Background
The secure global flow of information on the Internet requires protection from disruption, eavesdropping, and tracking. The freedom of information flow is mirrored in the personal freedom, privacy, and security of Internet users. The growing ability and desire of state and non-state entities to capture, store, and analyze or block Internet users’ traffic has spurred the development of many techniques to overcome these threats. Research at the University of Waterloo Cheriton School of
Computer Science aims to characterize these threats, strengthen current mitigation techniques and develop new methods for protecting privacy, autonomy, and data security on the Internet.
The University of Waterloo invites qualified companies to submit proposals for a large memory server in accordance with the terms of this Request for Proposal.
Current research at the Cheriton School requires a computer system with substantial capacity to model large numbers of network elements on the Internet. The system will be used for large-scale simulation and emulation of global overlay networks, including those underlying anonymous communications networks and cryptocurrencies. It has been determined that, in order to carry out leading-edge research, this system requires 12TB of RAM available to a single operating system image. The budget for this system and supporting hardware as detailed in Section 6.0 below is $280,000 CDN. This total includes an effective sales tax rate of 3.41% for research hardware of this type.
