CyberWEEK Security SINGAPORE CYBER
Spectacular fireworks at the end of the race. Photo Credit: Singapore Tourism Board.
As in other industries, their Cyber security policies to protect the end-points and network that host the F1 team’s missioncritical data (the “crown jewels) against external intrusions and insider threats include cloud security, behavioural analytics, access controls, permitted media. Critically, encryption policies are high priority to protect the confidential car telemetry transmitted on-site to the headquarters, and to licenced partners. At this opportune time, the Acronis Robot showcasing the latest innovation in Artificial Intelligence made its grand entrance, for a Q&A session with Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat. Day - 3 and Day - 2 before Race day – Practice Day 1 and Practice Day 2 Data collection and crunching. And backups. In 2014, race teams at the U.S. Grand Prix collected more than 243 terabytes of data according to AT&T, which is a few terabytes more data than there are in the Library of Congress. "10 terrabytes of data float through the system, which makes it the biggest science project on the planet for that period of time, eclipsing even the human genome project," during the 90-minute race, said McLaren Applied Technologies CEO on an CNBC interview ahead of the Singapore GP race. “200 Petabytes of data is collected across the teams last year, a mind-blowing 40% increase year-on-year. This is
exponential growth,” said Chris Vlok, a NewZealand F3 driver during a break in between watching the practice runs. He elaborated: “The volume of data collected during the practice sessions is heavily scrutinized before the qualifying, to devise the racing strategy, but also to make calculated changes to the set up of the car, as well as outline any changes the driver should make”. With the right metrics monitored, the engineers and the driver analysed the machine and human factor(s) behind the performance compared the other car(s) in their team (or to the same race of the previous year), to optimise the mechanical variables (such as fuel burn) or driver factors (such as steering angle, brake pressure) to devise a strategy map and gain that hundredth of a second." The anecdote shared by the STR team – the panic caused when a laptop hosting the critical data and the strategy map was dropped at an earlier F1 race this season, potentially losing the team its strategy map – shows how data-hungry the industry is, and consequently how important reliable backups are – the team was able to recover the data so rapidly that the driver’s knowledge of the loss came only after the race was concluded. Day - 1 before Race Day – Qualifying Race Tech Talk on Ethereum Cryptocurrency, Blockchain.
Blockchain expert Alex Garkusha, co-founder of one of the world’s most successful ICO
consulting firms - ModernToken – gave a fascinating presentation of challenges and opportunities presented by the Blockchain technology at the Acronis HQ. With experience in the “BlockChain of yesterday” (cryptocurrencies) and the “BlockChain of today” (smart contracts), Alex answered questions on a very topical theme - the peaks and troughs of Bitcoin, and initial currency offerings (ICOs). With the recent regulatory crackdowns on ICO, the most notable example being the Chinese government and the subsequent impacts on the value of Bitcoin holders, the oversubscribed audience asked: what are needed to establish the necessary trust and confidence in the ecosystems in ICO? What is the relationship between ICO raised on the Ethereum platform and the impact on the value of Ethereum? Eugene Aseev, at his RSA Asia 2017 talk (two months earlier in July) on “Changing Data Protection: Heading towards a Blockchain-Operated Future”, illustrated the use of BlockChain in Data Notarization (in other words, the integrity or authenticity of data), through the use of Merkle Tree structures of the files’ fingerprints, anchored into the BlockChain with a timestamp. Aside from the challenge of building scalable industrial solutions that are capable of processing large volume of data, and balancing that with the low intrinsic rate of recording onto the BlockChain, there is also a need for Digital Notary Legislation to recognise that a signature secured through
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