First Qatar Information Security Forum (QISF)
Submitted by mohamed on Mon, 03/05/2007 - 23:38.
Last week Nigel pinged the Qatar Perl Mongers list an invitation to attend the first bi-monthly Qatar Information Security Forum (QISF) which was being hosted by Q-CERT. It's been a while since I attended one of these types of information security events so I figured that it would be a useful opportunity to network with people from Q-CERT, check out the local information security scene and clock up a couple of CPE points.
The lecture part of the program was given by Ian Dowdeswell who just joined Q-CERT - it turned out to be the standard Power Point on "How much security breaches cost and a taxonomatic classification of the evil people who are behind the attacks." This of course reminded me why I always sat in the back of class since the second day of high school.
That being said, it was probably useful for IT Managers and anyone else who did not have to endure 6 hours of multiple choice questions for the CISSP examination.
The Q&A was fairly interesting though with lots of discussion around legislation that would drive information security in the country (apparently there is non planned yet). I also learnt that the Qatari Penal Code of 2004 has section on computer crime (I should look this up at some stage) and that there is a group within the CID that is responsible for computer crime.
Apart from networking, the most productive part of the day for me was being able to complain to the Technical Director of Q-CERT about Q-Tel's notorious proxy server. Almost everyone in the country goes via the proxy which causes endless pain when someone decides to block an abusive user IP since the rest of the country is subsequently banned. Small problem for Wikipedia, but a huge problem for local sites in Qatar where most of the users have the same IP address...
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I thought the best part was
I thought the best part was a quick tour of CNA that I was given after the event - impressive classrooms and lecturers' offices, but strangely lacking any signs of student life. No noticeboards, no posters - the neatness reminded me of a hospital rather than a college.
I asked one of the academics how events were publicised to students, and he said he'd be happy to forward any invitations to his students. It seemed odd there was no parallel news network run by students.
I went to a small university in the late 1980s (around 3000 undergrads). There was a weekly student newspaper, a fortnightly events brochure, and dedicated noticeboards for over a hundred student-run non-academic societies. In addition, there was an academic society for almost every department in the university, which held events that were publicised during lectures.
Very, very strange.
I wondered where you
I wondered where you disappeared to!
It was an impressive looking campus - especially for a non-degree granting college.
I had the pleasure of attending two different universities for my undergrad and honours. WITS was a hotbed of student activism during apartheid and it reflected in the make up of the students and activities on campus. The Computer Science Department held guest lectures by both Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond while I was an undegraduate.
During my honours at RAU (now known as the University of Johannesburg) which was built to serve as an alternate to WITS during the heyday of apartheid 1970s was totally different. The architecture made you feel depressed and being on campus almost felt like you were in high school again. No protests allowed and you were only allowed to post 3 posters to advertise an event. The Computer Science department did not host such unkept and crazy gentlement such as Stallman or Raymond - instead they were sponsored by Microsoft.
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