TOTEM
After more than a year of preparations, the TOTEM project finally kicked-off! TOTEM stands for 'Training using Online Tools for Effectiveness and Measurability'. Our new colleague Suzanne Wissenburg is coordinating the project. The TOTEM project's objective is to improve basic understanding of Internet security and related tools for human rights defenders, activists and journalists by creating an online classroom environment. The MOOC will improve a number of recurring issues with 'offline' security training's by enriching them with this tool. The TOTEM project is also aimed at a general audience. In about a year we hope to present the results.
Greening the Cloud SSL research
Greenhost is participating in the 'Greening the cloud' project. This project looks into the energy consumption of the ever more popular cloud infrastructure. We wrote a little blog post about this in summer (in Dutch). The CO2 emission of the IT sector appears to be on par (or is even exceeding) that of the aviation sector, which is a disturbing development and something we keep a keen eye on at Greenhost. A lot has been done in recent years on data centre design & cooling to make them more energy efficient, but what about the software that runs on the servers? We know for a fact, that the more neatly code is written, the better it is for the environment. This and other cases are being analysed within the 'Greening the Cloud' consortium.
A student of Hogeschool Delft will analyse the energy consumption of SSL. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology and protocol for establishing encrypted links between a server and a client—typically a web server (website) and a browser; or a mail server and a mail client. The research will look at the different ciphers suites used for encryption and if the assumption that higher ciphers suites consume more energy than a lower suite is true.
Let's Encrypt
"One Small Certificate for the Web, One Giant Certificate Authority for Web Encryption!"
On September 14 the first certificate from Let's Encrypt has been issued. It marks an important milestone in the march to encrypt all of the Web: the first-ever certificate issued by Let's Encrypt. Let's Encrypt is a free, automated, open-source certificate authority (CA). Anyone who has gone through the trouble of setting up a secure website knows what a hassle getting and maintaining a certificate can be. Let's Encrypt automates away the pain and lets site operators turn on and manage HTTPS with simple commands.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been working on Let's Encrypt for several years—and it was no simple feat. Launching a certificate authority can take hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more), a great deal of careful security work, a tremendous amount of paperwork, and a truly unconscionable number of early morning conference calls. September 14 marked the culmination of all that work, and the beginning of the process of rolling this service out to the broader public. You can check out the first certificate here. (* does not work in all browsers).
Our goal is to implement Let's Encrypt certificates at Greenhost as soon as the infrastructure is implemented.
Vacancies
Greenhost is growing fast! We are looking for a senior software developer, a system and network engineer and a full stack developer who will play a role in the TOTEM project. You can find the job descriptions here.