[NLnet Press] Press release: "Collective approach to internet attacks big success in the Netherlands"

[NLnet foundation press list]

"Collective approach to internet attacks big success in the Netherlands"
Follow-up funding from NLnet helps "National Washing Facility" scale up

                                               Amsterdam, June 30th 2014

The NaWas initiative (short for "Nationale Wasstraat", which is Dutch
for National Washing Facility), a collective effort to handle large
scale internet attacks on targets in the Netherlands, will receive
follow-up funding from NLnet foundation. NLnet is the original
not-for-profit responsible for introducing the internet in the
Netherlands in the eighties.

The money will be used to fund a new expansion of the Nationale
Wasstraat. NaWas is a initiative of ISP organisation NBIP aimed at
hosting providers, midsize ISPs and users, providing a collective
solution against so called DDoS attacks. NaWas is used to filter out
large amounts of fake internet traffic as used by attackers to bring
down internet services.

By pooling resources NaWas has vastly more bandwidth and more advanced
anti-DDoS equipment from different vendors than could be afforded by
each participating internet provider or user. The capacity for handling
attacks is shared by the participating organisations. The system went
live since March 2014, and already needs to be expanded because of the
large interest in the market place.

"NaWas is clearly meeting a huge need," states Alex Bik, chairman of
NBIP, "Not only do we see a large demand for connecting to NaWas, but
NBIP also gets many invitations to speak at conferences on how it helps
protect our national digital infrastructure.”

Marc Gauw, general director of NLnet, is also very pleased with the
success of the initiative: "It helps more organisations to adequately
shield themselves against DDOS attacks, while the internet traffic
itself doesn't leave the country so the data of the users is not
unnecessarily exposed to prying eyes of foreign actors."

NBIP as a not-for-profit is offering the NaWas service at cost price for
both internet providers as regular users. This makes it a very welcome
alternative for buying ones own anti-DDoS equipment, or using a
commercial anti-DDoS service


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Not for publication
-------------------

This press release is also online:

               [in English:]
                 http://nlnet.nl/press/20140630-nawas-en.html
                [in het Nederlands:]
                 http://nlnet.nl/press/20140630-nawas.html

For more information:

NaWas:

   www.nbip.nl
   bureau at nbip.nl
   +31 (0)318 48 93 50

NLnet:

   www.nlnet.nl
   bureau at nlnet.nl
   +31 (0) 20 888 4252

--------------------------------------------------------------------
About NLnet Foundation
--------------------------------------------------------------------

NLnet foundation is an independent organisation whose means come from
donations and legacies. The history of NLnet goes back to 1982 when a
group of Europeans led by former NLnet director and member of the
Internet Hall of Fame Teus Hagen announced the European Unix Network
(EUnet) which became the first public wide area network in Europe and
the place where internet was introduced to Europe. NLnet also pioneered
the worlds first dial-in and ISDN infrastructure with full country
coverage. In 1997 all commercial activities were sold to UUnet (now
Verizon) and since that time NLnet has focussed on supporting the open
internet, and the privacy and security of internet users.

Its private capital ensures an absolute independent position. The
articles of association for the NLnet foundation state: "to promote the
exchange of electronic information and all that is related or beneficial
to that purpose". NLnet's core business is to support independent
organizations and people that contribute to an open information society
and to a safe, secure and open internet.
A number of times a year NLnet organises a worldwide open call for
projects to be supported. The long list of NLnet-funded projects
includes NLnet Labs, Tor project, Unhosted, Sockethub, SSL Observatory,
Lantern Project, Calligra Suite, WebODF, Serval, Jitsi, 0cpm and GNUnet.
Developers and researchers are invited to apply for grants.

                                http://nlnet.nl






-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 897 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://open.nlnet.nl/pipermail/press/attachments/20140630/bcac4d90/attachment.sig>