NLnet and CWI establish first public SCION connection in the Netherlands

Today NLnet and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) are launching the first public connection in the Netherlands to the SCION network, a new and safer Internet architecture. To showcase this new connection, a live demonstration is located in the CWI Library that allows researchers and visitors to experience SCION firsthand. The demonstration explores how SCION might help address some of the Internet’s most pressing challenges. It is especially relevant for vital sectors that depend on reliable and secure digital infrastructure where greater resilience and control are essential.

SCION (Scalability, Control, and Isolation On Next-generation networks) is a new Internet architecture developed at ETH Zürich since 2009. Unlike the existing Internet protocols like IPv4/IPv6 and BGP, which were not designed with formal security guarantees in mind, SCION was designed from the ground up using formal methods to offer strong assurances of safety and control, while maintaining backward compatibility. SCION is already in use in the Secure Swiss Finance Network (SSFN) where it is used to transact 200 billion Swiss francs daily (or more than US$90 trillion, annually).

According to Hans-Dieter Hiep, who works as a Technology Assessor at NLnet and currently assesses the SCION protocol, SCION is particularly well-suited for critical infrastructure and vital sectors such as finance, energy, healthcare, transport, defense, and education, offering protections against route hijacking and certificate authority compromise, reducing the attack surface of DDoS attacks, while enabling greater control over data routes and jurisdictional compliance.

Hiep explains: “The live demonstration shows that with SCION, the end-user has full control where their data is allowed to go to. This technology can be used to ensure data does not leave the EU, for example. Moreover, SCION is designed using advanced mathematical reasoning tools and formal methods to guarantee important security and privacy properties, that the current Internet protocols lack.” CWI’s new connection to the SCION network is completely separated from the BGP-controlled Internet, so it remains online even when CWI’s Internet connection is disrupted by DDoS attacks or border gateway route hijacks.

NLnet, a Dutch public benefit foundation and early pioneer in European Internet development, is currently funding multiple open source SCION projects. The current initiative with CWI also involves deployment of SCIERA, the SCION Education, Research and Academic Infrastructure, which already connects hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. The CWI connection is the first in the Netherlands to publicly demonstrate SCION in action, using a free and open source implementation, and marks a new phase of public experimentation with the technology, in addition to commercial SCION deployments.

CWI and NLnet share a long-standing history, playing a pioneering role in the early development of the open public internet in Europe. Both institutions remain committed to advancing open, secure, and reliable digital infrastructure. While SCION is not intended to replace the existing Internet, the vision is that federated, policy-driven networks built-in its foundations may offer better tools for digital autonomy and sovereignty, resilience, and trust. A technical interview with Hans-Dieter Hiep detailing the SCION protocol and its implications is published on our website along side this press release.

NLnet supports organizations and people who contribute to an open internet for all. NLnet funds projects that help fix the internet through open hardware, open software, open standards, open science, and open data. After its historical contribution to the early internet in Europe in the 1980's, NLnet has been financially supporting the open internet since 1997.

Founded in 1946, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is the national research institute for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands. It is located at Amsterdam Science Park and is part of the Institutes Organisation of NWO. The institute is internationally renowned. Over 150 researchers conduct pioneering research and share their acquired knowledge with society. Over 30 researchers are also employed as professors at universities. The institute has generated twenty-nine spin-off companies.