the resilience of your own services.

In short, the session will consider whether the Netherlands can withstand a knock, and how the stability of society's online foundations can be assured.

Cybersecurity 2024 - Fighting electronic threats together

(Session round 3, 15:45 - 16:40)

Last year, 2.3 million people in the Netherlands were victims of internet crime of one form or another, according to Statistics Netherlands. Sometimes with devastating financial and/or emotional repercussions. Cybercriminals are increasingly professional, making it harder and harder to tell scam e-mails and text messages from genuine ones. Who's behind cybercrime? And how can we recognise and stop scams?

SIDN Fund will put on a session looking at the best ways of raising awareness of cybercrime, particularly amongst young people. Astrid Oosenbrug from DIVD Academy and Tim Murck from HackShield will talk about their SIDN Fund-supported projects.

Packet Run

As well as plenary opening and closing sessions, the festival will feature a total of 20 sub-sessions, including the 3 described above. In the intervals, we strongly recommend visiting the Packet Run installation on the network floor. Packet Run is an interactive installation that shows you how something as ordinary as viewing a website involves data being routed back and forth across the internet.

To the ECP registration page