When it comes to innovation in code contribution in the latest RFC’s and IETF drafts at the IETF hackathon, the cyberstorm.mu team is always here as a team hacking for the improvement of the Internet. For the IETF 104 hackathon which happened in Hilton, Prague, Czech Republic, we had pushed ourselves towards innovation: Joining more working groups at the same time championing other working groups. For those who are not aware of the IETF Hackathon, its a team collaborative event working towards the same goal: Securing the Internet and leveling up Open Source software in the world. The IETF 104 hackathon was a special one. Cyberstorm.mu contributed to the following working groups: TLS 1.3, SSH, HTTP 451, DSCP, Mobile APP, IPv6 & QUIC with more than 15 members remotely and 1(Muzaffar) onsite who was selected as an IETF fellow. We also had three newcomers for the IETF 104 hackathon and proud new members of cyberstorm.mu. Congratulations to Muzaffar Auhammud for making it onsite to Prague, Czech Republic representing cyberstorm.mu after being selected as an IETF Fellow. As a pioneer in Africa, cyberstorm.mu was also present in remote viewing hubs in Africa. Loganaden Velvindron, co-founder of cyberstorm.mu and Infrastructure and Security engineer at Afrinic demonstrated with great talent the implication of Africans in the IETF hackathon. I am proud of those leading the Viewing hub in the big Africa continent. This is where management and leadership skills play a great role here.
Day-0: It was a pretty tiring day with the assembly of the network and preparation of logistics as well as planning of the event. Food, medical kits, water, mosquitoes repellant, etc.. We also had to keep in touch with the weather information as there was a cyclone nearby. All precautions and planning were done. Once on the location of the hackathon which is at Mauritius Villa at Pointe aux Piments in the north west of Mauritius, the guys were almost ready. We ensure the new-comers feel at ease and integrating the group easily. As usual, an introduction to IETF was explained as well as the online video shown. We made the most to ensure professionalism and a good standard.
Day-1: It was a pretty intense day but at the same time addictive and fun. The team was already in the mood and ready to hack. Slaying the RC4 monster was one of my tasks and also had to lead Jagveer Loky, Network Engineer at Orange Business Services who was also participating in the SSH working group. The other part of the team which includes, Jeremie Daniel, a student at University of Mauritius Rahul Golam and Avi Soomirthee Linux system administrator at Linkbynet Indian Ocean who focussed a lot on TLS 1.3. On the other side, Bruno Bernard, Full stack developer was constantly improving and testing the IETF mobile App. We also had Veegish Ramdani and Yashveer Jadoo (First comer at the IETF hackathon remotely with the cyberstorm.mu team), Students at the University of Mauritius were hacking into DSCP LE. And finally, one the youngest newcomer, Rahul Kumar Shivadan, 15 years old student at St-Esprit college made it to DSCP and hacked into NetPerf. We also had Codarren Velvindron who was working remotely on TLS 1.3. Other cyberstorm.mu members were also here supporting us and helping remotely. When it comes to Internet connectivity, we thanks Mauritius Telecom who sponsored our Internet connectivity up to 100 Mbit/s for the IETF Hackathon.
Day-2: As usual, newcomers of cyberstorm.mu team are given their @cyberstorm.mu email address and all necessary procedures carried out. At cyberstorm.mu team, we lay emphasis on running code and a collaborating team. To focus on the goal is sometimes hard and in the beginning, it looks difficult to achieve, but with perseverance and motivation, we had been able to reach our goals. The testing part which includes the understanding of the IETF drafts, a pre-check methodology of the running code, testing and implementation prior before any modification carried out is considered to be the basic baseline before getting into it. Once this part has been grasped, it now comes to logic and mathematics. This is where helping each other in the team is important. And finally, code deployment, unit code testing and other incremental testing methodologies to make the code running and ready for use. On day-2, I still remembered Jagveer’s laptop encountered a crash which looks like an incompatible driver. The time factor was important, we decided to format everything and restart from scratch. At the cyberstorm.mu hackathon, it does not mean only hacking into codes, but also a moment of sharing and doing a round table, interviews, pool interviews and a moment where newcomers gave their feedback. We jumped into the pool, chill a little bit, whilst the others are enjoying a LAN gaming as well as eating nice food.
Day-3: It was such a rush, We made sure everyone has their patch commit and it was time to pack up and leave. Whilst others left, It was only me and Logan, Jeremie and Bruno who stayed till a little bit late. Whilst Jeremie was still preparing for his assignments, myself and Logan was preparing for our live presentation remotely at the IETF 104 hackathon. On the other hand, Bruno streamed the event live too on Facebook which was a pretty nice idea.
What newcomers said about the IETF 104 hackathon:
“I was very lucky to get an invitation to participate at the IETF 104 hackathon to learn more about networking and work in collaboration in a team of two on Lower Effort Per-Domain Behavior.” – Yashveer Jadoo
“I had no idea how to deal with networking by setting packets priority and then without any hesitation, I asked cyberstorm.mu team for help and everyone tried their best to help me.” – Rahul Kumar Shivadan
“These past few days the experience is great, the food is great, and everything is getting better ! With Laugh and codes, I’ve been working on the IETF Application championed by Chris Marrow and Warren Kumari on IETF 104 track.” – Bruno Bernard
